Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 February 1884 — NEWS CONDENSED. [ARTICLE]

NEWS CONDENSED.

Concise Record of the Week. DOINGS OF CONGRESS. A bill wa* favorably reported In the Senate, Feb. 19, providing that trespassers on Indian lands may be imprisoned for one year and fined SSOO. An adverse report was made on a bill authorizing the payment of customs duties in legal tender notes. The bill to provide for the issue of circulation to national banks was debated until the hour of adjournment. The House of Representatives sat through the entire night of the 18th. A quorum was obtained at 8:15 o'clock on the morning of the 19th, when a resolution was adopted to make the Mexican pension bill the special order for the 21st, when an adjournment to that date waa taken. A bill appropriating $60(1,003 per annum for arms and equipments for the militia passed the Senate Feb. 20. Mr. Plumb reported a bill to raise the Agricultural Bureau to a department, with a secretary. A resolution was passed directing the Secretary of the Interior to report the amount of lands patented to railroads in lowa. A bill passed to fix the time for holding Federal Courts in lowa. Some progress was made on the bill to provide circulation for national banks. The House of Representatives passed a resolution calling on the Postmaster General to transmit certain unpublished reports by special agents In the star-route investigations. A joint resolution was passed appropriating $150,000 to be expended for educating Indians. A bill was reported to forfeit the Oregon Central land grant, and a resolution requesting the President not to deliver Senor Carlos Aguero to the Spanish authorities until an investigation is made by the Attorney General. A large iwrtion of the session was devoted to debate on the West Point appropriation bill. A bill to provide for the punishment of persons falsely personating officers and employes of the United States passed the Senate Feb. 21. Bills were introduced to authorize the erection of a public building at Detroit, and to improve the navigation of the Mississippi River by strengthening the Sny levee. An adjournment to the 25 th was taken. The House passed the military academy and post-route bills. A message was received from the President announcing that the British Government had contributed the steamship Alert for the Grisly relief expedition. It was resolved that the Committee on Foreign Affairs prepare a formal recognition of the generosity of Great Britain in presenting the vessel. Messrs. Robinson and Finerty were the only members who antagonized the resolution. There was no session of the Senate on Feb. 23. In the House bills were favorably reported to transfer five counties in Illinois to the Northern Jndicial District and hold courts at Peoria; to prohibit the importation of foreigners on contracts to perform labor, and to amend the statutes as to prohibiting the delivery of registered letters and the payment of money orders. Some time was spent in committee of the whole on the pleuro-pneumonfa bill, in which certain Southern members raised the objection that the control of cattle would be taken from their owners and placed in the bands of Federal officers. Mr. Morrison reported the bonded whisky extension bill from the majority of the Ways and Means Committee.