Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1885 — WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON.

Commissioner Sparks, of the Land Office, has just made a decision which, if not reversed, will restore to the public domain nearly 7,600 square miles, or 4,864,000 acres, of land, equal to the whole State of Massachusetts, now claimed by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company. The act granting land to this railroad companyprovided for a line from Springfield, Mo., to the western boundary of the State, and then to the head waters of the Colorado Chiquito, “and thence along the thirty-fifth parallel of ‘ latitude as near as may be found suitable for a railway route to the Colorado River at such point as may be selected by said comyany for crossing; thence by the most practicable and eligible route to the. Pacific.” The grant was twenty alternate sections per mile on each side of the road in the territories and one-half that in States. The company has earned no land in California, for it has built no road there, but it filed with the Secretary of the Interior in 1872, and with the commissioner of the general land office in 1874 maps of its route showing a line from the Colorado River across California to the Pacific Ocean at San Buena Ventura, and thence along the coast in a northwesterly direction nearly 380 miles to San Francisco. The Utah Commissionershave submitted their report of the operations of the Edmunds law during the past year. No polygamist has been allowed to register or vote, nor has any sueh person been elected or commissioned to any office. It is true, nevertheless, that nearly all the officers chosen at the last and in other preceding elections are Mormons, who, while not actually living in polygamy, subscribe to the doctrine of polygamous marriages as a divine revelation. It is believed that there have been very few polygamous marriages during the year. Within two years eightythree indictments have been found for polygamy and unlawful cohabitation. There have been twenty-three convictions and forty-three cases are now awaiting trial... .The Commissioner of Patents decides that it is the duty of the examiner to make examinations in all cases where application for a patent is made, even though he may have reason to believe it to contain the elements of a mechanical contrivance, because the determination of that very fact is one of the duties of the examiner.... First Controller Durham of the Treasury Department, in the case of an employe in the mint at Helena, Mont., has decided that a person engaged in the Government (service and receiving a stipulated salary is not entitled to payment from the Government for extra services rendered outside of his regular duties,.