The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-03-26


the leadership of one Parks, a former
Legislature passed a bill appropriating an
immense amount of money for construc-
ton of brush dams to restrain the debris
from hydraulic mines and thus make the
agricultural valleys partly habitable for
human beings. The money was to be
raised by special taxation levied on the
districts to be benefited. Under this act
contracts were let and few feeble dams
constructed in some of the principal riv-
ers. Barring three imperfections, they
were good dams. Their faults were, first,
they did not restrain the debris second,
they were mostly carried away by the win
ter foods third, the portions not carried
away in winter were always burned III
summer. Then came the Supreme Court
and declared the whole business uncon-
stitutional. But that did not quite end
the matter. In this recently deceased
Legislature the man Parks was Speaker of
the Assembly. He openly declared that
he had come to Sacramento to put through
a bill for the relief of the contractors who
built those dams, and he introduced, and
by every form of devilish ingenuity sue
ceeded in passing, a bill approprlating
| 1884 900 for the purpose. There was no
formal inquiry as to who held the claims,
what had been paid for them, nor whether
the work had been performed. Indeed, it
is well known that the claims were long
ago nearly all bought up for song by
syndicate of gambling spectators and
that Mr.. Parks was simply their agent.
Governor Stoneman signed the bill he
had to sign it the Legislature refused to
| adjourn until he did. Meantime it was
amusing itself and wiling away the tedi
Gus hours of delay by voting away thous-
ands of dollars of public money every
| day-not altogether to itself the objects
of its bounty sre supposed to have re-
ceiVed in many cases as much as ten per
| cent for the use of their names.
MISCELLANEOUS RAsCALITY.
The first bill passed by these honorable
gentlemen gave a man $500 for horse
| that fell through a wharf. They were
trying their pinions-they made holder
| flights later. Among the other down
right robberies successfully accomplished
was an appropriation of $40, 900 to build
hotel in Yosemite a bill taxing foreign
/ insurance companies one per cent on their
gross premiums for the benefit of fremen
who had outlasted their political useful
ness; an appropriation of $13, 800 to
| Ixyn of
| the States contractors who had no equita-
BILE claim-a building that he was erecting
was Frustrated by its own inherent feeble
ness an appropriation of $4,000 for a
salmon hatchery an appropriation of
| $25O,O for an utterly needless asylum
for thu insane, two being already in exist
ence and half our lunatics provided for in
public Offices ar act making the State
stand the loss of some 100000 stolen
from the County Treasurers by a deputy
of the State Treasurer, who found the
money where they had no right to deposit
it except at their own risk; an appropri-
alton of $25, ZOO for a national spree of a
private association known as the Grand
Army of the Republic, and an appropria-
ton of large sum (not now remembered
by the writer) for so ingeniously grotesque
and fantastic a purpose as home fol-
feeble-minded children" When they
could think of nothing else to do with the
peoples money, these generous men voted
it in sums of thousands of dollars to the
clerks and attaches of their honorable
body, although the Constitution fixes the
salaries of these persons and provides that
they shall have no other compensation.
With single exec ption, all the iniquities
in the foregoing list have received the
Governors approval, and at the date OF
this letter he is engaged in signing bills
at the rate of about twenty day. But il
most of the bills passed by this model
Legislature were bad ones, it must be adj
mitted, in justice, that most of those which
it rejected We're very good indeed no
| Legislature is altogether depraved. The
outcome is fine commentary OF the Wis
dom of those g far-seeing statesmen" who
fancied that legislative body's power of
mischief could be reduced by limiting its
ACTIVITY 10 TWO months In the LWenty-IOuf.
MIGRATION OF oFFICE-sEEKERs.
The ST. looms i'll San Francisco are COM
parativeIy deserted now, though an I'M
usually large proportion of their business
is for cash, and the free lunches look actu-
ally lonely. This unhappy condition of
things is attributed to the absence of so
many patriots in Washington, whittier
they have gone, seeking Office under the
new Administration. The saddest ac-
counts of their restitution at the national
capital come over the wires, but as yet no
cases of actual starvation have been re-
ported. There are, of course, two factions
| contending for the best place at President
| Cleveland's ear a mob of men in which
| there were not at least two factions would
have to attest its Democracy in most I'M
mistakable way to make any one believe in
it. Representative Henley, the sole sur
vivor of the Democratic Congressional
| candidates at the last election, naturally
wishes to guide the Presidential mind in
| 2Lo IacEOvo1 of no Eadara1 OfioaC oy, fbiS