Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1873 — The New Constitutional Amendment. [ARTICLE]

The New Constitutional Amendment.

k A Greaser iiy the name of Lo- ." zadahss raised an liisurrectibh'ib Trpi<\ is tdau. Vol. "Diet”, Thompson of Terre Haute, one of the most eloquent men in the State, has came out flat footed in favor of woman suffrage. 1 Ho trill -new let hi* hair grtnriong unMdjf rt it in titoduiddle—-as do nil male reformers. - , irisal Oochtering, a Roman Coolie priest at Mishawaka, true to the traditions of his church, is * «2fMKMd to ooiupulsory education, . tfnlin a long article in a recent issue of the Enterprise gives a few of Iris reason* therefor. Ktiery one of our exchanges in tb# State, without distinction of 1 political creed, that we have noticed as alluding to the subject a£\ favor the adoption of the pro-' posed Constitutional amendment to be voted upon next Tuesday.

Indiana contains about 1,700,000 inhabitants. She has in the close neighborhood of 620,000 children between six and twenty-one years old. She provides 9,000 school houses and employs 10,700 teachers to instruct her young ideas in target exercises. Up in Democratic Fulton county the school teachers have introduced cards as a means of recreation for their pupils between the hours of 12 and 1 o'clock, and it is said that the little ideas make rapid proficiency in the sinful mysteries of euchre, old sledge; and such. That interesting item: “Our thanks are due for late pub. docs.,” is now having its usual annual run. We don’t get any, and arc consequently as thankful us anybody dare to be.— Northern Indiauian. We haven’t had any to mention since we began to increase the majority of our Representative in Congress; and still wc live! The Credit Mebilier revelations are galvanizing Liberal Republicanism.— OiarisiMrfi Enquirer. Oh pshaw now! Liberal Republicans were covered with a deposit of Democracy long before the Credit MobHrer revelations. And then, again, prominent Liberal Republicans are pretty well tarred with these revelations also.

The Hoii. John J. Ingalls, who succeeds the notorious corruptionist Pomeroy to the U. S. Senate from Kansas, once upon a time bribed a Judge before whom he ha/1 a suit pending, with a check for live hundred dollars, and when the same wus protested, he refused to make it good. Kansas is rather unfortunate in her Senators.— Valparaiso Mettengrr. Do not know whether the charge against Mr. Ingalls is true or not; do you? ' The Warsaw Northern Jndianian has a correspondent at Liberty Mills who is known to fortune and to fame as Saw Yournosoff. In a late letter to that readable paper he recounts the exploits of a certain Christ Iholts. It is reasonable to presume that after one had his nose saWedoT the next best handle would be Iholts. # « A member of our legislature introduced a bill requiring the father of an illegitimate child to support and educate it. The bill was laid on the table so unanimously that each member is open to the suspicion that he’does not gather all his progeny under one roof-tree. And still they think their services are worth 48 per day. Yesterday, (Wednesday), Congress met in joint session to count the electoral votes cast for Presi4ent and Vice President; and as a result, of that counting Ulysses S. Grant, of Illinois, was declared to be elect.'d President, and Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, to be Vice President of the United States for four years from the fourth day of March, 1673.

Mr. Benjamin liutler, of Massachusetts, introduced a hill in the *L S. House of Representatives last week to increase the pay of the President, cabinet officers and members of Congress. The biU provided that members of Cloiigress should have an addition of $3,000 per annum to their Jfrwenl salary of $5,000 and that tie pay should commence two years back. It was pressed to a ypt« on Monday, when it was devote of 81 yeas to 120 it is superfluous to great, good and illustrious Representative from this district, Gen. Jasper Packard, was 00« of the eighty-one who thought that- hi* valuable services were >vorth SP,'KH) per year and. voted yea. -

The State Senate record foV Monday last reads: met pUffeuant to adjouriijKnt, Ait nd oArum Jwlng presapt, number adjournment was ImduiUii to-morrow nuunuugpv . -*~- Now let the record read that way for the next twenty-five days and that honorable body can congratulate itself that it has done no harm, if it has not accomplished any good.

