“‘To pay C. Brumidi for retouching and blending the picture in fresco on the Canopy of the Dome of the Capitol and for constructing a scaffolding under said picture, $700.’ “The money thus appropriated has been available nearly a year, yet no steps were taken by the proper authorities to enable Mr. Brumidi to ascend again into the Canopy of the Dome of this Capitol, and none now ever will be. In the exact and legal fulfillment of a contract it is our duty to pay this sum of $500 to his heirs. On this point I conceive there can be no difference of opinion. I have ventured, however, in the bill just introduced to ask Congress to apply the remaining $200 of the appropriation of March 3, 1879, to the payment of the funeral expenses of the great artist who has just passed away.” Senator Morrill of Vermont followed Senator Voorhees on the Floor of the Senate on that 24th day of February back in 1880 to add his sanction to the bill introduced. Said Senator Morrill: “Mr. President, I desire to express my hearty approval of the measure proposed by the Senator from Indiana. It is only justice--and that coldly measured--that we should now pay all we ever promised to one who can make no further demands upon us, but whose works will live to remind us of his twenty-five years of most valuable service in a branch of art where he stood on this continent confessedly foremost, whether among foreign or native artists. He leaves a daughter in Italy dependent upon a regular remittance from her father, and he leaves an adopted son beginning to be taught in the line of his father’s vocation, but not so far advanced as to give support. I hope it will be the pleasure of the Senate unanimously to pass the bill whenever it comes up for action.” Senator Morrill who made the above speech in the Senate of the United States is the same Senator Morrill to whom Brumidi referred in the following letter written to Mr. Clark, Architect of the Capitol, and dated November 30, 1874: “The Thanksgiving day I received the kind visit of Senator Morrill at the Providence Hospital. On that occasion I gave him a paper containing the information of the time I was working in the Capitol by daily wages and also retained at work by Senator Foot, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds in the time of the war. “The annexed paper is the copy of that I presented to Senator Morrill. I would have submitted it for your examination but in the many times I have been in your office I had not the chance to find you, nor in your house some afternoon.