New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1850-12-02

their support; and thus a concurrence OF
influences perpetually threatens to subyert
the present Contract system of Public
Printing and restore the jobbing fayoritism
which it superseded.
The Public Printing is now executed
under a system which may be improved in
some details, but which in its principles is
perfect. The Printing of Congress is d.
yided into three classes, for each of which
separate bids are solicited. The lowest
bidder for each, upon giving satisfactory
security for the prompt and faithful execu-
ton Of the work, has il awarded to him at
the close of a Congress, when he will have
ample time to prepare for it before the as
sembling of that whose Printing he con-
tracts TO do. All that is yet needed IS the
securing of honest and capable contractors,
and the system is all that could be desired
The Printing would then be we'll done,
reasonably done, and at moderate prices
at all events, every Printer has a fair
chance to bid, and the lowest competent
bidder for any class of work has it assigned
him. What more can the public desire =!
Nothing
Unfortunately, the public is not the only
party concerned, nor the one that takes the
livehest interest in the matter. The lead
ing Political journals at Washington con-
slider the Public Printing in some sort a
perquisite of their several establishments;
that is the one whose party may be clearly
majority in each House expects the print
ing of both as q matter Of course, but if
one House leans one way and the other
adversely, then the Printing is given &c
accordingly, at rates which will at least
afford 100000 net profit on the Printing
of a Congress, and would give over
100000 on the printing of the present
Congress. That men who regard some
such adjustment as their natural right
should oppose and seek to overthrow the
Contract system is but human nature; and
vet the means resorted to in the present
case are rather more INSCRIPTIONS than we
should have deemed acceptable by men
who bore regulations worth keeping. And
here it is proper to say that the evidence
before US duplicates only the Editor of The
Lnion and his auxiliaries as capable of
STOPPING to such expedients. The Editors
of the National htelhgencer have evinced
willingness, natural desire, to see the
present Contract System broken up and
the old ride-and-tie system restored, but
they have resorted to no trick, no under
hand vancouver, to effect that end.
The printing of the XXXth Congress
was done by contract-Wendell & Van
Benthuysen, of Albany, contractors. They
bid for and obtained the contract at about
onc-third the old party-favorite prices.
They executed the work fairly, with rea-
sonoble promptness, and only profess to
have lost $4,000 by the contract. Could
the real state of the case be ascertained, we
would like to give them $4,000 for their
clear profits.
The letting for the present (XXXIsN
Congress took place just before the adjourn
mcnt of the last. The first and smallest
class Chat of Bills and Joint Resolutions
was awarded to Mr.. John l.. Towers,
practical printer of Washington, not con-
ncctod with any newspaper, and has thus
far been promptly and faithfully executed,
and 10 one doubts that it will be to the end.
The third class (Journals) was awarded
to John L. Trenholm, foreman of The In
ION office the second, fourth and fifthclas-
ses (Reports, Messages, and Miscellaneous |
to Mr.. Belt, brother-in-law OF Trenholm,
and also journeyman i'll The Union office.
Thomas Richie, Editor of the Union, with
his >on-in-law, Thomas Green, is the indor-
ser and security for these contractors-ls, III
fact, las is not denied the real contractor
himself. He buys all the paper pays the
bills &c. and Trenholm and Belt are in
fact his journeymen, as they were before.
Of course, the work was taken at very
low rates; for there was sharp competition
for it; and, not so much of course, it has in
the main been executed badly, and with I'M
heard of delays. When six months of the
late Session had passed, not half the work
ordered in the second month had been de-
livered. Of the Patent Office Reports, of
which over One Hundred Thousand were
ordered, at least six months before the late
Session closed, not copy had been delivered
five months after the order was given, and not |