STIRRING SCENE IN THE PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4462, 8 July 1875, Page 3

STIRRING SCENE IN THE PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE.

A stirring scene has been recently enacted in the Lower House of the Pennsylvania Legislature. It seems that the “ reformed Constitution” adopted in Pennsylvania in 1873 is not working at first as smoothly as could be wished, and that the “ various checks” which have been introduced “to protect the people against special and reckless legislation” are not at present completely answering their purpose. The first session of the enlarged House has brought together a large number of inexperienced member’s, who elected a Speaker who did not understand his duties. The House appears to have done little or nothing for two months but to have attempted to concentrate the work of the session into its concluding days. In the first week of March, when the end of the session was approaching, there was a rush made by members to get their Bills through. The House had an “all night” session, when it conducted its business in the following manner :—Members crowded round the Clerk’s and Speaker’s desks yelling and screaming ; the floor was filled with lobbyists ; and amid the din and confusion Bills were “put through” without any one being aware of it except the few who were interested. In the midst of it a conict was developed about a “Boom Bill.” A lumber company, which has a boom on the Upper. Susquehanna, at Williamsport, enjoys a valuable franchise in the fees levied for catching floating logs, which are then made up into rafts. The “ Boom Bill” was a measure for reducing their charges. It was advocated and opposed vehemently and from midnight till morning. Lobbyists detected in plying their vocation were put out of the House. At 3.30 a.m. the wild turmoil in the House was “ stilled by a stroke of Egyptian darkness.” Somebody had broken into the vault where the gas meter was located and turned the gas off. In the gloom that followed him figures were seen flitting about, and an effort was made to steal the Bill from the Clerk’s desk. Then a report was started that some one wanted to assassinate the speaker. But the gas, was relighted, the speaker was discovered to be in his place, apprehensions subsided, the din recommenced, and the Boom Bill passed by a twothirds vote.