and chances of this mortal life. I do not mean to say that that is not a reason why our gratitude should be applied to them, but I say it marks a clear distinction that we ought to observe-unless we mean to destroy this bill for the benefit of those whose legs and arms are gone, which I can not impute to the Senator from Mississippi, a distinction that we ought to observe, and not embarrass one thing that we all agree about, I hope, by another that is not so clear.

"Now, when you come to the question of pensioning people who have served their country in war because they are now in need, what difference do years make? Why should not the soldier of the Union of 1861 to 1865 who is now indigent, and in trouble and distress, be just as much entitled to the gratitude of his country as the soldier of the Mexican War who is now indigent and in trouble and distress, I should like to know? I am unable to see that time has any thing to do with that question. I should be glad to have somebody explain how it can have.

"We did pension all the survivors of the Revolutionary War fifty or sixty years afterward, because they, like a great many other things that happened at that time, as long periods of years went on, became mere monuments of national glory, a few people scattered here and there that the country was able and glad to decorate them with this honor, as well as to provide for them in their old age. I repeat that in my opinion there is no distinction in principle between providing for the indigent soldiers of the war for the Union, if I may call it so-others call it the war between the States, the civil war, and so on-there is no distinction in principle that can be made between the Mexican soldiers and the soldiers of 1861-'65

manual labor, but not so much as to require regular personal aid and attendance, shall receive a pension in this act shall be construed to repeal section 4699 of of $30 per month: Provided, That nothing contained the Revised Statutes of the United States, or to change the rate of $18 per month therein mentioned to be proportionately divided for any degree of disability established for which section 4695 makes no provision. The bill was then passed by the following vote:

YEAS-Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Cockrell, Conger, Davis of Illinois, Dawes, Hale, Harrison, Hill, Hoar, Ingalls, Lapham, Logan, McDill, McMillan, Miller of New York, Mitchell, Morrill, Platt, Plumb, Rollins, Sawyer, Sewell, Sherman, Vest, Voorhees-27. NAYS-Barrow, Bayard, Beck, Call, Coke, Garland, George, Harris, Jonas, Maxey, Morgan, Pugh, Walker,

Williams-14.

ABSENT-Anthony, Brown, Butler, Camden, Cameron of Pennsylvania, Cameron of Wisconsin, Davis Frye, Gorman, Groome, Grover, Hampton, Hawley, of West Virginia, Edmunds, Fair, Farley, Ferry, Jackson, Johnston, Jones of Florida, Jones of Nevada, Kellogg, Lamar, McPherson, Mahone, Miller of California, Pendleton, Ransom, Saulsbury, Saunders, Slater, Tabor, Vance, Van Wyck, Windom—35.

March 2d, the House concurred in the Senate amendment, and March 3d the President approved the bill, and it became a law.

Bills Passed. Apart from the measures already considered, the regular appropriation bills, and bills of a private character, the following measures were passed at the second session of the Forty-seventh Congress and received the approval of the President:

To provide for the erection of a monument to the memory of Maj.-Gen. the Baron de Kalb.

To permit grain brought by Canadian farmers to be ground at mills in the United States adjacent to Canabe prescribed by the Treasury Department. dian territory under such rules and regulations as may

To extend the time for filing claims for horses and equipments lost by officers and enlisted men in the service of the United States and for other purposes.

fore the Senate on this House bill as amended is an entirely different one from the one proposed by the Senator from Mississippi, and if I did not know his patriotic impulses I should suspect that the effect might be (as I am afraid it may be, though the purpose may be a legitimate and parliamentary purpose) to destroy this measure for the people who stand before our eyes, maimed for all their lives in the service of their country, to have this little addition to their support, by getting up a question of this kind."

