Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-06-05
THE KORT."

Terrible Slam on the Impeachment
Tribunal How the Comptroller
WOuIdR't Pay Cent. the Honorable
Court Couldn't Pay its Beard Bill.
and How IL gOt stuck = ia the
Capital city.
The Senate Impeachment Court for the
trial of Judge Frazier, having wearied a
heartily disguised people for thirty long
days with enc of the most stupid farces a
public body ever sank low enough to enact,
and thrown aside one of the purest and best
men who ever graced judicial chair, ad-
iourned yesterday morning, sine die Every
thing had been carried out, and the august
impeachers had sent in their bill to the
State Comptroller. Keepers of hotels and
boarding houses were on the qli UiUe, and
briskly rubbed their hands in anticipation
as the morning sun broke upon the day
when the board bills Of a month were to
be cancelled, and all accounts salts.
factorily balanced with their dis
tinguished guests. The members from the
rural districts had already turned an eve
upon thecheap clothing stores, and peeped
in at the substantial groceries that line the
circumscribed thoroughlares of the capital
city, and were calculating upon how much
cloth and provender could conveniently be
smuggled into a railroad car with no risk
~ freight charges. There was general
good feeling among all interested. Eight
dollars and forty cents a day in current
funds of the United States, for eighty-six
days, was to be paid every ordinary men,
ber and each of the four attorneys for the
prosecution and the officers of the court,
were 20 be handsomely remunerated in
proportion. Only thirty days of their val.
liable time had been spent, and they were
10 be paid for eighty-six. Oh, muni6cent
commonwealth Of Tennessee
All these exalted ideas, however, like
most others of the kind, were DIES
tined TO be rudely dispelled The
conclusive clutch upon empty wal
lets loosened and slackened as the start
ling word was spoken that 10 abruptly
brushed away the baseless fabric of their
sublimely extravagant visions. The stub
born Comptroller, in his official audacity
and Indifference to the great affairs of
State, banged the door of the massive SAFE
and swore that not a cent should ever come
from behind its grim exterior until the
bills should be reduced to compatibility
with the present condition of the treasury
and the future prospects of the glorious old
Commonwealth. The ghost of departed
school fund tapped its horrid wings above
the decimated greenbacks, and shrieked
dolorous chorus to the discordant notes of
the obdurate Comptroller, as he roundly
declared that four dollars day was enough
for the servants of the State, and that he
would pay no more.
IN turn, wrath gathered on the brows of
the ill-used Legislators, and the country
members stormed. They hung about the
capitol the livelong day, whiting, spit
ting, and swearing they would sue if their
demands were not complied with. Bills
had been run up in anticipation of the
coming harvest, and they must be settled.
Mysterious messages in buff envelopes,
whose strange contents might have been
taken for whispered queries as to the when
of the expected day of adjournment, had
been passing rapidly to and fro for several
days, and were still augmenting in the side
pockets of the unfortunate debtors. Here
were they, ''stuck" in an unwholesome city,
when the evening trains had even stretched
the schedule for their accommodation, and
the setting sun was TO have witnessed their
near approach to home and the loved ones
there.
But the Comptroller would not yield.
lie was like a mountain, and could not be
showed. The country members were ia
desperate straits. As the day waned, how
ever, they grew cslmer. There was no
other alternative. They gave way. They
wilted The force of circumstances at last
compelled them to knuckle, and the sponge
was thrown up. With wry faces the more
needy bowed and closed around the sturdy
Comptroller. Four dollars a day in depre-
ciated currency dragged grudgiPgly through
his fingers to the yawning pockets of the
poor fellows in wait, and as they neryously
seized upon the emerald notes, they moved
away in sullen silence and filed of down
Capitol Hill 10 the centre of the city, and
from thence dispersed to their temporary
quarters or to the railroad depots, to in
guire for any night trains that might be
going their way.