The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-28 00:00:00

AMERICA.

LIVERPOOL, MONDAY.
The Cunard Royal Mail steamship Asia, Captain
Lott, has arrived with advices from New York to
the 15th.
In the House of Representatives, on the 13th,
Mr. Dawes, from the Committee of Investigation,
renewed the debate on the Government contracts,
in the course of which he said,—
" The very first contract entered into by this Go-
vernment, after the troops had left their homes to
come here, in April last, to defend the capital, by
which they were to be fed, was a contract entered
into for cattle. It was not made with a man:whose
business it was to supply cattle to the market—
not with a man who knew the price of beef in the
markets of the country—but was entered into
by the Government here with a man well known
in this and in the other branch of Congress,
for the last ten years, as an old stipendiary—
one of the class of men who, in times past, made
their money by such operations as buying the cer-
tificates of members for books at a discount, and
then charging the full amount. The contract was
made so that the first 2,200 head of cattle furnished
was charged at a rate which enabled their original
contractor to sublet it in 24 hours after to a man in
New York who did know the price of beef, so that
he put into his pockets, without stirring from his
chair, 32,000 dols., and the men who actually fur-
nished the cattle in question put into their pockets
26,000 dols. more, so that the contract under which
these 2,200 head of cattle were furnished to the army
was so made that the profit of 58,000 dols, was rea-
lized over the fair market price. It takes a longer
time for a thousand head of cattle to reach this city
from the States where they are purchased than it
takes the army to consume them. I ask the house,
at this rate, to consider how long the most ample
provisions of the Treasury would be able to meet
the simple demands for the subsistence of the army.
Sir, poorly as the army is shod to-day a million
of shoes have already been worn out, and a million
more are being manufactured; and yet upon every
one of these there has been a waste of 75c. Three-
quarters of a million of dollars have been already
worn out, and another three-quarters of a million of
dollars upon shoes is now being manufactured. In
that department of the Government contracts have
been so plenty that Government officials have gone
about the streets with their pockets filled with them,
and of which they made presents to the clergymen
of their parishes, and with which were healed old
political sores and cured political feuds. Even the
telegraph has announced that high public function-
aries have graced the love-feasts which were got up to
celebrate these political reconciliations, thus brought
about -while the hatchet of political animosity was
buried in the grave of political eonfidence, and the
national credit crucified among malefactors. We
have reported to us the first fruits of these con-
tracts. A regiment of cavalry lately reached Louis-
ville 1,000 strong, and the board of army officers
there, appointed for the purpose, have condemned
485 out of the 1,000 horses as utterly worthless.
The man who examined these horses declared, upon
his oath, that there was not' one of them worth
20 dole. They were blind, spavined, ringboned,
afflicted with the heaves, with the glanders, and
with every disease that horseflesh is heir to. These
485 horses cost the Government, before they were
mustered into the service, 58,200 dole., besides over
an additional 1,000 dole. to transport them from
Pennsylvania to Louisville, where they were con-
demned and cast off. There are 83 regiments of
cavalry to-day, 1,000 strong. It takes 250,000 dole.
to put one of theee,regiments on foot before it moves.
20,000,000 dols. have thus been expended on these
cavalry regiments before they left the encamp-
ments where they were musteredsinto service, and
hundreds and hundreds of these horses have been
condemned and sent back to Elmira, and to
Annapolis, and to this city, to spend the winter.
Any day hundreds of them can be seen round this
city chained to trees, where they were left to starve
to death. Gangs of 200- horses, in various places,
have been thus left to die and rot, till the Committee
on the District of Columbia have called for a mea-
sure of legislation to protect the city from the dan-
ger to be apprehended from these horse Golgothas.
An ex Governor from one State offered to an ex-
Judge of another State 5,000 dole. to get him per-
mission to raise one of these regiments of cavalry,
and when the ex-Judge brought back the commission
the ex-Governor takes it to his room at the hotel,
while another plunderer sits at the keyhole, watch-
ing like a mastiff, while be inside counts up 40,000
dole, profit on the horses, and calculates 20,000 dole.
more upon the accoutrements and on the other de-
tails of furnishing these regiments. In addition to
the arms in the hands of the 600,000 soldiers in the
field, there are numerous outstanding contracts made
with private individuals—not made upon adver-
tisement, not made with the knowledge of the public,
but made by ex-members of Congress, who know
no more of the difference between one class of arms
and another than does a Methodist minister. There
are outstanding contracts for the manufacture of
Springfield muskets, the first one of which cannot
be delivered in six months from this day. There is
a contract for the supply of 1,000,000 muskets, at
28 dole. apiece, when the same quality of muskets
are manufactured at Springfield for 13 dols. 50e.
apiece ; and an ex-member of Congress is now in
Massachusetts trying to get machinery made by
which he will b© able to manufacture in some six
months
,hence, at 21 dole. apiece, those rifled mus-
kets manufactured to-day in that armoury for 13
dols. 50c. Providerce, before six months, will dis-
pose of this war, or He will dispose of us. Not
one of those muskets thus contracted for will be of
the slightest service in this emergency, or before
the providence of God, whether for good or for
evil, will dispose of it. I ask my friends, from the
North and North-West how they expect to bene-
fit by an armoury at Chicago, at Rock Island, and
at Quincy, when 1,092,000 muskets will, according
to this contract, be thrown upon the country, and
that after the war is over, and at such an enormous
price, in addition:to other outstanding contracts for
the manufacture, some time hence, of 272,000 En-
field rifles ? Besides these, 75,543 sets of harness
are to be delivered by and by at the cost of
1,978,446. I have not time to enumerate all these
contracts. When we appropriated at the last Ses-
sion of Congress for this purpose 20,000,000 dols.,
thirty seven millions and some thousands of dollars
had been already pledged to contractors—not for
the purchase of arms for the men in the field, not to
protect them in fighting their country's battles in
this great emergency and peril, but for some future
use, for some future occasion, or to meet some pre-
sent need of the contractors, I don't know which at
this moment. And not only the appropriation of last
Session has been exhausted, but 17,000,000 dols.
put upon it. The riot of the 19th of April in Balti-
more opened this ball ; and on the 21st of April, in
the city of New York, there was organised a corps
of plunderers of the Treasury. 2,000,000 dole. were
intrusted to a poor, unfortunate, honest, but entirely
incompetent editor of a paper in New York to dis-
pense in the best manner he could. Straightway
this gentleman began to purchase linen pantaloons,
straw hats, London porter, dried herrings, and such
like provisions for the army, till he had expended in
this way 390,000 dols. of the money, and then he
got scared and quit. (Laughter.) There is an appro-
priation, also, for the supply of wood to the army.
This contractor is pledged the payment of seven
dollars a cord for all the wood delivered to the dif-
ferent commands, wood collected after the labour of
the soldiers themselves had cut down the trees to
clear the ground for their batteries ; and then this

contractor employs the army waggons to draw

it to the several camps, and he has no further
trouble than to draw his seven dollars for

a cord, leaving the Government to draw the wood.
(Laughter.) It costs two millions of dollars every
day to support the army in the field. A hundred
millions of dollars have thus been expended since
we met on the 22d day of December, and all that
time the army has been in repose. What the expen-
diture will increase to when that great day shall
arrive, when our eyes shall be gladdened with a
Bight 01 the army in motion, 1 do not know.
Another hundred millions will go with the hun-
dreds more I have enumerated. Another hundred
millions may be
added to these before the 4th of
March. What it
may cost to put down the rebel-