Finally, Feb. 28th, an amendment was adopted to strike out all after "duty," and insert the following:

Shall have lost one hand or one foot, or been totally or permanently disabled in the same, or otherwise so disabled as to render their incapacity to perform manual labor equivalent to the loss of a hand or a foot, shall receive a pension of $24 per month; that all persons now on the pension-roll, and all persons hereaf ter granted a pension, who in like manner shall have lost either an arm at or above the elbow, or a leg at or above the knee, or shall have been otherwise so disabled as to be incapacitated for performing any

In relation to certain fecs allowed registers and receivers.

To amend section 3362 of Revised Statutes. cated at Washington, in the District of Columbia, and Prescribing regulations for the Soldiers' Home, lofor other purposes.

To amend an act donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts. To authorize the construction of certain bridges and to establish them as post-roads.

To increase the fees of witnesses in United States courts in certain cases.

Authorizing the Commissionor of the Freedman's

Savings and Trust Company to examine and audit certain claims against said company, and to pay certain dividends barred by the act of Feb. 21, 1881, and for other purposes.

To amend section 3780 of the Revised Statutes.

To encourage the holding of a World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in the year 1884.

To amend sections 6 and 7 of the act providing for the publication of the Revised Statutes and the laws of the United States, approved June 20, 1876.

Providing for the termination of articles numbered 18 to 25, inclusive, and of article numbered 30 of the treaty between the United States of America and her Britannic Majesty concluded at Washington, May 8, 1871.

To refund to the State of Georgia certain moneys expended by said State for the common defense in

1777.

To afford assistance and relief to Congress and the Executive Departments in the investigation of claims and demands against the Government.

Making Saint Vincent, in the State of Minnesota, a port of entry in lieu of Pembina, in the Territory of Dakota.

To amend section 4214 of the Revised Statutes, relating to yachts.

To amend section 1860 of the Revised Statutes so as

to exclude retired army officers from holding civil of

fice in the Territories.

Amending sections 1926 and 1927 of the Revised Statutes so as to extend the limits of the jurisdiction of justices of the peace in the Territories of Washington, Idaho, and Montana.

Relating to exportation of tobacco, snuff, and cigars in bond free of tax to adjacent foreign territory. To exclude the public lands in Alabama from the operation of the laws relating to mineral lands.

Authorizing and directing the Postmaster-General to readjust the salaries of certain postmasters in accordance with the provisions of section 8 of the act of June 12, 1866.

Supplementary to an act approved Dec. 17, 1872, entitled "An act to authorize the construction of bridges across the Ohio river, and to prescribe the dimensions of the same."

To amend the act entitled "An act to repeal the discriminating duty on goods produced east of the Cape of Good Hope," approved May 4, 1882.

To authorize the construction of bridges over the Ogeechee, Oconee, Ocmulgee, Flint, and Chattahoochee rivers in the State of Georgia.

To authorize the construction of a bridge across the Thames river near New London, in the State of Connecticut.

To establish a railroad-bridge across the Illinois river, extending from a point within five miles of Columbiana, in Greene county, to a point within five miles of Farrowtown, in Calhoun county, in the State of Illinois.

For the allowance of certain claims reported by the accounting officers of the United States Treasury Department.

To establish certain post-routes.

To amend an act entitled "An act to authorize the construction of a bridge across the Missouri river at the most accessible point within five miles above the city of Saint Charles, Missouri," approved April 14,

1882.

To create three additional land districts in the Territory of Dakota.

To prevent the importation of adulterated and spu

rious teas.

To adjust the salaries of postmasters. Relative to the Southern Exposition to be held in the city of Louisville, State of Kentucky, in the year

1833.

To authorize the construction of a bridge across the Missouri river at some accessible point within ten miles below and five miles above the city of Kansas City, Missouri.

Providing for a new mixed commission in accordance with the treaty of April 26, 1866, with the United States of Venezuela.

Validating certain contracts executed by the Postmaster-General.

To provide for the admission, free of duty, of articles for a special exhibition of machinery, tools, implements, apparatus, etc., for the generation and application of electricity, to be held at Philadelphia by the Franklin Institute.

