Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1899 — Late Legislative Notes. [ARTICLE]

Late Legislative Notes.

The senate bill to pay a bounty on beet sugar was killed. That in the house was amended to make the bounty half a oent instead of a cent a pound, and it may be passed. The Newton county, county seat bill was amended by the judiciary committee so as to require 65 per cent- of the votes cast, to re-locate the county seat; and also to require the commissioners to build a court house at Kentland after two years, if re* location does not carry. This change is a decided victory for the Kentland lobby. A bill has been introduced to regulate the charges for toll line telephone business. The fee for a distance of 10 miles or less shall not exceed 10 cents; 10 tc 25 miles, 15 oents; and so on, until the highest rate fixed, for 300 miles, is 50 cents. If this bill becomes a law it will reduce the receipts of all toll lines quite materially, _ although in most cases there would probably be a large increase of business, sufficient perhaps, in some oases to equalize the loss from reduction of rates. The house bill to pay a bounty of one cent on English sparrows was killed. Members who olaimed to be “friends of birds” voted it down. If they had as much sense as the last year’s nests of the birds they are friends of, they would know that the greatest service they could do to birds in general would be to clean out the English sparrows. An important bill providing employment for convicts at the state prison passed the house.