V C\ o,. ♦•V-,-' .0 "" V f T * o, cv , <*> * . „ o » *T ^ *V <£' •<5^he Often Combed Your Head "— " I Suppose She Combs Yours Now "—Giving " Tone " to the Whole Country — A Circle of " Hare" Women— A " Perpetual Honor to Woman- hood "—Charles's Opinion of His Mother — How a Lady "Amused" Her Declining Days— Lafayette's Visit to Washington— His Farewell to America—" A Species of Ir- regular Diary "— " For the Benefit of My Grandfather " — Mrs. Andrew Jackson — A Woman's Influence— Politics and Piety Disagree— Why the General Didn't Join the Church— A Head "Full of Politics "—Swearing Some— The President Becomes a Good Boy— Domestic Tendencies— His Greatest Loss— Sad News from the Hermitage, 204 CHAPTER XXIII.' SCENES AT THE WHITE HOUSE — MEN AND WOMEN OF NOTE. Widows "at par "—Four Sonless Presidents— Supported by Flattery — A Delicate Constitu- tion—Living to a Respectable Age— Teaching Her Grandson How to Fight— Inheriting Religion — "Another Sensitive, Saintly Soul " — A Pathetic Reminiscence — A Perfect Gentlewoman— A Stately Black-eyed Matron— A Lady of the Old School— Obeying St. Paul— A Woman Who " Kept Silence " — " Sarah Knows Where It Is "—Commanding " Superlative Respect " — An English Lady " Impressed " — Three Queens in the Back- ground—A Very Handsome Woman — Retiring from Active Life — A Lady's Heroism — " My Home, the Battle-field "—A Man Who Kept to His Post— A Life in the Savage Wil- derness—A Life's Devotion— The Colonel's Brave Wife— The Conquering Hero from Mexico— Objecting to the Presidency— "Betty Elisfs"— TheReigningLady— An Overpow- ering Reception—" A Bright and Beaming' Creature, Dressed Simply in White "—An Inclination for Retirement— The Penalty of Greatness— Death in the White House— A Wife's Prayers— A New Jieqime— The Clothier's Apprentice and the School Teacher— The Future President Builds His Own House — Becomes a Lawyer — Chosen Representa- tive — Domestic Happiness— Twenty-seven Years of Married Life — " A Matron of Com- manding Person " — A Scarcity of Books— Homo " Comforts " at the White House— The Memory of a Loving Wife— A Well-Balanced Young Lady, 218 CHAPTER XXIV. TnE WHITE HOUSE DURING THE WAR. Under a Cloud— " A Woman Among a Thousand "—Revival of By-gone Days— An- other Lady of the White House— A " Golden Blonde"— Instinct Alike with Power and Graco — A Fun-Loving Romp — Harriet with her Wheelborrow of Wood — A Deed of Kindness— Tho Wheel Turns Round — An Impression Made on Queen Victoria — In Paris and on the Continent — An Axueriean Lady at Oxford — Gay Doings at tho Capital — Rival CONTENTS. Xlil PAGE. Claims for a Lady's Fand— Reigning at the White House— Doing Double Duty— "Visit of the Prince of Wales— Marriage of Harriet Lane— As Wife and Mother— Mrs. Abra- ham Lincoln — Standing Alone —A Time of Trouble and Perplexity — Conciliatory Counsels .Needful— Rumors of War— The Life of the Nation Threatened — Whispers of Treason— Awaiting the Event — Peculiar Position of Mary Lincoln — A Life-long Ambi- tion Fulfilled— The Nation Called to Arms— Contagious Enthusiasm— What the Presi- dent's Wife Did— Nothing to do but " Shop "—Sensational Stories Afloat— Stirring Times at the Capital— What Came from the River— The Dying and the Dead— Churches aud Houses Turned into Hospitals— Arrival of Troops — " Mrs. Lincoln Shopped " — The Lonely Man at the White House— Letters of Rebuke— An Example of Selfishness — Petty Economies — The Back Door of the White House— An Injured Individual— Death of Willie Lincoln— Injustice which Mrs. Lincoln Suffered— The Rabble in the White Hoajse — "Valuables Carried Away — Big Boxes and Much Goods— Going West— Mrs. Lincoln Disconsolate — False and Cruel Accusations— Considerable Personal Property — Missing Treasures— Mrs. Lincoln as a Woman— Tears and Mimicry— Faults of a Presi- dent's Wife, . ^ . 231 CHAPTER XXV. THE WHITE HOUSE NOW— ITS PRESENT OCCUPANTS. After the War— The Home of President Johnson— Shut Up in the Mountains— Two Tears of Exile— A Contrast— Suffering for their Country— Secretly Burying the Dead — A Wife of Seventeen Years — Midnight Studies— Broken Down— A Party of Grandchildren — " My Dears, I am an Invalid "— " Gods Best Gift to Man "—The Woman Who Taught the President— A " Lady of Benign Countenance "—Doing the Honors at the White House—" We are Plain People " — The East Room Filled with Vermin— Traces of the Soldiers— A State of Dirt and Ruin— Mrs. Patterson's Calico Dress— In the Dairy— A Nineteenth Century Wonder— How the Old Carpets were Patched— The Greenbacks are Forthcoming— How $30,000 were Spent— Buying the Furniture— Working in Hot Weather— " Wrestling with Rag* and Ruins "—" Renovated from Top to Bottom " — What the Ladies Wore, and What They Didn't— The Memory of Elegant Attire— Im- pressing the Public Mind— How Un perverted Minds are Affected— " Bare necked Dowagers "— " A Large Crowd of Bare Busts"— Elderly Ladies with Raven Locks — The Opinion of a Woman of Fa.shion— Very Good Dinners— Obsequious to the Will of " the People " — Doors Open to the Mob— Sketching a Banquet— Sentimental Reflections on the Dining Room— The Portraits of the Presidents— The Impeachment Trial— Peace in the Family— The Grant Dynasty— Looking Home-like— Mrs. Grant at Home— What Might Be Done, if— What Won't Work a Reformation— A Pity for Miss Nellie Grant- How She Suddenly " Came Out "— " A Full-Fledged Woman of Fashion "—A " Shoal of Pretty Girls "—How a Certain Young Lady was Spoilt— Brushing Away " the Dew of Innocence "—Need of a Centripetal Soul— Society in the Season— Rare Women with no Tastes— The Wives of the Presidents Summed Up, . 