From Montgomery.
[Special Correspondence of the Dispatch.]
Montgomery, Friday, May 17.
Congress, it is believed, will adjourn on to-morrow — if not, certainly on some day of next week, to convene, when required by the public interests, in Richmond.
Heretofore, the supervision of all matters connected with patents has been confided to the Department of Justice, presided over by the able and amiable Benjamin, but the great number of application, although confined under the law to citizens of this Confederacy, has shown to Congress the necessity for the prompt organization of a Bureau of Patents.
And on yesterday, in public session, Mr. Brooke, chairman of the committee on the subject, reported a bill to establish a Patent Office, and to provide for the ‘"granting and Issuance of patents for new and useful discoveries, improvements and designs"’ The bill contains a great number of sections, occupying 38 or 39 pages of Government foolscap printing.--A number of its features are very similar in all respects to the Patent Office law of the United States.
Several sections of it met with opposition, and the one making an appropriation to be expended in the collection of agricultural statistics and for agricultural purposes, was very properly stricken out, else we should soon have had a collection and distribution of the same worthless seeds, roots, and Patent Office reports with which this Department of the ‘"old wreck,"’ at an enormous cost, flooded the country; although none of the former, with the exception of the common turnip seed, ever grew, whilst the latter rare works, in consideration of their wisdom, delight and use, have been most generally honored with a companionship among the rats and spiders that infest dark, obscure closets.
Before the reading of the bill was flushed, Congress went into secret session.
The President in the meantime transmitted some additional estimates of the Secretary of War.
The recent expenditures of this department have been very large, amounting within the last few days to nearly two millions.
Some dissatisfaction has also been expressed with its manner of conducting business.
Charges of delay in issuing committees to applicants, and complaints of neg Inefficiency, have been preferred.
I have also heard the Secretary blamed for the serious indiscretion he committed in declaring, about the time of the attack on Fort Sumter, that in 60 days the Confederate flag would be floating proudly from the dome of the Capitol at Washington — bravado calculated to produce great excitement and hostility at the North.
The Postmaster General has wisely determined to retain in his service all the Route Agents, Postmasters and other officials connected with the mails, until a complete organization of the new service is effected and all its parts made perfect; after which, the removals, if any, will be few, and only made in obedience to public interests.
The differences between the postal laws of the United States and those of this Government are small, consisting chiefly in an increase of the rates of postage and repeal of the letter registration system.
The franking privilege has also been abolished, with exceptions in favor of the Postmaster General, his chief clerk, heads of Bureaus in his department, and deputy postmasters, who are allowed to frank on official business.
The increase in the rates of postage has been adopted in order to make the department self-sustain, instead of a tax of millions upon the country, like its predecessor at Washington.
A design for postage stamps, about which there has been some anxiety, has been selected, and a contract partially made for a supply.
The new stamp will be quite pretty — a tittle larger than the old, with an elegant steel engraving of Washington in the centre, and will be furnished the country early in June.
The self-sacrificing Secretary of the Treasury, like another Cerberus, is guarding the money bags, which, to save from still less depiction, he has determined to prohibit the creation of assistant offices to those of First Auditor and Comptroller.
In the United States Government there are six Auditors and two Comptrollers, 1st and 2d.
Here there will be but one of each, and only one set of books to be kept by the Registers for the entire department, so as to prevent an increase of clerical force.
This is the system recommended by Alexander Hamilton, and adopted by the Government in 1728, by the appointment of only one Auditor; but subsequently changed.
As a precedent, however, of the early and purer days of our once mighty Republic, it has received the reverence and sedition of the conscientious Secretary.
Those steamer Lady Davis, purchased by the Navy Department from the Governor of South Carolina, was to-day paid for by the Government.
She cost $32,000.
The people here are amazed and mortified at the course of the recent traitors in a portion of North western Virginia.
It is sincerely hoped that the toad spotted wretch, Carlile, the leader in the conspiracy, will be held swiftly accountable for the cowardly treason he is committing against the sovereign Commonwealth of Virginia.
Montgomery. 