Washington telegraph., 1853-04-06
Ir. WeFriHnan's Report.
Our Southern friends seem to be

Our Southern friends seem to be quite
aware Of the fact that an end can sometimes
be accomplished in more ways than the di-
| rect one, as is illustrated by the instance we
| now publish In the Legislature of Texas
the proposition to which the following report
refers was effectually put at rest by the laugh
created by this 1ue d'esprit, and, lest any
of our readers should. from its extravaganza,
be led to doubt Its authority, we state to
them that it is extracted from the 427th
page of the Journal of the Legislature of
Texas of the last session.
Mr.. Merriman made the following report:
To the President Of tie Senate:
The Judiciary Committee, to whom was
referred the resolution requiring said COM
mittee to investivate the expediency of re-
| pealing all laws for the collection Of debts
hereafter contracted in this State, and to re-
port the result Of their investigation to the
Senate, have had the same under considera-
ton, and find the subject-matter thereof very
subtle, exceedingly metaphysical, and trou-
blesome Of solution. The brief time given
your committee, at this late period Of the
session, to investigate the question, amounts
to prohibition Of demonstrative conclusions.
unless, as our chairman beautifully express
ed himself. each member of the committee
could save all his thoughts at dinner and
dreams at night upon the subject, and string
them upon stick as a boy strings cat fish,
and present them in pile to the Senate.
Difficult as the task has been, your COM
mittee have endcavored to dive beneath the
submarine depths and scar above the heaven
kissing heights Of the vast problem contained
in the resolution. They have endeavored to
extract the intumescent efHorascence of the
resolution, and, by Artesian thought, to
strike the fountain of reiuvenesccnce en-
boweled in the primary strata on which the
dubious syllogism is based. If the language
Of the resolution had been encumbered bv
the amendment, the good that would have
resulted to the Senate from law compre-
| hending Its provisions would have been aD-
parent to all a heavy AID onerous debt,
which has attached itself to individuals by
divers ways and means, connected with the
fall Of cotton and the rise Of putty, would
have been wiped ont by an artistic act of
single section, and the elevated heads of de-
pressed and down-trodden debtors would
have turned to the capitol and blessed the
| framer Of the resolution that calIej forth
law to burst their shackles. Alas for hui
man good, the amendment cuts OF this fruit
ful source of inquiry, and sends your COM
mittee atloat on a sea Of incertitude, with un-
| tried perils booming up in the distance, with
out a chart to distinguish the channel from
the rocks and quicksands. The earlier and
perhaps the only law analogous to the one
asked for by the resolution was enacted by
Captain Moses. a sort of military Justice Of
the peace and lsw-maker for people called
Israelites who had borrowed and otherwise
obtained from a people called Egyptians a
large amount Of jewelry on a credit; and by
virtue Of the law they never did pay for it,
as will be seen by several cases tried where
this law was given in evidence under the
general issue, and sustained by the court
! Your committee found this law, and the de-
cisions under it, in the first volume Of Mos
es's Reports, printed a few years prior to the
revolution of Texas, and to which.they refer
the Senate for further particulars.
In pressing the inquiry to ascertain the
results of such a law on the future destinies
Of Texas, your committee have gone chron-
ologically back to the time when Adam and
Eve formed a copartnership in the fruit trade,
and Cain and Able were only shirt-tail boys
running at large in the Garden OF Eden
The few remaining records Of the time show
conclusiyely that no law then existed to en-
force the collection of debts, and the people
were hugely happy. Before the battle OF
San Jacinto there existed republic called
Sparta, where the collection of debts could
not be enforced by the courts, although mo-
ney was plenty, but difficult to make small
change, except at the blaeksnith's. If in
the opinion Of the Senate an evil exists in
the frequent enforcement of laws for the col
lection of debts, then, by adopting the Spar
tan coin and standard of value for the pigeon
roost currency now aaoat, and making it a
legal tender, the same result will be obtained
that would follow the repeal of the laws
named in the resolution Such are the in
vestigations of your committee, which they
have instructed me to report back to the
| Senate for their consideration.
I. III. MERRIMAN,
One 0fthe Conanjttec.