574 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



House of Representatives, February 20, 1855. 



Mr. Upham. I wish, by the unanimous consent of the 

 House, to ask for the appointment of a clerk to the Com- 

 mittee on the Smithsonian Institution. We have been at 

 work nearly one month, most laboriously, and have been 

 compelled to employ a clerk, and sometimes more than one. 

 I have not had an opportunity to bring my motion for the 

 appointment of a clerk before the House, because every 

 morning gentlemen insisted on the regular order of busi- 

 ness ; and I now ask the House to allow that committee to 

 employ a clerk. 



[General cries of "Oh yes — let them have a clerk!"] 



Mr. Hughes. If the House give unanimous consent to 

 the gentleman's proposition, I will withdraw the motion to 

 adjourn, 



'Mr. Perkins of New York, and others. I object. 



Mr. Upham. Then I move that the rules be suspended, 

 to enable me to submit my proposition. 



The Speaker jno tempore. That cannot be done, as there 

 is a motion to suspend the rules pending, 



Mr. Hughes. I now renew my motion to adjourn. 



The question was taken; and the motion was agreed to. 



House of Representatives, February 27, 1855. 



The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the 

 state of the Union, Mr. Wm. II. English, of Indiana, said: 



I propose occupying the attention of the committee 

 for a short time in submitting some practical remarks 

 in reference to the present condition and management 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, It is not a subject, sir, 

 the introduction of which into Congress has received any 

 favor from me. I regretted to see it brought here; and 

 when the gentleman from Vermont, [Mr. Meacham,] upon a 

 late occasion, introduced a resolution to raise a special com- 

 mittee of inquiry, I felt it my duty to oppose its adoption. 

 I knew that such an examination w^ould be attended with 

 expense, and a consumption of time which at that late • 

 period of the session, could not well be spared from other 

 and more important public business — that it would tend to 

 irritate the feelings of gentlemen heretofore or now con- 

 nected with the institution, and, in a word, might do evil, 

 but could not result in practical good. My knowledge of 

 the subject satisfied me that nothing had occurred to demand 

 the raising of a special committee, clothed with power to 

 send for persons and papers, thus giving to the disappointed 



