AMERICAN LEGISLATORS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9581, 4 August 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

AMERICAN LEGISLATORS.

A SERIES OF DISGRACEFUL ORGIES' The payment of members of the American Legislature has been the cause of some extraordinary scenes in Albany. They are described by a writer thus :—The adjournment of the recent corrupt Republican Legislature was the beginning of an orgie which is only now coming to a close with disastrous results to the health of several of the prominent Republicans who took part in it. The first months of the session were hard for the avaricious members, who found nobody to bribe them, since the lobby had been finished during Democratic administrations. But it was not long until the lobby returned and established its headquarters to the great cheer of the rural Republicans, especially the members of the Senate. During the last two weeks of the session there were eleven matters in which there was money, ranging from £100 to £300 a senator, according to his prominence, and whether he was high in committee or not. After a long arid season the money reached the Assembly during the closing days of the session and brought about a time of great prosperity. It was more money than some of the accidental legislators had ever seen before in their lives. They received it, together with the remainder of their pay, and a glorious time for all concerned began. On the last night of the session there were so many members drunk that the Speaker had to declare the Assembly adjourned through his inability to transact business. In the Senate there were two Republican senators so drunk that they constantly interrupted the proceedings, and wore out one presiding officer after another. The big drunk thus started by several prominent Republicans continued the next day. Little business was done in either House in the morning. The Bills which were passed were not checked up, and stray Bills are still being sent from time to time to the governor as they appear from different quarters. * 'Amid great disorder, the Assembly adjourned, having done little business since the members started on their big drunk the night before. That night a party of Republicans, members of the legislature, almost all of them from the rural districts, made a round of the disorderly houses of Albany. From one of these resorts they got a girl who had learned to dance the dance du ventre. They took her to the rooms of a prominent Republican in the legislature of the Delavan house. It was not long before the girl, became as intoxicated as the legislators. The mingled effects of dancing and champagne caused the girl to collapse on the floor, It seemed to these rural Republicans that it would be a good joke to pub her in the bath-tub and turn the water. They did this. : The plug was in the bath-tub, and after the water was turned on the members left her there. If one of them had not sobered up a little and gone in to turn the water off the girl might nave been drowned, as she was in an alcoholic stupor. The rural Republicans slept on the floor and around the room that night, and the dancing girl slept in the bath-tub. In the. morning she was smuggled out. This debauch has broken the health of several of the men engaged in it. Ib is reported that one of the most prominent of them had an attack of the tremens. All the politicians around the Capitol know about the orgie. The stories include the names of the members and the name of, the dancing girl. Ib was the biggest orgie that has taken place in Albany since the time of Tweed.