[31] Congress, though constantly erecting new Committees, never gives up old ones, no matter how useless they may have become by subtraction of duties. Thus there is not only the superseded Committee on Public Expenditures but the Committee on Manufactures also, which, when a part of the one-time Committee on Commerce and Manufactures, had plenty to do, but which, since the creation of a distinct Committee on Commerce, has had nothing to do, having now, together with the Committees on Agriculture and Indian Affairs, no duties assigned to it by the rules. It remains to be seen whether the Committee on Commerce will suffer a like eclipse because of the gift of its principal duties to the new Committee on Rivers and Harbors. [32] See the report of this Committee, which was under the chairmanship of Senator Windom. An illustration of what the House Committees find by special effort may be seen in the revelations of the investigation of the expenses of the notorious "Star Route Trials" made by the Forty-eighth Congress's Committee on Expenditures in the department of Justice. [33] See General Garfield's article, already once quoted, _North American Review_, vol. cxxviii. p. 533. [34] _Essays on Parliamentary Reform._ [35] Green's _History of the English People_, vol. iv., pp. 202, 203. [36] "G. B." in N. Y. _Nation_, Nov. 30, 1882. [37] An attempt was once made to bring the previous question into the practices of the Senate, but it failed of success, and so that imperative form of cutting off all further discussion has fortunately never found a place there. [38] As regards all financial measures indeed committee supervision is specially thorough in the Senate. "All amendments to general appropriation bills reported from the Committees of the Senate, proposing new items of appropriation, shall, one day before they are offered, be referred to the Committee on Appropriations, and all general appropriation bills shall be referred to said Committee; and in like manner amendments to bills making appropriations for rivers and harbors shall be again referred to the Committee to which such bills shall be referred."--Senate Rule 30. [39] The twenty-nine Standing Committees of the Senate are, however, chosen by ballot, not appointed by the Vice-President, who is an appendage, not a member, of the Senate. [40] In the Birmingham Town Hall, November 3, 1882. I quote from the report of the _London Times_. [41] "No Senator shall speak more than twice, in any one debate, on the same day, without leave of the Senate."--Senate Rule 4. [42] These quotations from Bagehot are taken from various parts of the fifth chapter of his _English Constitution_. [43] These are the words of Lord Rosebery--testimony from the oldest and most celebrated second chamber that exists.