243 CHAPTER XXVI. MRS. GRANT'S RECEPTION — GLIMPSES OF LIFE. Mrs. Grant at Home— A Reception— Feeling Good-Natured— Looking After One's Friends— Ready to Forgive— Mr. Grant's " Likeable Side "—The East Room on a Re- ception Day—" The Nation's Parlor "—Rags and Tatters Departed— The Work of Relic- Hunters— Internal Arrangements— Eight Presidents, All in a Row—" As Large as Life " —Shadows of the Departed— A President from the Sultan of Turkey— A List of Finery —A Scene Not Easily Forgotten— How They Wept for Their Martyr— Tales which a Room Might Tell— David, Jonathan and Sir Philip Sidney Superseded— Underneath the Gold and Lace— " Into the Ear of a Foolish Girl "—The Census of Spittoons— "A Horror in Our Land"— An Under-bred People—" We Talk Too Loud "—Preliminaries to Perfection— "More Than Shakspeare's Women "—The Shadow of Human Nature- Two "Quizzing" Ladies— Nothing Sacred io Thenn-An Illogical Dame— Her "Pre- carious Organ "—A " Vice that Thrives Amid Christian Graces" — How some Pious People " Avenge their Defrauded Souls"— A Lady of Many Colors—" A New Woman" — A Vegetable Comparison— What "a Good Little Girl" was Allowed To Do— The Lady of the Manor— Women Who are Not Ashamed of Womanhood— Observed and Ad- mired of All— Another "Reigning Belle "—Sketch of a Perfect Woman— After the Lapse of Generations— The " German "— " You Had Better Be Shut Up "—The " With- ering " of Many American Women — Full Dress and No Dres — What the Princess Ghika Thinks— A Young Girl's Dress— " That Dreadful Woman"— "My Wife's Dress— The Resolution of a Young Man, 256 CHAPTER XXVII. INAUGURATION DAY AT WASHINGTON. My Own Private Opinion — Sublime Humanity in the Lump — The Climate Disagrees— The Little "Sons of War" Feeling Bad— " Think of the Babies "—Brutal Mothers— The " Boys in Blue " — " Broke their Backs and Skinned their Noses " — Our Heroes — Later XIV CONTEXTS. PAGE. Festivities— " Devoted to Art"— Scene in " the Avenue "—A Lively Time— The Mighty Drum-Major — West Point Warriors Criticised — Faultlessly Ridiculous — Pitilessly Dressed — "Taken for a Nigger " — Magnificent Display — The Oldest Regiment in the States— The President — The Senators — Invitation of the Coldstream Guards — The Strangers — Generals Sherman and Sheridan — Admiral Porter — Sketches of Well-known Men — The Diplomatic Corps — Blacque Bey — Full Turkish Costume— Sir Edward Thorn- ton — The Japanese Minister — Senator Sumner Appears — The Supreme Court — Senator Wilson — Cragin, Logan, and Bayard — Vine-President Colfax— Enter, the President — Congress Alive Again — The Valedictory — Taking the Oaths — "The Little Gentleman in the Big Chair "—His Little Speech— His Wife and Family Behind— The New Presi- dent — Memories of Another Scene— Grand Jubilation — The Procession — The Curtain Falla, 269 CHAPTER XXVIIL THE NEW PRESIDENT — THE INAUGURATION BALL. How Sixty Thousand Dollars were Spent— Something Wrong : " 'Twas ever Thus"— "Re- collection of another Festival— How " the Dust" was Raised — A Fine Opportunity for a Few Naughty Words — Lost Jewels — The Colored Folks in a Fix — Overpowered by Numbers — Six Thousand People Clamoring for their Clothes! — " Promiscuous" Prop- erty — A Magnificent ''Grab" — Weeping on Window-ledges— Left Desolate — Walking under Difficulties— The Exploit of Two Old Gentlemen —Horace Greeley Loses his Old White Hat — He says Naughty Words of Washington— Seeking the Lost — Still Cherished by Memory— Some People Remind General Chipman— " Regardless of Ex- pense "—A Bail-Room Built of Wooden Laths and Muslin— A Little Too Cold— Gay Decorations— How " Delicate" Women can Endure the Cold— Modesty in Scanty Gar- ments—The President Frozen— The " Cherubs, Perched up Aloft," Refuse to Sing— On the Presidential Platform — Ladies of Distinction — Half-frozen Beauties— " They did not Make a Pretty Picture "—Why and Wherefore?— A Protest against "Shams" — A Stolid Tanner who -Fought his Way, 2T8 CHAPTER XXIX. THE UNITED STATES TREASURY — ITS HISTORY. The Responsibilities and Duties of the Secretary of the Treasury — " The Most Remarkable Man of his Time " — Three Extraordinary Men — Hamilton Makes an Honest Proposal — How to Pay the National Debt — The New Secretary at Work — Laying the Foundation of Financial Operations— The Mint at Philadelphia— A Little Personal Abuse— The Secretary Borrows Twenty Dollars — Modern Greediness— The Genius Becomes a Law- yer— Burning of Records— Hunting for Blunders and Frauds — The Treasury Building Treasury Notes go off Nicely — Mr. Crawford Under a Cloud — He Comes out Glo- riously — A Little Variety — A Vision of Much Money — Fidgety Times — Lighting the Mariner on his Way — Old Debts Raked up— Signs of the Times — Under Lincoln— S. P. Chase as Secretary — The National Currency Act— Enormous Increase of the National Debt — Facts and Figures— The Credit of the Government Sustained — President Grant's Rule— George S. Boutwell made Secretary — Great Expectations— Mr. Boutwell's Labors, Policy and Success— The Great and Growing Prosperity of the Nation, .... 