The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-12-20

A usual before the holidays very iittle
I Is going on under the big dome Of tie
! capitol. Congress viii take a long recess
this year, the Senate having adopted the
| House resolution to adjourn from Dec p
10 Jan. 5. Ply common consent, all mat
ters of Importance are being postponed
4 until after the play spell; ana the chances
are that then most of them VIII be side
tracked 10 make way for tile appropria-
ton bills. Whatever else goes by the
board, ii is pretty certain that the bill
introduced this week by Hon. Charles j.
Boatner of Louisiana--to increase the pay
of congressman TO 81, 600 a yeaF--is pretty
likely 10 be considered. Ii should be un-
derstood that the father Of this "litlle
William" VIII not himself profit by IL, for
if tile bin is passed Il cannot 20 into
effect until next congress. 1t fixes the
salaries as follows: Speaker. $1,000 a
year: senator's. representatives and dele
gates, each. $1,000 a year. Mr. ROatner 3
stock is just now nigh among his col
leagues, who insist THAI lie has more good
sense aud Independence Of character than
vox populi has hitherto credited him vim.
by the way, it was he who encountered
Secretary Morton a few days after the
present administration came in, and gave
that most dignihed ana pHnctilious man
in Washington regular old-fashloned
southern ''cussin" for alleged unkindness
in Diminishing an emplOye.
Representative Barrett Of Massachusetts
has succeeded already IN getting himself
enrolled high among the freak legisla-
tors" by his recent bin providing that
members of the cabinet DE taken from he
Senate and House Of Representatives, and
that While serving in the cabinet they
shall still hold their seats in congress,
and in order that those doubie-barreled
guns so to say. do not get rich too fast,
the bill also provides that they shall re-
ceive only the salaries of cabinet officials
and render congressional service gratis.
Nobody probably not even MIR. Barrett
himself, imag.n mes for a moment that IL
will become a law. Mr. George w. Ray
of New York. is proprietor of the latest
idea TO prevent suicides. His bill, which
has been introduced in the House and re-
ferred to the committee on judiciary, for
bids the circulation through the mails of
any newspaper which contains any pic
ture of q suicide, or any details relating
thereto, beyond the simple statement Of
death by suicide, giving name, date and
place. The bill allows medical journals
TO publish further particulars in the in
terest of science" but everybody else
must keep mum, SO far as print is con-
cerned, under penalty of fine NOT less
than SIS, or imprisonment for not more
than ninety days.
SO far, the most exciting bit of legisla-
ton has been the passage Of the Morse
bill to Danish intoxicants from the cap.-
toll The same or something akin has
popped up many times before, and, like
Banquos ghost, refused to be permanent
ly 'laid." OF course the bill was passed.
No member dared oppose 1t, with the eagle
eyes and ready pens of the w. G. T. u.
fraternity upon them It was looked upon
as something of joke when the solid
south stood up as one man to be counted
on the side of prohibition, and the only
objections came from men who are known
to be total abstainers. Mr.. Rowland
Bleunefhasset Mahany of Buffalo, VINO
never INDUCES in so much as a Christmas
''nogg," was one Of the solitary seven
who urged objections to the bill on the
ground Of personal liberty in the great and
glorious republic and every mans inalen-
able right to the pursuit of happiness
as guaranteed by the constitution. Rep
resentatiye Foote, whose strongest tipple
is a glass of beer on a hot summers day
explained that he was opposed to the bin,
not for his own conveniences, but because
he knew there were many men in congress
who were customed to taking something
with their meals, who took at least one
meal a day in the capitol restaurant, and
who ought not TO be restricted to tea or
ice water If wine agreed with them better.