To admit free of duty a monument to Gen. Washington.

Granting right of way to the Fremont, Elk Horn Valley, and Missouri River Railroad Company across the Niobrara military reservation, in the State of Ne

braska, and authorizing the sale of a portion of said reservation.

To ratify the issuance of duplicate checks in certain cases by the Superintendent of the Mint of the United States at San Francisco.

To authorize the Seneca nation of Indians, of the State of New York, to grant title to lands for cemetery purposes.

Authorizing the Committee on Printing to instruct the Public Printer relative to the maps, etc., for the census reports.

Granting right of way for railroad purposes and telegraph line through the lands of the United States included in the Fort Smith Military Reservation at Fort Smith, in the State of Arkansas.

To authorize the Public Printer to make certain purchases without previous advertisement. To provide for extra work in the Government Printing-Office in cases of emergency.

To rectify and establish the title of the United States to the site of the military post at El Paso, Texas. To attach the county of Hardeman, in the State of Tennessee, to the Eastern Division of the Western District of Tennessee.

To cede to the first taxing district of the State of Tennessee a certain lot of land situated in said district. To provide for the binding of the Compendium of the Tenth Census.

To confer upon the senior associate justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, in the absence or inability of the chief-justice of said court, the power and duties now conferred upon said chiefJustice relative to the extradition of fugitives from justice.

More effectually to suppress gaming in the District of Columbia.

To punish larceny from the person in the District of Columbia.

To amend certain sections of the Revised Statutes relating to the District of Columbia.

To levy an assessment of the real estate in the District of Columbia in the year 1883, and every third year thereafter, for purposes of taxation..

To increase the police force of the District of Columbia, and for other purposes.

Constitutional amendments were proposed on the following subjects: To allow the veto of separate items in appropriation bills; to authorize the veto of separate items in the River and Harbor Bill; to create a House of Electors to confirm appointments in the civil service; to amend the provisions for the election of ions for the election of President; to provide members of Congress; to amend the provisfor woman suffrage; and to give Congress power to enforce contracts made by States.

CONNECTICUT. State Government.-The follow

ing were the State officers during the year: Governor, Thomas M. Waller, Democrat; Lieutenant-Governor, George G. Sumner; Secretary of State, D. Ward Northrup; Treasurer, Alfred R. Goodrich; Comptroller, Frank D. Sloat. Judiciary: Supreme Court, Chief-Justice, John D. Parks; Associate Justices, Elisha Carpenter, Dwight W. Pardee, Dwight Loomis, and Miles T. Granger.

Legislative Session.-The Legislature convened on the 3d of January, and adjourned on the 3d of May, the longest session on record in the State.

The creation of a Board of Pardons was one of the most important and most needed measures of the session. The act provided as follows:

His Excellency the Governor, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Errors, to be designated for that purpose by the judges of that court at their annual meeting, and four persons to be appointed by the General Assembly, one of whom shall be a physician, shall constitute a Board of Pardons for this State.

A unanimous opinion will be necessary to a pardon.

The new law which enlarges and explicitly defines the duties of coroners makes a sweeping change, and a radically new departure, in the methods for the initial proceedings in probable cases of murder or suicide.

The Governor's salary was raised a little, made $4,000. The State tax was made 1 mill. A new military code bill was passed; a bill to stop the auctioneering of town paupers to the keeping of thrifty providers in other towns also became a law; the act to wind up the Townsend Savings-Bank passed; and so did a bill to compel dealers in oleomargarine to stamp their packages of that article with that name, and put it up also in large letters over the door.

A bill was passed to prevent a drunken father from taking the wages of his minor son.

A so-called consolidation bill was passed permitting any Connecticut railroad to unite with any other road that is entirely outside of this State, and to issue bonds, provided the line thus formed shall make one continuous route, and not be a parallel and competing line.