284 CHAPTER XXX. INSIDE THE TREASURY — T HE HISTORY OF A DOLLAR. A Washington Tradition— "Old Hickory" Erects his Cane — "Put the Building Right Here "—Treasury Corner-Stme Laid — Robert Mills' Discolored Colonnade — Where "Privileged Mortals" Work— A Very Costly Building— Rapid Extension of Business- Splendid Situation of the Building— The Workers Within— The Government Takes a Holiday— The Business of Three Thousand People— The Mysteries of the Treasury- Inside the Rooms— Mary Harris's Revenge— The "Drones" in the Hive— Making Love in Office Hours— Flirtations in Public— A Vast Refuge for the Unfortunate— Two Classes of Employe's— A List of Miserable Sinners— A Pitiful Ancient Dame— A Protigi of President Lincoln — Women's Work in the Treasury — The Bureau of Printing and Engraving — A very Hot Precinct — Rendering a Strict Account — Not a Cent Missing— The "Chief's" Report— Dealing in Big Figures— The Story of a Paper Dollar— In the Upper Floor — The Busy Workers— Night Work — Where the Paper is Made — The 'Lo- calized Blue Fibre"— The Obstacle to the Counterfeiter— The Automatic Register- Keeping Watch— The Counters and Examiners— Supplying the Bank Note Companies — " The Amorican " and "The National "—An Armed Escort — No Incomplete Notes Possible — Varieties of Printing— The Contract with Adams' Express — Printing the Notes and Currency— Internal Revenue Stamps— Thirty Young Lrulies Count, the Money — Manufacturing the Plates— The Engraving Division— " The Finest Engravers in the Country " — The Likoness of Somebody — Transferring a Portrait—" Men of Many Minds" — The Division of Labor— Delicate Operations — A Pressure of Five or Six Tons — The Plate Complete—" Re-entoriug " a Plate — An "Impression" — How Old Plates CONTENTS. XV PAGE. are Used up — A Close Inspection — Defying Imitation — The Geometric Lathe — Tracing " Lines of .Beauty " for More than Forty Years, 303 CHAPTER XXXI. THE WORKERS IN THE TREASURY — HOW THE MONEY IS MADE. The Dollar with the Counters— In the Tubs—Getting a Wetting— Servants of Necessity— That Scorching Koof— Brown Paper Bonnets— Earning their Daily Dollar — The Work Progressing — In the Press— A State of Dampness— Squaring Accounts — Calling for a Thousand — Accounting for Them— Superintending the Work— The Face-printing Divis- ion—The United States " Sealer " — One Hundred and Thirty-five Presses at Work- Printing Cigar-Stamps and Gold- Notes of Many Colors— Presses " Flying "—Quick with Dangerous Motion— With a Begrimed Face— The " Help-mate " of his Toil— The Fiery Little Brazier — What the Man Does — The Woman's Work — The Automatic Reg- ister—An Observer Without a Sou; — Our Damp Little Dollar — The Drying Room— The First Wrinkles — Looking Wizened and Old— Rejuvenating a Dollar — Underneath. Two Hundred and Forty Tons— Smooth and Polished — Precious to the Touch — A Virgin Dol- lar — The " Sealer " at Work— Mutilated Paper— What the Women are Paid— The Sur- face-Sealing Division — Seal Printing— The Aristocratic Green Seal — The Numbering Division — Attended Solely by Women and Girls — Critically Examined — A Lady Charged with Errors — Securing Adequate Care — Dividing the Dollars — To Start Alone — Ladies Serene at Work— Snowy Aprons and Delicate Ribbons — Needling the Sheet — A Blade that Does Not Fail — Sorting the Notes — The Manipulation of the Ladies — The Dollar " In its Little Bed " — Dollar on Dollar — " Awaiting the Final Call" — The Mandate of Uncle Sam — Fourteen Divisions — Making Up Accounts — Tracing a Note—A Perfect System of " Checks "—The Safeguards— The Chief of the Bureau, .... 317 CHAPTER XXXII. THE LAST DAYS OF A DOLLAR. The Division of Issues— Ready for the World— Starting Right— Forty Busy Maids and Matrons— Counting Out the Money— Human Machines— A Lady Counting for a Dozen Years— Fifty Thousand Notes in a Day— Counting Four Thousand Notes in Twenty Minutes — Travelling on Behalf of Uncle Sam— In Need of a Looking-Over — " Detailed" for the Work — What has Passed Through Some Fingers— Big Figures — Packing Away the Dollars — The Cash Division— The Marble Cash-Room — The Great Iron Vault — Where Uncle Sam Keeps His Money — Some Nice Little Packages— Taking it Coolly — One Hundred Millions of Dollars in Hand— Some Little White Bags— The Gold Taken from the Banks of Richmond — Anxious to Get Their Money Back — A Little Difficulty — Not Yet " Charged " — A Distinction withouta Difference— Charming Variety — A Nice Little Hoard — Five Hundred Millions Stored Away — The Secret of the Locks — The Hy- draulic Elevator — Sending the Money off— How the Money is Transported — Begrimed, Demoralized, and Despoiled — Where is our Pretty Dollar?