Mr. POLAND. Perhaps, Mr. President, I ought to say in the outset in reference to this bankrupt bill that it is one which originated in the HoRep, and one for which I am in no particular way responsible; it was in consequence of some peculiar circumstances that the bill fell in my charge in the Senate; and therefore I can hardly be called upon to give all the reasons in reference to why it is drawn in the particular way that it is, as if I had been the author of the bill. But in reference to this amendment I can state the reasons that actuated the committee in propo sing it. The bill provides that there shall be certain officers called registers appointed, one at least in each congressional district throughout the country. The duty of these officers is merely ministerial and clerical. They have no judicial duty whatever to perform. They are to go around and perform clerical and ministerial duty, gathering the proof of debts, settling the estates of bankrupts. It is important that the appointing power of those officers should be ven to somebody who has the means of knowing who are the proper men to appoint, and who will be likely to appoint suitable, good men for that purpose. bill as it was orig inally drawn provided that these appointments should be made by the judges.o. circuit court; it was amended, and as it passed the HoRep it provided that the appointment should be made by the judges of the several circuit courts upon the nomination of the Chief Justice of the U.S. substantially it gave the appointment of these local officers, comparatively insignificant officers, throughout the entire country to the Chief Justice of the U.S. The Chief Justice of the U.S. I regard as a very excellent man and a very suitable man to perform the duties that properly pertain to the office of Chief Justice of the U.S.; but it seemed to the committee that this was a very unsuitable provision for the appointment of these local officers about over the whole. country. The Chief Justice of the U.S. of course could have no personal knowl edge in relation to the class of men from whom these officers are to be selected, except in the particular portion of the country where he i. may himself resided. to be performed by this class of officers were such that eminent legal men would be required, if that was the class of men from whom these appointments were to be made, then they might perhaps be made properly by the Chief Justice of the U.S.; but lawyers who are eminent in their profession, men of high legal attainments, high legal credit, are not the class of men who could accept or would accept these appointments. They are to be made from respectable men, but a lower class of lawyers as to professional standing. The committee thought that the proper place to deposit this power of appointment was in the district If the duties that were. judges, who, of course, know the entire bar within their district. The same objection would obtain although in lors degree to having the circuit judge have anything to do with the appointment. Take the circuit in which I live; our circuit is composed of the 3 districts in the State of NewYork, the district of Vermont, and the district of Connecticut. Mr. Justice Nelson is the circuit judge. It is a very rare thing that he comes to the State of Vermont at all to hold a circuit court. But very few times for several years has the circuit court been held by the circuit judge of that circuit; he knows nothing in relation to the bar of Vermont except a very few of the leading lawyers, men who would not be selected at all to perform this office and duty of register, while the district judge, who is a resident of the State and always has been, knows the entire bar of the State who would be suitable and proper men; and in my judgment, and that I believe was the unanimous judgment of the committee, the appointment of. officers we regard as. better and safer to be given to the district judge who personally knows all that class of men from whom the selections are to be made, rather than to give it to perhaps a more eminent man who knows nothing at all on that subject.