N the 1st of December, 1876, Governor Garber called the sixth legislature elected under the constitution to meet in a special session at ten o'clock in the morning of the 5th of that month, and on the 5th he called for another special meeting at three o'clock in the afternoon of that day. These were the twelfth and thirteenth sessions and the eighth and ninth special sessions. The federal statute at that time required the electors to meet and cast their votes on the first Wednesday in December of the year in which they were appointed; but the state statute provided that the vote for representatives in Congress should be canvassed by the legislature in joint session and that the vote for presidential electors should be canvassed in the same manner. The legislature convened in regular session in January, 1877, too late to canvass the electoral vote; hence the necessity of a special session for that function.
   The democrats attempted to obtain an injunction against the session, in the district court of Douglas county, and James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin and Abram S. Hewitt and John Morrissey of New York, came to Omaha to aid in this enterprise. But the judge, James W. Savage, dismissed the suit for want of equity. The democrats, with the exception of Enyart, Munn, and Tomlin of Otoe county, refused to attend the session; but the seven republican senators and twenty-five members of the house -- five more than a quorum -- were present, and the joint assembly proceeded to canvass the returns over the objections of Church Howe, which showed that under the law as it stood the canvass of the vote for presidential electors could be made only at the regular session in January, 1877.
   After the electors had been chosen, the eligibility of one of them -- Amasa Cobb was in doubt, and the afternoon session was called to provide against that danger. It proceeded to do so by again electing Cobb under the provision of the federal constitution that "each state shall appoint (electors) in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct." Senator James C. Crawford formally objected to the proceeding for three reasons: (1) that the joint. convention has no knowledge of any vacancy in the office of elector, and so no power to fill it; (2) that the laws of Nebraska, which have never been repealed, require the election of electors by the people on the 7th of November; (3) that the joint resolution under which it is proposed to appoint an elector is void because it was not read at large on three separate days and does not repeal the existing law providing for the choosing of electors.
   This expensive and otherwise troublesome incident arose from the second blunder of its kind by the legislature. Governor Butler had been obliged to call a special session of the legislature just before the election of 1868 because no provision had been made for the election of presidential electors. The act passed at that session provided that the votes cast for the candidates for the office of elector should be canvassed in the same manner as for candidates for the office of Representative in Congress, which, according to the revised statutes of 1866, still in force, was to

be done by the governor, the secretary of state, and the auditor, within sixteen days after the election. This left ample time for the electors to meet for the purpose of casting their votes on the first Wednesday in December, according to the act of Congress. But the act of the legislature of 1869 governing elections -- which, with the act of 1868 providing for the choice of electors, was incorporated in the revision of 1873 -- provided that votes cast for candidates for representative in Congress should be canvassed by the legislature which, under the constitution of 1866 and that of 1875, did not meet in regular session until the January following the general elections; and the provision of the act of 1868 that the votes cast for candidates for the electoral college should be canvassed in the same manner as those for members of Congress remained unchanged; hence the hurried call for the extra session to canvass the vote in December, 1876.
   After Amasa Cobb had been chosen as an elector in the regular way it was discovered that no "person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall be appointed an elector," and that the fact that General Cobb was disbursing officer of the treasury department in the matter of the construction of the court house and postoffice at Lincoln probably made him ineligible. A comedy of errors seemed to monopolize the stage. The democrats did their utmost to turn the comedy into tragedy by applying for an order in the district court of Douglas county restraining the republican electors from meeting and casting their votes on the 6th day Of December, on the ground that the votes cast for them at the election had not been legally canvassed.
   It seems, however, that the irregularity of 1876 was not as flagrant as that of 1872, for there was an attempt to regularize it; but we are told that "four years ago the secretary of state and the acting governor, James, set the precedent of interpreting the new law as not making any change in the old way of canvassing the electoral vote, and opened the returns on the day required by act of Congress and canvassed them under the old provision," and that "the clause in the law holding that the vote for electors shall be canvassed in the same manner as the vote for congressman, meant as the vote for congressman was canvassed at that time."
   The seventh legislature convened in the fourteenth session and the fifth regular session, January 2d, and finally adjourned February 15, 1877. George F. Blanchard, republican, of Dodge county, was elected temporary president of the senate, receiving 19 votes to 9 for Church Howe of Nemaha county. Albinus Nance of Polk county was elected speaker of the house, his principal competitor being Dr. Alexander Bear of Madison county.