— The Redemption Division — Counting Mutilated Currency — Women at Work — Sorting Old Greenbacks — Three Hundred Counterfeit Dollars Daily— Detecting Bad Notes — " Short," " Over," and " Counterfeit " — Difficulty of Counterfeiting Fresh Notes— Vast Amounts Sent for Redemption — Thirty-one Million Dollars in One Year — The Assistant Treasurer at New York — The Cancelling Room — The Counter's Report — The Bundle in a Box — Awkward Responsibility—" Punching" Old Dollars— They are Chopped in Two— Pay- ing for Mistakes — The Funeral of the Dollar — The Burning, Fiery Furnace — "The Burning Committee " — What They Burn Every Other Day — The End of the Dollar, . 326 CHAPTER XXXIII. THE GREAT CASH-ROOM — THE WATCH-DOG OF THE TREASURY. No Need for Dirty Money— The Flowers of July— Money Affairs — The Great Cash-Room — Its Marble Glories— A Glance Inside— The Beautiful Walls— A Good Deal of Very Bad Taste — Only Made of Plaster — The Clerks of the Cash-Room — New Money for Old — The National Treasury — " The Watch-Dog " of the Treasury — The Custodian of the Cash — A Broken-nosed Pitcher — Ink for the Autographs — His Ancient Chair — "The General" — "Crooked, Crotchety and Great-hearted" — "Principles" and Pantaloons — Below the Surface — An Unpaintable Face— An Object of Personal Curiosity— Dick and Dolly pay the General a Visit — How the Thing is Done — " Pretty Thoroughly Wrought Up"— A Couple without any Claims— Gratified in the Very Jolliest Fashion — Getting his Autograph — A Specimen for the Folks at Home — Realizing a Responsi- bility—Where the Treasurer Sleeps— Going the Round at Night — Making Assurance Sure — Awakened by a Strong Impression — Sleepless— In the " Small Hours " — Finding the Door Open — A Careless Clerk — The Care of Eight Hundred Millions — On the Alert — The Secretary's Room— Three at the Table — Doings and Duties — The Labors of the Secretary and Comptrollers— The Auditors — The Solicitor's Office— The Light-House Board — The Coast Survey— Internal Revenue Department, 339 XVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIV. WOMAN'S WORK IN THE DEPARTMENTS — WHAT THEY DO AND HOW THEY DO IT. PAQK . Women Experts in the Treasury — General Spinner's Opinion — A Woman's Logic — The Gifts of Women — Their Superiority to Men— Money Burnt in the Chicago Fire — Cases of Valuable -Rubbish — Identifying Burnt Greenbacks— The Treasure Saved — The Ashes of the Boston Fire — From the Bottom of the Mississippi — Mrs. Patterson Saves a "Pile" of Money — Money in the Toes of Stockings — In the Stomachs of Men and Beasts — From the Bodies of the Murdered and Drowned— Not Fairly Paid — One Hun- dred and Eighty Women at Work — 'The Broom Brigade" — Scrubbing the Floois — The Soldier's Widow— Stories which Might be Told— Meditating Suicide— The Struggle of Life— How a Thousand Women are Employed — Speaking of their Characters — The Ill-paid Servants of the Country— Chief Justice Taney's Daughters— Colonel Albert Johnson's Daughter— A Place Where Men are Not Employed— Writing "for the Press" —Miss Grundy of New York— The Internal Revenue Bureau — "Marvels of Mechanical Beauty "—Women of Business Capacity— A Lady as Big as Two Books! — In a Man's Place— A Disgrace to the Nation — Working for Two, Paid for One— How " Retrench- ment'' is Carried Out— In the Departments— Beaten by a Woman — The Post Office De- partment — Folding " Dead Letters "—A Woman who has Worked Well — " Sorrow Does Not Kill " — The Patent Office — The Agricultural Department — Changes Which Should be Made, 350 CHAPTER XXXV. women's work in the treasury. The Scales of Justitia— Where They Hang and Where They Do Not Hang— The Difference Between Men and Women — Reform a "Sham!" — The First Women- Clerks — A Shame- ful and Disgraceful Fraud — What Two Women Did — Cutting Down the Salaries of Women — The First Woman-Clerk in the Treasury —Taking Her Husband's Place — Working " in Her Brother's Name " — A Matter of Expediency — The Feminine Tea- Pot — The Secretary Growls at the Tea-Pots — The Hegira of the Tea-Pots — Thackeray's Opinion of Nature's Intentions — Blind on One Side — In War Days — General Spinner Visits Secretary Chase — " A Woman can Use Scissors Better than a Man" — Profound Discovery! — "She'll do it Cheaper "— " Light Work" — '-Recognized'' — Besieged by Women — Scenes of Distress and Trouble — Hundreds of Homeless Women — After the War — How the Appointments were Made— Creating an Interest— The Advantages of the "Sinners" — Infamous Intrigues — The Baseness of Certain Senators — Virtue Spat- tered with Mud — A Disgrace to the Nation — Secret Doings in High Places— New Civil Service Rules — Sounding Magnanimous— Passing the Examination — The Irrepressible Masculine Tyrants — The New Rules a Perfect Failure— Up to the Mark, but not Win- ning — ^n Alarming Suggestion — Men versus Women — Tampering with the Scales — Bow Much a Woman Ought to be Paid — Opinion of a Man in Power — Interesting De- scription of an Average Representative — " Keeping Women in Their Place " — Getting Up a Speech on Woman — The Man who Stayed at Home — Generosity of the " Back- Pay " Congress — What Women Believe Ought to be Done, . ' 369 CHAPTER XXXVI. MR. PARASITE IN OFFICE — HOW PLACE AND POWER ARE WON. Government Official Life— Its Effects on Human Nature— Keeping his Eye Open— The Sweet and Winning Ways of Mr. Parasite— In Office— The Fault of " the People" and " my Friends "—Shrinking from Responsibilities — Pulling the Wool over the Eyes of the Innocent— Writing Letters in a Big Way — The " Dark Ways " of Wicked Mr. P —A Suspicious Yearning for Private Life— The Sweets of Office— A Little Change of Opinion— A Man Afflicted with Too Many Friends— Forgetting Things that Were — — lolm Jones is not Encouraged — Post-offices as Plentiful as Blackberries — Receiving Oliico-seekers— " The Worst. Thing in the World for You'' — Dismissing John— Over- crowded Pastures — John's Own Private Opinion — The "Mighty Messenger" — Govern- ment-Servants— Peculiar Impartiality of the Man in Office — What the Successful Man Said— 1 ( haugo my Opinion of Him — A Certain Kind of Man, and Where He can be Found 382 CHAPTER XXXVII. THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE — ITS MARVELS AND MYSTERIES. The Post -OlUee— Its Architecture— The Monolithic Corinthian Columns -The Postal Ser- vice in Early 'rimes— The Ai-t of Queen Anne's Reign— " Her Majesty's Colonies" — After the Revolution— The First Postmaster-General— The Present Chief— A Cabinet Minister— The Subordinate Officers— Their Positions and Duties — The Ocean Mail Postal Service— The Contract Office— The Finance Office— The Inspection Office— Com- CONTENTS. XVll PAGE. plaints and Misdoings— 'Benjamin Franklin's Appointment — He goes into Debt — One Hundred and Twenty Years Ago — Franklin Performs Wonderful Works — His Ideas of Speed — Between Boston and Philadelphia in Six Weeks— Dismissed from Office— The Congress of " The Confederation " — A New Post Office System— Franklin Conies In Again — The Inspector of Dead Letters — Not Allowed to Take Copies of Letters — Only seventy- five Offices in the States — Primitive Regulations— Only One Clerk- Gov- ernment Stages— The Office at Washington — Saved from the British Troops— Frank- lin's Old Ledger— The Present Number of Post Offices— The Dead Letter Office— The Ladies Too Much Squeezed — Some of the Ladies " Packed " — Opening the Dead Let- ters — Why Certain Persons are Trusted — Three Thousand Thoughtless People — Valua- ble Letters — Ensuring Correctness — The Property Branch — The Touching Story of the Photographs— The .Return Branch— What the Postmaster Says, .... 388 CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR — UNCLE SAM'S DOMESTIC AR- RANGEMENTS. Inadequate Accommodation in Heaven— Defects of Our Great Public Buildings — The Public Archives — Valuable Documents in Jeopardy — Talk of Moving the Capital — A Dissension of a Hundred Years — Concerning Certain Idiots — A Day in the Patent Office — The Inventive Genius of the Country — Aggressions of the Home Department — A Comprehensive Act of Congress — Seven Divisions of the Department of the Inte- rior — The Disbursing Division — Division of Indian Affairs — Lands and Railroads— Pen- sions and Patents — Public Documents — Division of Appointments — The Superintendent of the Building — The Secretary of the Interior and his Subordinates — Pensions and their Recipients — Indian Affairs — How the Savages are Treated — Over Twenty-one Million of Dollars Credited to their Little Account — The Census Bureau — A Rather Big Work — The Bureau of Patents — What is a Patent ? — A Self-supporting Institution — A Few Dollars Over— The Use Made of a Certain Brick Building — Secretary Delano An Objection Against Him— How Wickedly he Acted to the Women Clerks — '• The Accustomed Tyranny of Men " — Cutting Down the Ladies' Salaries — Making Places for Useful Voters — A Sweet Prayer for Delano's Welfare — Something about Delano's Face, 407 CHAPTER XXXIX. THE PENSION BUREAU — HOW GOVERNMENT PAYS ITS SERVANTS. The Generosity of Congress to Itself— How Four Hundred Acts of Congress were Passed — How Pensions have Increased and Multiplied — Sneering at Red Tape — The Division of Labor — Scrutinizing Petitions — A Heavy Paper Jacket — The Judicial Division — In- valids, Widows, and Minors — The Examiner of Pensions— The Difficulties of his Po- sition — Unsatisfactory Work — How Claims are Entertained and Tested — What is Recortled in the Thirty Enormous Volumes — How many Genuine Cases are Refused — One of the Inconveniences of Ignorance — The Claim-Agent Gobbles up the Lion's Share — An Extensive Correspondence— How Claims are Mystified, and Money is Wasted— The "Reviewer's" Work— The "Rejected Files"— The "Admitted Files" — Seventy-five Thousand Claims Pending — Very Ancient Claimants — The Bounty Land Division — The Reward of Fourteen Days' Service — The Sum Total of what the Government has Paid in Pensions— How the Pensions are Paid — The Finance Division — The Largest and the Smallest Pension Office — The Miscellaneous Branch— Investigat- ing Frauds— A Poor "Dependent" Woman with Forty Thousand Dollars — How "Honest and Respectable" People Defraud the Government — The Medical Division — Examining Invalids— The Restoration-Desk— The Appeal-Desk— The Final-Desk— The Work that Has Been Done— One Hundred and Fifty Thousand People Grumbling- Letter of an Ancient Claimant— The Wrath of a Pugnacious Captain, . . . 