Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1884-12-03
From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON LETTER.
Washington, D. G., Nov. 20, 'S4.

uSHllSlOI ~ ", NOV EU, OF
The business of Cabinet making for
Mr.. Cleveland is beginning to be de-
ci dedly active, and will doubtless con-
time so until the day OF the new
Presidents inauguration. | am very
well satisfied that Mr.. Cleveland has q
good many surprises in store for those
gentlemen of the party who have been
in the habit of arrogating to them
selves all the credit for party success.
There are to be no representative Dem
ocrats of the silnrian period in the
Cabinet, such as Mr.. Buchanan sur
rounded himself with, but men of ac-
tivity, vigor and decidedly progressive
notions-men, too, who have taken
the aggressive in the Presidential cam
paign and developed the wonderful Vi
tally of what was assumed to be Il
moribund political organization. lam
also persuaded that whatever of differ
ences of sentiment that may have oc-
cured the other day on the occasion of
Mr. Hendricks visit to the President
elect, arose from this very question of
filling the Cabinet with this mass of
lossilizcd "reminiscences. The Presi-
dent is a young man himself-the
youngest we have ever had, save Mr..
Pierce--and he very naturally would
prefer to select for his advisers men
nearer his own age than any Of those
who have been prominently named as
being morally certain of Il Cabinet APP
pointment. AS it is not likely that
even Mr.. Cleveland himself has given
the Constitution of his Cabinet Il
thought, it is not more likely that we
shall know anything about it until the
names are actually forwarded to the
Senate for confirmation.
Political economists have gone into
the mathematics Of the Pension Office
and find that we shall be paying pen
sions with good deal of alacrity sew
enty years hence. The war has been
over for twenty years, but the retro
erosion of the pension roll has been
but in keeping with the nat
ural decrease of that large class Of our
In fact few die, and none
allow themselves to miss TIE quarterly |
pay day. Since 1861, a little more
than a million claims have been fled
with the Pension Office, CT which Just
about one-half have already been al
lowed, and last year we went into an
outlay Of fifty-seven million of dollars
to meet the pension demand, though it
should be said that thirty thousand Of
these last years pensioners were back
pay claimants under the arrears act.
The actual increase of the pension roll
was nineteen thousand and seventy.
eight, and the regular steady augmen-
.ation is and has been about one thou
sand five hundred new claimants per
month. The whole number of pen
;ioners who are actually in receipt of
pensions is not so large as has often
oeen stated, the aggregate being 322,-
7jG, which includes the widows. chill
lren, relatives, navy invalids, &C., to
Jay nothing of the survivors of the old
vars and their widows.
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs
makes bitter complaint that the Gov
is not eXpending money
enough upon its copper colored wards,
md says that their civilization must be
until the nation gets ready
o meet the great necessity Of their ed
lcation. While the Lord helps those
Who help themselves, we ART decidedly
# the opinion that there is to be no de-
'arture from that intention so long as
he Indian prefers to remain the dirty,
azy lout that he now Is. Every dol
ar that is spent upon the fellows before
hey evince desire to become civil
zed, is so much robbed from the
american people to be thrown away
pom poker-jack aud cut-throat euchre.