The New York herald., 1870-04-12

Congress-Ph Ia the senate and
a Sad joke on tho Democrats in tho
House.
The Senate yesterday fell into philan-
thrOpic notion, and, being short of wards and
beneHciaries since the passage Of the fifteenth
amendment. commenced legislating for the
better treatment Of the four-footed animals.
1t will make Mr.. Bersh's heart leap with joy,
no doubt, to hear that the great champion OF
the rights of manly whom we mean Sum
ner-has turned his powerful hand in favor OF
the rights of quadrupeds. Yet such is the
case, and his first effort at legislation in that
direction yesterday motion 10 reference to
the more comfortable transportation of cat
tle-proved q success. Another instance of
the philanthropic spirit of the Senate was
evinced in an attempt to give land to the
Northern Pacific railroads. species OF philan-
thropy which Is so much of jobbing charac-
ter that we cannot commend it. 1t appears
from Mr.. Thurman's statement that four hun
dred million acres of the public lands are liable
to be given away by the bills now pending be-
fore the Senate. If this is the case we may
in few years find ourselves entirely deprived
of our landed property. The whole West
could be easily disposed Of if we give away
this much almost without knowing it, and in
time we will have no cheap lands to tempt
foreign immigration or to form separate States.
The House seldom fails to get up something
racy or amusing. The democrats, who are
l. IN htuL ~
business, usually take leading part in these
comedies, and thus enliven the dulness of their
official existence Butler generally conducts
the ceremonies on the other side; but yester-
day he was left entirely out of the play,
although his friend ''Shoo, fly Cox, who
sadly missed him, bore leading part, and
asked for little minstrelsy from the longed-for
Butler. 1t happened that the negroes asked
for the use of the hall to celebrate the fif-
teenth amendment in, and committee
of the House was appointed to make
arrangements to participate in the jollid-
cation with the negroes. On this committee
the Speaker solemnly placed Cox and Ed
ridge Both of them declined to serve, Cox
saying he liked the niggers pretty well but he
did not like some white men in the arrange
ment, and Eldridge giving no better reason
than that he did not consider it Congressional
duty The House, however, declined to accept
their excuses, and thus the whole demo-
cratic party, in the persons of these two
representative democrats, had the fifteenth
amendment and the ''nigger' himself rubbed
into them. The full committee Immediately
on appointment went off and met the
''whole boundless continent of Africa so far
as Washington could represent it in COM
mittee room, where the whole matter was
settled In the meantime the House, for some
reason or other, rescinded the resolution alto
gether, even while the committee was at work,
and thus left the unconscious Eldridge and
Cox being dosed iuvoluntarily vith the
essence of negro equality, while they might
Just as conscientiously have been enjoying
their rose-tnted white democracy in the exclu-
sive halls of the House. It was worse than
Buffers ''Shoo. fly" on Cox and made
Eldridge awfully mad.