418 CHAPTER XL. TREASURES AND CURIOSITIES OF THE PATENT OFFICE — THE MODEL ROOM — ITS RELICS AND INVENTIONS. The Patent Office Building— Grace and Beauty of its Architecture— Four "Sublime " Porticoes— A Pretty Large Passage— The Model Room— " The Exhibition of the Nation" — A Room two Hundred and Seventy Feet in Length— The Models— Recording our Name — Wonders and Treasures of the Room— Benjamin Franklin's Press— Model Fit e-Escapes— Wonderful Fire-Extinguishers— The Efforts of Genius— Sheep-Stalls, Rat-Traps, and Gutta Percha— An Ancient Mariner's Compass — Captain Cook's Razor — The Atlantic Cable — Original Treaties — The Signatures of Emperors — An Extraordi- nary Turkish Treaty — Treasures of the Orient — Rare Medals — The Reward of Major Andre's Captors— The Washington Relics— His Old Tent— His Blankets and Bed- Curtain— His Chairs and Looking-Glass— His Primitive Mess-Chess and old Tin Plates— The Old Clothes of the " Father of His Country "—Military Relics of Well- 2 XV111 CONTENTS. PAGE. known Men— Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence— "Washington's Com- mission—Model of an Extraordinary Boat— Abraham Lincoln as an Inventor— The Hat Worn on the Fatal Night— The Gift of the Tycoon— The Efforts of Genius— A Machine to Force Hens to Lay Eggs— A Hook for Fishing Worms out of the Human Stomach— The Library of the Patent Office, 436 CHAPTER XLI. THE BUREAU OF PATENTS — CRAZY INVENTORS AND WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. Patent-Rights in Steamboats — Origin of Copyright and Patent-Laws— Congress Settles the Matter— A Board of "Disinterested, Competent " Persons— Destruction of the Patent-Office by Fire— The New Building— The Corps of Examiners— The Commis- sioner's Speech— Twenty Thousand Applications per annum— Fourteen Thousand Pat- ents Granted in One V ear— "Wonderful Expansion of Inventive Genius— "The Uni- versal Yankee " — Second-hand Inventions— Where the Inventions Come From— Taking Out a Patent for the Lord's Prayer— A Patent for a Cow's Tail— A Lady's Patent — Hesitating to Accept a Million Dollars — How Patentees are Protected— The American System — What American Inventors Have Done and "What they Have n't— The First Superintendent — The Present Commissioner — Exploits of General Leggett — His Effi- ciency in Office — The Inventor Alwavs a Dreamer — Perpetual Motion — The Invention of a D. D. — His Little Machine — "Original with Me "—Silencing the Doctor — A New Process of Embalming — A Dead Body Sent to the Office— Utilizing Niagara — A Gen- erous Offer — An Englishman's Invention — Inventors in I'aris — How to Kill Lions and Tigers in the United States with Catmint— A Fearful Bomb Shell— Eccentric Letters- Amusing Specimens of Correspondence, 446 CHAPTER XLII. THE WAR DEPARTMENT. The Secretary-of-War— His Duties — The Department of the Navy — Efficiency of the Army — The Custodv of the Flags — Patriotic Trophies— The War of the Rebellion — Captured Flags— An Ugly Flag and a Strange Motto— " Crown for the Brave"— Sic Semper Tyrannis — The Stars and Stripes — The Black Flag — No Quarter — The Military Establishment — The Adjutant-General's Office— The Quartermaster-General's Office — The Commissary-General's Office — The Paymaster-General— The Surveyor-General — The Engineer's Office— The Washington Aqueduct— Topographical Engineers — The Ordnance Bureau — The War Department Building— During the War— Lincoln's Soli- tary Walk — Secretary Stanton — The Exigencies of War — The Medical History of the War— Dr. Hammond— Dr. J. H. Baxter — Collecting Physiological Data — The Inspec- tion of over Half a Million Persons — Who is Unfit for Military Service — Various Na- tionalities Compared— Curious Calculations Respecting Height, Health and Color — Healthy Emigrants — Remarkable Statistical Results — The Physical Statu* of the Nation, 460 CHAPTER XLHI. THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM — ITS CURIOSITIES AND WONDERS. Ford's Theatre— Its Interesting Memories— The Last Festivities— Assassination of Presi- dent Lincoln — Two Years Later — Effects of " War, Disease, and Human Skill "—Col- lection of Pathological Specimens — The Army Medical Museum Opened — Purchase of Ford's Theatre— Its Present Aspect — Ghastly Specimens — Medical and Surgical Histo- ries of the War— The Library— A Book Four Centuries Old— Rare Old Volumes— The Most Interesting of the National Institutions — Various Opinions— Effects on Visitors — An Extraordinary Withered Arm — A Dried Sioux Baby! — Its Poor Little Nose — A Well-dressed