   The principal event of the session was, of course, the election of a senator of the United States. As the popular preference for candidates for this office is now expressed at primary elections in most of the states, the formal election is merely perfunctory, a saving of much time and distraction over the old method. On the first joint ballot, Phineas W. Hitchcock, the incumbent, received 27 votes; Alvin Saunders, 14; Clinton Briggs, 12; Lorenzo Crounse, 12; George B. Lake, 3; Charles F. Manderson, 4; Theron Nye, 3. The opposition cast 25 votes for James W. Savage, democrat. On the first ballot taken the next day -- January 18th -- Saunders received 45 votes; Hitchcock, 36; Savage, 26. On a second ballot, taken after a brief adjournment, Saunders was elected, receiving the entire republican support and of ten independents -- 88 in all.
   Only one United States senator from Nebraska -- Manderson -- has gained two full terms. Tipton had a desperate struggle for reëlection after his very short initial term of two years, and all the rest have been put out after one term. The charges that Thayer had been put off with only a fractional term by bribery were kept alive during the service of his successful competitor and probably caused his defeat. Mr. Hitchcock evidently attributed his misfortune to the bribery accusation.
   In the sensational campaign thirty-two republican newspapers actively opposed Hitchcock's reëlection, twenty-six were neutral, and

only thirteen positively supported him. At that period no one politically unfriendly to railroads could attain an important political office, and probably no one not positively friendly to them ever did. But there seemed to be enough truth in the complaint that Hitchcock was over-friendly to them, even in that heydey of loyalty -- largely pass-inspired -- to make it an effective aid to the bribery scandal and the inevitable disappointed office seekers. Charged with these poisons and driven home by the restless and relentless Rosewater, the sting of the Bee was destructive.

   Another formidable attempt to remove the capital from Lincoln -- the last until 1911 -- was centered in the house. On the final vote the bill received 36 affirmative, and 37 negative votes. Twenty-three of the thirty-six supporters of the measure were from the North Platte section. Of the eight members from Douglas county, three voted aye, three nay, two not voting. When "Jack" MacColl, introducer of the bill, was a candidate for governor in 1896, this incident had apparently not been quite forgotten.

   A report of the secretary of state upon the census showed that increase in the population of Nebraska from 1855 to 1860 was 542 per cent; from 1860 to 1870, 327 per cent; from 1870 to 1876, 109 per cent. An exhibit accompanying the report gave the population in 1874 as 223,657; in 1875, 246,280; in 1876, 257,747. The enumeration from which these aggregates were compiled was made by precinct assessors under the law of 1869, and it is therefore unlikely that they are reliable; but they at least served as basis for comparison. According to the federal census the population was 452,402 in 1880. The constitution of 1875 provides for an enumeration every ten years, beginning in 1885. The direction was complied with that year and the population was found to be 740,645, but it has been disregarded ever since.

   The laws passed at this session were not as numerous nor as important as those of subsequent sessions. The so-called Granger cases, originating in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, which established the principle that railroad rates could be controlled by legislation, were decided this year but not in time to stimulate legislation along that line. The only acts affecting railroads passed at this session were an amendment strengthening the law of 1876 making railroads liable for the value of stock killed in transit; another requiring railroad companies to keep stock cars clean; and another making taxes on the roadbed, right of way, depots, sidetracks, ties, and rails a perpetual lien thereon, and declaring such property personal for the purpose of taxation and collection of the tax. A bill (H. R. 77) to fix the liability of common carriers receiving property for transportation was indefinitely postponed in committee of the whole; House Roll 254, to require railroads in Nebraska to "pro rate" with one another, was safely buried in the commitee (sic) on railroads of which Loren Clark, whom the Omaha Bee afterward made famous or infamous by its attacks upon him for corporation subserviency, was chairman. This committee recommended the indefinite postponement of a house resolution directing the committee to inquire into the expediency of regulating freight and passenger rates, for the reason, as stated, that the committee was informed that the senate was about to report a bill of that nature. Such a bill was introduced into the senate, where it was indefinitely postponed in committe (sic) of the whole by a vote of 18 to 8.
   The most important bills passed at the session were as follows: An act prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors within three miles of a place where any religious society was assembled for religious worship in a field or woodland; providing that the principal and interest of the grasshopper bonds of 1875 should be paid out of the state sinking fund; repealing the act of 1875 creating a state board of immigration; regulating the manner of proposing amendments to the constitution and submitting them to electors; providing for township organization; creating a commission for three members to revise the general laws of the state; authorizing the supervisors of each road district and supervisors to be appointed by mayors of cities to require

