Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1886 — NATIONAL LAW-MAKERS. [ARTICLE]

NATIONAL LAW-MAKERS.

Brief Summary of tlie Proceedings of Congress. ■ ■ J A bill t 6 provide for tho control of the reservation at Hot Springs, Arkansas, and tho distribution' of water was introduced in tho Senate on the 9th inst. The Senate passed bille,, appropriating $3.50,000 each for public buildings at San Francisco and Portland. $200,000 for San Antonio. *150,000 for Pueblo, Fort Smith, Dayton, and Zanesville, and SIOO,OIO for Atchison, Sioux City, Oshkosh, and Vicksburg. A bill passed to sell the old site of Fort Brady, in Michigan, and erect a suitable building in a new location. The Speaker laid before the House the response of the Secretary of the Treasury to the Bland resolution. Referred. The Secretary says: “I have received the inquiries addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury by the House of Representatives in theix resolution respecting the silver, balance and circulation, and beg leave to say in reply that I will, with all due diligence, make full answer to the same. I am for the moment delayed by the current business of the department, and by a special endeavor to promote exigent reforms in the levy and collection of duties on imported commodities, by affording some information thereon in season for the advantage of the sub-committee of the Finance Committee ot the Senate, which has requested the same and which I am happy to say is about to undertake on early examination of the difficulties set forth in my annual report iu respect to the collection of revenue at the Custom House at New York." The Speaker also laid before tho House the reply of the Secretary of the Treasury to the resolution asking for a statement of the amount applied to the sinking fund during tho fiscal year ending June 30, 1885. Referred. Tho Secretary gives the foUowing figures: Bonds, principal, $45,588,150; interest, $271,607.32; fractional currency, redeemed, $15,BSi>.43. Total, $45,875,702,75. The Eustis resolution calling on the Secretary of the Treasury for information as to the refusal of the Assistant Treasurer at New Orleans to receive shipments of silver and to issue silver certificates therefor, was the theme of a protracted debate in the Senate on the 10th inst. Senator Call defended the action of the Treasury officials and Senator Plumb criticised it. Senator Coke attacked tho Treasury Department vehemently, saying that the Treasury officials, while ostentatiously taking credit for supporting the public credit and executing the law, were doing everything in-their power to accomplish a directly contrary result. He made no war on the administration, he said, but he believed that a public office is a public trust, and in the position taken by him he executed the trust conferred on him' by tho peoplo whom he in part represented. Senator Teller praised tho Dunocratie members of the last House'for “resisting the effort of the incoming Democratic President to discredit silver.” He commented with severity on the statement made by tho President and Secretary Manning, that it had been possible to force only $50,000,0J0 in silver into circulation when *91,000,060 of silver eert sic ites and $50,000,000 in silver coin were in the hands of tho peoplo. Mr. George defended the administration, after which Mr. Eustis said that ho had telegraphed to Mr. Roach at Now Orleans to ascertain the purpose of the hank shipment of silver, and hael received this reply: "Shippers sought to get rid of excessive silver by shipping to the Sub-Treasury and asking that silver certificates therefor should be turnod over to their New Orleans correspondents. The Sub-Treasurer declined to receive from express company because, first, he doubted the propriety of the Treasury becoming intermediary between country and city banks; second, for lack of clerical force. I feel assured that provision for sut-

