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WASHINGTON A BAD TIME FOR THE OFFICE BROKERS. Mahone's Methods-Edison's PatentsBusting" from the Inside-Cleveland's Majority. WASHINGTON, October .-The President is going very slow just now. He is waiting for the November blast from New York and Pennsylvania. He is not making any appointments He has been urged to make a large number of removals and appoint new men. It is almost unnecessary to say that the persons urged for removal are people who are tainted with halfbreedism in that they are not howling stalwarts. The other day a politician, anxious for a change of the kind mentioned, called on the President and urged the necessity of his plea. The President replied that he did not intend to make any new appointments until after the November elections. and that it was needless to urge him to do so. To others on similar errands he has said the same The character of the November elections, it would thus seem is to influence Presidential appointments. THE WAY HE DOES IT. You know that Mahone has twice assessed government employes from Virginia five per cent. of their salaries, and he got the money, too. An official of the Post Office Department told me to-day that not a Virginia employe there escaped. The very laborers and women on salaries of six hundred and nine hundred dollars a year, and many of them with families to support, have twice been compelled to hand over five per cent. of their yearly pay to the Jay Hubbell, of Virginia. He cited instances of three women, one with a family of three, another with a family of eight, and the other with an invalid sister to take care of. who had tried to escape the rake, but to no avail. The presentation of their case to Mahone did not cause that gentleman even to reduce the assessment. They had to pay or go. All of these three have a salary of only nine hundred dollars. Speaking of Mahone, I was looking over a list of Presidential post offices in Virginia the other day. The list was at the Post Office Department, and is used for reference. Opposite each Postmaster's name was the name of the individual upon whose recommendation the appointment had been made. With but few exceptions that name was Mahone. EDISON'S PATENTS. With nearly every issue, weekly, of the list of patents granted inventors, there is added one or more, sometimes as many as eight, new ones to Edison. He will average at least seventy inventions a year. Many of these inventions are the result of his brain years ago, upon which he IS now getting patents. With a very rare exception, all of these to pertain electricity. Long ago a separate room in the Patent Office was set apart for the reception of the models of his inventions This room. known as "Edi son's Room,' is being rapidly filled. It is one of the sights not to be missed by visitors. They are always shown that room. It is certainly worth seeing. The use of the inventions or how they work is unintelligible to the average man, but the collection of queer looking models is decidedly interesting. If Edison goes on at his present rate he will soon have to be assigned another room. It is said that he has a contract with the Western Union Telegraph Company by which for $5,000 that company is llowed to make the first bid for every improvement invented by the "Wizard of Menlo Park." HOW THEY BUST. On the corner of Seven th and F streets in this city there has been located for years an aged darkey who, with brush and blacking, makes a living by shining boots. He is a quaint old customer and shrewd withal. He is credited with having a snug little nest egg. His stand is just in front of the building formerly occupiei by the German-American Savings Bank, which exploded a couple of years ago under somewhat peculiar circum stances. The vaults formerly in the building are now being taken out. A large mass of bricks and mortar obstructs the sidewalk. Today while Sam was polishing away at half an acre of !eather the owner of the leather said: "Sam, there is enough bricks and mortar there to build a house." "Yes, sah," said Sam, "and, boss. I can't see for the life of me how that bank busted. Certainly it did not bust from the outside; must a been from the inside, just like the Freedman's Bank, They all busts from the inside, I bleves. BIG FIGURES. The figures that are predicted as the majority of the Democrats in New York are certainly large. I do not hear any politician say that Cleveland's majority will be less than 15,000, and from that upward the figures grow very rapidly. Fifty thousand is what most Democrats predict, and Republicans even the most stalwart concede the State to the Democracy by "a very fair majority." Many Republicans concode a 30,000 defeat for Folger. One Republican from New York is very downcast. He is a business man in the interior of the State, He was in the office of Treasurer Gilfillan to-day. Mr. Gilfillan asked him how thirg were going in New York. "Badly. very badly," he replied. "Cleveland will be elected by an overwhelming majority. I would not be surprised if his majority was 200,000 POTOMAC.