TO COLLECTORS OF CUSTOMS.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,

Washington, D. C., February 11, 1874.

The decisions of the Department upon the construction of the tariff, navigation, and other acts, for the month of January, 1874, are herewith published for the information and guidance of officers of the customs.

WM. A. RICHARDSON,

Secretary.

(1748.)

Extract from order of Secretary of the Treasury promulgating Customs

Regulations, 1874.

The general objects of these Regulations are the same as those of the laws upon which they are founded-that is to say, the full and faithful collection of the customs revenue, the protection and development of the national commercial marine, and the efficient and economical administration of the public service.

Suggestions for such further amendment or change in these Regulations as may aid in accomplishing these objects are invited both from customs officers and from persons familiar with the details of the system.

Officers whose duty it is to prepare and submit questions arising under the laws referred to, are requested to point out in their communications the particular articles of these Regulations, and any circular, or other order, of subsequent date, affecting the same, and to indicate wherein the questions or cases submitted for special action differ in their circumstances from those contemplated by the General Regulations.

When applications for the issue of marine documents to vessels involve questions not expressly and fully provided for in terms by these Regulations, they should be submitted to the Secretary of the Treasury for special instructions.

All principal officers of the customs are instructed to set apart one copy of this compilation, to be known in their respective offices as the "standard copy," and to be corrected by the addition thereto, in form or substance, of all orders and instructions which affect these General Regulations, or by marginal or other references to such orders or instructions. Such "standard copy" will be turned over by each retiring officer to his successor, as a part of the public property in his charge.— (January 1, 1874.)

(1749.)

Grain-bags, a part of equipment of a vessel, cannot be transferred to another vessel without payment of duty.

Grain-bags of foreign production and manufacture which, under Department's ruling of November 28, 1871 (not published in Synopsis), are exempted from payment of duty as part of the equipment of the vessel, cannot be transferred from the vessel to which they belong to another vessel, without being first entered and subjected to the payment of duty.—(Letter to Collector at New Orleans, January 2, 1874.)

(1750.)

The ten days mentioned in the 33d section of act of July 14, 1870, held to mean ten working days.

The Department decides that the "ten days" mentioned in the 33d section of the act of July 14, 1870, in which imported merchandise can be forwarded to interior ports without appraisement, under the provisions of such act, may be properly regarded as ten working days.— (Letter to Collector at New York, January 2, 1874.)

(1751.)

Admeasurement of Italian vessels.

The Italian Government having adopted the system of admeasurement of vessels is use in the United States, England, Austria, Denmark, and Germany, by royal decree dated the 11th day of March last, you are informed that, on and after that date, the rule applied in article 137, Regulations of the Treasury Department, dated 1874,

directing that certain foreign vessels, the registers of which indicate their tonnage, shall be taken in ports of the United States to be of the tonnage expressed in such registers, with the addition of the amount of the deductions, made under the laws of the country to which the vessels may belong, not authorized by the admeasurement law of the United States, will be extended to all Italian vessels arriving at our ports, which may have been admeasured under the system mentioned, so long as a corresponding courtesy shall be extended to vessels of the United States in the ports of Italy.-(Circular, January 2, 1874.)

(1752.)

Milk imported under certain circumstances not entitled to free entry.

Milk imported into the United States for the purpose of being manufactured into cheese, to be afterwards exported, or for any other purpose, is not entitled to free entry, but is liable to duty at the rate of 10 per cent. ad valorem, under the provision in the 24th section of the act of March 2, 1861, for raw or "unmanufactured articles" not otherwise provided for.-(Letter to Chas. Kedder, Bridgewater, Me., January 3, 1874.)

(1753.)

Repairs made in a foreign port to a United States registered vessel engaged in the foreign and coasting trade by sea, not dutiable.

Repairs, or the materials entering therein, made in a foreign port on a registered vessel of the United States engaged in the foreign and coasting trade by sea, are not liable to the payment of duty in accordance with the Regulations of the Department (article 154 of part 4), which prescribe that no portion of the equipment of a vessel arriving in the United States is liable to duty unless the same may be excessive or intended for sale, or for use other than on the vessel of which it forms a part.-(Letter to Special Agent R. Leighton, Port Townsend, Wash., January 3, 1874.)