Senators, hostile to the confirmation of Judge Robertson's appointment as Collector, on the 16th of May both the New York Senators, Roscoe Conkling and Thomas C. Platt, sent notice to the Vice-President that they had that day forwarded the resignation of their seats to the Governor of their State. Their reasons for adopting this course were set forth in a joint letter of resignation addressed to Governor Cornell. (See NEW YORK.) The appointments of Mr. Robertson as Collector of the Port of New York and of Mr. Merritt as Consul-General at London were confirmed, almost without opposition, on the 18th of May. The name of General Badeau for Chargé d'Affaires to Denmark was withdrawn at his own request. Among the other appointments confirmed the same day were those of Thomas A. Osborn as Minister to Brazil, in place of H. W. Hilliard recalled; and Judson Kilpatrick as Minister to Chili, in place of Mr. Osborn. On the following day the nominations for offices in the State of New York, which had been withdrawn, were renewed, but the name of Henry E. Knox was substituted for that of Louis F. Payn as Marshal of the Southern District, and that of Charles A. Gould for that of John Tyler as Collector of Customs at Buffalo. An appointment to which much opposition was developed was that of William E. Chandler, of New Hampshire, to be Solicitor-General. The vote in the Judiciary Committee was a tie, two members being absent who were opposed to confirmation. The name was reported without recommendation, and, on the 20th of May, was rejected by a majority of five in the executive session. The same day the New York appointments and some others were confirmed, and the Senate adjourned without any renewal of the contest over the election of officers.

SECOND SPECIAL SESSION OF THE SENATE.

On the 23d of September, President Garfield having died in the mean time, President Arthur, bis successor, issued a proclamation convening the Senate in extraordinary session on the 10th of October following. The main object of this was understood to be the election of a President of that body, as the accession of the VicePresident to the executive chair left no officer in the line of succession, in case of the death, resignation, removal, or disability of the incumbent. Before the Senate met there was some controversy as to whether the presiding officer should be chosen before the new Senators were admitted. The resignation of Messrs. Conkling and Platt, and the death of Senator Burnside, of Rhode Island, had produced three vacancies on the Republican side, giving the Democrats control of the organization, if it was to be effected before their successors were sworn in. Both parties held caucuses on the 8th of October. The Republicans questioned the right of the Democrats to elect a presiding officer before the new Senators were sworn, but resolved to confine their opposition to a formal protest.

They appointed a committee to confer on the subject with a similar committee on the part of the Democratic Senators. Before receiving information of this action, the Democrats had decided that the Chief Clerk should call the Senate to order, and that the resolution for the election of a President pro tem. would then be in order and should be offered. They selected Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, as their candidate." They consented to the appointment of a committee of conference, but there was no agreement reached, as neither party was disposed to recede from its position. The Republican candidate for the temporary presidency was Mr. Anthony, of Rhode Island.

After the preliminaries of opening the session on the 10th had been disposed of, Mr. Pendleton offered a resolution that Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, "is hereby chosen President pro tem. of the Senate." Mr. Edmunds arose and presented the credentials of Messrs. Miller and Lapham, of New York, and Aldrich, of Rhode Island, and moved that they be first sworn by Mr. Anthony, the oldest member of the session in continuous service. He claimed that this was in accordance with right and with precedent. It was claimed on the other side that the law requiring new Senators to be sworn in by the presiding officer could not be set aside unless by unanimous consent. A motion to lay Mr. Edmunds's proposition on the table was adopted by a vote of 36 to 34. General Mahone was absent, and Judge Davis voted in the negative with the Republicans. Mr. Edmunds then moved to amend Mr. Pendleton's resolution, by providing that Mr. Bayard be chosen President pro tem. "for to-day." This was negatived by a party vote, Davis, of Illinois, still acting with the Republicans. Then Mr. Edmunds moved to substitute the name of Mr. Anthony for that of Mr. Bayard, which was also negatived. The original resolution of Mr. Pendleton was adopted, 34 to 32, Mr. Davis not voting. The Democrats in caucus, the same day, determined to make no opposition to the admission of the new Senators, and not to press the election of a Secretary at present. They selected Colonel L. Q. Washington, however, as their candidate for that position. The new Senators were sworn on the 11th, without objection. The equal division of parties in the Senate, there being no longer a casting vote of the Vice-President, made the retention of Mr. Bayard as the presiding officer dependent on the vote of Senator Davis, in case the Republicans attempted to secure a change. The Republicans held a caucus on the 12th, and determined to propose Mr. Davis himself as the President pro tem. The next day a resolution continuing the standing committees was adopted by a vote of 37 to 35, and then a resolution was offered by Mr., Logan, of Illinois, for the election of his colleague, Senator Davis, as the presiding officer. This was adopted, yeas 36, nays 34, Bayard and Davis not voting. Messrs. Bayard and Anthony were appointed to escort

Mr. Davis to the chair. In accepting the position, he declared that he could not have done so if the manner in which he was chosen had not left him free from party obligations. He accepted the honor as a recognition of the independent position he had long occupied in the politics of the country.

