Mr. LAFLIN. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the U.S. printed during the last year 155,000 copies of the Agricultural Report, and it must have cost the Government from a dollar and a half to 2 dollars pervolume for each extra copy beyond the cost‘of composition. The paper and press work alone cost a dollar and a half pervolume. We have got to expend, to prepare 25,000 co ies, as much money as if we printed 100,000 copies. Every member is receivin from 5 to 600 copies of the Agricultural Report for distribution, at a cost of ten or 12,000 dollars; and when we bear in mind that these Agricultural Reports are sent, not to the men who cannot afford to buy newspapers, but to the men whoare best able to buy those apers, I ask whether it is not a subject worth y of consideration why we should tax the men who cannot afford to buy these papers for the sake of giving these books to the men who are. I am perfectly satisfied that if the tax payers of the country understood what every member of this House understan s, that all he has to do to obtain a copy of the Agricultural Report until the supply is exhausted, is to write to his member of Congress and request the same, it would not be 6 months before the House would be deluged with demands that would occupy not only the Public Printing Office, but all the printing offices in NewYork and Phil adelphia. It would consume not only, as we do now such a vast proportion of the paper of the [iU.S., but would take nearly all of it. And indeed I do not know how this great evil of printing such ine rdinate, extravagant, and enormous editions of books is ever to be corrected except when the people come to understand that all they have to do to obtain books is to send to members of Congress, and then the demand will become so enormous that not even my liberal friendfrom Illinois [Mr. Ross] or my kind and generous friendfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. Jormsos] will have the hardihood to rise upon this floor and ask for such editions. Why, sir, I am astonished to see gentlemen on the other side of the House demanding an extra edition of the Agricultural Report of 1864. So far as I have seen or have been able to read the papers which represent and advo cate their principles, they have been unanimous in their declarations of the extravagance of the public printing; and it was but a short time ago that I noticed that tlfey had commence a campaign against members on this side of the House that they had willingly consented to such extravagance. Why, sir, I saw it stated in a Democratic paper that the committee of the Senate had alrea yinitiated a movement whereby somewhere about a million dollars was to e expended in printing reports whereby money was to be expended, not for the purpose of any benefit to the public, but for the purpose of rewarding some worn out politicians.