Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1885-10-14
From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON LETTER.
Washington, D. c., Oct. 10, I

Washington, d. c., Oct. 10, 80
Gregory who has been cxalting his
horn as the high muck a-muck of the
civil service commission for the last
three years has at last yielded to the
pressure and has handed in his resigna-
ton. This is well. If there was ever
an instance where the wrong man had
gotten into the wrong place, this was
one. Gregory's antecedents were all
against him, and Arthur stuck him in
to the civil service board because he
had.s his dexterity as Lobbyist for
Zig appropriations in the Illinois leg
islature. Like Eaton, he had no more
backbone than a jelly-fish, and was as
clay in the hands of the potter when
Cullom, Logan Or any of the Republi-
can moguls wanted to use him officially.
With Eaton and Gregory out of the
commission, its thorough renovation
will not be an accomplished fact until
Thomas follows suit. His was an APP
pointment eminently not fit to be made,
and it has worked much more mischief
to the Democratic party than any one
thing that has recently happened to it,
because he has looked on and permit
ted the whole machinery of the civil
service law to be worked in the interest
Of the Republican barnacles, who have
thus far been able to keep deserving
Democrats out of the public positions
they had earned, through the manipu-
lations of this board. The country
will lose nothing if these places made
vacant by these commissioners, would
remain so indefinitely.
A member of the Forestry Division
OF the Agricultural Department has
calculated to something like exactness
the extent of our public domain. From
his data we learn that of the eighteen
hundred and forty-six millions of acres
that comprise our superficial area, out
side of the District of Columbia and
Indian Territory, there are eleven
hundred and twenty-six millions oil
acres yet unimproved or waste land
This is nearly two-thirds OF our entire
domain, and of course little or none Of
it is comprised in the four hundred and
torty-iive millions of acres of timber
land, which is being exhausted at the
rate of about twenty-five million acres
per year. What is little strange
about these figures, is the showing that
only two hundred and eighty-fvc mil.
hons OF acres of land have been taker
up and improved since the foundation
OF the Government, Notwithstanding
the vast tracts that have been stoler
and otherwise appropriated by foreign
and domestic land syndicates. 1t will
be seen, too, that in the course of Is
years from this time there will be nc
resource for our lumber producing in.
'ercst except through a foreign market
where more care is exercised in SAVING
the forests from the devastating hand
ofthe Spectator. With these porten.
hous facts before it, how cau Congress
hesitate about applying remedy, if tits
not bandying with those whose interests
lie in the destruction of our forestry?
1t was declared that the forty days
given by the President to the cattle
men, IN which to get their cattle off the
Government lands, was too short 6
time to accomplish so great an under.
taking, but 1t appears that they have
under the pressure of a determination
on the part of the authorities to enforce
the law, made themselves so scarce
that the services of the law officer,
have not been invoked in single in.
stance. A proclamation of so much
potency shonld now be supplemented by
another against the vandals who are
despoiling the public lands of its timber
all over the country. PHoNo.
Mrs. Elizabeth Thom.s of Lorberry