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WASHINGTON.
# THE FRIENDS OF THE BLAIR EDUCATIONAL BILL DETERMINED.
The Members to be Put on Record-A Mahone Appointee-Small Distilleries-Personal Notes.
[From Our Regular Correspondent.]
WASHINGTON, April 28.-The friends of the Blair educational bill while unanimous in opinion that the substitute reported from the Labor Committee is an attempt to strangle legislation on the subject, will hold a conference in regard to the matter early next week. It is conceded that the Senate bill which was referred, after its receipt from that body, to the Committee on Education will never reach the floor of the House. In order to test the strength of the House on the Blair bill it is proposed to move it as a substitute for the Labor Committee's bill when the latter comes up for consideration. This may result in the defeat of the bill, but it is the only way out of the dilemma, and will at least put the members on record for the guidance of their constituencies.
The choice of Senator Kenna, of West Virginia, to be chairman of the Democratic Congressional Executive Committee, is regarded as a fitting recognition of this able and rising young senator.
The Committee on Invalid Pensions is trying to migrate through 3,020 bills and 1,027 petitions referred to it during the present Congress.
# A MAHONE APPOINTEE.
Senator Mahone has succeeded in securing an appointment in the Government printing-office for J. J. Verser, of Danville. Verser was connected with the revenue department under the old Republican regime, and is said to be one of the most offensive partisans in the Danville district. He made a confident of a gentleman at the printing-office whom he supposed was a Republican, and proved by his conversation that he has not reformed his politics one iota.
Congressman Brady says that the House Judiciary Committee is composed of such profound constitutional lawyers that his bill in relation to the Virginia debt will never see the light of day outside the committee-room.
TO REIMBURSE.
Senator Allison, from the Committee on Finance, reported back to the Senate, without amendment and with the recommendation that it pass, the bill to reimburse the National Home for Disabled Soldiers for losses incurred through the failure of the Exchange National Bank of Norfolk, Va.
Senator Call introduced a bill granting leave of absence of fifteen days, with compensation per annum, to employees of the United States navy-yards who have already served one year; also, leave of absence and compensation to employees injured in the service during the time of their disability.
A half dozen petitions from principal cities of the Union, signed by thousands of merchants, were presented to-day against the license-fees imposed on commercial travellers in certain States and Territories.
Lieutenant Curry, of the United States army, has filed an affidavit in favor of the claim of Charles W. Hickman, a farmer on the Virginia peninsula, for property taken and destroyed by United States troops during the war.
# THE EDMUNDS UTAH BILL.
The House Judiciary Committee will hear arguments in favor of the Edmunds Utah bill Friday and Saturday this week. Judge Baskine and ex-Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts, will present the case for the Gentiles. It will require a good deal of testimony to induce the committee to make a favorable report on the bill. While the members express themselves in sympathy with the objects sought by the Edmunds bill, they regard the methods fixed upon to obtain them as both outrageous and unconstitutional.
SMALL DISTILLERIES.
The conference of the Virginia and North Carolina delegations has resulted in a bill presented by the Ways and Means Committee. It authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to exempt all distilleries which mash less than five bushels of grain per day from the operations of section 255 of Revised Statutes except as to payment of tax, which shall be levied and collected on capacity of the distilleries, and they shall be run without storekeepers or "storekeepers and gaugers." The distilleries of five and less than twenty-five bushels capacity per day may, at the discretion of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and Secretary of the Interior, be exempted from the operations of spirits except as to payment of tax. Special warehouses may also be established by the Commissioner for the deposit of the product of any number of distilleries, subject to all laws and regulations as to bonds and tax-removals as other warehouses. Section 3255 of the Revised Statutes is amended to provide that the Commissioner, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, may exempt distillers of brandy made exclusively from fruit "from the provisions of the title relating to the manufacture of spirits, except as to tax, when expedient to do so." It also provides that "when a judgment of forfeiture in any case of seizure is recovered against any distiller, used or fit for use in the production of distilled spirits, because no bond has been given, or against any distillery used or fit for use in the production of spirits having a registered capacity of less than 150 gallons a day, every still, doubler, worm-tub, wash-tub, and fermenting-tub therein shall be sold, as in case of other forfeited property, without being mutilated or destroyed. And in case of seizure of a still, doubler, worm, or other distilling apparatus of any kind, for any offence involving forfeiture of the same, it shall be the duty of the seizing officer to remove the same from the place where seized to a place of safe storage, and the property so seized shall be sold as provided by law without being mutilated or destroyed.
