(4) The inconvenience of accumulating uncertain and fluctuating sums at
small offices was felt seriously in consequent overpayments to
contractors on their quarterly collecting orders; and, in case of private
mail routes, in litigation concerning the misapplication of such funds to
the special service of supplying mails.

(5) The accumulation of such funds on draft offices could not be known to
the financial clerks of the department in time to control it, and too
often this rendered uncertain all their calculations of funds in hand.

(6) The orders of payment were for the most part issued upon the
principal offices, such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore,
etc., where the large offices of publishers are located, causing an
illimitable and uncontrollable drain of the department funds from those
points where it was essential to husband them for its own regular
disbursements. In Philadelphia alone this drain averaged $5000 per
quarter; and in other cities of the seaboard it was proportionate.

(7) The embarrassment of the department was increased by the illimitable,
uncontrollable, and irresponsible scattering of its funds from
concentrated points suitable for its distributions, to remote, unsafe,
and inconvenient offices, where they could not be again made available
till collected by special agents, or were transferred at considerable
expense into the principal disbursing offices again.

(8) There was a vast increase of duties thrown upon the limited force
before necessary to conduct the business of the department; and from the
delay of obtaining vouchers impediments arose to the speedy settlement of
accounts with present or retired post-masters, causing postponements
which endangered the liability of sureties under the act of limitations,