Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1889 — How do You Like the Figures? [ARTICLE]

How do You Like the Figures?

The State House of Representatives has passed a bill prohibiting treating in saloons and drug stores. * The first Section under the provisions of the Andrews Australian law will cost Jasper county from $3,000 to 45,000The admission‘of four new states'to the Union in one year is something that has never before oeenred since the foundations of the government, and something which is almost absolutely certaini never to occur again, unless lexas should be divided or Canada or Mexico annexed. A pretty vicious fight has been. made on Senator Thompson s Beaver Lake bill, in various quarters, but the fact that it passed ‘ the Senate last Monday by a vote of 32 to 11, and after full investigation and argument,’ is pretty good evidence that it is a meritorious measure. The State Senate passed a bill Tuesday appropriating $50,000 for cutting through the ledge of rock in the Kanknkee river, at Momence. The vote was thirty to seventeen. So large a majority is a good indication that the bill will become a law. It has our earnest approval. Priiice Bismarck is said to be suffering from a complication of plebeian disorders, such as neuralgia, rheumatism, insomnia, and loss of appetite. Besides all this he does not feel very well, himself. It is evident,, that the iron Chancellor must soon lose his despotic grip on the affairs of Germany. The Territory of Dakota, which the democrats kept out of the Union as long as they possibly could, cast 104,000 votes for delegate to Congress, two years ago. At the same time there were twenty-five democratic congressmen elected from as many districts in the South, and in which district the entire aggregate vote was only 93,000. Thus;..<lß!ing thefie last two years 104,000 votes in Dakota, mostly Republicans, had no representative in Congress, while the 98,000 voters in the Soiltb, mostly democrats, had 25 representatives in«that body. Such is the result ;qf democracy.

The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette says truthfully: “The Democrats of Indiana have succeeded in working themselves into a state of infuriated partisauism, and are vindictive jhd threatening and malicious almost beyond example. They compliment Colonel Dudley with their most ferocious and bitter hatred, and are howling with brutal rage because they cduld not muster perjurers enough be ‘fore the latest grand jury in the United States Court to indict him. They will come to the end of their shabby despotism of rascalities some of these fine days* It is fib

viciously vulgar it must corrode iteelf a<ay, ’ < The number of Hatpar's Rt'rcX/y contains an extended illustrated description of the Robert process of making steelThis process was recently discovered in France and ha* been developed in this country by Bookwaiter, the- celebrated manufacturer of Springfield, Ohio. The article in the Weekly was the first time the process was ever publicly deecribed. The process is an Improvement over the Bessemer steel process, whereby all kinds of steel and iron, including the best tool steel, can be made even more cheaply and extensively than is Bessemer steel made now. It is one of the moet importnt discoveries of the age.

The school book bill which has passed the House in the the State Legislation and will probably become a law. It provides that the State Board of Education shall have authority to purchase books from the lowest bidder, for the whole State, at a price not to exceed a fixed standard. If this purchase fails the Board is authorized to select and purchase book manuscripts and publish them on the lowest bid contract. The books are to be furnished to the people at their cost. The bill is probably not perfect by any means bnt it is a great improvement over the measure first introduced and which was intended mainly to furnish a lot of fat and easy places for Democratic politicians.

W. A. Traugh, the Remington post-master, has resigned his office ■ and his brother-in-law, W. F. Bunnell, has been appointed. Mr. Bunnell is a Republican, but his appointment having been secured from the democratic administrai tion and through democratic influence, is not at all agreeable to the Republicans, of the town. Messrs, j Traugh and Durand think a postoffice is a fine thing to have in a family, and the Republicans, while agreeing to the. truth of the sentiment, are disposed to think that the time is come when they ought •to have some voice in naming the family. We apprehend. that Mt. Bunnell will find his position not exactly a bed of roses.

The proposed fee and salary bill has been killed, like all its predeicessor?. It required all county officers to turn over, all fees collected to the county treasury and paid them fixed salaries, graded according to population of counties. In Jasper county, for instance, all the salaries would be $1,500, except for recorder, which would be $1,200. The bill was not to apply to any officers, now iu office or who are already elected, and was a moderate and judicious measure, but the politicians were largely opposed to it, and their influence secured its defeat, if its provisions had applied only to Republican officeholders, the bull-dozers would have put it through with a rush.

r 1 Although there have beefea few fair minded democrats in Congress' who all along have been in favor of doing justice to the territories by admitting them as states? yet the great bulk of the phrty in Congress has been opposed to admission. The fact that they have at last succumbed to the inevitable and voted to admit, in the last day in tiie afternoon, entitles them to mighty little credit. They knew if they pe:sisted in keeping them out that the next Congress would let them in, and therefore they have made a virtue of necessity, and have themselves opened the doors for admission, and will, of course, try to claim some credit for the .act. But, as before remarked they deserve and will get very little credit. - They have kept the territories out of the Union just as they possibly could and would have continued in the same course had they succeeded, by any of their “good schemes” in securing control of the next Congress. '

> Every proposition in either branch of the State Legislature looking towards any further restriction of the liquor traffic is promptly squelched by the bulldozers. In tfie Senate's bill providing for a $250 license in towns and, SSOO for cities was voted down by the solid veto of the democrats; while in the house a well considered and very moderate measure, which even one democratic member of the committee on temperance fhvored, shared a like fate, by the almost unanimous vote of the democrats, while, as in the case of the Senate bill,'all the republican members voted in its favor. The House bill fixed the license fee at SIOO for places, of less than 3000 population, $l5O in; places of between 3,000 and 10,000 1 inhabitants, and at $250 in places i of more than 10,000 population. The bill also provided that violators of the 11 o’clock and Sunday laws should forfeit their licenses; and that do liquor should be sold in rooms where any other mercantile business was transacted. The bill also contained a practical local option feature, requiring judges of circuit courts to order elections to determine whether any liquor should be sold in a countyupon petition of one tenth of the legal voters of such county. •

The total revenue of the State of Indiana for the fiscal year ending Oct 31, 1888, was $1,357,660. In that year the expenditures of the the Insane Hospital at Indianapolis were $287,000. The general appropriation bill introduced by Mr. Willard, and referred to the committee on ways and means, Feb. 18,1889, appropriates for ths insane hospital at Indianapolis, for maintenance, $475,000; for clothing $12,000; current repairs, $10,000; making $497,000. It appropriates for maintenance of the Hospital at Richmond, $85,000; hospital at Logansport, $75,000; hospital at Evansville, $70,000, making for maintenance of insane hospitals for the the year ending Oct. 31, 1890, a total of $727,000; and like appropriations are made for the year ending Oct. 31, 1891. For the maintenance of the benevolent and penal institutions of the State this bifl appropriates for the year ending Oct. 31, 1890; the sum of $1,211,00Q, with a like sum appropriated for the year ending Oct. 31, 1891. The gross appropriations in the bill for the year ending Oct. 31, 1890, are $2,120,OOg. The appropriations, for the year ending Oct. 31, 1891, are the same, less $145,000, the' aggregate of the appropriations for the building and equipping the asylums at Richmond, Logansport'and Evansville—lndianapolis Jouanal.

The gag law a villainous attribute of partisan legislation, and it would be to the credit of Indiana if its use was discontinued iu the legislature. Men of spirit, honesty and courage will not be gagged, and the party who attempts it is beneath contempt. The majority has nothing to-fear from the minority if its efforts are towards proper legislation. W hen it desires to pass bad laws, through the aid of the gag, then it plays the part of a coward and demonstrates that it fears fair, > open scrutiny of its acts. —Indianapolis Sun.