The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1859-02-15
ruRLIc EcoNoAIY.


gently to business during the remaining two weeks
sparing hand, and passing such appropriations as
will suffice to carry the government until the next
regular session in December. Much of the import
ant business OF the public will have to be laid over
for the next Congress and although one branch of
that body will be under the control of the OPPOSE
ton, il is hardly possible that more embarrass-
ment will be experienced by the government from
an avowed opposition than is encountered
from actual though unavowed one.
The great effort during the residue of the session
will be to reduce and cut down expenditures There
viii doubtless be very searching scrutiny made
into the provisions OF the appropriation bills
yet TO come aud it is only to be regretted that
the appropriations for legislative expenditures have
most of them got through the House before the re-
irenching process commences in good earnest For
two three years past the expenditures for legsla
ton and on the legislative building have been some
five millions Of dollars per annum, which is four or
FIVE times greater than they ten fifteen years
ago; showing more rapid aud enormous growth of
extravaganza in the expenditures Immediately under
the government
Committees of either house of Congress now de-
liberate on retrenchment in rooms decorated at an
expense surprising The gorgeous extravaganza de-
scribed in oriental fable; and members vote to lop
off items necessary TO protect the pioneer in the far
West from the tomahawk of the savage, while sit
Ting in chairs reported to have cost one hundred
G.ya olJar O,a &c Az
useful members in enforcing the policy of economy
in the House, Mr. George w, Jones, of Tennessee
is compelled to make motions for striking out ex-
travagance after extravaganza in the bills coming
under his relentless scrutiny, from desk carved
gildei, upholstered, and iurbelowed at cost which
would support two or three soldiers whole year in
the campaigns against the Camanchcs and Navaioes
of the West. huge Dome is going up the heads
of members intended to enclose an immense space of
vacant atmosphere between the heavens and the
earth, at cost sufficient to build fleet of naval
steamers as formidable as rides the sea- or to sup
port four or live regiments of troops in the Indian
country from now until it shall be entirely settled by
canopy over the heads of mankind beautiful as the
imag nation conceive and lasting as the centu-
rics; but Congress, not content with the vault of
heaven is constructing their heads an artificial
vault of glass which answer no conceivable pur-
pose of utility or ornament and the cost of which
will be as stupendous its folly is prodigious. The
classic architecture of Greece admitted the bar
thetics of modern times equally discards the huge
deformity from its elegant structures; but the
prodigal taste of Congress pulls down dome to
build another high as the famed tower of Babel in
its place, the scaffolding required for which
viii cost sum of money sufficient almost to con
struct The beet steam war vessel that ever Haunted
national flag
We shall endeavor ere long to present compare
tive statement of the expenditures incident to the
legislative department of the federal government,
for series of some fifteen years past in order TO
show their irightful growth aud prodigious magni
tude. Il would really seem that Congress had been
az II We're, erecting at great pains huge fab &c Of
glass in which to ensconce themselves safely. pre-.
P ratorJ to commencing the rash amusement Throw
lag stones at the other departments of the govern
mens.
Enormous machines have been constructed in The
neither parts of the Capitol for the purpose of sup
plying artificial air and generating artificial light for
the two halls !; and it is while luxuriatng in the
bamy breezes and basking under the gorgeous light
thus manufactured that of our legislators pro-
p lse to disband half army and navy and to dis
miss half of our public artisans Shy way of com
pensaiiog we suppose, for the cost of the machin-
cry they have thus built underground and the CLASSY
sky they are constructing overhead. The mere paint
iug oftle walls of some of the passages in which our
Legislators promenade and puff the luxurant oweed'
has cost enough to support large portion of the
army or the navy and would keep every hand en-
pioyed IN our armories and arsenas for am entire
year The Capitol building with its monstrous ex..
erescencies and fungi has cost already more money
than paid for Louisiana stretching from the Gulf
to the Lake Of the Woods and from the Miss issippi
to the shores of the Pacifie--with all its mighty
States born and unborn and all its incompatible
treasures realized aud latent.
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THE ARIZONA TERRITORIAL BILL
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