A bill to punish frauds in party primary meetings was passed; as was a bill to put a stop to "baby-farming." The commission to look into the irregularities of Secretary Northrup, of the Board of Education, submitted, and the legislature passed, a bill to reorganize that board on a new basis. A bill that practically permits Sunday-evening concerts passed. There was an appropriation of $5,000 for a statue of Nathan Hale, to be placed on the Capitol.

An important and just measure was enacted empowering the judge, in divorce and other cases of separation, to assign the child or children to either parent, as he may decide.

Other measures passed were the following: Bill relating to annual meetings of Superior Court judges; bill relating to pay of county commissioners; bill amending the liquor law; resolution appropriating $2,500 for repairs at the State Prison.

The Governor vetoed a bill reducing the tax on the bonds and floating indebtedness of railroads from one to one half of 1 per cent.

Biennial Sessions. On this subject the Governor, in his message to the Legislature of 1884,

it. As nothing has occurred since to add to the strength of the argument then urged in its favor, it is not likely, if again submitted, to be disposed of in a different way. The objection to the present constitutional provision is, I apprehend, founded more upon the length than the frequency of sessions. If the public business could be annually disposed of in six or eight weeks, instead of occupying more than seventeen, as it did last year, there would be less difficulty in obtaining the services, as legislators, of the best ing yearly sessions with their traditional and educacitizens of the State; and few would favor abandontional influences.

Finances. The falling off in the income$102,638.17-from the previous year, is largely accounted for by the failure of certain railroad companies to meet their taxes, and by the reduction of the amount heretofore paid by mutual-insurance companies of the State, as authorized by the act of 1882. The funded debt was, Jan. 1, 1888. There has been paid in reduction thereof during

the year

$4,590,600

818,500 $4,272,100

Taxation. On this subject the Governor says: returned to the assessors, and they fail to discover it, Under the law, as it is, if taxable property is not it

absolutely escapes all taxation; for no provision

exists for the enforcement of a claim for taxation on property which has been concealed from the assessors, or inadvertently omitted from the grand list of a town. A large amount of property, in this way, is continually evading its part of the burden of public expense. If a statute were enacted authorizing towns, upon the discovery of unassessed property, to demand and collect of the party, who failed to return it, the amount-or double the amount-it would have been greatly for the advantage of citizens who comply with liable for, if it had been properly listed, it would be the law.

Savings Banks.-There is in the control and management of the savings-banks of the State the sum of $92,679,063.01, a larger amount than ever before, and mostly belonging to the thrifty industrial element of the population. There has been an increase of 8,659 during the year in the number of depositors, and of $3,155,973.22 in the amount of their deposits. The cominterest needs no new legislation, except, it missioners suggest that, in their opinion, this may be, in relation to a class of investments against which they have heretofore strongly protested. It appears that some of these institutions have invested in simply promissory notes, without collateral securities, the sum of $4,030,766.79.

Railroads. The permanent investment in railroads has reached the enormous sum of $87,459,646.19. There are now, completed and in use, within the State limits, 1,360 miles of road, over which were carried, during the year, 16,352,617 passengers, nearly a million more than in any previous year. Their gross earnings amounted to $16,234,942.44, yielding an average profit of four and one half per cent. on $56,953,678.25, their aggregate capital. The report of the Treasurer shows that these corporations have paid-protesting, however, against its excessiveness-the sum of $456,128.55 in taxes to the State.

Schools.-There was expended, during the last fiscal year, in support of the common-school system, $1,813,486.11, of which sum the State and the school fund together furnished $336,289.50, and the balance was raised by local taxation. More than 60 per cent. of the amount derived from taxation comes from twenty-five of the largest towns, and one third of it from the six largest cities. There are in the State 149,466 children, between the ages of four and sixteen, 120,537 of whom attended these schools some portion of the year. The Governor says:

I have heretofore expressed an apprehension that our public schools, in the smaller towns of the State, are not as good as they were thirty years ago. Fuller information convinces me that such is the fact. In more than half the towns there are fewer children and less wealth than formerly; but the same number of districts, school-houses, and schools are maintained. In the 1,447 districts of the State, 56 schools average 5 or less pupils; 346 schools average over 5 and do not exceed 10; 322 schools average over 10 and do not exceed 15; 213 schools average over 15 and do

not exceed 20.