each able-bodied male resident between the ages of sixteen and sixty years to perform two days' labor, at such time and place and in such manner as should be deemed most efficient in the destruction of grasshoppers. If it should appear that two days' labor would be insufficient, the supervisors might require a greater number of days, not exceeding ten. No compensation was provided for such work, and any person refusing to perform it was liable to a fine of $10 with costs of suit. Further enactments were for establishing the board of public lands and buildings and defining its duties; offering a bounty of $1 for every wolf, wildcat, and coyote killed, to be paid by warrants drawn by the auditor upon the state treasurer. A joint resolution was passed requesting members of Congress from Nebraska to attempt to procure such legislation as would provide for the appropriation of the proceeds of the sale of public lands in the several states devastated by grasshoppers to be used in payment of bounties for their destruction. A preamble and joint resolution was passed which recited that the state had materially suffered from frequent and continued invasions of hostile Indians for the past twelve years and asking that the control of Indian affairs be transferred to the war department for more efficient and economical administration. Another joint resolution recited that the federal census of Nebraska taken in 1870 failed to show the actual number of people in the state; that there had been a rapid increase of population since that time, that the state census of 1875 showed a sufficient population to entitle the state to two members of Congress, and asking that an additional member be awarded. A joint resolution was passed reciting, "That the records of the impeachment and removal from office of David Butler, late governor, be and the same are hereby expunged from the journals of the Senate and House of Representatives of the 8th session of the legislature of Nebraska."

   J. Sterling Morton and Dr. George L. Miller worked together in politics during the greater part of their long political activity; but during the decade of 1880-1890 and until the new leader, Bryan, with his new, or, rather, more vitalized, doctrines conveniently but superficially called Bryanism, arose in the early part of the next decade, when they made common cause against him, they were the leaders of two mutually hostile factions of the democratic party. Their differences were mainly due to the overweening ambition for leadership and the domineering personal temper or temperament of both, though Miller was inclined to Randall protectionism while Morton was a radical free trader, and their railroad affiliations were not always identical. Morton, moreover, after his recovery from his greenback lapse, grew more "sound" on the money question than Miller. As early as 1877 a quarrel between them was noticed, ostensibly over a puff in the Herald of Dan. Voorhees, whom Governor "Blue Jean," Williams had recently appointed to succeed Oliver P. Morton, deceased, as United States senator. Morton pointed out that the Herald had formerly called the budding statesman a wind-bag and other impolite names which Miller always freely drew for editorial use from his full-stocked vocabulary. Morton himself had been alike impolite to "the tall sycamore of the Wabash," who was too much bent on "doing something for silver," but stuck to it while Miller took it back.
   The republican state convention for 1877 was held at Lincoln, October 10th. It was called to order by Charles H. Gere, chairman of the state committee; James W. Dawes of Saline, was temporary and permanent chairman, George L. Brown of Butler, temporary secretary, and Daniel H. Wheeler of Cass, permanent secretary. George B. Lake of Douglas county, was nominated for chief justice of the supreme court on the second formal ballot. The convention, for some reason not apparent, did not want a platform, and the usual motion for the appointment of a committee on resolutions was defeated by a vote of 119 to 131. James W. Dawes was pitted against Edward Rosewater for member at large of the state committee and was victorious by a vote of 171 to 82. This incident was indicative of the relative standpat and insurgent strength in the party. Self-

