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BREVIER
LEGISLATIVE REPORTS,
OF THE INDIANA LEGISLATURE.

PROSPECTUS- To the 52d General Assembly:

The undersigned proprietor of the BREVIER LEGISLATIVE respectfully represents That twenty-three years ago we organized and executed a plan of dependent unpartizan Legislative Reporting (the first ever attempted west of the Alleghanies having regard to fullness and completeness as to the matter and the parliamentary forms) upon which we have printed our Reports at a cost to the State less by one-half than any similar job of the State's printing : That our work proved acceptable : to the General Assembly and received acts for authorization and pay; That it has been maintained and has received similar acts of endorsement every assembly except the 31ast; and we respectfully submit that under this usage of the General Assembly we have a fair constructive permission and invitation to continue our independent work of elaborating and offering the BREVIER REPORTS.

The nineteenth volume of the BREVIER LEGISLATIVE REPORTS of the Proceedings and Debates of the Indiana Legislature will embrace reliable short-hand sketches of the Journals, Proceedings and Debates of both Houses of the Fifty-first General Assembly of the State of Indiana, convened at Indianapolis city, in regular session, the 6th day of January, A. D.1881. It will contain important motions, messages, resolutions and committee reports, that - shall be made and submitted ; it will describe or copy at length bills and weighty propositions that shall be presented and considered ; and it will afford liberal and verbatim sketches of the Debates, presenting without partizan bias the position of every member on the floor, with the yeas and nays in every question of moment on which. they shall be ordered and taken.

The coming session will without doubt, be usually interesting, and the BREVIER REPORTS will be, as it has been for 23 years the only source from which reliable reports of the Debates, of the Legislature can be obtained. This has been found to be the best and most economical means of presenting to the people an intelligible journal not only of what is done, but of page: [][View Page []]Switch to Image ModeCLOSE Page [] what is said in the General Assembly, together with a reliable account, in proper legislative forms, of the order of the doing and sayings of the representatives of the people.

The undersigned submit that theses Reports are indispensable to, the history of legislation in the State, of great value to the people at large, especially to politicians and every public an and that their value is increased by time.

We a propose to pursue the publication of our BREVIER LEGISLATIVE REPORTS. But there is now this difficulty about our work: we are unable to contract with either of the morning pa- pers in this city for the daily printing of our Reports of the session in their newspaper. Therefore, since our Reports of the present Session cannot appear in the papers as heretofore, and to provide against the restrictions of space in the daily papers by which the reports are marred and excluded, we propose to contract for printing outside of the daily press, so as to insure a complete and satisfactory record. These contracts involve an inevitable expense of money on our part, which is barely, justified by the State's authorization of the purchase of the number of copies of the Reports which has been accorded for nineteen years in the Specific Bill of every Assembly since 1857 except the three last. The price is less than one-third which is paid by the State for the work of the Reporter of Supreme Court.

The past, we think, teaches plainly enough, that unless the, General Assembly were to establish a special Bureau for Reporting and Printing, involving new offices and additional public expensiveness, which should be avoided by all means, consistent with reasonable carefulness for the information and welfare of the supervising people, our proposition, which has been accepted by consecutive legislatures for seventeen years is the best, and certainly it is by very much the cheapest - way to escape the evils of partial Reporting in the interest of rings and factions. We think also, that the general acceptance of, our Reports for seventeen years justifies the expectation that the Legislature will not now forego the advantages of these contributions to the history of its work.

So, pledging, diligence and fidelity for completeness an impartiality, larger space an improved facilities for printing, we hope you will regard it as respectful, and but the part of common, prudence for us to ask of the present General Assembly, for some expression, in advance, in favor of the continuance of these Reports, upon which we may proceed with the printing of another--the 19th--volume of our Reports.

W. H. DRAPIER, Indianapolis, Indiana.

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The particulars of Legislative the extra session of 1872, itemized in the Specific Bill approved December 21,1872, justifies our statement that the Legislature found the cost of the newspaper subsidies for legislative reports in this city to exceed that of the authentic Brevier.-- The cost of newspapers for that session above that of the Brevier Legislative Reports was $356.73. The newspaper vanished, but the Brevier is extant with all its contributions to history.

