104 HAND-BOOK OF WASHINGTON. ery for the use of the department, and with the superintendence of the several agencies establish ed for supplying postmasters with blanks. To this bureau is likewise assigned the supervision of the ocean mail steamship lines, and of the foreign and international postal arrangements. Contract Offi.ce.—Second Assistant Postmaster General, and twenty-six clerks. To this office is assigned the business of arranging the mail ser vice of the United States, and placing the same under contract, embracing all correspondence and proceedings respecting the frequency of trips, mode of conveyance, and times of departures and arrivals on all the routes; the course of the mail between the different sections of the country, the points of mail distribution, and the regulations for the government of the domestic mail service of the United States. It prepares the advertise ments for mail proposals, receives the bids, and takes charge of the annual and occasional mail lettings, and the adjustment and execution of the contracts. All applications for the establishment or alteration of mail arrangements, and the ap pointment of mail messengers, should be sent to this office. All claims should be submitted to it for transportation service not under contract, as the recognition of said service is first to be ob-