contained and subservient reactionaries did not dream, much less see, that eventually they must bow to their ascendant Nemesis whom they now contumeliously (sic) spurned. Rosewater was to have his day, and a great day it would be. A delegate from Douglas county offered a resolution of sympathy with the laboring classes for their manly defense of their rights "during the recent attempt of capital to oppress labor." It was supported by Rosewater, opposed by Gere, and tabled by the convention of course. The standpat mouthpiece characterized it as "Rosewater's communistic resolution" and declared that the Douglas delegation was composed chiefly, if not entirely, of men who bolted the organization last fall, their chief object being to destroy Judge Briggs, "a man who for a time had got in bad company."
   On the 26th of October E. A. Allen, chairman, and S. V. Burtch, secretary of the democratic state committee issued a statement that as "only a judge of the supreme court and two regents of the university were to be nominated," they deemed it inexpedient to hold a state convention. The committee had unanimously passed a resolution urging the State Bar Association to nominate a candidate for the judgeship; but the association having declined to act on its suggestion, the committee urged all democratic county organizations to put the name of John D. Howe upon their tickets and support him at the polls. As a matter of course the lawyers, who were usually ambitious politicians and perforce, perhaps, members of the dominant party, could not afford to listen to a proposal to divide official honors and emoluments with the minority party so long as their own party was strong enough to safely monopolize them. Even recent repeated attempts, stimulated by the present comparatively strong and growing independence of partisanship, have failed to unhorse the pernicious custom of the partisan choice of judicial officers which was so firmly seated in those inauspicious times.
   Judge Lake had flirted too much with various parties to be wholly acceptable to the stalwart republicanism of that day; and so the State Journal was willing to quote from the free lance Lincoln Globe a severe stricture upon his candidacy. There was much complaint, the Globe declared, about Lake's nomination. Ten years of incumbency was enough and many wanted a new man. Besides, Briggs had probably missed the nomination by a miscount in the convention and Lake's managers would not consent to a recount. He was not a man of decided ability, falling below Gantt in that respect, and his written opinions fell below the standard, "contributing for him his full share of much bad law confessedly contained in the Nebraska reports." This was the opinion of "the able members of the bar." While on the bench he had been a constant candidate for the United States senatorship and for a seat in the lower house of Congress; and in 1868, failing to get the nomination of the republican party, he accepted one from its political opponents and ran against the regular republican candidate, John Taffe, in the meantime "remaining upon the bench against all precedent, so as to be sure of an office in any case." The Globe thought that the bar association would nominate Briggs or Wakeley.
   Lake received 25,569 votes against 15,639 cast for Howe, his democratic opponent. That palpable republican dissatisfaction with Lake's nomination should not have been manifested in a greater defection in his support at the polls is explained by the unquestioning party loyalty which would still accept or tolerate argument of this sort: "Politically the republicans of Lancaster county should vindicate the honor of the old flag . . . Republicans of Lancaster county, stand by your guns and vote straight as you shot, and let the cry of 'bloody shirt' dismay those only who got their shirts crimsoned in the ranks of disloyalty and secession." More directly vital to the interests of the party organs, there would be no danger of annoying inquiry into fat public printing subsidies or other public matters of practical import, so long as public attention could be diverted by such inspiring appeals to a paramount patriotism.
   A large element of the republican party at this time favored the restoration of free coinage of silver. The State Journal, which led in the movement, ardently supported the

