New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-02-10
THE LOAN OF A WITNESS.

THE LOAN OF A WITNESS
The Pacific Mail investigation is taking o
singular turn. The Committee of Ways and
Means having entirely failed to elicit from Mr..
Irwin and his employees any evidence going to
show what became of the million dollars,
moro or less, which they distributed in Wash
ington, now appear disposed to lend him for
a while to Mr.. Clark Bell, the attorney of the
present managers Of the Company, to do what
he may like with him. Having found him an
improbable witness, they seem to think it
would be pity to have his subpoena and jail
ing and his arraignment before the bar OF the
House and his month of badgering all go for
nothing. Perhaps. if he is useless to them,
Mr.. Bell may be able to get something out Of
him which would DO useful to Mr.. Rufus
Hatch. The Committee seem influenced by
those feelings Of practical economy evinced by
the old lady in the Dublin theater, who, seeing
the boys in the gallery trying to throw another
Iowdy into the pit, exclaimed, Don't waste
shin; kill fiddler wild him."
1t is certainly a great civility on the part
of Congress to such a lawyer as MIR. Bell and
such financier as Mr. Hatch to catch and
hold man against whom they have clap-trap
suit for $4,000 and make him tell them all they
want to know about their case. But we doubt
if any one outside of the Committee and the
Pacific Mail Office will see the legality or the
equity Of such proceeding. We make this
suggestion without any tenderness for Mr..
Irwin himself. He has not yet justified the
flourish with which he came home, prom
Using that he would make a clean breast
of the whole story of his connec-
ton with the bribery by which the sub
sidy was passed. There are only three hy-
potheses which can be sustained as to his
connection with this matter. 1. That he
robbed the Pacific Mail Company of vast
amount of money. This we think ex-
tremely improbable, but if it can be
made to appear. he should go with all
reasonable prOmptness to his own place,
where he Will need no income. 2. That
he employed the money inteligently for the
purpose for which he received it, to influence
the votes of Congressman in favor of the sub
sidy. If he did this, he must know or have
a very shrewd suspicion as to who received
the money, and he does not tell. This
brings us to the third hypothesis-that Mr..
Irwin went down to Washington with about
threw it away on cheap lobbyists, giving Mr..
Schumacher 100000, and Mr.. King s125,OOO,
and doorkeepers $1,000 apiece, and did not
ask or learn or have any idea what they
did with it. If he did this, he is
reckless imbecile who ought to be in the peni-
Tertiary for his own good and that of the
community As between him and the people
who are suing him. we have no interest ex-
cept that the truth shall appear. 1t seems
reasonably certain that the Committee of Ways
and Means are not to extract any further facts
of consequence out of this witness. Ii Mr..
Bell can, we should be very glad to see it done.
But even for this purpose, we cannot afford to
have an important committee Of Congress do
an illegal actl There is no pretext for the
introduction of Mr.. Bell and Mr.. Hatch into
this case, to gather material in the committee
room of Congress for the prosecution of a
suit against COL Irwin.
In the fortnight of working days which yet
remains to the present Congress, it is not
reasonable to suppose that the Committee of
WAYS and Means can elicit much further infor-
nation in regard to the subsidy operations
of the Pacific Mail agents. Probably the best
thing they can now do will be to accept the
proved facts, repeal the subsidy which
was evidently gained by bribery and fraud,
and leave to the coming Congress the lnvesti-
CATION in which the present one has inexcusably
failed. MIR. Irwin III one Of the valuable SEN
fences which he has let fall in the course of
his examination, made use of an odorous
proverb to the effect that it is the part Of
wisdom to allow each one to skin his own
skunk. Congress will do well to heed this
apothegm. Let Col. Irwin and the Pacific Mail
Company carry on their own fight with each
other, and let the XLIVth Congress inquire
into the conduct Of its own members elect,
Schumacher and King. The present House now
stands apparently powerless before each of
them. The former barbados himself blandlv
behind his bad memory, and tho latter takes
refuge in the balmy airs of Canada. But these
expedients will avail neither of them in the next
Congress. IL Schumacher is non compos mentis,
as he claims, he cannot serve his dis
trict and should not be admitted, and
King cannot pass the next two years among
the cattle-yards of the Dominion and yet re-
tain his membership from Minnesota. We
shall have to wait and SEQ whether the next
Congress possesses the wit to make these two
coy statesmen discourse more intelligibly OF
their achievements in the lobby. Meanwhile
the Committee Of Ways and Means have more
important work on hand than getting up testi-
mony in @ private and apparently q very inn
pudent suit for blatherskite like Mr.. Rufus
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