Child— Its Buttons and Beads— Casts of Soldier-Martyrs— Making a New Nose — Vassear's Mounted Craniums— Model Skeletons— A Giant, Seven Feet High — Skeleton of a Child— All that Remains of Wilkes Booth, the Assassin— Fractures by Shot and Shell— General Sickles Contributes His Quota— A Case of Skills — Arrow- bead Wounds— Nine Savage Sabre-Cuts— Seven Bullets in One Head— Phenomenal Skulls— A Powerful Nose— An Attempted Suicide— A Proverb Corrected— Specimen from the Paris Catacombs— An " Interesting Case " — Typical Heads of the Human Race— Remarkable Indian Relics — " Flatheads " — The Work of Indian Arrows— An Extraordinary Story — A "Pet" Curiosity — A Japanese Manikin— Tattooed Heads- Representatives of Animated Nature— Adventure of Captain John Smith— A '• Stin- garee "— Tho Microscopical Division— Medical Records of the War— Preparing Speci- mens, 475 CHAPTER XLIV. "OLD PROBABILITIES " AT HOME — THE WEATHER BUREAU. "Old Probabilities"— An Interestine Subject— Tho Weather Bureau— The Experience of Fifty Centuries— Value of Scientific Knowledge— Meteorological Observations— Briga- CONTENTS. XIX PAGE. dier-General Albert J. Meyer— Hie Life and Career— He Introduces System and Order Foreseeing the Approach of Storms— The Fate of the Metis — Quicker than the Storm — The First Warning by Telegraph— Exchanging Reports with Canada — The " Observ- ing Stations " — Protecting the River Commerce — The Signal Corps — The Examinations —The Sergeant's Duties— The Signal-Stations— The Work of the Observers— Preparing Bulletins at Washington— Professor Maury's Account— Safeguards Against Mistakes- Deducing Probabilities— Despatching Bulletins — Preparing Meteorological Maps — Re- cording Observations— Watching the Storm— The Storm at San Francisco — Prophetic Preparations— Perfect Arrangements — Training the Sergeants— General Meyer's Work — "Away up G Street"— The Home of Old and Young " Probabilities"— An Extraor- dinary Mansion — The " Kites and Windmills " — Inside the Mansion — The Apparatus — " The Unerring Weather-Man " — " Old Probabilities " Himself— How Calculations are Made—" Young Probabilities "—Interesting Facts, 491 CHAPTER XLV. THE NAVY DEPARTMENT — THE UNITED STATES OBSERVATORY — THE STATE DEPARTMENT. Primitive Arrangements — The Navy in Early Days— The Department of the Navy Estab- lished—The Secretary's Office — The Navy-"V ards and Docks— The Bureau of Construc- tion — The Bureau of Provisions and Clothing — Equipment of Vessels — Hureau of Ordnance and Hydrography— The Naval Observatory — The Bureau of Medicine— In- teresting Statistics— The Navy Seventy Years Ago — The "Day of Small Things " — Instructions of the Great Napoleon — Keeping Pace with England — The Glories of Foote, Ferry, Porter and Farragut— Scene from the Observatory— Peeping through the Telescope — The Mountains in the Moon— The Largest Telescope in the World— Making Mathematical Notes — A Passion for Star-gazing — Casting Horoscopes — Gazing for Pastime — "For the Sake of Science" — The Chronometers of the Government — Com- paring Notes — The Test of Time — Chronometers on Trial — The Wind and Current Charts— The Good Deeds of Lieutenant Maury— "The Habits of the Whale "—The Equatorial — A Self-acting Telescope — Tho Transit Instrument — The Great Astronomi- cal Clock— Telling Time by Telegraph — Hearing the Clock Tick Miles Away — The Transit of Venus — Great Preparations — A Trifle of Half-a-Million of Miles — The De- partment of Foreign Affairs— The Secretary of State— A Little Secret Suggestion — The Diplomatic Bureau— The Consular Bureau — I'lie Disbursing-Agent— The Transla- tor—The Clerk-of- Appointments — Clerk-of-the-Rolls— The Clerk-of-Authentications — Pardons and Passports— The Superintendent of Statistics, 507 CHAPTER XL VI. THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING-OFFICE — HISTORY OF A " PUB. DOC." Another Government Hive— The Largest Printing Establishment in the World— Judge Douglass's Villa— The Celebrated " Pub. Doc."—" Making Many Books"— The Conven- ience of a "Frank" — The Omnipresent " Doc."— A Weariness to the Flesh— An Av- erage "Doc."— A Personal Experience— What the Nation's Printing Costs— " Not Worth the Paper " — A Melancholy Fact— Two Sides of the Question — Invaluable "Pub. Docs "—Printing a Million Money-Orders— The Stereotype Foundry— A Few Figures— The Government Printing Office— A Model Office— Aiding Human Labor — Working by Machinery— The Ink-Room— The Private Offices— Mr. Clapp's Comfortable Office— The Proof-Reading Room— The Workers There— The Compositors' Room— The Women- Workers— Setting Up Her Daily Task— A Quiet Spot for the Executive Printing— The Tricks and Stratagems of Correspondents — A Private Press in the White House— The Supreme Pride of a Congressional Printer— Rule-and-Figure Work— The Executive Binding-Room— Acres of Paper — Specimens of Binding— The " Most Beautiful Bind- ing in the World"— Specimen Copies— Binding the Surgical History of the War— The Ladies Require a Little More Air— Delicate Gold-Leaf Work— The Folding-Room— An Army of Maidens— The Stitching-Room— The Needles of Women— A Busy Girl at Work— "Thirty Cents Apiece "—Getting Used to It— The Girl Over Yonder— The Man- ual Labor System— The Story of a " Pub. Doc."