The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-04-30
S. G,
Tuesday Morning. April So. 1872.
For tho Northern People.

ment, are most clearly exhibited in this
State, where it has had full and unim.
peded sway. Under carpet bag rule,
fostered, encouraged and sustained by
Grant. even to the extent of employing
the military arm OF the Government TO,
that purpose. the public debt of the
State has been increased ouer tWeloe mil
million .tfue hundred thousand dollars in
less than four gears. and there is not a
single public improvement, nor q considerd.
ton Of any nature ,ohats0eoe,, to show FOL
it. The accumulated public debt for
near century before, and up to the
time that Grantism took control of the
State. was S.. 600, 600, for every dollar OF
which the State had received an ample
consideration, in the way of public i'm
provements, &c. The rate of taxation,
up to 1860, was less than 81. 80 on the
$1,000, according to the real valuation
OF property. This year. Grantism, as car.
ried to full fruition under carpet-bag
hsnchmen, will spring the rate of taxa.
ton to upwards OF $50 per $1,000, or
between three and four cent.
Before the war, less than $500, 900 was
collected from taxes to defray the ex-
penses of the State Government for q
year. This year, there will be collected
S5. 600, O00-perhaps more; certainly but
very little less. This is done, too, on
less than two-ffths of the amount of
property from which the $500. 900 before
the war was received. Though tax of
81, 1,800, 600 has been collected since the
LIST OF November last, there is said to be
not dollar in the Treasury to-day. The
public schools are being suspended for
want OF funds, though they are but very
few in number. The Superintendent of
the Lunatic Asylum has been obliged to
borrow money on his individual credit,
to keep the pauper lunatics from starva-
tion; and now that he has exhausted his
private means, announces that the insti-
tuition must soon cease operations, and
the poor lunatics be turned loose upon
the community. be transferred to their
respective Counties. where there is no
preparation or accommodation for thom,
except the common Jail, or else they will
be starved to death in the asylum. The
Superintendent OF the Penitentiary re-
ports the same alarming condition of the
institution over which he presides. Not
dollar can lie got from the Treasury for
its support. There is, consequently, no
way to provide for the feeding. clothing
or guarding of the murderers and other
conviots therein confined, and they are
now actually advertised by the Superin-
tendent to be farmed out to any such
persons as may desire their labor and
will pay the most money for it.
While this is the wretched and alarm
ing condition of public institutions,
State officials who, when they first en-
tered upon their public career, under
and by means of Grantism, were penni-
less adventurers, many of them unable
to buy even decent suit of clothes, are
now rolling in wealth and revelling in
the lap of luxury. Princely mansions,
costly diamonds, gaudy equipages, and
all tho insignia OF hastily and ill-golten
wealth are theirs-and they boast of
their infamy no less than their millions.
During the sessions of the General AS
sembly, the most gross and revolving
bribery is practiced. and not day passes
that some member does not openly
charge it upon his associates, and is re-
piled to not by indignant denial and vim.
dication, but by counter charges of the
same disgracsful and disgusting nature.
No public measure, however proper and
worthy it may be, can pass through the
Legislature unless corrupt means be en-
ployed. So glaring is this fact, that even
r. Z. Scott, the Governor, once stated,
under oath, in rash moment of virtu-
ous indignation, that ''jf our Saviour
himself aoere upon earth, and were brought
up before the Legislature for trial, he
would again be cruciaed, unless he would
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