News from the Virginia Legislature via New York city.
--The
Herald's Richmond correspondent says there is a strong feeling among the "pure
Virginians" in the Legislature in favor of going into an election of
United States Senators.
But the majority fear the powers at
Washington.
J. R. Tucker,
R. M. T. Hunter,
Governor Peirpoint,
General Strother,
John M. Botts,
C. H. Lewis,
A. H. H. Stuart,
J. B. Baldwin and
L. C. P. Cowper are, according to this correspondent, the candidates.
Mr. Grattan, ("the leader of the
House,")
Mr. Sewell and
Mr. Garnett are for
Hunter and
Tucker;
Mercier,
Stearns and Lemosy for
Botts;
Gilmer for
Peirpoint.-- "
Messrs. Segar and
Underwood do not seem to have any friends in either
House, though they deserve many."
[We give this gossip for what it is worth.
It is surely new to us.]
The correspondent of the New York
Times writes that a growing sentiment exists here in favor of so altering the
Constitution of
Virginia as to make the possession of a certain amount of property and a knowledge of the arts of reading and writing necessary qualifications in every voter.
So that, even if negroes were allowed to vote, but few would be qualified, and these very "conservative" ones.
Also, in favor of admitting negro testimony in court.
He says the great fire will prove to have been a blessing in disguise; that though the
Freedmen's Bureau have surrendered forty thousand acres of land to its owners, sixty thousand remain unsurrendered, besides city property; that the probability of
Governor Peirpoint's officers being re-elected increases daily; and, finally, does not hesitate to predict that a "thorough, uncompromising Union party will eventually rule the Old Dominion."
