Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1887 — WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON.

The house of Professor Graham Bell at Washington, with his valuable library, was destroyed by fire. The loss is placed at $50,000. It is conceded in Washington that the Pleuro-Pneumonia bill will pass the house when i tagain comes up. It is understood that negotiations with China for such modification of the treaty as to entirely prevent the introduction of coolie labor into the United States have just been successfully concluded. Commissioner Sparks of the General Land Office has approved the report of Surveyor General Julian, of New Mexico, recommending the rejection of the Gaspar Ortiz pri-vate-land claim, covering an area of about seventeen thousand acres. An adverse report has again been made to the United States Senate on the nomination of J. C. Matthews, of Albany, N. Y., the colored Register of Deeds of the District of Columbia. Mrs. General Logan will make Washington her permanent home. The publishers of General Logan’s book report that up to the date of his death, they had paid him an average of SI,OOO per month, and the sales have since increased to a marvelous degree. Halsall’s painting of the battle between the Monitor and Merrimac has been hung in the east lobby of the Senate wing of the Capitol at Washington. The Library Committee paid $5,000 for it, although the artist had been offered $15,000 by parties desiring to exhibit it through the country. General W. B. Hazen, Chief Signal Officer of the United States army, died in Washington last week He had been ill but three days, and his death was unexpected. ‘ Some Treasury officials consulted President Cleveland as to the advisability of calling an extra session, but after a lengthened conference he left them entirely in the dark as to his intentions.