Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1889 — WASHINGTON NOTES. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON NOTES.

It is said now that the names of the thirty Pension Office employes given to the press this week as a full list of those re-rated under Commissioner Tanner is incomplete. There are about a dozen more of the Pension Office employes who had their pensions re-rated and were given large arrearages. Their names appear to have escaped the notice of the Commission who examined the management of the office. It is not yet known what action will be taken to recover this illegally allowed money, but it is believed that it will nearly all be recovered or the beneficiaries retired from the public service. Most of them, it is intimated by Secretary Noble, will have to retire in any event. It is intimated that two of the employes of the Pension Office, whose pensions were re-rated, have been officially requested to refund to the Government the extra money paid to them on account of such re-rating. The law gives them sixty days in which to reply to the notification of the Government, and it is not known what action they will take. Corporal Tanner denies that he tried to control the professional opinions of medical examiners. Secretary Rusk is quietly laughing over the predicament of two gentlemen who called upon him Wednesday. There was quite a company of ladies in Vie party. The first gentleman introduced seven of the ladies as his wife. The second was even more embarrassed than the first. In one hand he held his hat and in the other his umbrella. He had a cigar in his mouth, and, as both hands were occupied, he did not know what to do with it. Finally he reached up and placed the lighted cigar behind his ear. The Secretary asked him if he was a book-keeper, and he said he WaS. 7"^---— ;; 7 Postmaster-General Wanamaker has awarded the contract for furnishing postage stamps to the American Bank Note Company, of New York. The award was made for stamps of a reduced size, the new stamps being about one-eighth smaller than those in present use. The one-cent stamps will continue to be printed in blue, the two-cent stamps, now printed in green, will be printed in bright carmine, and changes will be made in some of the other denominations. At the special session of the Senate after the 4th of March there were thirty-seven Democrats and thirty-nine Republicans. When Congress meets in December ihe Republicans will have at least forty-five Senators. It is not yet certain which party will get the two Senators from Montana. If they go to the Democrats the Senate will stand forty-five Republicans to thirty-nine Democrats; otherwise the Republicans will have forty seven and the Democrats only their present thirty-seven. With the West Virginia cases in their present condition, the House, without the members from the new States, has 164 Republicans and 161 Democrats. The five Representatives from the new States add that much to the Republican majority, giving them 169 members, a majority of which is only two more than a quorum. Thus it will be an easy matter for the Democrats to demand a quorum on every vote, and it will make legislation on partisan subjectl very difficult and almost impossible of accomplishment