The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-02-16
CITY HALL AND STATE HOUSE.

This has been one OF the dullest weeks
on record at city hall There has been no
meeting of either Common Council orr
Board OF Aldermen. and the calendar In
the messengers Office records but two
committee meetings, one for the commit
tee on lamps and one for the special com.
mittee to investigate Tenth Ward election
frauds. The latter met only to organize.
In the coming week it will be different.
Both Council and Board will meet on
their respective days, and the calendar
calls for a good many meetings of the
various committees.
Sometime within the next IL days both
branches will be obliged to meet in con-
vention TO elect the three members of the
newly created board of fire commiD-
sioners. The ordinance calls for
that election some time in the month
of February. There are dozen
candidates for the three positions and TO
name oil OF the three successful ones in
advance Is something that no one in city
hall or out of it pretends to do. The four
more prominent names now are those of
Aldermen Winsor and Thurston, Council-
man Davis and Dexter K. Gorton.
General Assembly.
The two principal topics of State House
discussion Just now are the resolution to
pay bill that the Senate has indefinitely
postponed and the resolution to make .
certain appropriation that it is hoped thcy
will indefinitely postpone. The first Is
that much talked of bir presented by
Messrs. Gardiner G. Sims. J. Edward
Studley and Addison @. Fisher, for $500
in making awards for land condemned for
the new State House. The
resolution passed the House without
question, but in the absence of Mr..
Charles III. Smart of Providence, who has
since objected, on the score of economy.
The resolutions was hung up in the
Senate yesterday by on indefinite
postponement and bfr. Smart says that he
did it. The Senators, however, would not
be likely to admit that they had been die
tated to by one of the very brand new
members down stairs, and they explain
their action by saying that inasmuch as
the commissioners were appointed by the
Supreme Court that their bills should be
approved and ordered paid by the Su-
preme Court and not brought into
the General Assembly. At any rate,
until the bill Is passed the men
who have given up property TO the
State are the states creditors until that
property is paid for. The aggregate
amount claimed by the lanf owners is
s776,0OO. Assuming that the commissioners
have allowed half of that, or S3SS, 900. that
represents just the amount of the States
indebtedness for the land and it will con-
tinue until the whole thing is settled, and
in the meantime the State Is paying o per
cent. interest or Sz3, $50 per year,
and it ought not to take Mr.. Smart
long to see that 1t would be
much cheaper to pay what he calls the
exorbitant bills OF the commissioners,
than TO continue TO pay out nearly $1,000 q
month in interest for the sake of con-
forming 10 new idea OF economy or oven
as punis shment for pretending 20 do busi.
ness before Mr.. Smart could be present.
The other resolution that has yet to
come from the Senate committee on
finance is the one to waste s70,0 900 for .
building at Kingston, wherein 102 boys
and girls can eat and sleep, perform ex-
periments in agricultural chemistry and
iaaru fn an xgopd