A. number of our surrounding exchanges complain that the Laporte llrra'd has been been drumming for job work at their respective places.— What the Herald can’t do in that line cau be had at this office.— Werse* Strikern Itdianlan, And what neither the Herald , nor the Indianian, nqr Lafayette printers, nor Indianapolis printers Cali obtain will bo done at this office as well and as cheap as the best and cheapest If any body has any doubts on the subject just try ns, for experiment is the test of truth. The Patrons of Husbandry have | invaded Indiana. It is simply cooperation among farmers. The object is to resist ex.horbitant railroad tarifm. | the abuses of grain warehouses and the extortion or middlemen, both in plies.—fndhtnnpolis Journal. ** P The Journal has condensed the | whole thing in a short paragraph. This secret society is no bugaboo to hurt innocent people, but the objects of the order are reformatory in their tendencies and calculated to benefit the whole producing community. Mr. Alfred Irwin, of Houston, Texas, haspur thanks lor late files I of Texas papers and also for 82 for J The Union. Mr. Irwin is connected with the Hutchins House, which !is described as one of tlie cleanest, I neatest, best conducted and most i . I homelike hotel to be found in the Southern States. The bill of fare sent us for inspection is certainly first class in all its departments, and when we visit Houston wc shall surely put up at the Hutchins House.

A notice is published in the Monticello Herald calling a meeting of all soldiers in White, and adjoining counties, who served in the late civil war, in Montieello at 1 q’clock P. M., Saturday the loth inst., for the purpose of effecting an organization to enable them to secure the benefit of such appropriations as Congress may see proper to graut, etc." The call is signed by Judge Alfred Reed, Dr. W. S. Raymond, Dr. S. B. Bushnell and a number of others; - - Hon. Jasper Packard, Congressional Representative from this district, not only thinks that his valuable services are worth 13,000 per annum more than he now receives, but he is also of the concicqcious opinion that his constituents require the establishment of an American, Japau and China telegraph lino, and on Monday moved to suspend the rules for the purpose of getting up a discussion on a bill organizing that company. Jasper ,ia an economizer of- “a tare and radient” stripe, he is! M

it makes no difference who is implicated in the Credit Mobilier transaction, whether he be Republican or Deniocrat, Vice President or common Representative in Congress, justice, decency, political integrity and the- welfare of the country all demand that he be branded in such a manner that no hypocritical profession of Christianity or canting boast of religion shall hide his shame from the sun or coter his infamy from the world.— There should be little mercy shown those who are detected stealing the liyeryjjf’HeaTen to serve the devil in. «e

From the monthly report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for January, 1873, we find that the number of horses in Indiana compared with ths same month last year is 101 per cent., moles 101, cows 102, and oxen and other cattle 102. There has been a decrease in the number of sh»ep of about 2 'pit ceut., while the number of hogs has increased 9 per cent. The prices of horses in Indiana are about the same as they were a year ago, while mules have advanced slightly; cattle and sheep show a marked increase in price, but hogs have been depressed. The average price of stock in Indiana is as follows:

Horses.—Under one year old, S3O 32; between one and two years, $46.52; between two and three yearn, $64.43; over three years, $86.50. Mules.—Under one year old, $36.38; between one and two years, 556.02; between two and three years. $79.37; over three years, SIOB.BI. Milch cows, $30.73. Oxen and otbei cattle.—Under one year old. $9.30;- between one and two ycais old, $16.47; between two and three years old, $26.97; over three years, $39.06. Sheep,—Under one year old. $2.16; over one year, $3.06. 1 Hogs.—Under one year old, $2.76; "Over one year, $6.16.

The salary of Congressmen is $5,000 a year, the hlrd times, |oavy||tafci, ind gene«H poverty aramjAhe wcAe, Packard, A Daniel W. Vorhees, and William William#df this State voted to increase their pay to 88,000 a year and to have the law date back two years, thus giving to each Sen ator» Representative and Delegate the sum of! $6,000, amounting in the aggregate to $ 1,902,000. Fortunately for a tax ridden people there were only 81 members who favored the grab, while 120 were opposed.

King Amadeus, of Spain, although a son was recently born to him, is not perfectly ha'ppy. Hs threatens toi abdicate the -throne unless the Spanish Congress stops their interference with his aims and plans. But they will not stop interfering and the prospect is that he will be compelled to “move out” before many days pass. - Since the foregoing was in type» Mr. Secretary Fish has been officially notified that King Amadeus has abdicated the throne, and that the Cortes or Spanish Congress has declared a republican form of government, and elected Figueras provisional President.

