Mr. CLARK. I wish to suggest to the Senfrom Massachusetts that while his bill may do some good, perhaps much good, there is danger that it may do much mischief and will leave untouched a very large class of cases which in my judgment it is very difficult to reach and which, perhaps cannot be provided for. understand that there is quite as much and perhaps more difficulty in gctting out of the hands of some agents, when t cy collect the money, any portion of it, as there is in regard to the fees charged. I have been told that in this district there have been various firms who would advertise as claim agents in the shape of one firm, and would collect claims, and then change their firms, and in many instances, where the soldier applied to know if they had got his claim, they would say to him, ” No, we have not collected your claim, ” and on inquiry at the war Dept or the properdept it would be found that it had been colected; and then, when the soldier or Officer went and said to these agents, “Pa me that money or I will commence a suit, they have relied, “Sue; what good will it do? What ml you get by a suit? This bill will not reach a case of that kind. It might reach some cases, but the objection is that while it would reach a certain c pass of cases, it would do much injury to many men who are very earnestly and honora bly and creditably to themselves and their constituents pursuing this business of recovering claims for the soldiers. It would in my judgment have precisely this effect: that the attor ney would grst aska man who came to employ him to collect a claim, “How much difficulty will there be in gettin your claim?" and if he should reply, “No difficult at all; you have only to aply for it and on will et it, ” then he would unertake to colect it. at in the vast majority of cases there is a great deal more dif ficulty and more labor to be performed. Perhaps the attorne has got to travel 20, 50, or 100 miles to obtain proof and collect testimony and transmit it to Washington and then collect the claim. Will he do that for ten dollars? Certainly he cannot; and while you are preventing mischiefin one direction, I suggest that possibly you may be creating a dill? cult in another direction. It is very true that we have done something in this direction in regard to pensions, but it may be that we shall do more mischief here than we shall do good. I a ee that something ought to be done. I have admy feelings very much touched when some of these soldiers have come to me and complained of the difficulty of collecting their claims; soldiers who had had the whole of their claims swallowed up in this wa. There would be a remedy in the case which the Senfrom Massachusetts has stated, where one of these agents charged a NewYork soldier $150 for collecting a claim of $300. If he took an exorbitant fee in that way, the man who has been injured may bring an action against the claim agent, if he is worth anything, and recover all but what was a properfee; but the difficulty is that probably be is not worth a copper.