Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-08-23
Notes and Notions.

HE mdSsdCuuSeblo BTtenDdCheTb nave
nominated General B. f. Butler for gov.
ernor
THERE is to be large British river and
harbor bill. A scheme to transform Man.
chester, England, into seaport is thought
by the London Times to be simply question
of money and little Strengthening here and
there. 1t is proposed to deepen the river IT.
well, making it a canal into which the tide
will come. Vessels then would leave their
cargoes at Manchester wharves instead of at
Liverpool. The estimates place the cost at
S50,000,000. Surveys are to be undertaken
forthwith. Of course Liverpool is agitated
somewhat over the project, but the plan seems
quite likely to succeed.
THE prohibitionists of Iowa have their
amendment to the constitution, but much
difficulty remains for them to overcome. A
legislature has next to be elected to carry
the amendment into effect by providing
pains and penalties for its violation. Wine
and beer will continue to be sold in the
state until law is passed making the sale
criminal offense. The effect of such an
act will be to stop the manufacture of beer
in Iowa; but to provide against its conse-
quences a leading brewer in Milwaukee has
made arrangements to put canvassers in
every town in the state to take orders for
beer delivered on the cars in that city.
ALBANY JOURNAL; "Arabi Bey is in
position somewhat like the bishop in the
house of lords who allowed himself consid
cradle latitude in the exercise of his parlia-
mentary duties. When psrishioner asked
him how he reconciled certain dubious
transactions with the demands of an Episco-
pal conscience, he replied: 'Ah, but that
was the peer, not the bishop Yes, my
lord responded the parishioner, but if the
member of parliament is eternally damned
for the offense, what will become of the
bishop Mussulman jurists inform the
sultan that Arab, in so far as he has disc
beyed the Caliph, is rebel and is to be
treated as such, but in so far as he has de
Tended Mohammedan country against the
Christian, he has shown himself good
Mussulman, and must be left alone"
SAYS the Boston Star: " If the river and
harbor bill was, as the veto of President
Arthur indicated, measure conceived in
error, unconstitutional in some of its pro
visions, wrong in principle, and evidencing
dangerous precedents in the manner of its
legislative passage, then his veto should
have been sustained by the best men of both
parties in both houses of congress, precisely
as it has been done by the best representa-
tives of the public press of the country
without distinction of party. II it be true,
as some of the great independent journals
of the country assert, that this bill was an
aggregate steal" bolstered into existence
by a combination of members, each one of
whom was bribed to its support by the
amount of money allotted to improvements
in his state or district, the men who engaged
in it should be branded as public thieves,
and forever relegated to the seclusion of pr.
vste life."
New YORK Evening Post: Taking it all
in all, this congress is the characteristic
product of time when political parties
being no longer divided by distant lines of
difference in principle and policy, have no
longer on each side cause appealing to
higher ambition and inspiring strong sense
of responsibility, but fight in the main only
for plumber; aud of system of politics, in
which the offices of the government appear
only as spoils to be used for the building up
of party and personal machines; in which
the man who wants to go to congress, in a
large number if not majority of cases, runs
not on the strength of his statesmanlike
ability or his political aims and opinions,
but on the strength of the Offices he can dis.
tribute among his followers and the appro,
atoms he can get for his district or state, at
the end of his term pointing with pride
and as achievements emitting him to public
gratitude and reelection at the number of
instances he has demoralized the public
service by foisting into it his political stri.
kers, and at the sums of money he extracted
from the treasury for new court houses and
'navigable trout brooks in his district"
THE New York Times says " Buncombe
is of great value in all schemes for drawing
money from the public treasury. Three
great jobs have disgraced the republic dur
ing the past five years. These are the river
and harhnr tnhg ha ~
job, and the star-route job. About each
one of these hangs a certain degree
of plausibility, even certain degree of
merit. The artful men who have been en-
gagged in initiating and pushing these
schemes have made the best Tor worsD pos
sible use of the attractive phase of the gem
eral question. The soldiers should be re-
warded for services and sacrifices, commerce
should be encouraged aud afforded all pos
sibe facilities, and the settlement of the
frontier states should be quickened by ex-
tending over those distant regions means
for cheap and ready communication with
the older portions of the Union. No candid
man can take exceptions to these general
statements. But when the pension bill be
comes an extravagant measure for the bene-
fit of claim agents, when appropriations for
the nominal improvement of waterways are
diverted into corrupt channels for the benefit
of congressman, and the extension of mail
facilities il used as a cover for the enrich
ment Of officials and manipulators of con
tracts, the policy of the government no
longer cuts any figure in the case. Jobbery,
pure and simple, jobbery that cannot be de-
Tended by stump speeches about the duty of
the government, is found concealed behind
the fair seeming of those who pirate loudest
of wise, patriotic, and generous national
policy"