Bland bill -- which had passed the House -- restoring the old dollar of 412 1/2 grains as an unconditional legal tender for debts, public and private," and insisted that it must pass the Senate without amendment. This was the same radical principle which all the leading republican newspapers of the state, including the Journal, violently asailed (sic) William J. Bryan for promulgating about fifteen years later. On the 12th and 16th of January, 1878, mass meetings were held in Lincoln in the interest of free coinage. Harvey W. Hardy was president of the meetings and Allen W. Field secretary. Lorenzo W. Billingsley offered a set of drastic resolutions about the crime of '73, for restoring free silver coinage and declaring that if President Hayes should veto the Bland bill our representatives in Congress ought to endeavor to pass it over the veto. Turner M. Marquett, Oliver P. Mason, Charles H. Gere, S. B. Galey, John L. McConnel, John B. Wright, and President Hardy, all republicans, and comprising most of the party leaders of the capital city, favored the resolutions. Only Nathan S. Harwood and Genio M. Lambertson opposed and favored a gold standard. Harwood advocated a resolution in favor of the coinage of silver dollars equal in value to gold dollars; and he opposed the Bland bill because it was not honorable to pay debts in depreciated money. In reply to the assertions of the resolutions and the other speakers that the silver dollar was fraudulently demonetized in 1873, he pointed out that the provision for its coinage had long been obsolete when it was formally dropped from the statutes. John I. Redick of Omaha, who in a few years won a reputation for changeful opportunism -- not always or necessarily an unwise or discreditable tendency -- was for the resolutions, of course. An amendment declaring for the repeal of the specie resumption act, presented by C. H. Gould and pressed by L. C. Pace, was defeated, it would seem inconsistently. Harwood and Lambertson were among the earliest and most positive advocates of the gold standard in the great struggle for free coinage of silver which began about 1890.
   The republican state convention for 1878 was held at Lincoln, October 1st. It was called to order by James W. Dawes, chairman of the state committee, and Monroe L. Hayward of Otoe county was temporary and permanent chairman. There were contesting delegations from Custer, Douglas, Franklin, Gosper, Lincoln, and Madison counties. Amasa Cobb, who had been appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Daniel Gantt, May 29, 1878, was nominated for judge of the supreme court by acclamation; and Edward K. Valentine was nominated for member of Congress on the fourth formal ballot. The informal ballot gave Lorenzo Crounse 110 votes; Valentine, 90; Oliver P. Mason, 25; and other scattering support; the third formal, Crounse, 125; Valentine, 131; George. F. Blanchard, 36; Joseph C. McBride, 6; Mason 1. Thomas J. Majors was nominated for the short term, to fill the vacancy left by the death of Mr. Welch in September. Albinus Nance of Polk county was nominated for governor on the third formal ballot. The platform declared that "elections shall be free in the south"; with some deference to President Hayes's inclination; squinted toward re-form of the civil service; denounced a gratuitous assumption that damages inflicted on the property of southern states by the war might be paid from the national treasury; declared that the ample power of Congress must be exerted to guard against extortions of corporate capital; saw signs of reviving business; insisted that the greenback should be made as good as honest coin; approved the Bland bill for coining standard silver dollars and restoring their legal tender character, but declared that coinage should be free and that the thirty million trade dollars then in circulation should be made legal tender; denounced the recent attempt of democrats to steal the presidency; protested against a proposition to withdraw public lands west of the one hundredth meridian from homestead, preëmption, and timber culture; demanded that, as soon as practicable. Indians now within our border should be removed to the territory set apart for their use.
   Edward Rosewater characteristically convulsed the convention by introducing a resolution which declared that the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that

the Union Pacific bridge across the Missouri river was a part of the main line of the road implied that the special bridge toll of ten dollars for each car of freight and fifty cents for each passenger was contrary to the spirit of the charter granted by the United States to the Union Pacific company, was unjust and oppressive, and that the question should be clearly defined by an act of Congress and the bridge rate reduced to that charged on the rest of the line. The resolution was hotly opposed, John M. Thurston leading the attack, and S. B. Galey and W. H. Ashby assisting. James Laird, William J. Connell, and others supported it. But Nebraska politics was not yet ripe for definite, much less drastic, anticorporation declaration such as this, and the resolution was defeated by a vote of 127 to 84. Charles O. Whedon, following his penchant for sardonically marrying incongruities, offered an amendment as follows: "Resolved, that it is an outrage for the ferry companies at Plattsmouth, Nebraska City, and Brownville to charge $10 per car for transferring cars across the Missouri river." This was added to the Rosewater resolution as an amendment and fell with it. As reported in the Daily State Journal, October 4th, Mr. Whedon "argued that the Union Pacific railroad had a right to fix the amount of the toll exactly as much as a. man has a right to fix the price of a bushel of potatoes he has for sale." The radical change of attitude toward the relation of transportation companies and the state is illustrated by the fact that in the year 1911 Mr. Whedon is an "insurgent" or "La Follette republican"; which means that he holds to the right and duty of the public, through commissions or legislatures, to absolutely fix railroad rates. The irrelevancy of the Whedon resolution lay in the fact that the Union Pacific railroad was largely a giant creature of the people who, therefore, participated in its management through the agency of the federal government, while the ferries in question were at that time regarded as simply private concerns.
   The democratic state convention was held at Lincoln, September 25th. A majority of the convention was chiefly bent on effecting fusion with the greenback party and of emulating the republican devotion to unstable money. A majority of the committee on resolutions, comprising Frank P. Ireland, James C. Crawford, James E. North, George E. Pritchett, James R. Gilkeson, and A. J. Smith, reported a conservative plank in favor of carrying out the resumption act and of a currency convertible into coin at the will of the holder. Their platform included, almost of course, a declaration against the protective tariff. The two dissenters -- James G. Megeath and Nat. W. Smails -- offered a minority plank demanding the postponement of resumption until the needs of the country admit it, the restoration of silver to the position it occupied before it was fraudulently demonetized, the abolition of the national bank system, and the substitution of greenbacks for the bank notes, opposing any further sale of bonds for resumption purposes and insisting that the public debt should be paid according to the original contract. This report was adopted in preference to that of the majority by a vote of 69 to 53. The platform also denounced republicans for defrauding the nation of a president justly elected, and because they had "squandered the public lands, robbed the school funds, wasted the public money in rotten contracts for rotten public buildings, and levied a tax of half a million dollars a year for ten years to enrich favorites and feed imbeciles in office." It declared for "the liberty of individuals unvexed by sumptuary laws" and "against any and all protective tariffs." The convention nominated candidates as follows: For member of Congress, long term, J. W. Davis; short term, Dr. Alexander Bear; governor, W. H. Webster of Merrick county; lieutenant-governor, F. J. Mead; secretary of state Benjamin Palmerton; auditor, E. H. Benton; treasurer, S. H. Cummins; superintendent of public instruction, S. L. Barrett; attorney-general, Stephen H. Calhoun; superintendent of public lands and buildings, Joseph McCreedy; judge of the supreme court, John D. Howe. Dr. George L. Miller was named in the convention for governor and J. Sterling Morton for member of Congress, but it was inclined to a

