The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1884-03-28
WASHINGTON NEWS
Budd's ALti-0pium Bill.

WASHINGTON, March 22-The Critic to-
night says: ':Rudd Of California is one of
She best posted men in congress on the Chi
nese question, He is working for the pas
sage of his bill to prohibit and punish the
importation of opium or any of its various
concomitante, which are used in opium
smoking dens so freely on the Pacific coast.
He says in the preamble to his bill that the
habit and curse of opium smoking have
been introduced among our people and is
speading with 4eartul rapidity, under the
fostering care of the Chinese. He believes
the increase, # the ,,.sabit has been upwards
of 500 per cent during the pastlyears the
importation of opium increasing from $4,000
to 25O,O pounds during the last year.
Add to this the Ridiculous proposition to
reduce the duty 20 per cent and you have
the climax This is winking at crime; it is
nothing short of crime, for the habit of op-
ium smoking cannot be overcome when
once acquired. Its ,Iietimns wiz not live in
any place where the drug cannot be pro-
cured. Fifty per cent. OF the Chinese poru-
Ou buC l. dCiHC Cociot diC sbuuLSoOo W
the habit, and the cessation of the importa-
.tion of the drug would cause large exodus
OF the people Mr.. Budd proposes a law
that will punish anyone who imports or who
is interested in having imported any of the
tinctpres of OPIUM, laudanum, ect., by
tlne of 5000, or imprisonment not toexceed
five years. The measure forbids the sale of
the drug also.'
The Northern Pacific.
WASHINGTON, March lS.-Judge Payson
will soon make motion to pass the bill to
forfeit the land grant of the Northern
Pacific under a suspension of the rules.
Officials of the road are contesting this at
every point The points they make are
these:
First-The grant is non-forfeitable in
terms. Congress refused to put provision
i'll the charter of the company that the
land should revert to the public domain for
a breach of the conditions prescribed. In
its place a section was inserted which gives
congress the right only ''to do all acts and
things which may be needful and necessary
to insure speedy completion of the road. "
Second-if congress had any right to
forfeit the grant, that light was waived
when the government through its executive
department permitted the company to go on
and build 1900 miles of the road after the
time limit expired, and officially examined
and accepted the road section by section,
l. 4l,o& |. IL
pany authority, under an act of congress, to
issue bonds which were lien on the entire
grant.
Third That the government further
waived the right, if any existed, to take
possession of any part of the grant for a
failure to complete the road within the pre-
scribed lime whenever it took s. so an
acre from settlers pre- -epp pting public lands
within the limits Of the grant, instead of
Sl.25, which is the price of such lands out
sile of railroad grant limits.
Fourth-The holders both of the bonds
and the preferred stock of the company
have acquired vested rights of property in
the entire grant which congress cannot now
HOooiOJ. 4HC Nooi 10 nouIu ITOL6CG UneSe
rights if congress should attempt to set
them aside.
Cheeky Cattle Men
WASHINGTON, March 24.-Secretary
Teller to-day sent to the house a supple
mental report relative to the unlawful
fencing of public lands in Nebraska. The
report is a special one by the United States
deputy surveyor, who says: ''The whole
country embraced in my district. north
western Nebraska, is occupied and run by
capitalists, engaged in cattle-raising, who
have hundreds of miles of wire fence con-
structed, inclosing all desirable land, in
cluding water courses, to form barriers for
their cattle and prevent settlers occupying
the land. They also repl esent that they
have desert and timber claims upon the
land they have enclosed. The fences are
built often SO as to close several sections in
one stock ranch, and ranches are joined to-
gether from mountains clear round to
mountains. Again persons going there in
tending to settle are notified that if they
settle on the land the ranchmen will freeze
them out. They will not employ man
who settles on or claims lands, and he can
not get employment from any cattle men in
the whole country. My chief object in ad-
dressing you is TO report the wholesale de-
struction of valuable timber on government
land in this whole region by cattle men,
who pretend to own and raise it, There
were thousands of logs cut last summer and
hauled to accessible points, to be used as
fences. corrals, landing shutes and houses
in Nebraska and Wyoming"
Petition for Artesian Wells.
WAsHHIlSeToN, sHl March 25:-Dolph yester-
day presented to the senate letter fran
the governor of Oregon, indorsing another
from John Mimic, a prominent sheep raiser
in that state, in which the suggestion was
made that the government should make an
appropriation to test the artesian we'll sys-