Omaha daily bee., 1905-08-02

I over bldludTN nan ana tne supreme court
will be painted and otherwise placed in or
der. Many of the rooms occupied by the
house committees will come in for re-
painting and general renovation.
Bright new carpets will be laid in the
chambers Of the senate and house, and
the 400 desks in the house will probably be
refinished and the chamber made spick and
span for the new congress.
The new bronze doors for the main en-
trance OF the house Of representatives are
being placed These doors, for which con-
gress appropriated $4,000, correspond with
those at the entrance to the senate wing.
The designs for them were made in 1858,
at the same time that the designs were
made for the senate doors. The designer
was William Crawford, who was the sculp-
tor of the statute of Freedom, which sur
mounts the capitol dome. On account of
the untimely death of Mr.. Crawford, the
modelling Of the new doors was done by
William II. Rinehart. The casts had been
lying stored away and long forgotten in the
crypt of the capitol since 1858. Several
years ago Superintendent Woods came
across them and they were then in the
original boxes. They were resurrected and
congress was prevailed upon to appropriate
an amount sufficient for their completion
The work of casting the new doors was
done in Chicopee, Mass, under the direc-
ton of Melzar II. Mossman. who as boy
assisted his father in making the senate
doors. Two years were required to finish
the work
The doors are Of solid bronze and are
IA feet high and 61k feet wide.
Each one weighs two tons, and the whole
yy}th ba frap
The front side of the doors is divided
into five panels. and each panel, represent
ing scenes Of the time of the revolutionary
war. The top panel of each door consists
of oak wreath, with oak leaves and
acorns filling the space on either side of the
wreath.
The upper historical panel in the left hand
door represents the massacre of wyoming
The next shows the battle of Lexington.
The third represents the presentation of a
flag to Colonel William Moultrie. The low
est depicts the death of General Richard
Montgomery and the New Years eve at
tack on Quebec in 1775
The topmost historical panel on the right
hand door is the Crawford Rinehart con-
ception of the treaty of Paris, with Benja-
min Franklin in the foreground seated at a
table, and in the background John Jay and
English representatives. The next repre-
sents Washington's farewell to his generals
ana the lowest is a representation Of Ben
jamin Franklin with a manuscript, a book
and miniature printing press
In the enforcement of the new food law
the Department of Agriculture is constantly
running into funny controversies. Not Iong
since the inspectors of the department held
up shipment of imported mushrooms on
the ground that they were misbranded. for
the reason that the tins contained nothing
but stems and scraps from the cannerv
This brought out the ingenious state
ment from the shipper that the goods in
question are not sold as regular mushrooms
to the trade. The so-called scraps and
stems were intended to be used only bv
the hotel and restaurant trade for the pur
pose of making a sauce. On this account
the cans were branded "hotels" and tba
claim was put up that that constituted
compliance with the law, which REQUIRES
the character of goods to be branded on
the outside labels.
Secretary Wilson was not fooled by this
explanation. He replied to the importer
that the law was passed for the protection
of the consumer and not OF the trade. ''The
addition of the word hotel to the word
'champignons' in no way describes the
character of the product except to those
who are initiated in the secrets of the
trade" wrote Secretary Wilson After all
the consumer is the one who suffers as he
eats the mushroom sauce, which is not
made of mushrooms at all, and thus the
deception is complete. although the pur-
chaser may understand the character OF
the goods. II is extremely doubtful whether
under the terms of the law such goods
would be entitled to importation under any
name, as they certainly are not to be con-
sldered as edible. They should bear the
label, fragments and Scraps from Mush-
room Cannery or 'Champignons. Pieces
and Stems in order to be properly de-
scribed. l am not able to see why the
patrons Of hotels and restaurants should be
subjected to a deception Of this character"
For eighteen months there has been oper-
ating, mainly in the eastern and south At
lantic states a gang OF money-order raisers
who have an adroit system of changing the
value OF a money order between the Office
OF issue and that Of payment.
The gang seems to be operating from
Georgia to Maine. Most OF their work Is
done by the use Of acids and at times re-
quires microscopic inspection to detect.
The passing Of raised money orders is
almost invariably done by endorsing them
in partial payment OF store and hotel bills.
Then they go through banks that send in
to the paying ONCE batch Of orders.
The life OF a money order being twelve
months, some time elapses before the raised
order is detected. That comes when the
account Of the paying ONCE is balanced in
the audit for the Postoffice department in
Washington.
For the last ive years the auditors for
the Postofice department have recon-
mended that the life Of a money order be
CHANGED from twelve months TO sixty or
ninety days. This change, It is contended,
would limit the chances Of the counter
feiters
There are 200 clerks in the pension once.
OF these nearly 400 are men who had pre-
pared themselves for the profession OF law,
medicine and theology. The graduates in
law numbered 267, in medicine 100 and in
theology twenty. Forty CLERKS had been
authors, forty-three were editors, eighteen
were editors and publishers. twenty seven
were printers, 151 were newspaper corre-
spondents four were reporters three were
proofreaders, thirty-three were magazine
writers and one confessed 10 having been
a poet total Of fourteen clerks held dip
Tomas from colleges and universities