The SPEAKER. Ihe Chair thinks that it is a private bill and as this raises entirely a new point, the Chair will ask to be indulged in explaining it. There is no decision in Barclays did est as to what are private bills as distinguished from public bills. It does not appeart at there has ever been an appeal from the decision of the Chair on that point. On examination, it has bean found that the ruling of the Chair as to whether a bill was a private or a public bill has uniformly been acquieseed in. It is evident that appropriation bills, Army bills, bankrupt bills, and other bills of that character, arepublic bills, while pension bills, claims for damages, claims of incorporated companies, and all bills of every kind from the (nut of Claims, are, under the rule, private bills; but there is a middle ground between these bills where the character of the bill depends upon usage. A number of years ago Mr. Speaker Cobb decided thata bill granting lands to a railroad in Georgia wnsa private bill, but that decision has iiotbeeu followed by any of those who have followed him as Presiding officer of this House. It has been correctly held that railroad land grants werepublic hills. Bills in reference to the DistCol have been reported both as public and private. The Statutes at Large are full of them under the heading of private hills which is of course collateral evidence. As there is no decision in our own Digest, the Chair has examined into the parliamentary practice of GreatBritain, where there is a marked distinction, growing out of the fact that fees have to be paid upon private while none are paid upon public bills. In Iayu Parliamentary Practice (edition of 1859, ages 612 and 613) it is laid down, with a number of illustrations, that bills relating to London only are private bills, while those relating to tcwhole metropolis “have been dealt with as public bills; the large area, the number of parishes, the vast population, and the variety of interests concerue constituted them measures of public policy rather than of local interest.” ills establishing a police force in the city of London, improving Smith field market, &c., were regarded as private bills, while the metropolitan cattle market and a metropolitan police were legislated on as public bills. From these illustrations it is evident that while bills relative to and confined in their operation to the city of London are held in the British Parliament to be private bills, those embracing in their sphere the whole metropolis, includin Lambeth, Mary lebone, Southwyk, and Fiasury, with their millions of inhabitants and their vast area, are considered public. There is also a decision in the 2nd volume of Hatsell, which the Chair has not here at this moment, made by the Speaker of the House of Commons in 1607, that a bill for amending the highways of 3 counties was a private bill, because, as the Speaker said, it being “only” for 3 counties it was by all former precedents not a public bill. The usage has been here that bills confined strictly in their operation to the DistCol can be reported as private or as public bills. The bill reported a few weeks ago for the incorporation of an ice company in this District was clearly a public bill, because it authorized agencies an the transaction of business in other places outside of the limits of this District. This bill appears to be confined to the DistCol, and can therefore be reported as a private bill on this do.