GENERAL APPROPRIATION BILL.
The Conference Committee reported on the general appropriation bill [H. R. 422.]
Mr. MEREDITH moved to concur in the report, except that part of the recommendation to give Prosecuting Attorneys $700 a year instead of $500, as under the existing law.
Mr. GIBSON moved to strike out of Mr. Meredith's motion the exception, and concur in the report.
Mr. KENNER was opposed to the exception, and favored the adoption of the report.
Mr. GIBSON considered the present compensation of Prosecuting Attorneys entirely too small to command the attention of able men, such as should serve in that office.
Mr. MITCHELL opposed raising the prosecutor's salary.
Mr. MOODY spoke against the raising of the prosecutor's salary, for the reason that when they accepted the office, they did so with an understanding that their salary would be $500. There is no call or demand for the increase, and it will not improve the talent now in office to give them this extra allowance.
The motion [Mr. Meredith's] was agreed to.
Mr. McClure's bill [H. R. 500] for the relief of Horatio S. Hazzard, a former Trustee of Vienna Township, Scott County, was read the third time.
Mr. McCLURE said: "This Trustee deposited the funds belonging to the Township in a bank at Louisville, Ky., which failed. He gave a mortgage on his farm and paid the money that was lost. His neighbors, and the tax-payers of the Township, have almost universally petitioned that he be released in order that he may save his farm, and I think it right that we pass this bill. The Trustees of Vienna Township mortgaged his farm precisely under the same circumstances. I was not aware of the existance of this case until this session or I would have incorporated both cases in one bill."
Mr. RYAN--It is a suspicious circumstance that these losses both occurred in that County and with the same bank, and at the same time. If we undertake to legalize every circumstance of Trustees' acts we will have our hands full. If these citizens are so anxious that this Trustee should be relieved why do not they put their hands into their pockets and replace the money instead of petitioning this body for his relief.
Mr. McCLURE--The suspicion cast upon me by the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Ryan) comes with very bad grace. If the other bill, for which he voted, is right this one is also, and I can not see why there should be any objection when the tax-payers of this Township only are concerned in the passage of this bill, and the payment of this money.
The bill passed--yeas, 67; nays, 12
Mr. Gilman's bill [H. R. 512] to prevent the growth of briers and other noxious weeds in the public highways was read the third time.
Mr. ROBINSON, of Ripley, was opposed to the bill, and considered it rather a joke than a proposition for a regularly established law to compel a man to remove weeds, etc., from the public highways.
Mr. GILMAN--This bill is one in which every farmer is interested. Every good farmer now, without law, performs all that is provided for in this bill, but in every neighborhood there is the shiftless and lazy, and in this cure the actions of the shiftless and lazy beings, not only a punishment upon himself, but upon his industrious neighbors, and because of the failure of one to do what he ought in the proper season all others must continue to perform a large additional amount of labor every year, and for all future time, and without hope of change unless we can have a law compelling him to do what he of right ought to do for his own benefit. Unless this, or some similar measure shall be enacted, the day is not far distant when not only the northern part of the State shall be afflicted, but these burrs will spread over the highways and farms of the State.
This bill is in the interest of economy and good farming, and should be supported as such by every farmer on this floor. We can not drive our horses on the roads without stopping to clear their fetlocks of burrs from their tails. And this constant vigilance must be kept up by the whole neighborhood in order that one lazy, shiftless man may be relieved from doing what every interest--yes, even his own interests--demands that he should do.
