LOUISIANA. 



471 



literary world by his "Diario de un Testigo 

 de la Guerra de Africa," has ^lately published 

 two volumes, one of poems, in which he has 

 collected the best of his poetical compositions, 

 and the other of literary articles collected 

 from different periodicals. 



Dramatic works of all forms and dimensions 

 have always been most abundant in Spain. 

 In the first ten months of the present year, 

 one hundred and fifteen plays were printed, 

 including original dramas, translations, and 

 adaptations. The greater number only live the 

 first night they are produced, and few have 

 sufficient merit to be acted more than a very 

 small number of nights. 



Spain is exceedingly poor in modern works 

 on philosophy. The eminent professor, Sefior 

 Sanz del Rio, who died a very short time ago, 

 and who was a pupil and imitator of the Ger- 

 mans, spared no effort, both by original studies 

 and translations, to popularize philosophy in 

 Spain (" Ideal de la Humanidad para la Vida "). 

 There is a little more movement in social and 

 political science. The study of philology be- 

 gins to give signs of life. Sefior Ayuso's study 

 on Sanscrit ( u El Estudio de la Filologia en su 

 Relacion con el Sanscrit "), and Senor Moreno 

 Nieto's Arabic Grammar (" Gram&tica Ara- 

 biga "), are works of interest and importance. 



LOUISIANA. The conduct of public af- 

 fairs in Louisiana during the past year has 

 been seriously affected by a political conflict 

 between two factions of the Republican party 

 that controls the State, the one composed of 

 the supporters and the other of the opposers 

 of the Governor, Henry C. Warmouth. The 

 opposition was at first led by Lieuten ant-Gov- 

 ernor Dunn, and the war began with the open- 

 ing of the Legislature on the 2d of Janu- 

 ary, 1871. In the Senate the strength of the 

 Warmouth party was shown by the adoption, 

 by a vote of 20 to 14, of a resolution taking 

 the power to appoint the committees from the 

 Lieutenant-Governor, ex-officio President of 

 the Senate, and placing it in the hands of the 

 majority of the members. In the House, Mor- 

 timer Carr was reflected Speaker, supposed to 

 sympathize with the Dunn faction, but re- 

 signed before the expiration of the first month, 

 and Colonel G. W. Carter was elected as his 

 successor. The Democratic members of the 

 House whose seats were contested were then 

 confirmed in their places. On January 10th 

 the contest for a United States Senator result- 

 ed in the success of General J. R. West, known 

 as the candidate of Governor Warmouth, on 

 the first ballot, both in the Senate and the 

 House. 



The cost, to the State, of this Legislature was 

 greater than that of any preceding one. The 

 expense of the Senate was $191,763.85, and of 

 the House of Representatives $767,192.65, an 

 average cost of $5,300 for each Senator, and 

 $7,300 for each member of the House, or an 

 average of over $6,800 for each member of 

 the entire body, or of $113.50 per day, for 



each member during the session. The Gov- 

 ernor commented on this in his message to 

 the Legislature of 1872, as follows : 



A careful calculation of the expenses of the Gen- 

 eral Assembly for mileage and per diem, even at the 

 enormous rate of twenty cents per mile, each way, 

 shows that the total expenses ought not to exceed 

 $100,000 for the sixty days of the annual session, and 

 the legitimate contingent expenses of both Houses 

 ought not to exceed $25,000. Then what has becomo 

 of the excess, $833,956.50? It has been squandered 



age and per diem of members for days' services 

 never rendered ; for an enormous corps of useless 

 clerks, pages, etc., for publishing the journals of 

 each house in fifteen obscure newspapers, some of 

 which have never existed, while some of those that 

 did exist never did the work they were employed to 

 do, although everjr one has received the compensa- 

 tion for it ; in paying committees authorized by the 

 House to sit during vacation, and to travel through- 

 out the State and into Texas, and in a hundred other 

 different ways. The enrolment committee of the 

 House had over eighty clerks, most of whom were 

 tinder pay during the whole session at eight. dollars 

 per day, during which time only one hundred and 

 twenty bills were passed, which did not require more 

 than eight or ten clerks to perform the whole labor 

 of enrolment. 



Soon after the adjournment of the Legisla- 

 ture, the Governor applied to the Eighth Dis- 

 trict Court of New Orleans for an injunction 

 restraining the State Auditor from the pay- 

 ment of warrants outstanding against appro- 

 priations made by the Legislature to meet 

 mileage, per diem, and contingent expenses, 

 on the ground that fraudulent vouchers had 

 been issued. This was granted, and the coiirt 

 appointed the Auditor and experts as a com- 

 mission to investigate the matter. Their re- 

 port, rendered near the close of the year, in 

 part sustained the charges of the Governor. 

 The examination, it is asserted, revealed the 

 fact that the amounts for which respectively 

 the warrants were originally drawn were in 

 many instances fraudulently increased. War- 

 rants issued in excess of the appropriations of 

 1871 were found amounting to about $240,000. 

 It was further discovered that many warrants 

 were issued for extra pay to officers and 

 clerks on mere resolutions of one House, con- 

 trary to an express enactment of the last 

 preceding Legislature ; and that in several 

 cases warrants, amounting to about $40,000, 

 were issued to committees and their clerks for 

 mileage going to and returning from distant 

 points on official duty, when, by the showing 

 of the journals, they did not leave the city. 

 Also, that a regular system of forgery had 

 been carried on by parties dealing in State 

 warrants, in the alteration of the figures writ- 

 ten by the warrant clerk to larger sums in 

 some instances figures representing two thou- 

 sand being altered to five thousand dollars ; 

 and that the signatures of the officers of the 

 State engaged in issuing these warrants had 

 been placed on a large number of them by un- 

 authorized persons. The appropriations of 

 the Legislature for its expenses were made to 

 the amount of hundreds of thousands of dol- 



