Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1883 — WASHINGTON NOTES. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON NOTES.

The estimated reduction of the public debt for January is $18^500,000. The House, Mfinday, refused to consider the-bill to reduce the whisky bond period. The pension appropriation bill has been reported to the full committee. It appropriates $81J)00,00Q. More than 3,200 persons were employed in the public printing house during the year ending June 30,1882. A bill has been introduced in the House to give the widow of Lieutenant De Long a pension of SSO per month. The cost to the government of printing binding and lithographing during the last twenty years has amounted to about $34,750,000. Thursday 102,400 new five-oent pieces were put into circulation. The new coin will be struck at the rate of 100,000 pieces per day. The sub-oommittee which has charge of the poetoffioe bill has retained the clause providing for a reduction of letter postage to two oentaper half ounce. The Veterinary Division of the Agricultural Department reports the number of cattle in the United States to be 33,306,385, of which ten per cent are lost annually through epidemic diseases. , A witness in the star route case, during examination, said the congressional investigation paralyzed them; they did not know what they were about, and were afraid to move.

It is generally conceded that the only way in which the tariff bill can be passed at this session will be to hurry it through the Senate and then pass it through the House under a suspension of the rules. The “Morgan Raid Claims,” of Ohio and Indiana are to be paid at last. A great many of those persons to whom this money is due have probably passed away, as the claims have been pending for about twenty years. Fifty-seven petitions asking the passage of a bill to extend national aid to common schools were presented in the Senate by Messrs. Blair and Mahone. There is a suspicious regularity of signature and duplication of names about them.

General Grant is said to have been surprised at the opposition of congressmen to the olauses of the proposed commercial treaty with Mexioo. It seems certain that no- further concessions oan be obtained from that country, and that the scheme will fail. The Secretary of the Interior has decided that under the law regulating alotment of lands to the Winnebago Indians in Nebraska, every Indian woman married to an alien white man, and having children by him, must be regarded as the head of a family, and is therefore en titled to an allotment of eighty acree of land. Attorney-General Brewster has ordered the United States district attorney to file a bill in the federal court in behalf of the Philbrook heirs, who claim the ownership of a large portion of ground comprising the old city limits of Little Rock. The claim is before the interior department and the object is to test its legal merits. Representative Deuster, of Wisconsin has introduced a resolution authorizing the commissioner of agriculture to send seed, plants, grain, etc., not required by the department, to sufferers by the disastrous floods in Germany, and to receive from private s6uroes donations in grain, seed, eto., and to provide for proper storage, shipment and distribution. As a result of the conference with Folger and Commissioner Raum, in regard to the extension of the time for the collection of revenue taxes due February 6, it was held that no authority exists for the extension. Mr. Raum telegraphed the following instructions : “Where taxes are due "and unpaid upon spirits in warehouse on the 6th of February next, proceed to collect according to assessment, and you will report such cases on your next list.” Among the decisions handed down in ,the Supreme Court was the following: The miscegenation case of Tony Pace against the State of Alabama. Pace had been prosecuted under an Alabama State law, for having sexual relations with a white woman. The oourt, in the decision rendered, holds that the law of Alabama prohibiting miscegenation is not in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, or with the civil rights legislation founded on it, for the reason that it applies the same Secretary Chandler issued a circular bearing upon the troubles at Annapolis Aoademy, in which he says that the disturbances and insubordination among the cadets at Annapolis will doubtless subside if the superintendent is allowed to work out a result without interference; but if the cadets are encouraged to persist by their parents and friends, the dismissal of forty or fifty may result. So far as the Department now understands the difficulties at the Aoademy, it will Secretary Chandler says, sustain the Bu-

pertntendent, even to the extant ts dfemining the larger part of eoe of the The army appropriation bill, as report? ed to the Senate, contains sojpe import ant amendments. It provides for the employment of 117 civilian clerks in tee Ad* jutant General’s office. Another ment abolishes the office of tee Surgeon General of tee Army. Are amendment to the paragraph in theHettsA bill prohibiting the appointment of pajmasters, provides that vacancies whhg may occur hereafter in the Fay Corps 4* the Army, by reason qt death, resignation: dismissal or retirement, shall not be filtedL by any original appointment pay corps shall, by such vacancies, be tfa duced to fortv paymasters. 1. mm* Gen. She ridan has accepted an invited tionfrom District-Attorney Oorkhifl fcjt, be present at a dinner to be given here to* Gen. Sherman to oelebrate his 63d birth-: day and his retirement from the armysome time during the present year.- 'jjP friend of Gen. Sherman says: “Thefriends, ship—l should say affection—existing ben tween Gen. Sherman and Gen. RWirt—i is closer than the world supposes. Th&' correspond with each other like school? boy lovers, and are in the closest gjggpp; in every relation. So chivqk»il?iß man in his regard fpr-'lSlieridan that h* asks, I understand, that the law he* amended so that the rank of General. es-* pecially created for Sherman at the tinte* of Grant’s retirement may not go out with him,but that it may descend to Sheridan.” The dinner bids fair to be one of the most enjoyable of the season. Amnny the guests Will be Gen. Grant, Gen. Sheridan^ Justice W aite,Miller, and Harlan, and ex*Secretary Blaine. An interesting and entirely new pen- 1 sion claim,ls now before the Amrißfamt Secretary of the Interior for decision. The* guardian of the children of the deoeasedtsoldier has applied for the back pension of $2 a month, due each child from .thetime of their father’s death. The child? ren’s mother neglected to make applies*, tion for a pension for herself and family and finally married. The claim of th# guardian was rejected at the Pension Office by the examiner, who hejd thAt the* marriage of the widow barred all rightsof the family to a pension from that date. Her neglect to apply for a pension at any time was construed as a further difficulty" in tne way of allowing the claim of A guardian at this date. The AwriptAgt Secretary is of the opinion that ten mother of a family entitled to a pennon, oocupies the relation in law of a trustee, and any failure or neglect on her part tor apply for or secure the allowance of pension due the children can not work to* their prejudice. He will accordingly decide that the children are entitled to A pension from the time of their father’s death until they arrived at the age of sixteen years, the second marriage of their mother having nothing to do with the* claim of the guardian. Private dispatches have been received here of a reliable character with referencer to the nature of the gold deposits in Alas? ka. Much discredit has been thrown over the reports of gold discovered in our Northwestern Territory from time to time* until the impression has become pretty general that as a gold field Mr. Seward s purchase was not particularly valuable; The information alluded to is of such a. character that as soon as it becomesknown it will result in such a rush to thegold fields as has not been seen since thedays of ’49. It is stated that a quartz vein which will yield from $6 to $8 net to the ton .has been discovered on the* mainland in Alaska 200 feet in width.. Many others equally rich are reported* and preparations are being made quietly*, it is said, by a combination of New York and San Francisco capitalists to start early in the spring with mills and machinery to take possession of the minesPlenty of coal and timber are reported as* convenient to the mines. Two gentlemen in conversation on this subject said there would be 10,000 men from Nevada and California on their way to Alaska within three months, and that before a year the mining population of the Pacific Slope would be thoroughly drained, of all surplus labor to supply the new field, unless some extraordinary excitement should be created by new discoveries near home.