Show AO fa POTPOURRI f Z 11 juries d ailleo cameo al lleo laud find braai rallied railroad i rights lite interior clorde be etc etal I 1 luy ily our correspondent EDITOR meeting glion hon R r T merrick of government counsel in the star sar route ces half au all hour flour agai remarked to him that tho newspapers have been making the verdict recently rendered in those cages the text of comments on TUB JURY and asked him whether ho lie had bad any suggestions to make in regard to needed improvements in the tho mode of selecting jurors for this district the onla suggestion su gesOn I 1 have to make saideie said Bai dhe lie is that a law should be passed by congress providing for I 1 struck jurors in special cases in this district cases vases freau frequently antly arise that are of great public importance and in order to cockre juries competent tent to try them the court should havo power to discharge the regular a n d summon a special one composed panel e d of fifty or one hundred men selected j ct ed by the marshal for their known intelligence integrity and force or character men inen well known in the community and having a standing to maintain in the sight of their fellow citizens men of honor and property who co could uld not be up approached pro proa ached chea by sury jury fixers I 1 remarked that while the press seemed pretty generally to DISSENT FROM THE lately rendered by the star rout ejury it t appeared to be conceded that jury fixers had had no share in brit bringing ig ng it about A very grave expression came canie over mr fr merricks face and with a slight shake of the bead head lie said well I 1 am atla not talking about that jury jur I 1 know more than I 1 choose to say and in fact I 1 say nothing at all on the subject of jury fixing inthis case let the jury go but its makeup well illustrates the necessity of a new mode of selecting the jurors for such im important cases it contained four colored bored men one welshman who can scarcely speak any english one man mail who cannot write one who is is a victim of mania a pota and one who is somewhat bat balance intel ly in cases of great public 1 interest 11 on which almost every one has ila read and thought so many persons have formed an all ominio opinio opinion n that the panel is special specially ly so that t there here are only intelligent men to draw from in making up the jury it is next to impossible to get a body of twelve fit men into the jury box in view of the number of or cases of national u importance ap ortance that are liable to come be before f r e 1 the lie courts of this district the suggestion of mr fr merrick seems worthy of the early attention of congress colonel V rockwell toc kwell Commiss loiler of public buildings grounds and re received Ived a few days ago from paris AN E CAM CAMEO FO likeness of tile late president which was vas cut lull on the order of 31 mrs re garfield byg by gamier r 0 eliat city gamier garnier was recommended to col rockwell by the well know sculptor st gaudeau Ga Gau udena deas as being the most celebrated cameo cutter ia iu the world and the perfection of this cameo of Gir garfield field certain ly sustains the high reputation of the artier the likeness liken is cut in profile in a sard stone which Is designed to be set in a brooch the head being about tareo fourths of an all inch in length the picture from which this cameo was api co copied ed is a photograph taken by T W sm smillie illie photographer rupber of the G geological le survey a few days after gen Gar garfielda fields nomination for the presidency MEETING GARFIELD in the national museum mr smillie li who had taken photographs of 11 him im on two or three previous occasions asked him to sit for another tills this lie consented to do and the re suit sult was one of lie the best likenesses of him bin that 1 had ad ever been taken it was wag moreover a profile and as it happened the tile only likeness of f him in profile which had ever been made a circumstance which gave it special interest after his death as preserving the exact curve of the nohe and anti the corresponding in contour of the entire face and head head an outline especially important for the purposes of sculpture and carving A fine bust of garfield now at the deaf dear mute college collego in this city was made from froin the saree same photograph the cameo mt m I 1 received by colonel hockwell rockwell iu lias been forwarded by him to mrs garfield AN IMPORTANT QUESTION now pending before the file Delart department ment of the interior has relation to indemnity lands granted to rail roads or to Sta stales tei for the benefit bene litof of railroad cor po rations in every railroad grant grint hero there is a belt of land id lying within a certain number of miles mileti on oil each bide side of the land grant roid within which it tho the alternate sections of land not otherwise disposed of at alio time of the grant are donated to the road on certain prescribed condit conditions ious on a each eide side orthis of this belt li 6 another of a width fixed by law within which the road may take landa lands bv way of in ill degnit for landa lands lost to it by sales sale or set settlements geri lents within tho tile granted ti limits alts that is within the inner belt aiji t already aready mentioned in if the tile earliest bt grants the inner belt was twelve milca miles in n width bis six miles on each side of the tile road and the two indemnity denin ity belts nine miles each their outer limits being fifteen miles from the road on oil cither either side in some bome of tile later brints the ranted granted belts were eighty milea in width while the tilt indemnity lands extended to a it distance of fifty or esix sixty t y milca int 1 I es on 0 each ach side of the tile road the total wid width til of the northern pacific grant for a por tion of its length ia Is julles miles eighty miles within tho the granted limits and alli fol doity ty more or twenty on each eide side WITHIN TUB tilt INDEMNITY LIMITS for over twenty five years after the lie i inauguration of the land grant policy the land grant policies were construed construed by the department of the interior as giving the tile railroad railroads indemnity for any odthe of tho alternate sections within tile granted limits disposed of by the Government oither before or afler after the date af the cr antine act the tile acts 0 ever provided that indemnity I 1 lauda should betoken betaken bo taken in lieu of the lands thereby granted which might belos be lost tto to the roada roads by settlement thereon or otherwise afler after the tile date of the grant and it has been contended apparently with the best possible reason thattie lands granted within what are known As natho tile granted limits embraced only such alternate sect elections one as had not been previously disposed of the government it was urged could only grant such lands as at the tho time ac actually wally belonged to anda and as it was only in lieu of lands I 1 iler by g granted anted that indemnity ands were w ere aro provided aided for alie law clear cylid not ite for ands within the granted limits which disposed of befaro the tile grant was mado made NOT THEN although this view bew is contrary to the practice BO so long followed by the tile department of the lie Interior it is contended that it is fully aprie borne out of language gugo used uselin in tile decision of the supreme court CIA 1 in tile case of the leavenworth lawrence galveston railroad versus tho the united states which was rendered at the october term of the court in 1875 1 if f this view is corie correct ct some sonio 25 million acres of land hae have already been allowed to railroads to which v hichi they were ft era not entitled under the law and there are perhaps fifty million acres more inore or an area nearly equal to the large state of minnesota to which they are not entitled but which they would nevertheless gs receive if the past practice rac tico of the interior department should be continued attorney general general devens in reply to an all I 1 inquiry made by secretary Sich urz I 1 in n 1 wrote an opinion in which lie set forth that the language of the Sti supreme preme court on the subject in quest question ion vas as obiter dictum and after referring to a contrary decision rendered in a circuit court by air justice II arlan lie advised th the e interior Depatti department nent to adhere to its original practice except aa as to lands reserved from a grant at tile time the granting act was pap paused sed THE TIDAL WAVE of last november appears however lion ever to have beaten against tho the marble walls alls of tho tile interior department building and set act the people within it to flunking thinking at all events secretary teller seems to bo be dubious as to the soundness of attorney general devens advice and there ig is some reason to hope that a decision may bo be readied reached in favor of the people rather than the corporations CATO juno 22 1 |