The Legislature finding that the cost of their newspaper subsides exceeded that of the authorized BREVIER REPORTS, the subsidy was cut off by the act of December 19, 1872. By that act the newspaper became justly and legally recognized as but "stationery" for the people and their representatives, and, by implication, as unfitted and unworthy to be intrusted and authorized at the public expense as the depository of their solemn legislative records.

The Brevier Reports have done for the people what the newspapers are unfit and unable to do in the matter of a just and stern legislative record; and the work has been done cheaper than the newspaper charges which have been paid out of for their partial, personal, restricted and unreliable matter called "Legislative Proceedings."

The BREVIER REPORTS contain a record that is impartial,--not a single partial report can be found in any one of the twenty volumes issued.

The BREVIER Reporters in the 24 years of its publication have been careful chiefly to make their work here a good record, and rest its claims to the cherishment of the Legislature upon that alone. They have gone before no Committee, lobbied none, received no approaches for individual favor, nor shaped their work at any time with sinister or partizan objects. It has rested solely and all the time on its merits, its integrity and its fairness; and, for these it has all the time received the favoring notice of the Legislature.

As compensation should always be regulated by the skill required, there can be no question but that the pay for service but few are competent to perform should largely exceed the pay for labor that many are able to do. These Brevier Reports, in each page, contain more than three times as much matter as there is in one page of the Supreme Court Reports, yet the Brevier Reports are furnished to the state for two-thirds of a cent a page, while the Reporter of the Supreme Court has received three-quarters of a cent per page, besides the copyright.

W. H. DRAPIER, stenogapher, Indianapolis, Indiana.

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In this submission of the Brevier Reports we have not been mistaken as to the common and growing public demand for just and intelligent public records. We have tried to meet that demand, and to provoke parties abler than we are to supply it as it ought to be supplied. And we still suppose that the representatives of the people know what they want in this matter--- know whether it is better to do everything here at the Capitol by memory and word of mouth than to stand upon a fair and open record for history.

We have proceeded strictly upon the presumption that the people's representatives know what is due to the country and to themselves in this matter of a record of their legislative action. And if there is any consideration against the continuance of the Brevier except that of its cost, the same conceit is as much against the lobbies and open doors for the sessions of the General Assembly; and it is at least one hundred years too late for secret sessions.

The work can not be done by jobbers for the money that has been paid for it; and as to the standing contract price of the work, it carries that on every page: for "two-thirds of a cent a page per copy" it is furnished to the proper accounting officers of the State in printed sheets, procured in every item of its cost at our own expense.

The Brevier Legislative Reports have been acceptable to the Legislature and the people for seventeen years. The work has stood sternly on its merits with each particular session since '57 and it is offered again with the ability and desire on the part of these reporters to make such an abridgment of the State Legislative Record in the best form and at the cheapest rate.

Considering the difficulties and opposition incident to such a work ; the contingencies of failing health and failing purse, and failing at length to make an acceptable offering of the work, there is nothing in the offering of it on our part but hard work, and the good name of unswerving workers, much very delicate personal responsibility, and some pecuniary hazard--(larger for our means-) and, last and at the best, but small pay.

As seventeen consecutive sessions of the General Assembly have authorized the publication of the Brevier Reports, it is regarded respectful and a duty to continue a proffer of the service that has been acceptable to every Legislature for so many years.

None in the State are so competent to make a Legislative Record as the projectors of the Brevier Reports because the lives of no other Indianians have been passed in such like service.

W. H. DRAPIER, Stenographer, Indianapolis, Indiana.

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DIAGRAM OF THE SENATE CHAMBER

SENATORS, WITH NUMBER OF SEATS.

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DIAGRAM OF THE HOUSE Of REPRESENATIVES

REPRESENTATIVES, AND NUMBER OF SEATS.

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REPRESENTATIVES, AND NUMBER OF SEATS- Continued.