new deal, and the monetary principles of these two veterans had become rather too hard to yield to greenback fusion.
   A state greenback convention held at Lincoln on the 14th of August nominated a ticket of which the candidates for member of Congress, auditor, treasurer, attorney-general. commissioner of public lands and buildings, and judge of the supreme court were the same as those of the democrats. There was no essential difference between the democratic and greenback money planks, and the only appreciable difference in the republican plank was its friendliness to national bank currency as well as greenbacks and a demand for the convertibility of greenbacks into coin; but the virtue of the demand for a coin basis was repudiated by the radical demand for unlimited free coinage of debased silver.
   The fusion of democrats and greenbackers was effective enough to alarm the dominant party and did not fall far short of defeating it. Cobb, candidate for judge of the supreme court, received 28,956 votes against 23,191 cast for Howe. Nance, republican candidate for governor, received 29,469 votes while the opposition divided its support, giving Webster, democrat, 13,473, and Todd, greenback, 9,475. All of the other opposition candidates for state offices received the fusion vote. Valentine, republican candidate for member of Congress, received 28,341 votes; Davis, democrat and greenback, 21,752; Dr. Alexander Bear, national, 110.
   The eighth legislature convened in the fifteenth session and the sixth regular session, January 7th, and finally adjourned February 25, 1879. The senate comprised eighteen republicans, five democrats, two greenbackers, and five nationals. The democrats were Charles H. Brown and C. V. Gallagher of Douglas county, D. T. Hayden of Otoe, Lewis Ley of Stanton, George A. Stone of Richardson; the greenbackers, P. W. Birkhauser of Richardson, J. H. Grimm of Saline; the nationals, William B. Beck of Burt, T. A. Bunnell of Saunders, John A. Cuffy of Washington, J. A. McMeans of Jefferson, O. P. Sullenberger of Dixon. Of the fifty-five members of the house thirty-six were republicans, nine democarts (sic), six greenbackers, two independent republicans; not designated, two. Charles P. Mathewson, republican, of Madison county, was elected speaker.
   Among the enactments of this legislature was a provision that "all impeachments of state officers shall be tried before the supreme court," except that judges of the supreme court should be tried by all the district judges. Nance county was formed, its territory comprising the Pawnee reservation. Saline lands described as follows were set apart for the use of a Nebraska hospital for the insane: n. e. 1/4 sec. 4, t. 9 n., r. 6 cast 6 p. m.; s. w. 1/4 sec. 34, t. 10, r. 6. The excess of the state moneys on hand over $100,000 was to be invested in United States four per cent bonds. The sum of $100,000 was appropriated out of the sinking fund to pay off that amount of the state funding bonds. A fish commission was created to consist of three members whose term of office should be three years. No salary was provided for the commissioners, but their expenses should be paid to an amount not exceeding $500. A bounty of $2 was provided. for the taking of wolves, wildcats, and coyotes whenever any county should vote to give such bounty. By the law of 1877 $1 was to be paid by the state for each animal killed. By the law of 1879, $7,500 was provided for payment of bounties under the law of 1877. The contract for leasing convict labor at the state penitentiary to W. H. B. Stout, made September 22, 1877, was extended six years from October 1, 1883. Under the conditions of this law Stout was to build for the state 240 stone cells before October 1, 1883. He was to receive forty-five cents a day for each convict for the first three years of his lease, and forty cents a day for the second three years. All that part of the Omaha and Winnebago reservation not included in Cuming or Burt counties was attached to Dakota county for judicial and revenue purposes. It was provided that counties must pay $3.33 an acre for six rows of trees planted along half section or north section lines east and west and cared for not less than five years. A general election law provided that one judge of the supreme court and two regents of the

