Daily evening star. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1852-1854, 1853-11-03
WASHINGTON NEWS AND GOSSIP.

ready completed arrangements which bid fair
to relieve his charge from that interminable
cause of complaint for years past-failures of
the mail between Mobile and Montgomery,
Alabama-where nine tenths of the accidents
delaying the regular receipt of the mails from
this region, at Mobile and New Orleans, have
occurred within the last FIVE years. Up to
this time, the fruitful causes Of irregularities
in the service there have been, first. the in
ability of a single daily line of mail coaches
between Montgomery and Stockton, (Ala., }
always to transport all the mail bags re-
curing to be sent; and, next, the fact that the
terms of the contract made the contractors
between Montgomery and Mobile hardly re-
sponsible for failures in the connection at
Stockton, where the mails are transferred to a
steamboat The proprictors of the boat not
being strictly bound to await the arrival of
after the boats appointed hour of departure.
To remedy this evil the Postmaster General
has now bound the contractors to obtain such
control of the hours of the boat as that it shall
not again start without the mails. And he
has further contracted for an additional daily
line of coaches setween Montgomery and
Stockton, which will prove amply sufficient
for the regular transportation of the heaviest
amount Of mail matter accommodating on that
route. 1t strikes us that he has applied the
proper remedies, and that the result of these
new arrangements-one portion of which
went into operation on the 1st instant the
balance to 60 into operation on the 18th prox-
imo-will be a speedy end to mail failing be-
tween the termini above mentioned, so long a
fruitful source of injury to the business COM
munity.
New DEPARTMENT BUILDINGs.-We are in
clined to believe that the heads of all the
Executive Departments are preparing to urge
on Congress the pressing necessity for en-
larged Accommodations for the clerical bust
ness of their respective charges. Even the
present General Post Office Department build
ing, though so lately constructed, proves
hardly more than half large enough for the
proper accommodation of its clerical en-
ployees, &c. While Winders building is a
resting place for various Treasury bureaus.
divisions of others are quartered in private
houses, wherever they can be rented though
none so used, except Winder's, can be said to
be fire proof We may write as much for the
location of various Army and Navy Depart
ments' bureaus, which are accommodated after
the same fashion. Indeed we cannot see how
Congress can fail, at the next session, to APP
propriate from three to five millions to the end
of keeping pace in clerical accommodations
provided, with the rapidly increasing demands
of the public business for such accommoda-
tons. However it may sound abroad, where
the immense increase of the business of the
Government may not be understood, those in
Washington, who are the eye witnesses to the
fact, realize that increase hourly Every ad-
ditional ship built, mandatory or workshop
opened, and every additional quarter section
of land opened and, again, every emigrant
arriving. serve ostensibly to ''pile" increased
business on the Departments here. Yet, so
far, Congress has made no more provi ion for
the proper accommodation Of the War, Navy.
and State Departments than existed twenty
FIVE years ago; and indeed. none whatever,
for the Interior Department proper, the three
heavy bureaus of which-of Pensions. Public
Lands and Indian Aft .irs-are likewise quar-
tered out where they do not belong, and where
they have no legitimate business
RUMoRED FALL OF PEKIN-Letters received
from Canton, in Washington, by the last
steamer from Europe, bearing date August
2lst last, speak confidently of the fall of Pc
kin. Nevertheless, We believe that the Gov
eminent do not place confidence in the ac-
count. 1t had reached respectable CONNER
cial houses there both overland and by water
REMOVALS. IN MASSACHUSETTS, We are
satisfied that the stories concerning the send
ing OF orders from this city for the removal of
certain Federal Office holders said to have
taken part in an incipient renewal Of hat il
known as the Massachusetts coalition. are
premature. Nevertheless, while no particu-
lar persons have been thus designated for de-
capitation, it is very probable that informa-
ton has been despatched to the head of the
custom houses in Boston, and at one or two
other important points in that State, notifying
them in advance of the determination of the
Administration, that any and all of their SUI
bordinates there, who may participate in re-
newing the coalition must do so with the un.
Outstanding that the act will cost them their
Offices under the General Government.
A VERY BAD PRACTICE TO BE DIscoN-
NATURALIZATION it has been customary to
give precedence to the business in which any
member of Congress may be personally inter
ested before the Departments in this city To
this PRACTICE is attributed, for the most part
the confusion and delays which for years past
have prevailed in the affairs of more or less of
the various bureaus. BY dint of extra labor.
the Clerks have managed, in almost all cases.
during the current recess, to bring the bust.
ness up. We learn with great pleasure that
orders will probably soon be promulged by
the various heads of the Departments, forbid
ding any gentleman calls, whether he be in
or out of Congress, to be answered out of their
regular turns. This will disgruntle more or
less honorable members, though it will doubt
less prevent the condition of things from
existing hereafter, which of late years has
produced so much mischief, as eypIained