ficient clerks would remedy everything. ” Tbo matter finally wont over. _Tho Houso met, adopted resolutions eulogistic of Gen. Hancock, and immediately adjourned. Mb. Mitchell of Oregon introduced a bill in the Sonate on the 11th inst. providing for the repeal of aU treaties permitting the coming of Chinese to the United States and prohibiting their ccjming, except in the case of diplomatic and official personages. The Senato passed without amendment the House bill for the payment of the “Fourth of July” claims and a bill regulating the promotion of West Point graduates. Tho Blair education bill was called up in the Senate, and Senator Mbrgan (Ala.) delivered a long speech against it. He called it a hill to tax the honest, hard-working man in' order to educate the children of the drunken, loafing vagabond. Forty of the sixty millious of people in tho United States were dead-beats and nonproducers. and tho tax imposed on the remaining twenty millions, he* said, would foot up $lO a head. The constitutional ground for the hill. Mr. Morgan continued, was said tyi be found iq the “general welfare” clause of the preamble to. the Constitution. Such an application Of that clause simply meant that you could pull dowp the rntin who got up by ~ his own exertions, in order to put up a drunken loafer who would not exert himself, Senator Morgan characterized Senator Blair's idea as one involving tho right of Congress to educate the children ■„6f the several States without tho consontof t.h,o States. The Senate adjourned to Monday, Feb. 15. In -the House, Mr. Bingham, of Pennsylvania, asked leave to introduce a bill granting a pension of $2,000 per annum to the vyidow of Gen. W. S. Hancock, but Mr. Beach, of Now York, objected. The House passed the Bill to enable national banks toi increase their capital stock and to change their names or locations. The Fitz-John Porter bill came uo in the House, and Mr. Havnes. of New Hamm shire. ocened the debate with a Bpeech in its support. Mr. Steele, of Indiana, followed Mr. Haynes and opposed tho bill, declaring that General Pope’s famous order could and should' have been obeyed by General Porter. . A map of the scene of military operations in question having been hung upon a support in the space in front of the speaker's desk, Mr. Steele pointed out with a cane the movements of the various commanders. During the delivery of the speech Mr. Steele was interrupted at times by General Bragg, who took occasion to question tho speaker's statements, and at the close of the speech the two had a brief controversy over the circumstances attenxling certain movements at tho battle, during which General Bragg said: “I find that those who were not there know very much more about it than those who were." Mr. Steele replied : “In reply to that I have read the reports of as distinguished soldiers as ever did battle for any cause who were there." Thebe was no session of the Senate on the lfcth Inst. In the House of Representatives, after the reference of a large number of Senate bills to tho appropriate committees, tho Speaker proceeded to call committees for reports of a private nature. At thp conclusion of the call the House went into committee of tho wholo (Mr. Hammond, of Georgia, in the chair), on the private calendar. j » i„ The Speaker laid before tho Houso of Representatives, on tho. 13th inst,, the reply of tho Postmaster Gonoral in response to tho resolution calling for information as to whether tho eight-hour law is now applicable to letter-carriers. The Postmaster Genera) states that there is no department regulation prescribing the number of hours during which letter-carriers are required to work, and the eight-hour law has not been deemed applicable to letter-carriers, because they aro not regarded ns “laborers, workmen, or mechanics." The opinion that the law is not applicable to lettcr-carrh rs was, tbo Postmaster Ueuerol is iuformcd. promulgated from the department before his incumbency of tho office, anti no charge has been decided since.' Adverse reports were submitted from the Committee on Postoffices and Post-RoHels on bills to enable the people tj nnnie rthctr Postmasters 1 ; to regulate tho miming of pot'offices ; tofacilitate the delivery of mail matter: and Messrs. Swinburne, of Now York, rink Wolford, of Kentucky, sppjce hi fa.vor of. and Mr. Houk, of Tennessee, against the Fftz Ji hi Porter bill. The Senate was not in session. The first archaeopteryx, the fiossii remains of the oldest-known bird, which seems to form the connecting link between birds and reptiles, was discovered in the lithographic slate of Solenhofen in 1861. Another specimen, recently I( fonnd in the same locality, has been sold for $5,000 to the Berlin Museum. An eminent German oculist, Dr. H. Cohn, has -made extensive researches into the effects of study and microscopic labor on, the eyes, concludes that reading and writing are much more likely to produce short-sightedness and otherwise impair the sight than watchmaking and other minute industries. Powdered rice ia said to have a great effect in stopping bleeding from fresh wounds. —y— i An Ohio man claims tohaveinvcuted a perpetual motion.