The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-03-26

HOYT 81 CO., ProprleooI
Closing Scenes in. the Legislature
We make the following extracts from the
correspondence of the Charleston Nsaos and
Courier: ,o-1 ,,-., 80
AS has been telegraphed, the action OF the
General Assembly, in, prolongipg the session,
has :given new energy to the thieving Rings
who infest the State capital and hang around
the public treasury for chance to pounce in
upon it. With this morning came a hutter in
the House caused by stir on the part OF the
irrepressible army of Blue Ridge scripholders,
and the equally indefatigable joint stock GER
ti6cate grabbers. There had evidently been
much caucusing and counting OF noses, ac-
companied by liberal circulation OF promises
to pay on Saturday night, and when the hour
arrived for the nesting of the House. 1t was
at once apparent that rascality was brewing
1t will be seen, however, that the schemes
were either badly arranged, or that the average
Legislator had lost faith in the promises to pay
so iberally, and so frequently made by the
scripholders, and once more the Kings were
defeated. The proceedings in both houses
were unimportant, there being nothing LETT for
the General Assembly TO do and the day was
consequently taken up in the consumption Of
an unlimited quantity of peanuts; and the
passage of the law to amend the appropriation
act, which compelled the pro rata payment OF
the attaches.
In the House, Read, of Beaufort, introduced
q resolution requesting the clerk to print IN
the Journals the names of all members absent.
This gave Hurley chance to give slap at
the vacant Democratic chairs. he sald TINS
was an instance of the taxation without rep.
resentation," complained of in the Taxpayers
Memorial. IF the Conservative members had
been present on Saturday, the motion to pro-
long the session would not have been carried.
They had all drawn their money and gone
home. For once in his life Hurley spoke the
truth. If the Conservative seats IN the House
had been filed on Saturday, the scheme of the
Ring to prolong the session would have been
defeated. and the State would have been freed
from the incubus of this legislative robbery,
which has been hanging over it for five long
months. At the call of the roll this morning
only three Conservative members answered to
their names-Afeetze, of Lexington; Dusen-
bury, of Horny, and r. NJ. Smith, OF Spartan
burg. The rest had deserted their seats, and
the exceedingly small body of honest Radicals
in the House were perfectly powerless.
The reconsideration of the motion to adjourn
on Saturday gave the thieves an opportunity
to eperatewhich they improved. Crews offered
8 resolution to rescind the action of the House,
whereby the certificate joint stock cooperative
grab was indefinitely postponed. The speaker,
to his honor be it said, promptly overruled the
motion as out of order, but the Ring immedi-
ately appealed from the decision of the chair.
This removed the fight, in the course of which
there was the usual expenditure of billingsgate.
Curtis. of Riehland, made an earnest speech
against the motion. He warned his compatri-
ots that the people of the State, white and
black, would hold them to a strict accountable
ity for their action in this matter. This speech
seemed to strike the keynote of popular
sentiment among the colored members, and a
counter-current set in at once against the grao
bill. The Ring was defeated once more, and
Crews attempted to withdraw his appeal from
the decision of the chair. This, however: was
not allowed, and vote being taken, the decIs-
ion was sustained, the Ring all voting in the
On Friday night John Wallace, member
of the House, was robbed of the fruits of his
labor by highway robbers, in the Main street
of this city. There are plenty of robbers in
Columbia, as may be supposed, but this mem.
ber came to grief through knight Of the road
and was incontinently mulcted of $3.50, the
cash for mis- pay certificate. In the House,
Humbert, of Darlington, offered resolution
which proposed to instruct the clerk to issue
another. pay certificate to the member. Keith,
of Darligton, suggested that the proper mode
of afFording reliefto the plundered representa-
tive of the people would be for the members
to raise subscription and plank down the
ready'' out of their own pay. The members
consumed several bushels of peanuts on the
resolution and then voted it down. The rest
of the day was consumed in general talk
about nothing.
COLUMBIA, S. c., March II.
Honest people may breathe freely once more.
The session of 1873 and IA has at last come to
an end, and the rogues and public plunderers,
who have been roosting around the capital OF
the Palmetto State for the past twelve months,
have packed up their ill-gotten gains and re-
tired either into the peaceful pursuits OF prl-
yate life with handsome completeness, or to
emerge therefrom during the next campaign,
and, cloaking up the fraud which covers them
like lepers with the specious cry of reform, ask
the suffrages of the colored man and brother
to return them to Office and power The hand-
some equipages and costly teams in which the
average legislator used to drive to the State
House daily, are retired for the present. The
keepers of the thousand and one peanut stands
are rushing about madly in search of absent
Legislative QeDtOrS auu Ci!o "iuio'o e
till in the public treasury is left to the swarms
of attaches who have been left behind unpro-
yided for, and who are now engaged in scram-
BILE for the few dollars which their rapacious
masters have left unstolen. The closing scenes
of the session were exceedingly interesting.
For wonder, the members of the house were
all sober, and the drunken debauch which has
hitherto invariably characterized the last day
of the session in the reconstructed Legislature
of South Carolina was, for once, omitted
Whether this is owing to the fact that there
was no night session, or, what is more proba-
ble to the fact that the thieves here are be-
ginning to entertain glimmering fear of that
public opinion which their misdeeds have s. 50
violently outraged, am unable to say; 1t IS,
hnueuer true that the General Assembly was