The building, constructed at the expense of the State and the town of New Britain, is now completed and occupied by the Normal School. The junior class that entered in September is unusually large. A model school is in successful operation.

Courts.-The judicial expenses, amounting to $226,848.42, are $6,359.37 less than those of the previous year. During the year ending Dec. 1, 1883, the records show that the aggregate sessions of the Superior Court, in the trial of civil and criminal cases, occupied 790 days, scarcely more than one third of the time of the judges of that court, if they, unassisted, did the whole of the service.

Agriculture. In this State nearly 45,000 persons, and more than $135,000,000 of capital, are employed in agriculture. The changed condition occasioned by the development, within a few years, of railroad transportation, compels the farmer of New England to avoid competition with the cheap lands of the West, by giving attention to such lines in his occupation as require special knowledge and skill. To assist in sustaining in Connecticut such a policy, bounties have been given to agricultural societies; an experiment station has been established, the first in the country; and the Storrs

Agricultural School, for the special education of farmers, has been assisted by annual appropriations of money.

Fish-Culture and Shell-Fisheries-The action of the State in creating commissions to supply the lakes, rivers, and streams with a variety of fish, and to promote the cultivation of oysters, has been productive of the most satisfactory results. The Shell-fish Commission has, within a few years, developed an industry that gives employment to a large number of men, involves large amounts of capital, and promises to continually increase its proportions.

The Fish Commissioners express the opinion that the present modes of fishing in Connecticut river are so destructive as to threaten the speedy extermination of shad, and in their annual report they call upon the Legislature to investigate the matter of the pollution of the rivers and streams of the State by refuse matter from mills and factories.

The commissioners review with regret the temporary failure to secure a permanent restoration of the salmon to its old haunts in the State. In 1874 New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut combined together and placed in the tributaries of the upper Connecticut about 1,000,000 young salmon. In 1878, as was anticipated, the salmon appeared in considerable numbers, averaging about fifteen pounds each; but, as it was a very large and valuable fish, nearly all that entered the river were taken. A few succeeded in making their way up to the foot of Holyoke Dam, but were there stopped by this impassable barrier. The result has been the disappearance of the salmon, never to return until a practicable fish-way shall be erected at the Holyoke Dam.

Charities. The State has, during the year, wholly or partially, cared for 2,712 persons in its hospitals and other humane institutions, at a total expense of $257,261.17; and the people have, it is estimated, at the same time contributed, in local taxation, to the same class of charities more than $500,000.

The Insane Hospital at Middletown is intended to accommodate only 775 patients; but at no time during the year were there fewer than 842, while the average number was 854. The hospital comprises several cottages, besides the main building and annex.

The results of the school, established at Middletown, in 1869, for the care and training of friendless and neglected girls, have been exceedingly gratifying. The statistics show that more than two thirds of its wards, in number not less than 500, have been saved from a life of degradation and vice. During the year there were 48 commitments, and 54 girls were placed in country homes or among relatives. There are now in the school 192, between the ages of eight and nineteen, disposed of in families, occupying five separate buildings.

License Law. The returns of county commis

sioners show that 2,971 licenses were issued during the year, the total receipts from which amounted to $263,073.94. There is more popular contentment now than ever with the general provisions of the law relating to the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors.

