Daily Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1876-1884, 1878-02-28
(From the Evening Expressly
WASHINGTON NOTES.
St. Valentines Day-Addlsd Eggs at the
Capitol-Legislation for the West and
South-Senator Armstrong.

St. Valentines Day-Addlsd Eggs at the
DISQUALIFICATION for the West and
South-Senator Armstrong.
WAsHINGToN, Feb. II, 1878.
st. Valentines Day is rather
ominous for early birds as we'll as
early buds. The trees on the Ave-
nue. put forth a wonderful showing
of would-be leaves more than o
week ago, but everybody knows
this premature display of vernal
giories will be nipped in the bud,
and the promised foliage will soon
be scattered over the pavement in
a million of frost-bitten germs.
The little sparrows, too, that clus-
ter about in multitudes, making up
their matrimonial arrangements
for the year, are likely to have
more added eggs than young birds
to nurse In April. Washington is
a very fast city, and is full of adj
died eggs of one kind or another.
The Capitol now holds more than
four thousand eggs, in the shape of
bills and resolutions, that are in
the process of incubation. The
committee rooms arc the great
Matching houses, and the pigeon
holes are the nests where these eggs
are resting while their friends wait
with anxious impotence for the
first signs of vitality. To nine
tenths of them this will never come.
Next year the pigeon-holes will be
cleaned out to make room for other
eggs, and o single printed bill in
the Document Rooms may be all
that is left to tell the tale of disap-
pointed hopes.
Of the four thousand bills re-
ferred to, more than three fnurths
are for private claims of one kind
and another; some of them bogus.
and others perfectly just. OF the
latter class there are some that
have been in Congress twenty
years. Some of them have been
allowed by one house, but failed to
secure timely action in the other,
and the work has to be commenced
de nOU0 from year to year. Many
a man has consumed the amount
of his claim II dozen times over in
necessary expenses, and then gone
away without it. Even after a bill
has passed Congress and been
signed by the President, it must
run the gauntlet of score of Au-
ditors, Controllers, clerks and Cab
| met Ministers, and before the red
tape is all united and the warrants
on the Treasurer delivered, the
poor applicant may be dead and in
heaven-or some place where he
has no use for Treasury warrants.
| If you have an honest claim on
| Uncle Samuel for less than ten or
twenty thousand dollars, better
make present of 1t to the old gen.
tleman on the score of patriotism; ;
for, amongst the army of claim
agents and lobbyists, it is likely to
turn to ashes instead of gold dust.
LEGISLATION FOR THE SOUTH AND
WEST.
For the first time in the history
of the country these two great di-
visions of the Republic are arous-
ing and demanding their proper
share of recognition from the Gov
eminent. On the one point that
they have Jared badly in the past,
and must have better treatment in
the future there is perfect unanim-
ity; but when they come to consid-
er what measures are included in
this idea of fair treatment, their
representatives lack that unity
which assures Immediate success.
Such measures as the improvement
of western rivers, the building of q
southwestern highway to the Pa
cific, and extending foreign COM
merce, so as to open all the
markets of the world to our surplus
products, meet with general appro-
baton and hearty endorse ment,
but when it comes to arrange the