Great State Papers

"The original McKinley tariff law Is ritten on parchment similar to that of the Sherman law, and like it, it is bound into a big book that contains the original documents of many other laws. It filis sixty-three of these large parch' ment sheets, and the engrossing of it was done by three different clerks. The title of the bill is, 'An Act to Reduce the Revenues and to Bqualize Duties.' It is attested in the same manner as the Sherman law, and signed by Speaker Reed, Vice-President Morton, and President Harrison. The Wilson bill, which supplants the McKinley bill, filis about as many pages of the heavy unruled parchment, which, by-the-way, ■we send to England to buy. The "Wilson bill mentions almost every article of commerce that one can think of, grouping similar things into paragraphs, and naming the duties that shall be paid upon each. There is a long list of articles on which there is no duty. "Proclamations by the President of the United States have maintained one form since the foundation of the Government. The original Bmancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln is written upon very heavy white unruled paper that is folded once. The fold is at the left, like a sheet of fourpaged letter-paper, and each page is ten by fourteen inches in size. It begins, as do all Presidential proclamations, 'By the President of the United States of America- A Proclamation.' The first line is written with a pen in a bold hand, and the words, 'A Proclamation,' form a line of themselves- printing characters, although executed with a pen. It proclaims that on a certain date, and under certain conditions, a race is free from bondage, but it nowhere calis itself an 'Emancipation Proclamation.' That is a popular name given to this, one of the most famous of State papers. The text is in the handwriting of Secretary geward- a hand that was strikingly like that of Mr. Lincoln.