Year: 1875

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NASHVILLE, TENN, Feb. 20, 1875.
From our Special Correspondent.


Our Granger friends are moving
things. Through their efforts no
doubt law will be enacted by the
present Legislature providing for a tax
on dogs, thereby giving protection to
wool-growing, and also relieving the
country of the support of an army of
100000 dogs s-according Killebrew-
who add nothing whatever to the
wealth of the State, but detract theI e
from at rate absolutely startly. SO
far, so good, but when our Granger
friends get to tampering with the
money question, they are tampering
with something which they know
very little about, and something which
intimately and vitality concerns every
other business interest of the State.
And that's just what they are doing
now having secured the introduction
of bill providing for a repeal of the
conventional interest law, which bill
has passed two readings in both
Houses and has been made the special
order for next Thursday in the lower
and for Saturday in the upper House.
The vote by which it passed the for
mer stood, AZ In the affirmative,
against 10 in the negative, and no
| ia f.t 80 4,
status of the measure in that body, so
that its passage on final reading in
the House may be confidently relied
upon. The bill is not viewed so favor
able in the Senate, and there is not
much probability of its becoming
a law. A measure more suicidal
and disastrous in its effects it
certainly never entered into the heart
of a Granger, or any other man, to
conceive, for it is money this State
needs at present, and it is money she
will not get if bills of the character of
the one in question are to go upon our
statute books. The law with regard to
the hire of money Is good enough as it
is, and it is very evident that its repeal
Will not accomplish the purpose the
friends of the measure have in view
the securing of investments in farms
and farming operations. The mere
TACT that man having a surplus of
cash can make better profit by lend
ing it, under the present law, than by
the purchase of real estate, has had
but little to do with making farming
in this State an undesirable and un
profitable business-if it is unprofita-
BILE, when properly and intelligently
engaged in, which | very much doubt.


WIND! WIND!


1t would be refreshing and novel
experience for a State to convene
legislature composed entirely of able
experienced and conscientious men
men who would be promptly in their
seats at every roll call, hold two ses-
sions day keep their seats when they
had nothing to say, and who when
| they rose to their feet would talk di-
rectly to the point aud then resign the
| floor. But such a legislature never
was convened and probably never will
be. Usually Senate is composed of
men who have a proper appreciation
of their position and the duties they
are called upon to perform, but
this is the case, ordinarily
with not more than one



House. OF the seventy-five members
of Tennessee's present House of Rep
resentatives, half a dozen are wind
bags; about twenty are workers, aud
the rest are mere figure-heads, who do
nothing beyond voting, seconds, calls
for the ayes and noes, which the six
wind-bags make in order to put the
score of workers on I" the record - and
draw their pay with promptness and
dispatch. But twas ever thus, and,
As l said before, it probably ever will
be. OF the working members, East,
Gibson, Lea, Gardenhire, LedgerwOod
and Noblitt, are, perhaps the most
prominent East is one of the best
lawyers and shrewdest men in the
State, and would be the acknowledged
leader OF the House, but for Gibson's
superior ability as parliamentarlan
Or course Gibson would not be TecOg-
nized AS leader by the siXty-nine
Democrats, as he is one of the six Re
publlcans OF the body, and is conse-
quently one OF helpless minority
not helpless either, as an examination
of the laws perfected by this Legisla-
ture will doubtless show. He is al
ways in his place during the sessi ions,
Is always on the alert, and few of his
fellow members care to tackle him in
debate Gardenhire is an old man,
but his delivery is not good, and he
talks too much. For instance,
when the local option bill was
before the House on second read
ing yesterday, he made two
hours speech in its favor, when he
ought to have boiled his points down
to talk of not more than twenty min