The scenes in the American House of Representatives during the
day or two preceding the Recess seem to have been most dis- creditable. There were 600 neglected Bills to be passed, and the Session was almost unbroken from the night of the 17th to the morning of the 20th. On each day there was a furious dis- cussion on the Bill authorising payment of the award made by the Halifax Fishery Commission, but it was finally passed without a division. The Speaker several times lost control of the House, and had to call on the Serjeant-at-Arms to restore order ; many Members are said to have been drunk ; and at last the President and Cabinet had to go down to the House to examine and sign the Bills. Many votes were so extravagant, that the President threatened to use his veto, and the payment of appropriations amounting to £3,000,000 will be delayed by the Treasury by his order. The origin of the excitement and disorder is not explained,
but much of it seems to have been due to overwork and Bourbon whiskey, and some of it to the fact that the Americans, like the English, are troubled for the moment with an unusually vulgar House of Commons.
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