Mr. COBB. I have some acquaintance with this business of claim agency, and I wish to state what I think is known to most members of this House, or ought to be. It is not in Washington city where claim agents services are valuable to the soldier or where they are required at all. It is at home, at the points accessible to the soldiers, where the evidence of the claims is to be collected and the proof obtained and prepared to be sent here and when it is prepared by the local agent then the intervention of any agent here or of the service of any member of Congress is the most useless thing that can posmbly be imagined. The experience of every member here certainly will bear me out in this, that we at our rooms or on this floor are scarcely nearer to the Dept here practically than at our resi dences at home. We are scarcely nearer than are the Offices of these local claim agents in the several States and if the soldiers would only procure the services of competent, faithful claim agents at home, whose services, such as are absolutely necessary in reparing the papers and proof, should be paid3for, and would have these agents address these intelli eutly and properly to the Dept at Was in on; if they would eschew and ignore these Washington claim agents and not pay too much attention to members of Congress, then their claims wouldbe properly presented, and would be in a great majority of cases acted upon and in due time properly and fairly paid. All of these local claim agencies at Washington, whether those established by individual enterprise or senthere by the States, are in my opinion and I claim to have had some expe rience at both ends of the line entirel use less and unnecessary, and tend to impe c the prosecution of the payment of claims rather than to facilitate them and if I should say anything to my old companions in arms or to my constituents athonic who have these claims against the Government, it would be to look to it well that they employ honest and capable claim agents at home who will procure the proof upon which the claim rests and send it irectly to the Dept and wait a reason able time, and then, if necessary, make further communications through their agents at home, and if in extraordinary cases it is necessary apply to a member of Congress. But by all menus let them avoid the claim agents that hover about the capital and the Depts of the Government here. Let them employ the local claim agents or agents established by the State governments.,