The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1878-02-01
aration OF the whiskeY md tobacco ques.
tion will lose the litter votes.
rtIE REGULAR ARMY. b

: q
rHE REourAn ARsfY.
3 The bill for the support OF the West
4 Point Military academy consumed most Of
the time Of the House to-day. aud assumed
Il a partisan phase. Mr.. Durham tDemocrat)
3 declared that General schofeId said $780,
y 600 was enough to support 1t, and other
4 Democrats among them Mr. shanks. OF II.
!, iinois) advocated the dearecommen ded by
I the committee, that appointments to the
official corps OF the regular army should
! come from the graduates Of West Point.
4 This brought Ben. Butler to the floor, and
Democrats, as well as Republicans left
their seats to hear him. He said he
wanted those who had been at West Point
and not graduated, in time OF war
placed upon an equal footing with those
who had gone through the our-year course.
He hada son there now, but he did not want
him to 60 into the army in time OF peace
aud lay around barracks. West Point could
furnish frst-class men for civil life, and
when the interest OF the country demanded
their military services they would prove. the
nucleus OF the militia. He cited Grant and
4 Sherman on the northern side in the late
war, and alluded in general terms to those
4 West Pointers who came from civil life to
the Confederate service, and who achieved
conspicuous success.
General Butler did not blush when he was
spoken OF during the debate as the hero OF
Fort Fisher and as general who came from
civil life.
1 gssls BRIEF ITEMS.
The Senate will not meet again until
Monday.
The water at some street-crossings is to-
night foot deep. This does not speak well
for Mr.. Shepherds engineers.
DR.. Curry, of Virginia, is among the
commissioners appointed by the President
to test the gold and silver coinage for the
year 1877.
Colonel Bob Ingersoll will address the
House Naval Committee next week.
1t is said tonight chat the tariff bill will
not get before the House before the goth OF
February.
The Senate Committee on Postal Matters
to-day considered the bill fixing the pay Of
postmasters. 1t divides them into four
| classes.
Representatives Cabell, Gasde, and Tuck
er were among the visitors to the White
House to-day:
The House Pacific Railroad Committee
has agreed to extend the franchises Of the
Northern Pacific ten years.
Associated Press reports by telegraph to the Dis
| patcnl
TURKISH BLoCKADE-INCLEMENTw WEATHER, &C.
WASHINGTON, January 31.-The State De-
parment has official information that the
| Turkish blockade has extended to the port
OF Durozzi, on the Adriatic.
The weather to-day is very inclement.
| Some Of the committee-rooms are flooded,
and general political business impeded by
almost impossible streets.
THE TEXAs-PACIFIC RAILROAD ARGUMENT.
The House Committee on Pacific Rail-
roads to-day continued the hearing Of argu-
ment on the TeXas-Pacitic road.
James Fl. Storrs, on behalf OF the South
crn Pacific, replied to the arguments OF Gov
ernor Brown as to the power of Congress
to authorize the Texas-Paci6c Company to
construct railroad in California and to
bridge the Colorado river, citing decisions
OF the Supreme Court wherein the right Of
eminent domain is vested in the State
and not in the Federal Government, and
also from the decision in the Omaha
bridge case, where the Court eX-
pressly waived the question of the power
Of Congress over the subject, as not being
then before it. He also refuted the allega-
lions OF saturday Us TO The cost ana profits Of
building the Central Pacific railroad, that
i ha n
haustive investigation by the Forty-third
Congress, when the committee, by vote Of
! 10 to 8, decided that no further inyestiga-
ton was necessary.
Mr.. C. =. Huntington then addressed the
committee In reply TO Colonel Scouts
argument, made last week. He denied
the assertion that the Southern Pacific
and the Central Pacific were the same
thing. and said they were quite distinct
| in their organizations and aims; that when
completed through to the East the Southern
Pacific would compete for the business now
enjoyed by the Union and the Central lines.
He explained that years ago, before any OF
these questions had arisen or were thought
OF, in the settlement OF some local differ
ences, he and his friends Of the Central Pa
cific had been persuaded to 60 to the help
of the Southern Pacific, which then had but
80 miles OF road in operation, and that
finding they were compelled to build, under
the law, 50 miles year at the Colorado end
! of the line, and 20 miles year at the western
end, he had repeatedly offered to dispose Of
his entire interest in it, and in 1873 did sell
controlling portion in the whole line be-
tween Colorado and San Francisco to Col
onel Tom Scott himself, but he never full
| filed his contract. Since then good deal
more road had been built, but he was now
willing to dispose of it to the Government
or Colonel Scott if he could be satisfied that
it would be used as port OF outlet to the
Gulf and lower Mississippi cities. He claim
ed that instead OF building from Marshall,
Texas, westward on the main line,
not less than one hundred miles
wear, as the law required, Colonel
Scott had got "devil-fsh of road" in
the northeastern corner of that State stray
Cling about on three sides Of q square, to
pick up some good lands, and that II the
same energy, time, and means employed to
get up conventions, petitions, and resolu-
lions, and in besieging Congress for sub
sidy, had been diverted to building the rail-
road he might have had his track across
Texas, and would have commanded the con-
tidence OF capitalists to go into a connec-
ton with. the Southern Pacific, as his COM
pany had pledged itself to do.
MIR. Huntington then said his friends
could build the line between the Colorado
and the Rio Graude-600 miles-as cheaply
as Colonel Scott, and would guarantee to
obtain more money-virtue into the ROAD
from their own mortgage bonds than Colo
mel Scott's party would out of their bonds
~ Il kN h