and to the obvious promotion of important public interests. ---- An amendment to the apportionment bill, fixing the number of members of the House of Representatives at 234, in order to give California one more member, was adopted in the Senate on the 8th, by a vote of 23 to 15. ---- On the 14th, a bill granting to the State of Ohio the unsold and the unappropriated public lands within her limits, was ordered to be engrossed, by a vote of 28 to 13. ---- On the 19th, Senator Gwin introduced a bill to establish a monthly mail between Shanghai, China, and San Francisco, by way of the Sandwich Islands. ---- A bill which has excited a good deal of interest, making an appropriation of five millions of dollars for the payment of French Spoliation claims, was passed by a vote of 26 to 13. These claims have been pressed upon the attention of Congress for many years. ---- A bill to supply deficiencies in the appropriations for government service during the last year, having been several days under consideration, Senator Seward on the 27th, spoke in favor of inserting a clause granting further aid to the Collins line of steamers between New York and Liverpool. Under the existing contract with the Government these steamers are to make twenty voyages, out and back, annually, for which they are to receive $380,000--which is about $19,000 for each voyage. It is proposed to increase the number of trips to 26, and the pay to $33,000 each. Mr. Seward urged the passage of the bill mainly on the ground that the maintenance of this line of steamers is essential to the retention by the United States of the commercial supremacy they have already gained. He gave somewhat in detail a sketch of the measures taken by England to secure the control of the seas, and insisted upon the policy of our continuing the effort to gain for ourselves our share of the postal communication of the world, in which we have hitherto been so successful. No vote upon the subject had been taken when our Record closed. In the _House of Representatives_ discussion has mainly turned upon the partisan preparations for the Presidential election. On the 5th of April, Mr. Jackson of Georgia called up a resolution he had offered a fortnight before, upon the subject of the Compromise Measures. It was as follows: "_Resolved_, That we recognize the binding efficacy of the Compromises of the Constitution--and we believe it to be the determination of the people generally, as we hereby declare it to be ours individually, to abide by such Compromises, and to sustain the laws necessary to carry them out--the provision for the delivery of fugitive slaves, and the act of the last Congress for that purpose, included; and that we deprecate all further agitation of the questions growing out of that act of the last Congress, known as the Compromise Act--and, of questions generally connected with the institution of slavery, as useless and dangerous."