Assembly Bill No. 597. Distribute school tax from Southern Central R. R. among school districts of Town of Hartford, Cortland County. Not approved. Assembly Bill No. 561.- For a Fire Department in Second School District of Glennville, Schenectady County. Not approved. Assembly Bill No. 639. To amend Act incorporating Village of Bath-on-the-Hudson. Not approved. Assembly Bill No. To repeal Act for election of Police Justices in villages so far as relates to Greene County. Not approved. Assembly Bill No. -To amend Act incorporating Village of Camden. Not approved. Assembly Bill No. 295.- Concerning Notary Public in Counties of Kings, Queens, Richmond, Westchester, Putnam, Suffolk, Rockland, and the City and County of New York. Not approved. Assembly Bill No. 407.- Authorize Buffalo and Grand Island Ferry Company to increase capital stock. Assembly Bill No. 131. Regulate voting in Western New York Agricultural Society. Not approved. Senate Bill No. 66. Amend Act for draining land adjoining Black Lake. Not approved. Senate Bill No. 65. — Amend Act for draining overflowed land adjoining Black Lake. Clark and Skinner Canal, at Scott Street, in Buffalo. Not approved. L. THE New York Chamber of Commerce invited Governor Tilden to be its guest at its annual dinner on the evening of the 4th of May, 1876. The Governor arrived from Albany during the dinner, and was placed on the right of Samuel D. Babcock, president, who occupied the chair. On the left sat Mr. Pierrepont, then Attorney-General of the United States; and next on his left was Ex-Governor John A. Dix. To the first regular toast, "The President of the United States," Mr. Pierrepont responded. The feature of his speech was the discomforts, the vexations, and the trials incident to the life of Presidents in general and to that of President Grant in particular. "I am acquainted," he said, "with one man— and very well acquainted with him who has been President of the United States for the last eight years nearly; and I have had some private talks with him on the delights of that place, and I may be able to communicate some information to those men who are so anxious to get the place, how very charming it is. When this man of whom I speak was forty-six years old you called him from the camp and from a great office which he held for life, and insisted that he should be President of the United States; and you placed him in that responsible situation when he was utterly unused to public affairs, wholly inexperienced in politics, knowing nothing of the tricks and the treachery which belong thereto. You placed him there at the end of a great civil war, when you had released from bondage four millions of ignorant slaves, when the country was utterly demoralized by war, and corrupted by the over-issue of paper money. There you placed this inexperienced soldier; and as honest men I ask you, Did you expect that he could commit no blunder that he could make no mistake? I know that your response is that you could not so have expected an impossibility and a thing so unreasonable. He will tell you that he has committed blunders and that he has made mistakes; but he will tell you, and every man will tell you, and when Malignity has done her worst, and from the penitentiary and insane asylums has called her witnesses, his friends may defy any man to find in his entire record a single thing that will be a blot upon his integrity. . . . Now, my friends, he has gone through a fiery trial, — he is not done yet; but don't have any doubts that he will come out of it unsinged, and that you will find this great general, on whom you have so relied and whom you have so admired, deserving of all the favors and all the admiration you have bestowed. He is so generous a man, gentlemen, that he will not be unwilling to see any good, honest, patriotic man take his place at the end of eight months, and he will be willing to see him enjoy all the luxuries and delights and the charms and the undisturbed repose which belong to the place; and if there is any man here who is thinking at all about this place [here the speaker glanced slyly at Governor Tilden, and his eyes were followed by the amused looks of the company, which broke out with uproarious laughter and applause as the serious and unmoved countenance of the Governor met their view], -I can assure him that when General Grant has stepped out of that place, he will look serenely on and see him enjoy the luxury and the delights and repose of the place without a single twinge of envy." At a later stage of his speech the Attorney-General arraigned the Municipal Government of New York city as responsible largely for the general depression of business, of which the mercantile world were then justly complaining. "Every man of you tells me, and one of your oldest members told me in the other room that in his experience of fifty years never was New York so depressed. Why is it so depressed? Because by fraudulent government your taxes have been so increased that trade cannot prosper here, that everything is made so expensive that other cities come in and undermine you and take away your trade. I have had occasion in my official place lately, from questions sent to me from the Treasury Department relating to the transmission of goods that come here in bond, to enter into this question about the prosperity of my own great city; and I tell you here to-night that under the system that now exists, from the bad government from which the city has suffered, and from which my friend here [Governor Tilden] and myself tried years ago to release it all we could, and yet we could not relieve it, so great are the expenses here that I can put down a bale of goods in Chicago cheaper than I can in Union Square to-day." To the second regular toast, "The State of New York," Governor Tilden was called upon to respond. The personal allusions in the speech of the preceding speaker were of such a character-coming as they did from a Cabinet minister speaking for and in behalf of the President-that Governor Tilden's remarks were necessarily more or less responsive to them, and therefore unpremeditated. |