The session, which was interrupted for a few days by the centennial celebration of the battle of Yorktown, came to an end on the 25th of October, having been devoted exclusively to executive business. Among the important nominations confirmed, was that of Charles J. Folger, of New York, for Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Windom having insisted on resigning, and ex-Governor E. D. Morgan, of New York, having declined the position after his appointment had been made and confirmed. A contest was begun over the appointment of a postmaster at Lynchburg, Virginia, at the instance and in the supposed interest of General Mahone, but as it threatened to prolong the session it was dropped without action. The appointment was opposed by the Democrats, on the ground that it was intended to have an influence in the political canvass then pending in Virginia. An unwonted incident of this contest was a resolution adopted during an all-night sitting, directing the Sergeantat-Arms to compel the attendance of certain absent members, in order to produce a quorum. The execution of this order led to a vigorous protest, signed by several Senators, which was entered on the journal.

CONNECTICUT. The members-elect of the Connecticut Legislature met at the Capitol and were organized for the session of 1881 on January 5th. Lyman W. Coe was elected President pro tempore of the Senate, and William C. Case Speaker of the House of Representatives; both were Republicans, and both elected by great majorities on a party vote.

On January 5th, also, the new Governor, Hobart B. Bigelow, was inaugurated. His message to the Legislature upon the condition of public affairs in the Commonwealth he sent in at once to the two Houses.

The constitutional amendment changing the manner of appointing the judges of the Supreme and Superior Courts, which was passed at the last session and submitted to the people for sanction or rejection at the town elections on October 5th, was ratified by their vote, and "thus became a part of the State Constitution." The sanitary condition of the people of the State, owing apparently to want of caution and other causes, suffered in 1880; although there have been no serious epidemics, the general average of health has not been so good as during the two years preceding. The sanitary conditions of life, however, as regards drainage, ventilation, and water-supply, are receiving constantly increased attention.

The affairs of the Commonwealth are in a satisfactory state, and there is every sign of a healthy and progressing commercial condition.

With regard to manufacturing industries, which are of comparatively vast magnitude in Connecticut, and other matters relating to which directly or indirectly the General As sembly would be called upon to legislate, the Governor in his message deprecated the enactment of any law that might, even remotely, tend to affect them injuriously, saying: "In every county are flourishing towns and villages which have sprung up, each about some thrifty manufacturing establishment. These establishments now number nearly twenty-two hundred, employing, and as a rule profitably employing, over $60,000,000 of capital, and giving work to upward of sixty-six thousand persons. The value of their annual product is reckoned at $120,000,000, and their market is the world. Interests so important, and affecting such large classes of our people, should be sedulously protected from any legislation that would embarrass or contract the energy of invention or of capital. Every enactment which could possibly affect them should be carefully scrutinized, to the end that it works no injury."

The finances continue in a satisfactory condition. The conservative method which has been steadily used heretofore is still continued. During the year ended November 30, 1880, the aggregate receipts of the State from all sources, including $42,146.95 brought over as cash balance from the previous year, were $2,506,971.18; the aggregate expenditures for all purposes (including $286,197 interest paid on the State debt) were $1,600,383.36; leaving in the Treasury, on December 1st, an available surplus of $906,587.82 to meet current expenses of the year 1881.

The amount drawn from the Treasury on account of the new State House in 1880 was $118,131.36. This sum includes the $15,000 appropriated by the last General Assembly as a compensation to the members of the Capitol Commission, who had in charge the building while in course of erection.

The receipts for the year ending November 30, 1881, including the above-noted balance of $906,587.82, were estimated at $2,501,461.82; and the expenditures at $1,459,005.32.

The State debt continues to be as it was at the end of 1879—$4,967,600. Nearly three fourths of this sum bears interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum; the remainder at 5 per centum.

Outstanding bonds to the amount of $887,000 will become due on January 1, 1883, the State having it then in her power either to pay and cancel them, or to continue them, in whole or in part, by a new issue.

