Litchfield enquirer., 1871-11-30

i it's various operations of canyassing ala l 'button-holing, or log rolling aIld bargaining, of dining and winning, of raiI
 way excursions and junketipg, of distrlh uting free passes over ..our railroads fpN the session or for the year, and of (why1 note) sometimes more secret and with ig~
 noble minds more potent arguments.
 It is this policy of special lava for tho convenience of panicular curpuratiozs cnnfrnllins great nasses of capital, which
 is bringing the Legislation of Connecticut,
 like that of other States, under popular
 suspicion, vague but grave, of being com
 trolled by yenal influences. This policy
 if continued, will ere long make it g.
 much of maxim for railway kings h l Connecticut as 1t has been for some yeais past in New York, that it IS cheaper to 1 buy legislators than to elect them. We ! do not deny that in some cases of excep
 tional difficulty or hardship for individuab or of exceptional difficulty or hardship foR individuals or of exceptional embarrass
 ment for communities and corporations, the sovereign power of the State may grant relief by special enactment, lest the spirit of the law be sacrificed to the letter, and jus become i8j,tsi0; but in the matter of railway enterprises, as for merly i'll the matter of banking companiess policy of special legislation tends to gen eral corruption. If our legislators are A,, retain the respect of the people, they must enact into general statutes such prin- ciples of justice and public expediency ass shall be equally applicable to all railway undertakings, and must leave the spph- cation of those principles and the ascer- tainment of disputed facts to the judicia1 ry. Let the people themselves take care that 1t does not become as much of blot (prin.a tacie) on a mans reputation to have served through sixty or ninety days session in the legislature as to have been sentenced for an equal number of days to Imprisonment in the county jail*.
 The question then has become import ant, How shall the sturdy old common wealth be saved from the clutch {, sbrotn
 of the railway power. aoM W1IIUn. Tc1 for two centuries and quarter, has realized, more completely and continuously, per haps, than any other state since history began, the idea of government of the people by the people," be rescued from the impending shame of being governed and virtually owned by some railway king, the ally, perhaps, or the vicegerent of a railway emperor in New York? How shall the people expel from their state-house the swarming lobby whose scent for every thing that ''has money in it" is keeh as the scent of crows for a carcase, and whose influence for or against any measure is always to be had for a sufficient consid- eration. A few glimpses at the last ses- sion of the Connecticut legislature will sufficiently illustrate the danger which we refer to and the imminency of it.
 Much time, at the beginning oithe ses- sion, was consumed in ascertaining who had been elected governor. An outrage ous but fortunately bungling fraud in the returns from one of the election districts of New Haven, initiating the gigantic viii lanies by which the aitiZens of New York, have been defrauded of their self govern ment, was detected and baffied; and it was not till nearly two weeks after the appoint ed time that the government was com pletely organized for the ensuing year, so that the proper business of the session could begin. The governors message, which ought to have been communicated on the fourth of May, was dated on the sixteenth. It touched gently on the fact that ssthe tendency of Legislation, of late years, has been ill & marked degree ill the direction of the consolidation of capital and the granting of large corporate in- terests, and suggested that 'great dan- ger may be apprehended" from that ten dency unless some salutary check be placed upon it." Consolidation of capi- tal'' was we'll enough understood to meam the consolidation of great railway corpora tions, and it should be said that the goy- ernor seemed to be ill quandary, alarmed at the progressive consolidation of rail way capital, and uneasily looking for some salutary check, with not even a definite guess as to what might be pos sible.
 On the next day, the machinery of leg islation having been brought at last into running order, one of the representatives from Hartford, MT. Eaton, taking occasion from proposal to incorporate Young Mems Christian Association, "called at tention to the alarming extent of special grants of corporate powers when the gen. eral laws of the State are ample" and "gave notice that he should, during the session, oppose special charters On the same day, the President of the New York and New Haven Railroad Company, who had condescended to represent the town of Bridgeport for the current year, intro duced resolution empowering the com mittee on fisheries Che being chairman of that committed to appoint one of their number who should make journey at his own expense to the headwaters of the Androscoggin in Maine, and procure specimens of speckled trout to be cooked for the members of the legislature, in or der that they might be qualified to decide. on the expediency of introducing that par ticular variety of trout into the ponds and brooks of Connecticut It was understood that the chairman of the committee, who having three great railways under his con- trol, (and doubtlessa ssdeadhead" on all other railways) could afford to make the journey without any allowance for mile
 age, would be delegated to that service; and the resolution passed through the House without serious opposition. In the think that the proposal was a joke beneath, the dignity of such body One of them supposed the resolution to have been passed by the House to humor Mir. Bish- op" But on the other side the argument was that stocking our streams and ponds with fish'' is more than a joke (not re- membering that the State has it's ssfish commissions" for that very purpose):- ):- that "Mr Bishop proposed to go to Maine at his own expense, and it would cost the State nothing except his pay per diem for 8 week or so;"-and the indefinite postponement which had been moved stwould be discourtesy to MT. Bishop. ? | Such arguments prevailed, and the Sem ate concurred with the House in passing the resolution. MT. Bishops influence in l the legislature was evident. There was l no room to doubt that the two houses. which for the sake of humoring him, or for the sake of avoiding what might seem
 . discourtesy to him, would formally del
 egate him to proceed to the head-waters
 of the Androscoggin and bring back
 speckled trout '1to be cooked for the
 members of the legislature" would do
 whatever else he might require of them. That comically absurd resolution, as one of the newspapers remarked the next day.
 "conld never have been passed through
 both houses of the assembly by any other man. th4E N., s1...- aA1..