The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1876-05-04
Extract from Testimony Before Investigating
Committee
DONN AND THE MOTH.
Hop Donn Plat Came to be Interested IN
The Moth Preventive.

not positive as TO the uaCe, puV Whlio
was boarding at the Arlington-Mr'
Brepa came to me and asked me to see
the Secretary Of War and request him to
take up the papers in the application OF
Cowles, whose process, he said, was a
very excellent one for the preservation
of army clothing against moths, mold
and mildew, and also for making it water
repellant. l had known Brega, OIL and
on, for twenty years, and l rather liked
him. He belongs to that class OF gentle
men that amuses, He has rather 100
much information, but then he has no
convictions, and he has lived, in rather
expensive way, upon his wits IA very
small capital, by the way. He was TO
me a sort Of Count Fosco, and l found
him rather entertaining. However
did not approve Of his schemes, lie
alwavs had some scheme by which,
through the subtitle alchemy OF the In
tellect, airy nothings were to be trans
mitted into solid gold. Laughter
first made his acquaintance IN that re-
spect, in an attempt to get up a reclpro-
city treaty. | came to Washington as the
correspondent of the Cincinnati CONNER
cial and at that time, shortly after the
Inauguration of General Grant, thefe
was a good deal of feeling in the West IN
behalf of a reciprocity treaty with
Canada, and | interested myself IN IT
very much, in accordance with the
wishes of my journal, and | used to take
delegations of Congressman up to talk
to Mr.. Fish about it-who, by the way,
never could "see" it. In that way !
came in contact with Mr.. Brega, who told
me that he was an agent OF the CANADIAN
Government for the same purpose ana
he was very active and did us great
deal of harm. LaughteI.l He was al
together too liberal in his promises OF
money, and not careful or able in the
fulfllment. am of the opinion that if
the Canadian Government had responded
to all the obligations he incurred for IT
in that way it would have embarrassed
that Government considerably. But it
got out that there'was an agent OF the
Canadian Government here, and the re-
port alarmed my honorable friend Pig
iron-I beg pardon, Mr.. Kelley-and it
was charged that there was British gold
being used to corrupt legislation in be-
half of a reciprocity treaty. Laughter
| found also that Mt Brega was in the
habit of getting the information (Which
was not much known) that our delega.
tions would derive from Mr.. Fish and
selling il to the New York Herald. Sub
sequently Mr.. Brega undertook to inter,
est me in the St. Croix railroad land
grant matter, but which, recollecting the
reciprocity treaty, was not favorably
impressed with. So, when he came to
me with the wonderful process for the
preservation of army clothing from
moth, mildew and also for rendering the
water repelant," | dismissed it with the
rest of the schemes that l had heard
from him but Mr., Brega would not take
no from me, and he came there every
day as regular as the day itself and
talked about the Cowles process, and the
necessity of getting the Government in
terested in it. | had no place to work
but the private parlor that | had in the
Arlington, and my wife had a mocking
bird hanging in the room, of rather re-
markable vocal powers, and whenever
Mr.. Brega opened on this subject the
mocking- bird would join in, and between
the two was nearly distracted. Laugh
teri found at last | must either MUIR
der Mr.. Brega, commit suicide or go to
see the Secretary of War; | found that
General Meigs would not listen to Brega,
and that General Belknap would not see
him. Brega used to wait outside until |
would come out from the interview
generally in Lafayette square-and the
beaming and eager way in which he
would amble up to me to know the re-
suit was extremely diverting at the time
Laughter l found, however, on look
ing into the matter that vast amount OF
clothing had been left over from the war,
counting up into millions, and that this
process of Cowles had been put to very
severe tests, running through some
eighteen months, by General Meigs,
with satisfactory result, SO it struck me
that after all Brega had stumbled upon
a very useful thing. He brought Mr.,
Cowles to Washington, and when l saw
him he impressed me favorably as being
practical, plain business man, and l
told hlm that would do what | could to
get them a contract from the War De-
partment, and he then agreed to pay me
five per cent. on the gross amount.
went to work and had good deal Of
trouble. General Meig5 was opposed to
it on the ground of its being an innova-
ton Che is opposed to all innovations.)
Laughter And General Belknap was
opposed to it because he didn't know
anything about it, and didn't want to
know. Laughter General Meigs said
hat the clothing left over from tie war
ought to be sold at auction; General
Belknap said that it ought to be given
away they didn't either of them think
it would be worth while to try any pro-
cess by which "textile fabrics could be
protected against moth, mold, mildew,
and also rendered water-repellant."
[Laughter.] However, as Cowles had
been put to a ood deal of expense and
trouble in connection with tlese tests,
my appeal in his behalf, on that ground,
obtained contract, Gen. Meigs recon-
mended that $4,000 be paid, and the
Secretary of War increased it to $4,000.
Gen. eigs consented to that, and said
that the tests had been satisfactory, and
that, if the reports from the clothes sent
out to the posts on the frontier lwhere
they were generally most needed) were
favorable, the contract would probably
be good thing for the Government
That was the result: the reports were
favorable, and the process seemed to be
an excellent one for the protection of
textile fabrics from moth, mold, mil
dew" and also for rendering them water
repellant Laughter.