River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1886-11-18
WASHINGTON LETTER.
from our regular correspondent

FROM our regular correspondent
Nov. I3, 1885.
Some members of the Forty Ninth
Congress are already in Washington,
others are on the way. in few days
all will have arrived and the legislative
department of the government will
resume work for a session that will
last just three months. There are in
dications that the session will open
industriously. The Chairman of the
House Committee on appropriations,
Mr.. Randall, proposes to come soon
and get things in readiness for the
meeting of his committee. which is to
take place, if quorum can be brought
together, on the 22nd. This is in ord
er to have bill ready to be reported
at the opening of the session.
Hon. Mr.. Hewitt says he is anxious
to remain in Congress as long as pos
sible. lie would have preferred to
carry out his work here, but the May
orally was forced upon him. He wants
to push the Administrative Tariff bill
to passage before he resigns. and had
hoped to remain in his seat after he
had taken the oath of office as Mayor,
but by the Legislature of New York,
a man can not hold Federal and mu-
nicipial Office at the same time.
The so called police scandal of
Washington has attracted considerable
attention, and the President has taken
hold of the matter. 1t is all about an
alleged scheme of the city police to
collect damaging facts about the pri-
yate lives of Congressman, with a
view to forcing them to vote for appro-
priations for the District of Columbia.
If the story is not exaggerated, it
affords insight into the decentralization
of public affairs which has long existed
in Washington.
The Presidents Boston trip seems
to have done him good. He has been
smiling and jovial ever since, and
unusually gracious to his East Room
callers. His country home has new
name - coax View" 1t has been
variously named by other people, but
this time it is said to have been
christened by the owner himself. Oak
trees surround the house, and it
commands a picturesque view in all
directions.
The valuable relics formerly belong
ing to General Grant and bequeathed
by the Vanderbilt estate to the Gov
eminent, are now being classified at
the National Museum, where they
will soon be exhibited to the public.
The collection was packed in fifteen
large boxes, and will take good deal
of space when packed in glass cases.
And space is the desideratum now
at the museum. The director of the
Institution is loudly bewailing its
wealth of resource and poverty of
space, and says new structure is an
immediate and pressing necessity. In
his annual estimates for the Museum,
he asks Congress to appropriate $780,
600 for this purpose, proposing to flank
the Smithsonian building on the west
as the present Museum TANKS it on the
east. The 100000 feet of exhibition
space in this building is found totally
inadequate, and how to find room for
| the Government mementoes and for
the articles contributed by the Japan
ese government, now on their way
here, illustrating all the useful and
ornamental arts of that curious people,
are among the problems which the
Museum authorities say they are I'M
able to solve.
Thousands upon thousands of inter-
esting objects, which are as truly a
means of popular education as any of
those already exhibited, are prepared
for display now, but they have to re-
main stored away in cellars, crypts,
and garrets. A number of wooden
structures near by the museum are
also packed from floor to ceiling with
rich materials which have not been
touched by the scientists. A hundred
tons also of exhibits shipped from the
Centennial Exposition ten years ago.
have never been opened.
The officers say it is not intended or
possible to put on exhibition more
than a fraction of the mass of mater
ials which will be in their possession.
Many of the exhibits will be but the
indices of those held in reserve, which
will remain packed with view to
economy of space and accessibility for
study. The Museum has three princi-
pal sources of supply. LIST. by law all
the collections made by the scientific
bureaus of the Government, the geo.
illogical, chronological, coast survey,
and fish commission become the pro-
perty of the Museum after they have