San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1886-04-01
WASHINGTON LETTER.
From Our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON, Mar. 30, 1856.

Ed. FREE Press The senate com
mittee on finance, in executive session
yesterday, reported favorably eight
nominations for internal revenue col
lectors. This action was in pursu
ance of new line of policy of the
committee, which reverses its former
action. 1t had been determined To
hold up revenue collectors along with
other nominations, until the presi,
dent should submit papers respect
ing the various suspensions and ap-
pointments but as there was no sign
of his receding, and as the internal
revenue business of the country was
getting somewhat in confusion be-
cause of the uncertainty with regard
to collectors, the finance committee
concluded to make a move in the di-
rection of confirming the pending ap-
pointees.
So many bills have been offered for
the amendment of the civil service
laws, that the one which Mr.. Cox, Of
North Carolina, has just introduced
is in danger of not receiving all the
popular attention it deserves. 1t is
at once the most practical and the
most widely acceptable of the whole
list brought forward thus far in the
present session of congress. 1t tgoes
to the bottom of one of the worst of
the minor abuses in the civil service
as now constituted-the perversion
of Justice whereby one clerk receives
eighteen hundred dollars for doing
twelve -hundred-dollar work, while an
other receives only twelve hundred
dollars for doing the work which the
eighteen hundred-dollar clerk cannot
or will not do. The proposal, also,
to make the classification so uniform
in all the departments that substi-
tutes can be drawn from one to sup
ply temporary vacancies in another,
instead of bringing in help from out
side, or otherwise disturbing a whole
some routine, is good thing.
The bill introduced in the house
"to provide an inland waterway from
New York to Florida as means of
military defense and for commercial
purposes, free from the dangers of
the ocean, proposes the appropria-
tiou of 81, 100000 to carry into effect
provisions of the bill. The preamble
sets forth that "the inland waterway
from New York to Pimlico sound, N.
G., is completed" and sit would be
of great public beneftif extended to
Florida, thereby affording safe
channel of navigatian for torpedo
and gunboats, transportation of
troops and military stores in time of
war, and a safe and convenient chan
mel for our domestic commerce"
The house committee on invalid
pensions held long session Tuesday
night, at which the Ellsberry bill to
pension all honorably discharged sol
diers incapacitated from performing
manual labor, was amended so as to
provide that honorably discharged
soldiers who served ninety days dur
ing the war, and who are or may be-
come disabled from performing man
ual labor, unless such disability was
occasioned by their own gross care
essness or vicious habits, shall be en-
titled to pension and in that form
was ordered to be reported to the
house.
A very sensible proposition was
that introduced in the senate this
week by Mr.. Ingalls,, in the nature of
IN amendment to the constitution,
the date for inaugurating
The president from the 4th of March
% the 30th of April. There is every
hing to be said in favor of this mea-
sure, and there can be no serious OBJ
ection urged to it in any quarter.
There ought, therefore, to be no de-
ay in its adoption, either by congress
'r the legislatures of the several
states. l..