every description; for wharfage and dockage; storage and rent; travelling expenses of officers and transportation of seamen; house rent to pursers, when duly authorized; for funeral expenses; for commissions, clerk hire, office rent, stationery, and fuel, to navy agents; for premiums and incidental expenses of recruiting; for apprehending deserters; for compensation to judge advocates; for per diem allowance to persons attending courts martial and courts of inquiry, or other services authorized by law; for printing and stationery of every description, and for working the lithographic press; for books, maps, charts, mathematical and nautical instruments, chronometers, models, and drawings; for the purchase and repair of fire engines and machinery connected therewith, and for other machinery for the repair of steam engines in navy-yards; for the purchase and maintenance of oxen and horses, and for carts, timber wheels, and workmen’s tools of every description; for postage of letters on public service; for pilotage and towing ships of war; for assistance rendered to vessels in distress; for incidental labor at navy-yards, not applicable to any other appropriation; for coal and other fuel, and for candles and oil for the use of navy-yards and shore stations, and for no other object or purpose whatever, for the said half calendar year, three hundred and thirty thousand dollars; and for the said fiscal year, four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Contingent expenses.For contingent expenses for objects not enumerated for the said half calendar year, one thousand five hundred dollars; and for the said fiscal year, three thousand dollars.
Printing navy regulations.For printing and publishing the code of rules and regulations for the government of the navy, prepared by the Secretary of the Navy and Attorney General, in obedience to a resolution of the last session, in case the same should be ratified by Congress, one thousand dollars.
Expenses of hemp agencies.Proviso: materials for the navy, &c. to be furnished by contract.
1847, ch. 48, § 2. 1848, ch. 121, § 11.For defraying the expenses of the agencies for the inspection of hemp, authorized by a joint resolution of Congress, approved eighteenth February, one thousand eight hundred and forty-three, four thousand dollars: Provided, That all provisions and clothing, hemp, and other materials of every name and nature, for the use of the navy, and the transportation thereof, when time will permit, shall hereafter be furnished by contract by the lowest bidder as follows: the Secretary of the Navy shall advertise, once a week, for at least four weeks, in one or more of the principal papers published in the place where such articles are to be furnished for sealed proposals for furnishing such articles, or the whole of any particular class of articles, specifying in such advertisement the amount, quantity, and description of each kind of articles to be furnished, and all such proposals shall be kept sealed until the day specified in such advertisement for opening the same, when they shall be opened by or under the direction of the officer making such advertisement, in the presence of at least two persons; and the person offering to furnish any class of such articles, and giving satisfactory security for the performance thereof, under a forfeiture not exceeding twice the contract price in case of failure, shall receive a contract for furnishing the same; and in case the lowest bidder shall fail to enter into such contract and give such security within a reasonable time, to be fixed in such advertisement, then the contract shall be given to the next lowest bidder, who shall enter into such contract and give such security; and that all such bids or proposals shall be preserved and recorded, and reported to Congress at the commencement of every regular session; and the same shall contain a true and faithful abstract of all offers made, embracing as well those which are rejected as those which are accepted; the said abstract shall embrace the names of the party or parties offering, the terms proposed, the sums demanded, and the length of time the agreement is to continue. And in case of a failure, to supply the articles or to perform the work, by the person entering into such con-