Election. On the 6th of November there were elected twelve State Senators, a full House of Representatives, and eight sheriffs. A sheriff in each county was chosen, and Senators in the odd districts. Five Republican sheriffs were elected (Hartford, New Haven, Middlesex, New London, and Windham counties) and three Democrats (Tolland, Fairfield, and Litchfield counties). Ten Republican and two Democratic Senators were elected. The legislature of 1884 will be constituted as follows:

CONVALLARIA MAIALIS. Recent experiments with this drug seem to have established the following points: Its use is especially indicated in organic disease of the heart, with feeble pulse and decrease in the energy of its action; to lower the temperature of the body, to diminish the hyperemia of the nervous centers, increase arterial tension, promote the action of the kidneys, and lessen the reflex action of the nerves. It is contraindicated in cases of gastric and intestinal derangement, in acute affections of the liver, kidneys, or spleen, in pregnancy, and in fatty degeneration of the heart. Its physiological actions, as tested upon animals, are as follow: On the brain it causes a tendency to somnolence, resulting from anæmia of the nerve-centers. On the kidneys it causes marked increase in function. Placed in direct contact with muscular tissue it completely destroys its contractility. By its action on the alimentary canal in large doses it causes salivation, vomiting, and increase in the natural muscular movements. It first causes a slight increase, and then a more decided decrease, in the animal temperature. On the respiration it has a somewhat analogous effect, first increasing the frequency, then causing a decrease, and finally complete cessation.

COOPER, Peter, an American philanthropist and merchant, born in the city of New York, Feb. 12, 1791; died there, April 4, 1883. On his father's side he was of English origin. Both his grandfather and his father were soldiers in the Revolution. His maternal grandfather, John Campbell, a successful potter in New York, did good service in the Board of Aldermen, and gave liberally of his means in the interests of his native land. The father of Peter Cooper was a hatter, and on the return of peace, in 1783, resumed his business in New York. Peter was the fifth of nine children, having six brothers and two sisters. As his father's means were limited, the lad received but few advan

tages in the way of schooling. At the age of seventeen he became an apprentice in a carriage-factory, and served his full time. He manifested a talent for inventions, and also adopted as a maxim for his future course, never to be in debt. The next two years of his life he spent in a woolen-factory at Hempstead, Long Island, where he invented an ingenious machine for shearing the nap from cloth. It had a rapid sale during the war of 1812, and yielded the inventor a large profit.

In 1813 he married Miss Sarah Bedel, of Hempstead. For a time he was engaged in cabinet-making; then he opened a grocery, and next purchased a glue and isinglass manufactory. This last business, in his hands, became very profitable, and was continued by him for half a century. Mr. Cooper's attention was early directed to the vast resources of the United States for the manufacture of iron, and in 1830 he erected extensive works at Canton, near Baltimore. Subsequently, he built a rolling and wire mill in the city of New York, where he first successfully applied anthracite coal to the puddling of iron. While in Baltimore he built, after his own designs, the first locomotive-engine constructed on this continent, and it was used successfully on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In 1845 he removed the machinery to Trenton, N. J., and erected the largest rolling-mill at that time in the United States. In these works he was the first to roll wrought-iron beams for fire-proof buildings, and he used them afterward in his great monument, the Cooper Union in New York. He took into partnership with him his son Edward, and his son-in-law, Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, and the firm subsequently embraced in its operations large mines of ore and coal, quarries, forges, blast-furnaces, wire and rolling-mills, chain, horseshoe, and open-hearth steel works.

In the development and putting to practical use this great element in our national progress, as well as in the progress of the human family, Peter Cooper took a large share, and his name will be long honorably remembered in connection with the iron and coal industry.

The laying of the Atlantic cable was planned by him, and accomplished by his persistent efforts, even when his associates were discouraged and ready to give up in despair. Ten or twelve years of toil under difficulties which few men are able to overcome, of public ridicule, of refusal of capitalists to invest anything in it, of heavy outlays, and of apparent failure at the last, when the cable parted and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic-ten such years show the stuff of which Peter Cooper was made. In due time he reaped his reward. The same courageous and hopeful spirit was displayed in various other ways when Mr. Cooper was a member of the New York Common Council, when he urged the construction of the Croton Aqueduct, and when acting as a trustee of the