MORE THAN A MILLION PENSIONERS.
The report of the Secretary of the Interior discloses the fact that during the last fiscal year the pension list passed the million limit—reaching the high-water mark of 1,041,687. And this thirty-seven years after the close of the war! There were added to the rolls during the year 40,121 new pensioners—greater than the increase in any one of the twenty years next following the end of the war, in 1865. There was 37,000 deaths of pensioners last year, and 40,000 are expected this year; but the Commissioner expresses the opinion that “owing to new legislation enacted by Congress the number on the roll at the end of this fiscal year will be above 1,000,000.” The total cost of the system last year was $141,000,000. The total male population of the United States of voting age, according to the last census, was a little over 21,000,000. So that reckoning each pensioner as a man, one in twenty-one of the population is in receipt of government bounty. The cost of the list exceeds that of any two standing armies in Europe.—N. Y. World.