Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1883 — WASHINGTON NOTES. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON NOTES.

(Jarfidd monument fair netted $7;- ’ Oklahoma Payne’s raid’s have, it is l aMdi Oost the government *300,000. no longer hoped at Washington to h pue the bill limiting the silver dollar fe The House Military Committee is op* to putting Gen. Grant on the re- , jhe pension appropriation bill has * been reported, to the full oommittee. It appropriates $81,000,000. The pension appropriation bill approbates $86,505,000, and rcappropriates I unexpended balance. ■ The sub-oommittee whioh has charge of the postoffioe bill has retained the ’ulanse providing for a reduction of letter postage to Jrwo cen taper half ounce. Government clerks are horror stricken the proposition now pending in Congressto increase their hours of labor per m from six (lunch time inducted) to seven. • The House Oommittee on Commerce nearly completed the river and har.jjjor bill, which will amount to about in addition to the Mississippi A brilliant dinner party, given by JDis.triot Attorney Corkhill, celebrated Gen. Sherman's sixty-third birthday, Thursday *tiight The General made a speech in whioh he said he was ready to retire to private life, with thanks for the liberal t and suitable provision made for him. The Attorney-general has discharged Till the colored employes of the depart- - ment of justioe. The cause is said to be that the colored employes are suspected tfvof being too keen to see the color of the. Mooney of the Star route defendants. The ’discharged employes propose to hold an 'indignation meeting. 4; The House committee on patents has Mr. Vance to prepare a bill to v amend the Revised Statutes applicable to ’ patents as to provide that American patents shall run fifteen years, the time the { lnvention is patented in a foreign country; a making all patents of whatever class to * extend seventeen years; not to revive any <* American patent now dead, or to extend living patent whatever, but to apply ( jpnly to patents hereafter granted. ck. Captain J. B. Eads flatly denies the *3Ntßtement that there is sufficient water , € jn the jetty channel at the mouth of the a Mississippi. He also denies the state|ment of the Attorney- General that he is f required to maintain a channel twelve

a half miles long. He says'; “It is aOfapiece of the treatment I have always from the Government, simply ’t>ecause I have a contract as an individ,;uaL It is disgusting and ought to cause Line’s cheeks to tingle with shape. The •> water in the pass is as deep as ever, and ■'*a committee of Congress,who investigated Ihe matter lately were delighted.” 6-" The Speaker has laid before the House * communication from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury urging the necessity of an amendment to the pending inrevenue bill, providing that any of distilled spirits shall be forfeited to the Uuited States if suoh spirits 'shall be found to differ in proof from the proof indicated by the marks and stamps thereon, unless such differences shall be Occasioned by the lapse of time, the con- ' ditions under which the spirits have been stored or kept, or by other natural causes * The letter urges the nesessity of action in Hhia matter by the present Csngress. * In the House, Wednesday, Representative Steele presented a memorial of the citizens of Adams county protesting against putting lumber On the free list. The memorial states that it would result Ruinously to the interests which give emI v ployment to 1,600,000 people and $300,000,000 of oapital; that it would simply operate to increase the value of standing timber in Canada by the amount of the duty which it is proposed to take off; that there is a growing demand for American timber in Winnepeg, and the duty not be taken off of Canadian lumber by this Government unless Canada <will agree to admit American lumber into free of duty. The emmorial was preferred to the Committee on Ways and fcHoHhS. h -Mr. Bice, who has charge of the Mexican pension bill, said that he had Uitle jftiope of getting the bill passed this session. Mr. Kelly, he said, had promised itim that if possible he would give him a i-ehance to call the bill up, but that he thought it very doubtful that v he could get the bill through. The annual amount that will be required to pay these pennons will be something less than $1,500,"000. There are about fourteen thousand veterans who will be entitled to the penI'irion or $8 a month. Logan has given notice in the Senate l that he would offer an amendment to the [wundry civil apgropriation bill that the act to place colored soldiers on the same footing as other soldiers as to bounty and pensions be so construed as to extend to juid include the heirs of such soldiers in | their claims for military service, and the -accounting officers of the Treasury be diY

xaoiKftb I,adjust the «!«<«« of aiieh heirs as would have to^and Said act Senator Dawes will offer an amendment to the same bill to provide for paying the Cherokee nation S3OOOOO “out of the funds due under the appraisement of Cherokee lands west of the Arkansas river,” on condition that the Cher* okees shall first execute conveyances satisfactory to the Searatary of the Interior for tracts now occupied by the Pawnees Poncas, Hex Peroee, Otoes, Missouris and Osages, to whom (in their tribal capacities) these lands are thereupon to be patented. Frequent oomplaints are being made of the inaccuracy of the late oen us, owing to the attempt to oover too much ground and embrace toe many statistics. The latest oomes from Philadelphia. The census takers made the gross value of the products of publishers, printers, bookbinders,etc.,in that city, s9,2sl,ooo,whereas it is now proven that the real value is $23,905,000. The work of completing the tabulation and preparing the work for the printers is now being rapidly pushed forward under the personal supervision of General Walker. So much distrust'in the accuracy of.the figures has been awakened in the public mind, however, that it is feared that the value of the completed work will be seriously impaired. The Treasury regulations governing ths distribution of the standard silver dollars and the law authorizing the issue of silver 'certificates are being used by the New York and Boston banks to obtain transfer of large amounts of money from one city to another without expense to themselves, but with considerable cost to the government for transportation charges. The manner of doing this is to deposit currency in the sub-treasury in one city and obtain an order for standard silver dollars to be sent to a correspondent city from the mint, and the correspondent immediately upon receipt of the coin, presents it to the sub-treasury in his city and asks for silver certificates. Several million dollars have been transferred in this way rectptly, costing the government several thousand dollars, without lessening the number of silver dollars in the treasury, but with the effect of completely glutting the vaults of the New York' sub-treasury with them. Rev. Dr. Hicks has brought suit against the Evening Star Publishing Company, of this city, and the Graphic Company, of New York, charging both with having published a libel on him, and claiming $35,000 damages n each case. Articles appeared in the Graphio as a special dispatch from Washington, dated Jan. 19,1883, and in the Star of Jan. 20,1883. Plaintiff is pastor of the Church of the Tabernacle, this city, and was the spiritual aaviser of Guiteau, who willed him his body. Subsequently the body was taken to the Medical Museum, and the story got abroad that Hicks had demanded $2,000 of the Surgeon-General before he would permit the bones of the skeleton to be articulated. Articles reflecting upon the reputation of the clergyman appeared in various newspapers, and he now seeks legal redress. His counsel say that they propose to sue for libel every paper in which the unwarranted, and, ah they claim, the untruthful statement appeared. They expect to be oocupied in that way for some time to come.