university should be elected in 1879 and every two years thereafter, for a term of six years. Judges of district courts should be elected in 1879 and every four years thereafter; state officers and members of Congress, in 1880 and every two years thereafter; county officers, in 1879 and every two years thereafter; one county commissioner in 1879 and one annually thereafter. At the general election immediately preceding the expiration of the term of a United States senator, electors might express by ballot their preference for his successor. It was provided that county treasurers should be eligible to office for only two consecutive terms. The sum of $75,000 was provided for building the west wing of a new capitol. The sum of $10,000 was appropriated for establishing and maintaining a reform school at Kearney, provided that the city should donate to the state a site for the same comprising not less than 320 acres.
   Memorials and joint resolutions were passed asking Congress to extend the provisions of the acts of 1850 and 1855, relative to swamp and overflowed lands, to Nebraska and other new states; to transfer the Indian bureau to the war department, "believing it will give greater protection to our exposed settlers," and be less expensive; to place the Santee Sioux Indians on the old Ponca reserve recently vacated by the Spotted Tail band, only six miles distant from the lands held by the Santee in Knox county, which were seized by the interior department after being settled upon and cultivated by citizens of that county. A memorial set forth that incursions of hostile Indians east of Fort Robinson had recently resulted in the loss of several lives and much damage to property; and senators and representatives from Nebraska were asked to urge upon the war department the establishment of a military post in that part of the state. Congress was asked to repeal that part of section 640, revised statutes of the United States, 1873-1874, under which railroad corporations operating within the state removed cases between such corporations and citizens from state to federal courts. Application was made for indemnity for school land sections in the Otoe and Pawnee reservations. The members of Congress from Nebraska were asked to oppose the payment of southern war claims. The attorney-general of the state was instructed to proceed by suit or otherwise to collect moneys loaned out of the permanent school fund in 1870 and 1871 and to report to the next legislature the condition of each case.
   In his message Governor Garber reported as outstanding ten per cent, ten years grasshopper bonds of 1875 to the amount of $50,000 and eight per cent funding bonds of April, 1877, to the amount of $549,267.35. Of these bonds $123,000 had been sold to the highest bidder at $1.07, and the balance was invested in the permanent school fund. The governor reported that "for some time past the outer walls of the capitol have been considered unsafe. Last October architects were employed to examine the building, and they pronounced the north wall in danger of falling." It was rebuilt at a cost of $777.98. The time was not far distant when a new building must be erected. The governor recommended that citizens of Lincoln should be reimbursed for their expense in replacing the foundation of the university, but this just request was ignored.
   The commission appointed under the law of 1877 to revise the statutes of the state reported to the legislature of 1879 that they had prepared a new school law, a new revenue law, and a new railroad law. According to a statement made by John H. Ames, a member of the commission, the legislature, fearing that a comprehensive report might not be upheld by the courts, adopted only a small part of the work. The legislature of 1877 not comprehending the magnitude of the work involved expected a full report of it the following fall. The members of the committee worked two years, each receiving compensation of only $1,500.
   The republican state convention for 1879 was held at Omaha October 1st. The convention was called to order by James W. Dawes, chairman of the state committee. Monroe L. Hayward of Otoe county was temporary and permanent chairman. Amasa Cobb of Lancaster county was nominated for judge of the supreme court by acclamation. In present-