North Branch democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Pa.) 1854-1867, 1867-04-24

The Tribune presents a list of the items
making up "Uncle Sans" bill of house
hold expenses for the year, as follows:
The appropriation.voted by the Second
Session of the XXXIXth Congress to pay
for the current expenses of the Govern
ment during the coming year, and to sup
ply the deficiencies of the last fiscal period,
amount to the pretty little sum of $154,-
79S, ,037, 81. The Army takes $23, ,ssl, ,994;
the Navy, S16,794,244; Mr. Seward re-
ceives two allowances of $4,000 each for
bis Atlantic Cable bills: and the Postmas,
ter General gets $4,000 worth of twine.
The Military Academy at West Point is
very literally provided for, at an expense
Of $267,9l4; of which that eminently
useless body, the Board of Visitors, con-
sumo $4,000 and another $4,000 is ap-
piled to and enlargement of the cadets
laundry. which we should think ought to
be big enough now to keep that dapper
little company ofsoldiers as clean as row
of new pins. The printing of our Govern
ment money costs 100000 the manage
ment of loans and notes cannot be affected
for less than S2,0O0O0O; and for the de-
lection of counterfeits we have a bill of
$4,000. Our expensive old frie nd Pub.
Doc, dances in to the tune of $2,169,19s,
which surely ought to make Congress
ashamed. The charge under which it
strikes US that we get the poorest eqniva.
lent for our money is that of $3I5,595 for
Department of Agriculture. The pur-
chase and distribution of seeds which no.
body wants costs $4,000, and the Botan-
ical Garden. where Commissioner Newton
raises hot-house flowers to Members of
Congress, is supported at an outlay of 1O,-
675. Ten thousand dollars for boquets !
But after all that is not worse than the
Legislature appropriation of $lO,23o for
horses and carriages.
The most bewildering thing of all is the
list of appropriations for keeping our pub
lie officers warm. Here, for EXAMPLE, we
have $1,000 for heating the Supreme
Court Room; three thousand dollars for
heating the cadets mess room at West
Point, forty thousand dollars for heating
and ventilating their barracks: ten thous-
and dollars worth of heating apparatus fer
the public buildings one thousand dollars
worth for ditto for the library of Congress;
FIVE thousand dollars worth of fuel and lights
for Congress five hundred dollars to heat
the Capitol; two thousand dollars for fuel
again at the White House and Capitol
How in the world is it possible in single
Winter to consume such enormous quanti-
ties of coal, is problem quite beyond our
comprehension. There is an item of fifty
FIVE thousand dollars for lighting the Capi
tol and White House beside which the il
Elimination of the Rotunda by electricity
involves an annual expense of three thous-
and dollars and Government has to pay an
electrician one thousand two hundred dol
lars year to attend to it.
The standing and familiar outrage of all,
which comes next to Pub. Doc. in atroeity,
is the appropriation for The Congressional
Globe. On this costly luxury the Senate
expends no less than eighty five thousand
one hundred eighty five, and the House
one hundred and twenty thousand eight
hundred and ninety two dollars; total two
hundred and six thousand and fifty dollars.
This swindIe is to be stopped-Congress
having already given notice of its intention
to break off the contract with the proprie-
tors of that concern AS soon as the two
years warning which they are required to
allow have expired.