Morning journal and courier., 1884-01-31
SINGLE COPIES TWO CENTS.
Tharsday. January 31. 1884.
The General Assembly.

 Active Work Before COmmfttees-New
 Haven County mmias1onership-ssw
 Y0rA and New England Railroad Taxes
 -HartfOrd and EaarIsm-Other Matters
 of Interest.
 HARTFORD, Jan 30. Especial Correspondence of the JOURNAL AND COURIER
 There was g large attendance of third" house members at the Capitol to-day and they appeared to be as busy as so many bees Here Senator and there aRepresentative were button holed as they emerged from the sacred precincts of their chambers and the object of their Interviewing was difficult to determine.
 Tomorrow the New Haven county Repub licans hold a caucus to settle the county commissionership. There are a large mum Der of candidates and many of them were present with their packers. What the result will be no one can decide until after the cau- eus. When an informal ballot is taken it is presumed that the votes will be quite equally divided among the several candidates for hon ors, and they will begin to concentrate tneif votes until a result is reached. The friends of the present Commissioner Baldwin were feeling quite confident to day that he would receive plurality of the votes on the lnfor' mal ballot.
 Many of the committees were in active work this afternoon. The Finance Commit tee were in session in the ants-room of the Senate chamber and listened to the argu- ments of counsel in regard to the abatement of the taxes of the New York and New Eng land railroad. s. E. Baldwin made the open ing argument. He referred to the evidence nd a. ha1oiud ika rAoa1ntS last year hundreds of thousands of dollars He said that it had been universal custom of past legislatures to abate taxes of poor roads, and named many that had in years past been exempted from their taxes on ac- count of poverty.
 Ex-Governor Hubbard followed MT. Bald win. He said the number of railroads In the State was thirty and ten of them were in de fault for taxes. the amount due the State being $14O,362 51. and of the amount the New York and New England road owes $117, ,694 7S. He said that this company came before the lel,islat ure and asked for remission of their sins, and 1t was not cus- tomary to grant remission of sins without confession. This company had made no confession that was worth anything. Nov what is to become of this road? Is 1t to be leased to the Erie road, or the Consolidated road, or any other road, and is this abate msnt to be for the benefit of the stockholders or some other corporation? It is in darkness and the only thing you know is that they want their taxes remitted. Is remission Of taxes expected by the road from New York? or Rhode Island, or from Massachusetts Not at all. But they come to Connecticut and ask her for an abatement while the demands of the other States are satisfied. The com pany has escaped taxation on it's convertible bonds from 1874 down to 1882 and these bonds were the same as stock. Governor Hubbard continued at considerable length and when he concluded MT. Baldwin made the closing argument for the road.
 s. E. Baldwin appeared also before the Committee on Roads and Bridges and Rdvo- cated special act that would give the Halt- ford and Harlem power to change their route in the town of Hamden as originally laid out and fixed by the railroad commissioners.
 Levi Warner, of Norwalk, who appeared in the interest of the ''Olmstsad Parallel" op- posed the passage of a special act on the ground that the falirO6Q c0mm1SSl0n0rS, un- der the present general railroad law, had am- pie power to locate or change the location of any projected railroad.
 The irrepressible Goodwin, of East Hart ford, was before the Railroad committee this afternoon advocating bill which he has caused to be presented, that will compel the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad to keep their accounts of expenditures &C., cording to special methods of bookkeeping. He did not appear to be making much head way.
 Following is a summary of the business transacted in the Senate and House to-day.
 THE SENATE.
 The Senate was called to order at Il o'clock by lieutenant Governor Sumner. Prayer by Chaplain Taylor.
 Senator Stanton introduced the following resolu- tion, which was ead by the clerk:
 Resolved, That the thanks of tbe State Of Con nectcut due and ace hereby rendered to Leuten- John U. Rhodes, of the United States Revenue Marine Service, native of this Stat for his heroic nduct at the wreck Cf the steamer City of Coium- bus Gay Head, and that the Assembly recognizes which in ast years inspired loI g Hne of dIs- tiuguished sesmen, and made Connecticut conspicu upon the both in peace snd war, still exists
 The Secretary of State directed to have the resolution suit y engrossed and transmitted to LeuteEHnt Rhodes.