Mr. HOWARD. I hold in my hand a brief memorandum furnished to me by a very intelligent gentlemen who has had this matter under consideration and investigated it very fully, and by the permission of the Senate I Will read a few paragraphs from it. He says: "1. Iron bridges. especially upon railroads. are a great public neccssit assafeguardsagainst both fire and decay and so t icy are a.great public necessity as a meaus of safety to life. person and property. againstthe worstelassof accidentsand lossesoccur ring upon railroads. "The correctnessof this statement is illustrated in caseof the bridge at Troy. over the Hudson. on the Troy and Schenectadyrailroad. which was burned 2 or 3 yearsago, and also a considerableportion of that city as a consequenceof it. It is illustrated by the givingway and falling of the briadlsgoe on the Great Western railroad. Canada, over the Des Jardinc canal. near Hamilton. owing to internal decay, on account of which a large number of pas sengerslost their lives. Similar casesarecontinually occurimr. here and there, throughout the country. Iron bridgeswould beeffectualproventitives against such calamities. "2. Railroad bridgesare at presentvery generally madeof wood; whereasthey would as generally be madeof iron were it not for the very great cost of that material acostso great as to be prohibitory in mosteases. It makes this class of  work comesollllZll asto prevent it from being adoptedand ordered and gourequontly almost wholly cuts off this branch of nsiiioss. "Thore is an immenseiron bridge making establilshment in Detroit. The railroads want then work, extremely. They havemade estimatesfor and correspondedin referenceto enough to keep themVig oarsosuixs lyiuenmdprelodyhead nfodrs.fyoeutrtohrefiyv heayveealirtstlweitohransomthainngy to do in this description of work. The roads either resortto woodor apxiously wait for a decline in the costof iron to a pointwithin their control. The resuit is, that thoinvestment in this establishmentfor this line of businessis. substantially. dead capital; the ownerslose the useof their property; 100s of mechanicsare cut oTT from employment; neither the roads nor the public get the benefit of these bridges, and the Government etsno revenue. And soit goes. Otherlike establish meritsundergoalike oppressive experience: for example.the onein Baltimore, belonging to Mr. Wendell Bellman, the inventor of an iron bridge known as Bollman’s Iron Suspension Truss Bi idge, to which a distinguished commission COnSlStlnIgof Generals Sherman and Pope and (dovernor letcher, awarded a 1st re mium of 1.000ina comparison of merit and ski l as lar c and severe as the eastern, middle, southwestern, an Western Statescould make. "3. By exemptin iron bridges and their several parts from eircisc, ougress would do much toward removing the difficultyin the way of their adoption and manufacture. In ordinary eases iron susponsion trussbrid es. such as Bollman’s or Fink‘s t oeheapestaswe] as the best styles yet invented arecomposedof wrought and cast iron of nearly equal quantitiesb weight; but when erected oyer a navigable river. wherethey might possiblybe liable to be struck, laterally by a steamboat or othervessel, they have to be madeal most wholly of wrought iron. By the excise laws now in force, the cast iron in thesebridges is taxed. Be yigdhutplication, 6 dollars perton: the wrought iron dollars and 40 cents perton. These excise duties on the parts, of course.increase the cost of these structures verymaterially: in case of the bridge contemplatedat Dubuque as much as $16.000 in that at Quincy not lessthan $20,000.This is the effectof the oldlaw nowin forceon the parts of those bridges, saying nothing of themasfinishedmanufactures. ‘Iri Vicw of the considerations now stated, the priricipal railroads of the West, including several in Ohio. With the bridge making establishmentsspoken pf. have petitioned the present Congressto excmpt iron bridgesand their several parts from excise, so as to encourage their adoption and manufactureand render the same more practicable. Several of these petitions are now in the hands of the ComFinance of the Senate. I petitioners submit that what these seek.in the matter of excise, should be granted on the ground that the public good andjust relief to the railroad companies and especially to a very important branch of industry, imperiously demandit. “But supposeiron bridges should bestruck from the free list, and this act in other respects become a.law. hboriwdgweo.fuolrdeixraomn pblreid, cgoenstbeeniapilfacteetdeadtb DubuqueToa.kItewthilel b require not far from 2,000 tons of wrough tiron over a navigable stream: and the iron super structure will cost about. The excisetax on the separate parts of the bridgewould be, byrluplication, 810,000 on the bridge asa complete dmanufac tprc. 830,000 total 840,000 I.n the same way the expnbhjepe contemplated on bridge at Quincy would 0. I will read no more from this memorandum. I trust that the Senate will see fit to non-concur in the amendment suggested by the ComFinance, and place iron bridges on the free list. I think the public good requires it as well as the interests of the railroad companies and of the traveling public.