The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-01-12

OF absence. Adjourned.
railroad Jobs and Jobbers In Congress.
The corruptions which have sprung up in
the National Government from the general
denominations of our late civil war are
fearful to contemplate One hundred mil.
lions year lost to the Treasury from the
spollatlons of the whiskey rings. cheats out
OF sight anything in the line of whiskey
frauds under any other Government on the
face OF the globe; but on II corresponding
scale with their fold OF operations, The In
dian rings, the Post Office and Interior De
partmcnt rings, the tobacco rings, the
frontier smuggling rings and various other
rings, insiders and outsiders, jobbers, con-
tractors, Government officials and private
spectators, are pretty well up to the per
centage of the enormous stealings of the
whiskey rings. The latest developments
however, show that in the grandeur and
number Of their schemes of spoils and plum
der, the congressional rings of railroad job
bers throw into the shade all the other rings
of the lengthy catalogue of confederate
Treasury robbers.
Washington correspondent who has
been looking into the business, reports that
159 railroad bills and resolutions have been
introduced in the fortieth Congress, (the
term of which expires on the 4th March
next, with that of President Johnson,) and
that twice as many more are in preparation
in the lobby; that 1000, 00O, 900 of acres of
the public lands and 5000, 900, 600 in United
States bonds would not supply the demands
of these cormorants. In other words, their
stupendous budget of railway jobs wonld
require sops and subsidies III lands and
bonds which, reduced to Il money valuation,
swell up to the magnificent figure of half
the national debt.
AmOno tha iobs of tbi. schnGu1a !. th,,
Atchison and Pixies Peak Railroad Compa-
ny, or Union Pacific Central Branch, which,
after having received Government sops to
the extent OF Sc, 900, 600, puts in for ST. OOO-
600 moro. Next comes the Denver Pacific
Railway and Telegraph Company, which,
having fentl.rrcd its nest to the figure of
$32, 600, 900, puts in for little more; and
this company is reported to be n mere gang
of spectators, without any known legal
organization whatever'-a lot of mythical
John Does and Richard Roes, who cannot
be found when called for. Next, we have
the Leavenworth. Pawnee and Western Rail
road Company, now known rs the Union
Pacific, Eastern Division, chartered by the
Kansas Territorial Legislature in 1855. sub
sidiZed with Delaware Indian reserve lands
in 1861, and then in 1862, by rider OH the
Pacific Railroad law, granted $4,000 per
mile in United States bonds and every alter
nate section of land, within certain limits.
on each side Of the road, and the privilege
of n second mortgage. This is cutting it
pretty fat. But it further appears that
clique of secedcrs from the old company
illegally formed q new company, ard, hav-
ing by force of arms taken possession Of the
road, are pocketing the spoils which legally
belong to the old company. All this, too,
with the consent of the President the Sec
retary of the Treasury and Congress. Are
they all birds of feather, that they thus
flock together?
From another source we learn that some
half dozen other Pacific branch or main
stem railroads, Northern and Southern, are
on the anvil, involving lands and bonds by
tens and twenties and hundreds of millions; !;
that of all these schemes fully three-fourths
come from the Republicans in both houses;
that Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, has seven
of these Jobs on the docket; Senator Ram
say, of Minnesota, four; Senator Conness,
of California, five, and Senator Harlan, of
Iowa, four Senator Pomeroy, however,
distances all competitors in the number and
extent of his jobs; for as it appears, they
include line from Kansas to Mexico: three
bills for roads from Fort Scott to Santa Fe,
in Texas; a South Carolina line, through
the sea island cotton section; two or three
lines from the Mississippi River through to
Texas, and "a little private Atchison Pacific
one of the incest and fattest speculations
ever worked through. "-New York Herald
FIRE.-On Saturday morning last, about
. o'clock, fire occurred in the rear of Mr.
j. B. McElhose's boot and shoe store, No
1877 King street, near Calhoun, which soon
spread to tho adjoining premises, occupied
by Mrs. Booth, dealer in millinery. The
flames had got such headway before they
could be subdued, that they destroyed both
stores with their contents. Mr. McElhose
loses heavily, having an insurance of only
$4, 500 in the London and Liverpool and
| Globe Insurance Companies, on q stock of