against the Government certain fees for services, their income being
measured by the amount of such fees within a fixed limit as to their
annual aggregate. This is a direct inducement for them to make their
fees in criminal cases as large as possible in an effort to reach the
maximum sum permitted. As an entirely natural consequence, unscrupulous
marshals are found encouraging frivolous prosecutions, arresting people
on petty charges of crime and transporting them to distant places for
examination and trial, for the purpose of earning mileage and other
fees; and district attorneys uselessly attend criminal examinations far
from their places of residence for the express purpose of swelling their
accounts against the Government. The actual expenses incurred in these
transactions are also charged against the Government.

Thus the rights and freedom of our citizens are outraged and public
expenditures increased for the purpose of furnishing public officers
pretexts for increasing the measure of their compensation.

I think marshals and district attorneys should be paid salaries,
adjusted by a rule which will make them commensurate with services
fairly rendered.

In connection with this subject I desire to suggest the advisability,
if it be found not obnoxious to constitutional objection, of investing
United States commissioners with the power to try and determine certain
violations of law within the grade of misdemeanors. Such trials might
be made to depend upon the option of the accused. The multiplication
of small and technical offenses, especially under the provisions of our
internal-revenue law, render some change in our present system very
desirable in the interests of humanity as well as economy. The district
courts are now crowded with petty prosecutions, involving a punishment