Having expended his vocabulary of obscene expletives, the bemicrauia which has been conducting our sprightly little neighbor, the Franccsville Local “since the fair last September,” last week coined a ne w term of reproach, and calls our excellent paper an “enmitions Weakly Inside.” Nothing has hurt our sensitive natnresso badly since friend DeForest, of the Remington Journal abandoned us to ' the cold charities of unfeeling Providence. It is very, very sad to think wliat ravages disease makes in this otherwise bright world! Now here is a mind naturally flDehaired, with a gently undulating intellect, cooled by the zephyr breezes of extensive travel, and bountifully irrigated with drippings from the great and powerful minds of our nation, going clean daft. Mo couplet that we can now call to memory is more appropriate to this particular case than the closing lines of Whittier’s Maud Mutter: “For of all the sad words of tongue or pen, Timnaddestsre these-It might have be«u.’ ”

Next Tuesday, (Feb. 18tb, 1873,) the people of Indiana will vote whether the following amendment should be made to the State Constitution: “No law or resolution shall ever be passed by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana* that shall recognize any liability of this State to pay or redeem any certificate of stock issued in pursuance of an act entitled ‘An Act to provide for the funded debtef the State of Indiana, and for the completion of the Wabash and Erie Canal to Evansville,’ passed January 19th, 1846, and au act supplemental to said act, passed January 29th, 1847, which by the provisions of the said acts, or either of them, shall be payable exclusively from the proceeds of the canal lands and the tolls and revenues of the canal in said act mentioned, and no such certificate of stocks shall ever be paid by this State.’*

It is the duty of every voter to become thoroughly posted upon a matter which it is proposed shall be introduced into the organic law of the State and thus nfiadc final lor all time to come. In order that our readers may know just what they are called upon to decide we have compiled from such data as we could obtain, and present for their consideration, the following facts bearing upon this subject, to which we ask their careful attention. By an act of the legislature, approved January 5, I§2B, the State of Indiana accepted from the United States a certain grant of lauds for the purposes! constructing a canal. B y this act a board of commissioners was created and a canal was designed to connect the waters of the Wabash river and those of Lake Erie, which wait called the Wabash and Erie canal. By an act of legislature approved January 23, 1829, the canal was surveyed and located, and by an act of legislature of January 9, 1832, the location of the canal from the Ohio State line to the mouth of the Tippecanoe river was approved and established, and a canal fund, arising out of the sale of said donated government lands, tolls, etc’., was established, and a board was created with authority to ooutraet a loan of $200,-

000 on the credit of the State. By an act of February 1, 1834, a further loan of $400,000 was authorized. An act approved February 6, 1835, authorized an additional loan of $227,000. January 27, 1836, the legislature passed au act known as the “General Internal Improvement Act,*' under which another loan amounting to $500,000 was authorized for the benefit of file canal already laid out, and provided for its extension southward from the mouth of tlgPltippecahoeriver, authorizing

for this purpose a loan not to ex-' ceed SIO,OOO, e.5500,00# abovo inehtitfned. mi afpo pledged and apprttbriinetl ir- J jPvcc ?, bl nient orthe interest and final redemption of the principal of all sums of money which might be borrowed under this act “the oanals, rail and turnpike roadsr and portion of ground thereunto appertaining, ambprivileges thereby created, and the rents aflfl. profits of the water power thereof.” Bonds were issued on these several loans and sold in markets. In 1845 the 'debt of the State waif in found, numbers, $14,000,000, of which $3)900,000 was' accrued interest—mo/t of which indebtedness was on account of this canal. The State becoming greatly enibarassed, and being unable to pay the interest on her debts, her creditors, these bond holders, proposed a compromise by which the State should take up these bonds, giving in lieu thereof one-half the amount in Indiana State 5 per cent, stocks, and for one-half the coupons due and over due, Indiana percent, stock; for the remainder the bondholders agreed to take the rents, tolls and profits of the canal, its lands and appurtenances. It was in accordance with this proposition that the legislature of 1846-7 passed what is known as the “Butler Bill,” the provisions of which included and was substantially their own proposilion. - This w-as a fair contract, and the reports of the Canal Trustees which have been made to each subsequent session of the legislature show that the State has acted iu good faith upon her part and paid over to the bondholders all moneys collected from canal revenues. But this contract was made, and this lien given twenty-eight years ago. At that that time the bondholders thought they had made a good speculation and were fully secured for the money they had Invested.— But with the lapse of years improved methods of transportation have been invented which have deflected the channels of commerce •and tlic business which was then dqne by canals is now taken by the more expeditious railroads; and now r a ring has been formed by the inheritors of those old bonds and the State, is being importuned to release them from the contract of 18418-7 to Jake back what is left es there anal and its assets and pay" the bouds and accumulation of interest, amounting to eighteen or twenty millions of dollars , in money. And the question presented sos the citizens of Indiana to decide next' Tuesday is, Shall this be done? Our answer is, No; and our vote wilUbe “For the proposed Amendment to the Constitution.”