The main building consists of a front extension, which is four stories high, with a spacious hall through. On the first floor are located the offices, reception room, and officers' dining rooms. On the second floor are the parlors, superintendent's living apartments, and dormitories. The third floor is occupied by the officers. On the fourth floor are the storerooms for clothing, etc., and the bedchambers for the house employees.

Two commodious wings extend from either side of the main building, the wings each being three stories high. One of the rooms on the first floor is designed for a dining room, which will accommodate 200 boys. One of these rooms is now occupied as a schoolroom and chapel, temporarily. The second floor of this wing is used for sick rooms, and the same floor of the other wing is used as officers' rooms, tailor shop, etc. The building has all modern conveniences, is heated by steam throughout, and is well lighted by gas, and splendidly ventilated. There is a basement under the entire building, in which are located the kitchen, furnace room, fuel room, and storerooms, and several capacious cellars, all substantially concreted. There is a tower carried above the front extension of the building where an excellent view of surrounding country can be had.

Three family buildings, having front projections, two of them three stories and one two stories high above the basements, are located north and south of the main building. The basements have concrete floors, contain large washrooms, which are also used for playrooms in wet and stormy weather. On the first floor there are two rooms for the teacher in charge and his family, and a large schoolroom. The schoolroom is also used as a boys' sitting room and for evening and devotional exercises. The second story contains rooms in the front extension for the assisttheir possession. The First Comptroller replied, under date of October 21, 1874, that he had expressed the opinion to the First Auditor that Mr. Cooke was not an officer of the United States, but only treasurer of the institution. Mr. Sargent replied, under date of October 26, 1874, that upon examining the minutes of the board of trustees it appeared that of the money appropriated for purchasing a site for the school and the erection of buildings thereon, $30,000 was paid for the site, and $70,000 was placed in the hands of Mr. Henry D. Cooke, treasurer of the board, by the Secretary of the Interior upon the recommendation of the board, of which amount all but about $18,000 was paid upon requisitions of the board, which latter sum was on deposit with Jay Cooke & Co. At the time this money was placed in the hands of the treasurer of the board Mr. Cooke was considered as responsible as any bank or banker in the city, or as any one of the most wealthy citizens of Washington. He had been treasurer from the commencement of the institution, and his accounts had always been promptly rendered and settled. Mr. Sargent ventured the opinion that it was unfortunate that a delay of two months occurred in the selection of a site for the school after the appropriation was made, for had the selection been made without delay, the appropriation would probably have been wholly expended some months before the failure of Mr. Cooke took place; but the serious consequences of this delay could not then be foreseen.

Hon. Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior, under date of October 28, 1874, stated that it had been the custom of the Interior Department to make advances

ant teacher, and the main floor is a boys' dormitory, and a back projection furnishes the boys an entrance to the same and also a room for a night closet. The third floors are used for dormitory purposes, and the front rooms are used for storage, and one room is set apart for the boys' Sunday clothing.

These buildings are plain but neatly furnished, and make a very com fortable home for a family of fifty boys and officers in charge of same. These, as well as the main building, are well heated by steam, supplied by large boilers located near the greenhouses, which are also heated from the same source.

The bakery consists of the old farm building somewhat remodeled, with ovens added thereto. An excellent laundry, with all the modern improvements has been erected, and near it stands a good, substantial brick workshop, carpenter shop, and smokehouse. A piggery has recently been built after the latest improved plan, and one of the most commodious and best arranged barns, with extensive stables and agricultural storerooms combined, has just been completed. The apple, to persons who were disbursing agents of moneys under its control upon their personal request, assuming that if no bond had been filed in the office of the First Comptroller of the Treasury, as the law requires, by the person in whose favor the requisition may be drawn, a warrant for the money could not be passed by the accounting officers of the Treasury. In compliance, therefore, with the request of Mr. Cooke, a requisition upon the Secretary of the Treasury for $20,000 was issued by the Interior Department on July 31, 1872, and on the 2d of August, 1872, a similar requisition for $50,000 was also issued by the Department-both requisitions in favor of H. D. Cooke, treasurer of the Reform School. It was presumed by the Department that the requisitions took the usual course, and that drafts for their respective amounts were issued by the Secretary of the Treasury to Mr. Cooke, upon which the latter drew the money from the Treasury.

By a provision of the sundry civil appropriation act approved March 3, 1873, Cougress appropriated an additional sum of $15,000 for the purpose of providing for certain improvements in the buildings and grounds of the Reform School. Although there was nothing in the provision to indicate that this appropriation was disbursable by the Interior Department, the Treasury Department placed the amount under the control of that Department, and Mr. Cooke having made, on June 30, 1873, a request similar to his former ones, a requisition in his favor to the amount of $15,000 was duly issued by the Department on the 8th of July, 1873.

It is implied by the statute, continues Secretary Delano, that certain bankruptcies involved a loss to the Government of the sum of $31,772.29, being moneys appropriated by Congress for the Reform School and drawn from the Treasury by Henry D. Cooke, as treasurer, and unaccounted for by him. A certificate has been filed, however, in the Department by the finance committee of the board of trustees of the school, showing that of the entire sum of $85,000 drawn by the treasurer he had expended for the several purposes for which it was appropriated the sum of $66,613.42, leaving to the credit of the treasurer, as stated on his books, a deposit with Jay Cooke & Co. of $18,386.58, which seems to be the sum lost by the bankruptcy. Mr. Cooke's bondsmen were Messrs. A. R. Shepherd and D. L. Eaton, and his bond, given to the board of trustees of the Reform School, was for $5,000.

In the correspondence it appears that at the meeting of the board of trustees of the Reform School held July 25, 1872, the Peter farm, on which Fort Lincoln was located, was selected as a site for the school, provided the 150 acres fronting on the