The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-05-18
From the Baltimore Sun.

Expensive Corpse He Makes - a
Nice, Soft Snap.
From the Baltimore Sun.
Washington, May u.-While the story
of the extravagant expenditures of the
two branches of congress has been told
more than once, it is recital which will
well warrant repetition. The House of
Representative in this republican cOun-
try costs very much more than any SINH
lar legislative body under any other gov
eminent in the world. Enormous, how
ever, as its outlay, it is moderate, indeed,
when compared with the lavish waste of
public funds by the Senate. The House,
with 1856 memb ers, costs the people of the
United States considerably more than
s.. 500, 900 per annum. Most of the lower
houses of the legislative bodies of Europe
have two and three times as many mem
bers as belong to the lower branch of our
national legislature, yet they cost the
people for whom they legislate scarcely a
raction of what we pay for the honor Of
being governed.
But it is the Senate, the American
House of Lords which bears the palm for
expenditures in its own behalf; expendi-
lures, the amount of which is enough to
take the breath away; expenditures
so outrageous and indefensible that it
seems almost incredible for the men who
are plunging their hands so deep in the
public pocket to show themselves with
uncovered faces. The British House of
Lords, composed of nearly 700 men, about
eight times as many as are in the Senate
of the United States, draw from the Brit
ish treasury for its entire expenses not so
much money as our Senate throws away
in the unconsidered trif1es which may be
denominated as extras. But no British
nobleman who has a seat in the House of
Lords would dare for one moment to
saddle his private expenses upon the
public. The English public would not sub
init to such an imposition for day.
The House of Representatives of the
United States, with its 356 members
takes SAP 900 per annum to pay its en-
.ployes. The Senate, with lightweight
members, has taken S4lS, 900 for this
year for the same purpose, and, as it con-
stantly increases its tilching, next year
it will no doubt take more. 1t requires
$4,000 to pay the mileage of members of
the House, but the Senate cannot get
along with less than S45, 900 annually for
the same purpose. In all probability there
are not more than dozen of its mem
bers Of so many who do not travel on
TdllEOdu passes duu Gully uFOp buetmOQ6Y
which belongs to the people into their
wallets. The House contents itself with
ifty-seven committees, one-third at least
of which are of no use. But the Senate
cannot get along with less than sixty.
The innocent reader will ask, why.
then, do they want to bother withtso
many committeesl Simply because the
chairman has then private room for his
use and that of his friends and a clerk to
at n his 1riXyafp ht1cipocc
any cost to himself. The titles of some
of these committees are highly amusing
When ingenuity was finally exhausted in
devising names for committees and its
listihad grown to sixty for a body'of
lightweight men, it might have been sup
posed there would come a halt. But oh no.
The bull was taken by the horns, and the
senators for whom no committee names
could be found were voted clerks any
way. And so it is that every
member of the Senate has a clerk
of his own, at his individual beck and
call, with no drain upon his private purse
therefor. The clerks, messengers and
employees of one kind and another around
the Senate wing of the capitol are as
thick as flies around sugar barrel Each
senator does not cost the country less
than $4,000 per annum. In other words.
each one gets S., 900 for wages, and it is
much higher wages than the majority of
them are worth, and in addition some
81 900 more to provide him with clerks
and walters to minister to his comfort
generally while he lives and pay his
funeral expenses when he dies
You must know it takes P great deal of
public money to bury a senator. Fancy
what howl would come up from all Eng
land if the government was called upon
TO foot the bills for the burial of a de-
ceased member of the House of Lords
A senator who dies must, like an Egyp-,
tian king, be embalmed at an expense
ranging from $50 to 800. He must have
a casket to cost $3.50; kid gloves in GUAM
titles must be provided; attendants and
hangers-on of various kinds are paid a
per diem from the time the
breath leaves his body until he is
put in the ground. Carriages must be pro-
vided for all who may wish to ride. If
he is to be taken home, Pullman cars
must be had for the funeral party at an
expense of one or two thousand or more.
II matters not, as the cost is TO be
loaded upon the broad back of Uncle Sam.
Meals and lunches for the trip, with the
liquor TO wash them down, run up to
hundreds more. The government is even
called upon TO pay the ministers who saw
prayers. Well. prayers for some of them
ought to come high.
1t would be superfluous to 90 through
the long list of drugs, cosmetics, toilet
articles, perfumery, books, and all sorts
of knick-knacks purchased with public
funds for senators. Has not all this been
told before9 Many thousands of dollars
are sent every year in the summer junkets
OF senators, gotten up under the guise of
special committees to make bogus in
quiries and investigations Pullman
palace cars and tirst-class watering place
hotel bills figure largely in this species of
legislative pastime. A very few years
since it was found there was not space in
the capitol for senator's who insisted upon
having rooms for their own private &C
commodation. The House was deluded
into giving its consent TO the purchase
of the Maltby building, large apartment
house under the shadow of the capitol.
The promise was held out to the House
that IL should share in the additional &C
commodation. But the House never got
foothold in the building BY an act of
grand larceny unparalleled the Senate
took absolute possession, and when the
House growled and grumbled, simply
said: What are you going to do about
itl' II has been fitted up in the most
luxurious style. Magnificent clocks of
onyx have been put into the rooms a staff
OF some twenty employees, more or less,
have been put in charge at most remuner-
alive wages, and senators can step across
the way from their ODerOuS legislative