THREE O'CLOCK, P. M.

Nathaniel S. Benton resumed the stand.

Q. How much has been paid for the excavation of the Albany basin ?

A. May 14, 1867, $9,520 paid on the excavation and estimate. Q. For how much?

A. I did not take down the number of yards; on June 19, 1867, $12,070 paid; total, $21,590, paid to these contractors for excavating the Albany basin, independent of the monthly payments. Q. How about the monthly payments?

A. They have all been paid regularly upon the contract.

Q. [By Mr. GIBSON.] You stated that the payments would not exceed $20,000, in the whole year?

A. No, it would be one-fifth of $70,000; the work done is $25,400, of which we reserved fifteen per cent, making $21,590.

Q. This contract was for five years, and they were only to draw one-fifth a year, which would be $20,000?

A. Then they have exceeded it $1,590.

Q. Put the fifteen per cent to it, and it would be $5,000.

A. They have not got that yet.

Q. [By Mr. GIBSON.] Then they have already been paid $1,590 more than they should have been paid for the whole of the present year?

A. According to our understanding.

Q. If that was your understanding of the contract, why did you pay any more than the $20,000?

A. Probably when I paid the last draft, I had not in my mind and did not go to look to see what the first was.

Q. Then it was paid by accident?

A. Such things will occur sometimes. If I did not think to go and look to see what the former draft was, I would suppose that the engineer had not made an estimate of more than was the understanding should be paid.

Q. They are at work still, are they not?

A. No, sir; I do not understand so. It is not my business to understand it.

Q. If they should ask for more money this year you would not pay it?

A. Of course not. I told them so explicitly in the spring. They wanted to do the whole work. I said you can do the fifth part, and it will be paid.

Q. Suppose they did the whole 100,000 yards in one year, would not you pay it?

A. No, sir; I would wait for the appropriation. Understand me, that under' the law of appropriation, I am required to give the Canal Commissioners notice how much is required out of the appropriation to pay the canal contractors. I make that up and give that much to each Commissioner.

Q. Suppose they should take out the whole 100,000 yards this year, you would make them wait until the end of the five years before you paid them?

A. I should not pay it without I was directed by some authority more than

Q. Without any legislative act?

A. No, sir.

Q. You would make them wait the five years before they were paid?

A. No, sir; I would make them wait, and pay, next year, onefourth part; one-fourth part after this, deducting the $1,590.

Q. If they are at work now, you do not know why they should continue to work at this time, when they will have to wait for the money?

A. No; only I presume the Albanians are pressing them pretty hard-driving them.

Q. Now, will you explain these proposals? [Contained in book from Auditor's office.] How many of them were formal, and how many were informal?

A. I cannot tell without looking at them; probably they are all informal, down to Stevens; all that were lower were undoubtedly informal. I think so, because we could not have rejected them unless they were informal.

Q. Did you take into account the price of keeping in repair as well as of the dredging?

A. Yes, sir; undoubtedly.

Q. You found a large number of them that were informal?

A. Undoubtedly; I was sworn before the committee before-not before this committee-and what I testified to was true of those papers and of these records.

Q. Did you know of this combination?

A. I never heard of it until the next week after the awards were made; I never heard a single lisp of it.

Q. When you found so large a number of informal bids-some of them with stamps torn off, some of them written over-did not you, as a public officer, suspect that there had been something wrong?

A. Nothing more than manipulation among the contractors, I should say.

Q. When you found this large number of informal bids, didn't you suspect that there had been a combination?

A. I did not suspect any combination at all more that what is usual.

Q. Didn't you suspect, when you saw that large number of informal bids, that there had been a combination among the contractors? A. No, sir.

Q. Did not you suspect that these informalities were not accidental? A. I supposed those informalities-most of them were intentional, and some of them accidental. The tearing off of that stamp, which I insisted was no invalidity to it, if I mistake not, I understood was intentional.

Q. Did you not look upon it as a combination among those who did it intentionally?

A. I did not know anything about it.

Q. If there was intentional defacing, would it not be evident to you of a combination?

A. Oh, no; I could not suspect any combination. See here [selecting one of the bids], I could not suspect, and nobody else could suspect that that was done by a combination.

Q. Where there were so many informal tearing off stamps?

A. I guess only one stamp was torn off.

Q. When there were so many informalities did it not arouse your suspicions?

A. No, sir; because I had no right to suspect a combination.

Q. Here was a large number rejected for informality on one section of the canal. Was not that calculated to arouse yonr suspicion that it was done by combination?

A. No, sir; I did not suspect any such thing.

Q. You did not dream of it?

A. No, sir; I did not dream of any such thing. That is a higher bid, and that is a higher bid, and that and that;―There are only these three that are below Stevens.

Q. [By Mr. STANFORD.] Are any of these higher bids informal? A. I guess not. The bids that were lower than Stevens of course would be rejected for informality; but the bids higher than Stevens would not be rejected.

Q. It is your duty, as you understand it, if a bid is too high, or excessive, to reject it?

A. It is the duty of the Contracting Board to reject for excessiveness. That is my opinion about it.

Q. Have you any explanation to make why this Board, after the engineer himself had estimated this work at forty cents per yard, let it at seventy cents per yard?

A. Yes.

Q. What is it?

A. It is that the engineer estimated the excavation at forty cents a yard to be delivered here within a mile, and the excavation is to be delivered six miles from here.

Q. Do they deliver it six miles from here?

A. They are obliged to.

Q. Don't you know they deliver the whole of it right in the river?

A. No, sir. I know this much that they have been ordered and prohibited not to do it by the United States Engineers and the State authorities. What they delivered there, I don't know any. thing about.

Q. Do you think the Board accepted it at seventy cents a yard, when the engineer's estimate was forty cents, on any such ground a you have stated? Did you ever hear such a word mentioned?

A. Stop; don't be too fast; let me give my answer if you please; in the first place I moved to reject the bid for excessiveness in the price, as you say, and to relet; then on learning that that excavation had to be delivered six miles from this city, I moved a reconsideration.

Q. Why do you say it had to be delivered six miles from the city?

A. Because that was the distance I am informed it was to be carried.

Q. Is there anything in the contract, requiring it to be delivered six miles from the city?

A. Yes, sir; I can show you that it is to be delivered twelve miles.

"The dredging of the Albany basin is to be done at the

including the delivery of the material and dumping the same at such points as shall be no damage to the navigation of the Hudson river, and as shall be directed by the engineer in charge of the improvement of the said river, either under the State or National Government; the material to be measured in dump boats by a competent person," &c.

Q. What is that in?

A. It is in the contract.

Q. Is not it in the notice?

A. Well; it is a part of the contract.

Q. Then did you not know that, before you made the motion to reject the bid as excessive?

A. Yes, sir; but wait one moment; have I told you that it was six miles; that I knew that? Not by a long chalk, sir.

Q. You knew that very clause was in the notice?

A. Yes.

Q. You knew it when you gave your vote to reject this bid?
A. Yes, sir; because I supposed-

Q. The reason why you changed your vote was because somebody told you they would have to carry it six miles; is that it?

A. I will repeat what I told you, I believe, in substance, that when I moved to reject that bid for excessiveness, I supposed and believed that the dumping could be done within two miles of this place; then some person whom I believed

Q. Who was it?

A. Probably Mr. Jenne or somebody else; but it was some person whom I believed told me that it would be required to be delivered six miles from this place.

Q. To what point?

A. Down below the works of the United States, where the United States are at work; because the previous year the dredging that had been done had been placed above there, and the United States officers complained of it.

Q. Somebody told you that?

A. Somebody that I believed. I was informed and believed that