Mineral Point Tribune

CAPITAL NOTES.

MADISON, March 4th, 1879.

My prediction as to the time of adjournment of the Legislature will be verified; the session will not close until about Friday the 7th, though but little now remains to be done. Biennial sessions, prohibition and the interest bill, all have met their death the past week in the Senate. Senator Price made a gallant fight for the temperance people, but in vain, the resolution being killed by a vote of 20 to 10. The biennial sessions proposition was beaten not so much by its avowed opponents as by the treachery of its pretended friends. It first appeared in the Senate as an Assembly resolution for concurrence, when it lacked only one of the required number of votes, and when two pretended friends of the measure were conspicuously absent, viz: Hathaway of Grant, and Loper of Fond du Lac. These Senators were in the city at the time, and had they been as earnest in support of the measure as was expected, they would not have failed to be on hand at the time when all recognized its fate to be practically determined. Their votes recorded in favor of it subsequently could have no more effect than the Pope's bull against the comet. An explanation from these Senators to their constituents is in order. The interest bill never had a ghost of a chance to pass the Senate, and no one was surprised at its summary death at the hands of that body. The reduction of employees' salaries bill, which excited considerable interest about the Capital, and which was disposed of on a point of order, might have met more favor and fared better but for the fact that its special champions, Price, Hathaway and Loper, having relatives and friends in the list of Legislative employees, carefully avoided making any provision that would affect them. I notice that the Democrat regards my comments upon Cothren's nomination by the Democratic caucus as an "attack" upon the Judge and his friends. If any intelligent Republican reader of the TRIBUNE will admit over his own signature that he so regards my reference to the matter, I will make all haste to correct him, but the opinions of Republicans who complain to or through the Democrat, I do not regard as calling for recognition.

W. H. B.