The total valuation of taxable property in Connecticut the grand list shows to be $327,182,435, an increase of $2,293,412 over the preceding year.

The number of savings banks in the State continues the same-85; but the number of depositors has grown up to 231,913, which is 9,692 greater than it was at the close of the

previous year. Of this increase, 9,408 are depositors of less than $500. These depositors, compared with the whole population of the State, are in the proportion of more than one in every three of her inhabitants. The present amount of all their deposits is $76,518,570.91, an increase of $3,676,127.52 over that of the year last past. The average amount for each depositor is $357.50, and for every inhabitant in the State it is above $100. The dividends annually paid by the banks have been withdrawn by depositors to a much less extent this year than in the preceding.

The 28th annual report of the Railroad Commissioners shows the railways operating in Connecticut to have had a prosperous year in 1880, their business having considerably increased in freight as well as passenger transportation. The total of their gross earnings amounted to $12,290,878.51, which is $1,378,627.34, or 12 per cent, above that of 1879. They exceed the gross earnings of all previous years-even of 1873, when the earnings were the largest as compared with those of any preceding or succeeding year till 1880. A noteworthy fact in the mutual relations between the yearly amounts of earnings from passenger and freight transportation in these roads for 1880 was, that the freight earnings, instead or being less than the passenger, as they had always been, exceeded them by more than one million dollars. This change has occurred especially in the business of two among the roads, namely: The New York, New Haven, and Hartford, and the New York and New England. The proportion of expenses to earnings was 62 per cent, a little more than 1 per cent over the previous year's.

Nine companies have paid in dividends last year $2,539,295.70, or nearly as much as they had paid in 1879.

The aggregate length of all the railway lines in Connecticut measures 953.96 miles; double tracks, 108.78 miles; sidings, 185.94 milesmaking a total of 1,248.68 miles of single track. The collective amount of State tax paid by the roads into the Treasury during the year was $357,000. In 1879 it was $346,000.

The education of youth continues satisfactory, with a fair prospect of forward progress in efficiency and thoroughness. The cost to the State for supporting the common schools in 1880 was $213,420.50, the largest amount among the items of public expenditure after that belonging to the judiciary system, which was $256,598.93. The results of this large expenditure have for many years been most gratifying; and the reports of the State Board of Education, and of their Secretary, show the combined efficiency and thoroughness of the system of free popular education. The "Compulsory Law," so called, by which children of proper age are made to attend the public schools, has been more efficiently and perfectly enforced this year than ever before. This law seems to be of comparatively easy execu

tion in Connecticut, meeting with no such marked opposition or complaint, on the part of parents, as experience shows to have been the case in some other States. For this difference between the States concerned, Governor Bigelow accounts as follows: "This shows not only the temper of our people toward education, but also that there does not exist with us that necessity for the earnings of children of school age which supports the defiance of similar laws in other communities."

For the support of the State Normal School, where teachers are trained to give instruction in the common schools, the amount paid from the Treasury in 1880 was $12,700. A good increase in the number of trained teachers is now promised by the building of a Normal School in New Britain, for the erection of which the General Assembly appropriated $75,000, the said town having pledged itself to contribute $25,000 more, of its own money, for the same purpose.

In the Hospital for the Insane, at Middletown, there were 610 patients at the beginning of last year, and 528 at the end of it. The whole number of patients treated during the year was 654, which shows a permanent overcrowding in the hospital, the capacity of which is sufficient to give accommodations for 450 patients only. The additional new buildings, for which the General Assembly at the previous session appropriated a large sum of money, and which, when completed, will probably double the present capacity of the hospital, have been already planned, and their erection has begun. Of the 528 patients remaining in this institution at the close of 1880, two only were paying patients; the Governor stating "that 526 were entirely supported by the State, or by the towns from which they were sent."

The School for Imbeciles, at Lakeville, seems worthy of continuance for its usefulness. The pupils cared for in it during the year numbered 93, of whom 47 were beneficiaries of the State. The total expenditure of the institution for the year amounted to $15,799.91, of which $5,960.87 were paid from the public Treasury for the 47 State beneficiaries, and the remainder was paid by the friends of the other pupils. A department connected with this school takes care of several harmless lunatics, some among whom also were supported last year by the State at a cost of $534.

In the State Reform School for Boys there were, at the close of 1880, 307 inmates; received during the year, 148; discharged, 109. This school is considered to have never been in a better condition than at present. The family system, so called, has been successfully introduced in its management since last year.

