Nevada County picayune., 1891-09-10
WASHINGTON LETTER.
1 From our special correspondent.l

have outstanding paper, payable on demand, amounting to S21 ,OOO,O ,OOO and only SIS, ,579, ,565 of available cash on hand to meet that paper, would the commercial world consider him solvent? Not much. Well that | is precisely the present condition of the United States Treasury. There | are more than S21 ,000, ,000 of the | four -and-a-half per cent bonds which . were not presented for extension, i and which now simply stand for i notes payable on demand, and there | is leaving out the fractional silver | coin and other funds that cannot be legally paid out, only SIS, ,219, ,565 on hand to pay them with. Secretary l Foster is said to have scheme by | which he expects to bulldoze certain of the larger national banks into | buying these bonds and presenting them for extension, and it is for that | purpose that he has announced an in- l definite extension of the time within | which they may be extended at per cent. But it is by no means certain | i that he can succeed, and already | since Wednesday on which day the interest ceased, nearly SS, 1000, ,OO0 | worth of these bonds have been pre- sented for redemption, and the most of them came from national banks. That made a big hole in the avail able funds, and besides these bonds there are big pension payments to be made this month. On paper Sec retary Foster figures out cash bal ance of more than S60, 100000 but he knows, as well as every other bus
 mess man familiar with the affairs of the Treasury, that the amount mentioned above represents every dollar which he can legally pay out.
 Candidates for the vacancy on the board of Interstate Commerce Com missioners, made by the death of Hon. W. l.. Bragg of Alabama, are becoming extremely plentiful around town, and Secretary Noble, under whose province it is, is much sought after man.
 It is considered certain that Con- gress will order all investigation of the last census, and it is equally cer- tain that some very queer things will be brought out by those who have familiarized themselves with the sub
 feet that all the recent census bulle- tins, purporting to give the assessed valuation of property by States are , wrong, and that most of them can , readily be shown to be erroneous, whether intentional or through in-
 competence or carelessncss doe. not matter, they are wrong. For instance, the assessed valuation of all proper
 ty in South Carolina is given as near ly q million and half less than in
 1880, while the report of the Comp troller General of that State shows f an increase of seventeen millions, and conservative estimates are that the new State assessment to be made this year will add at least thirty mil lions to the total assessed value of property in the State, That is q specimen of Porter's work; there
 are other States almost as bad.
 A gentleman from Cape May Point is authority for the statement that , Civil Service Commissioner Roosevelt
 has not yet resigned, although he thinks it extremely probable that Mir, Harrison may ask him to do so very shortly. He says that Roosevelt went to Mir. Harrison and demanded in dictatorial manner to know what action had been taken on the report he made recently recommending the dismissal of some twenty-five Feder al officials in Baltimore, and upon be-
 ing informed that the report had not
 been examined he flew into a rage and told Mir. Harrison that he wanted him to understand that if these men were not dismissed he (RoosevelO would resign. That ended the inter view and Roosevelt has gone out to his western ranch. This may or may not be true, but certain it is that Roosevelt has browbeat MT. llarri
 son more than once, and his calling Mir. Wanama<er a liar is a matter of public record, but for some reason Mir. Harrison has lacked the nerve to demand his resignation.