Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1886 — WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON.

Gen. Joseph E. JoHNSTOX,_f ornmissioner of Railroads, testified before the the idea of using official influence to further the interests of the company had never been thought of by his associates. He never heard until now that ffefiatbrs Garland and Harris had written- professional opinions tonching the validity of the patents. He saw now that the opinions of the associates as to the value of the Rogers- patent were highly extravagant. Witness remembered that a suit before Judge Baxter was not regarded as particularly advisable, because he was said to be hostile and antagonistic to Senator Harris. Experiments are being made at the Washington Navy Yard with an aerial. torpedo invented by Lieut. Payne, an exnaval officer. This torpedo is fired from a cannon, and is expected to lodge in the rigging or across the deck of the enemy’s vessel. Before they are discharged they are closed up.into a space of a few feet in length, but the act of firing draws them out like a telescope to a length of from ten to twenty feet. The toipedoes are. filled with gun-cotton or other terrible explosive. They will explode, it is said, as well under water as in the air. Before the House Telephone Investigating Committee, Stilson Hutchins, of the Washington Post, said he had, in a .spasm of generosity, offered to buy Vest’s Pan-Electric stock at what Be paid for it. The latter finally declined to.sell, as he considered the newspaper clamor unjust, and would not yield to it. Witness had been offered some of the stock to, publish Dr. Rogers' poetry, and thought both the poetry and stock bad and refused.