Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 March 1883 — WASHINGTON NOTES. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON NOTES.

Indiana now has three mimstera to foreign countries —Gen. Lew. Wallace, Hon. Billy Williams and Gen. Foster, x J. R Dodge, statistician of the Agricultural Department, says no reports of damage to the growing wheat have been received by him. He says future disasters alone can injure the crop. Arrangements are making to put the internal revenue changes into effect Commissioner Baum estimates that it will require from $15,000,000 to $20,000-, SOO to pay tobacco rebate claims, and $3,000,000 or $4,000,000 will be fraudulent Serious charges of crookedness have been filed against Supervising Architect Hill, of the Treasury Department and others. Dishonest acts in several several contracts are presumed to be the basis of complaint Those making the charges alaim a clear case, while Hill asserts he courts an investigation of all his official acts. A statement prepared at the Treasury Department shows that from March 4, 1780 to June 30,1882,there was expended for public buildings outside of the Disrict of Columbia the sum of $83,404,221.54. Indiana is charged with $779,057.65. The first building appropriated for was the New Orleans custom house, February 13,1807, to cost $20,000. Ix these days of jobbery and corruption it is pleasing to know that there has been no Congress of late years more free from jobs than the Forty-seventh, which is now numbered with tire past. Throughout the professional lobbyists fared badly. They did not earn their salt Corruption, we are happy to be able to say, was not one of its sins, and in this respect the record of the Fortyseventh Congress compares favorably with any that preceded it No class will bear stronger testimony to this than the uersons who make a living, and often fortunes, by buying and selling Congressional votes. The charges against Supervising Arohitect'Hill were made by Mr. Muroh, of Maine. They cover over twenty pages of legal cap paper, written with a type-writ-er. Before Congress adjourned Mr. Muroh read the charges, which he subsequently filed with Secretary Folger, to a number of persons about the OapitoL One charge is that the system of paying for cutting stone adopted by the supervising architect is extravagant. Mr. Muroh, it is understood, has made such complaints before,but neveer in the shape of formulated charges. Supervising Architect Hill says it is J. G. Mills who is said to be pressing the charges against him (Mr. Hill), not A. G. Mills, formerly chief clerk of the architect’s office, as heretofore published. The members of the Civil-service Commission met by appointment at Willard’s Hotel Monday morning, and then proceeded to inspect the apartments offered as headquarters. Judge Thoman, one of commissioners, said: “We want, three rooms for the commission proper, and a large room in which to conduct examinations.’ After the commissioners have secured quarters they will prepare for the work for which they were appointed. Bules for the government of the commission have not yet formally considered the matter of the appointment of examiner-in-chief, but will do so after they have established themselves in headquarters. Thu ouantity of old whiskies in bonis estimated at 80,000,000 gallons. This is not what is called the whisky of commerce. It is expected to be used as a beverage. The average number of drinks in a gallon is placed at sixty-four. The number of drinks, therefore, in bond, is 5,120,000,000, or 102 drinks for everyman woman and child in the United States. How long this whisky would last depend n the number of people who drink it, and this is a bit of information not sup Bed by the United States census. F e males are not drinkers, as a rule; nor are children. Probably not more than ten million of the population dnnk, and not all of these are steady drinkers, and there is still a large proportion who do not drink bourbon whisky. The calculation is, therefore, probably correct, that there s enough of this class of whisky now on hand to meet the demand for five years. An investigation of the distribution and consumption of corn and wheat, to March 1, has been completed by the Department of Agriculture. It makes the stock of corn on hand at that date about 580,000,000 bushels, or 36 per cent, of last year’s crop. Of this 380,000,000 bushels are in the States of the central basin, north of Tennessee, and 166,000,000 bushels in the Southern States. Most of the remainder is in the Middle States. In comparison with the average stock for the past five years at the same date.there is scarcely any increase at the West or in the Middle States. In the South the per cent of the crop remaining is 43, instead of 36. Taking all the States together,the increased stock is about 2 per cent The seven surplus corn States, from Ohio west *o Kansas and Nebraska inclusive, had 33 per cent of the crop on hand, against 27 per cent last March, and 39 per cent of the 1 crop of 1820, on Lie fixsi

of March, 1881,when the estimated stocks were 413,000,000 bushels. The present total is about 320,000,000 bushels against 200,000,000 last March. In Illinois and lowa the proportion on hand is less than the average of the previous five years. In Missouri and Kansas it is greater. The distribution of the quantity already consumed illustrates the rural economy of the different sections. In all the South, about one-fifth is used for food for man, over half for food for working animals, and the remainder for feeding swine and cattie; in the West, half is used for feeding for meat production, six per cent for food of man, one-fifth for feeding work animals, and a proportion not much largis shipped to distant markets. The proportion of wheat on hand March 1 is 28 per cent of the crop, or about 140,000,000 bushels. The proportion of the last five years at that date is nearly the same. In the States of the central basin the total reported on hand is 104,000,000 bushels, The proportion remaining in the Southern States is 25 per cent, instead of 22. the average in previous years. In the Pacific States the per centage is 23, instead of a former average of 25 per cent The details of the distribution wifi be given at length in the March report