The Industrial School for Girls, at Middletown, during the year 1880, received 71 girls; placed in positions of usefulness, or discharged, 53; remaining in the school on December 1st, 160. The whole number of inmates at this

school in the 11 years of its existence is reckoned at 430. Of the girls sent out from it, three fourths are stated to have given evidence of permanent reformation. An additional building is now in process of erection for the older inmates.

In the State Prison there were 261 convicts in confinement on December 1, 1880. At the same date in 1879 they numbered 251; committed during the year, 134; released, 124. Eight among the prisoners were sent from the Penitentiary to the Hospital for the Insane. The prison's management has been for some time progressing from good to better, especially in regard to discipline among the convicts.

The militia of Connecticut, under the name of "National Guard," consists of 2,731 enlisted men and 183 commissioned officers, making a total of 2,914 as the active military force of the State. Last year's expenditures for this force amounted to $88,609.67. There are also some independent companies, and the Governor's Guard; for both of which a further sum of $15,021.28 was expended, the aggregate military expenses for the year having been $103,630.75.

The First Regiment of the Connecticut National Guard, under the lead of its colonel, and the second company of the Governor's Foot Guard, with a military band attached, were detailed to take part at the celebration of the centennial anniversary of the surrender of the English army at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 19th. The Governor himself, accompanied by his staff and the principal military and civic officers of the State, besides other prominent men of Connecticut, attended the ceremonies of the occasion. The Legislature appropriated $7,000 to meet the expenses of the excursion. The Legislature was urged to reapportion the senatorial districts of the State without further delay, if the people of Connecticut are to live under what is more than a semblance of a representative form of government. The argument presented to the Legislature was as follows: These districts remain now the same as they were when first formed fifty years ago, although the changes in their respective populations during the lapse of this half century have been so numerous, and so remarkably great, as to render the continuance of the old districts not only unjust, but manifestly contrary to the intention expressed and embodied in their original formation. Among the reasons set forth to evince the imperative necessity of a new apportionment, and some practical instances showing the injustice of the division then existing, were the following: "In the plan of government designed by the Constitution the Senate was intended to be the body of popular representation. The lower and larger House was, for historical reasons, founded upon the existence of townships. It was provided that the basis of representation in the Senate should be adjusted from time to time, as the population of the State changed,

the times for such adjustment being made to correspond with those times when a new census should be taken. Fifty years ago the first apportionment was made under this arrangement, but, notwithstanding the very greatest changes have since taken place, not only in the aggregate population of the State, but especially in the distribution of that population, no Legislature has, at any of the decennial periods intervening, seen fit to change the basis of representation. .

"The population of the State by the census of 1880 is 622,683, as against 287,675 in 1830, the census on which the present apportionment is based. . . . The whole character of the population, and of the occupations in which they are engaged, has during this time undergone an entire revolution. Consequently, the centers of population have shifted, and the density of population has altogether changed. Districts which were substantially equal fifty years ago, to-day show a difference of 4 to 1; others have grown so as to present differences of a less degree, yet quite enough to make equality of representation absurd. Six districts, with a combined population of 83,000, balance in the present Senate six other districts having a population of 281,800; while ten districts with a population of 411,700 can be outvoted by eleven districts which have a population of 199,000."

The Legislature subsequently passed an act reapportioning these senatorial districts, and defining their respective limits. The provisions of this act have also been carried into practical execution, the districts numbering now twenty-four, instead of twenty-one, as heretofore. The Democratic papers in the State denounce the manner and character of the new apportionment in the strongest terms, noting it "as the most glaringly dishonest partisan work ever attempted in the United States"; and to make this partisan injustice more clearly apparent, they have published a map of Connecticut representing the dividing lines as well as the different configurations and sizes of the several districts. The Republican papers seem to admit that by the new arrangement of the districts their party secures seventeen, and may possibly get two or three more, out of the twenty-four Senators. The relative populations of the new districts vary from 12,098— the least in the twenty-third-to 62,882-the largest in the eighth. Ten among the districts have populations ranging between twenty and thirty thousand.

The January session of the Connecticut Legislature in 1881 was closed in its fifty-second day, April 14th, when the Governor adjourned the General Assembly sine die with the usual formalities. Among the more important acts passed at this session are the following: A new law relating to elections; it is intended for the principal cities in the State, to prevent fraudulent registration. An act reducing the tax on mutual life insurance companies; this