— Preparing "Copy "--" Setting Up "— Making-dp " Forms "--Reading "Proof"— The Press Room— Going to Press— Fold- ing, Stitching, and Binding-Sent Out to " The Wide, Wide World," . . . .520 CHAPTER XLVn. THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION — THE AGRICULTURAL BUREAU. A Singular Bequest — Strange Story of James Smithson — A Good Use of Money — Seek- ing the Diffusion of Knowledge — Catching a Tear from a Lady's Cheek — Analysis of the Same Tear— The Attainments of a Philosopher— A brief Tract on Coffee-Making— James Smit.hson's Will — A Genealogical Declaration — Announcing a Bequest to Con- gress Discussions and Reports — Praiseworthy Efforts of Robert Dale Owen — The Be- quest Accepted— The Board of Regents— The Plan of the Institution— Its Ditent and XX CONTENTS. PAGE. Object— Changes Made by the Regents— Ex- Officio Members of the Institution — " The Power Behind the Throne" — The Secretary — The Smithsonian Reservation— The Smithsonian Building — Its Style of Architecture — Inside the Building — Injuries Re- ceived by Fire — Loss of Works of Art — The Museum — Treasures of Art and Science — The Results of Thirty Government Expeditions — The Largest Collection in the_,World — Valuable Mineral Specimens — All the Vertebrated Animals of North America — Clas- sitied Curiosities — The Smithsonian Contributions — Comprehensive Character of the Institution — Its Advantages and Operations — Results — The Agricultural Bureau — Its Plan and Object — Collecting Valuable Agricultural Facts — Helping the Purchaser of a Farm — The Expenses of the Bureau — The Library — Nature-Printing — In the Museum — The Great California Plank — Vegetable Specimens — International Exchanges. . . 533 CHAPTER XLVIII. OLD HOMES AND HAUNTS OF WASHINGTON. The Oldest Home in Washington— The Cottage of David Burns —David Burns's Daughter — Singing a Lady's Praises — The Attractions of a Cottage — "Tom Moore" the Poet Pays Homage to Fair Marcia— The Favored Suitor— How The Lady was Wooed and Won— Mother and Daughter — The Offering to God — The City Orphan Asylum — A Costly Mausoleum — The Assassination Conspiracy — Persecuting the Innocent — A Sug- gestion for the Board of Works — The Octagon House — A Comfortable Income — The Pleasures of Property— A Haunted House — Apple-Stealing— " Departed Joys and Stomach-Aches " — The Jackson Monument— The Tragedy of the Decatur House — A Fatal Duel— The Stockton-Sickles House— A Spot of Frightful Interest— The Club- House— Assassination of Mr. Seward— Scenes of Festivity— The Madison House— Mrs. Madison's Popularity — Her Turbans and Her Snuff— The Exploit of Commodore Welkes —Arlington Hotel— The House of Charles Sumner— Corcoran Castle— The Finest Pic- ture Gallery in America— Powers' Greek Slave—" Maggie Beck "— Kalorama— During the War— Rock Creek— The Romantic Story of Mr. Barlow's Ntece— Francis P. Blair— Duddington House— The Brother of Lord Ellenborough— Forgetting His Own Name —Locking Up a Wife— The "Ten Buildings "—The Ketreat of Louis Phillippe— Old Capitol Prison— The Temporary Capitol— The Deeds of Ann Royal and Sally Brass- " Paul Pry " — Blackmailing— Feared By all Mankind— An Unpleasant Sort of Woman — Arrested on Suspicion — A, Small American Bastile— Where Wirz was Hung, . . 549 CHAPTER XLIX. MOUNT VERNON — MEMORIAL DAY — ARLINGTON. The Tomb of Washington— The Pilgrims who "Visit it— Where George and Martha Wash- ington Rest— The American Mecca— The Thought of Other Graves— The Defenders of the Republic— Eating Boiled Eggs— A Butterfly Visit — The Old Mansion-House— Pa- triarchal Dogs — Remembering a Feast — The Room in which Washington Died— The Great Key of" the Bastile— The Gift of Lafayette— The Harpsichord of Eleanor Custis —The Belle of Mount Vernon — Moralizing — Inside the Mansion — Uncle Tom's Bouquets —Beautiful Scenery— Memorial Day at Arlington— The Soldiers' Orphans— The Grave of Forty Soldiers— The Sacrifice of a Widow's Son— The Children's Offering — The Rec- ord of the Brave— A National Prayer for the Dead, 581 Ten Tears in Washington. — »-«-• — . CHAPTER I. FEOM THE VERY BEGINNING. The Young Surveyor's Dream — Humboldt's View of W» ashington — A Vision of the Future Capital — The United States Government on Wheels — Ambitious Offers — The Rival Rivers — Potomac Wins — Battles in Con- gress — Patriotic Offers of Territory — Temporary Lodgings for Eleven Years — Old-Fashioned Simplicity — He Couldn't Afford Furniture — A Great Man's Modesty — Conflicting Claims — Smith Backs Baltimore — A Convincing Fact — The Dreadful Quakers — A Condescending Party — A Slight Amendment — An Old Bill Brought to Light Again — The Indian Place with the Long Name — Secession Threatened — The Future Strangely Foreshadowed — A Dinner of Some Consequence — How it was Done — Really a Stranger — A Nice Proposal — Sweetening the Pill — A " Revulsion of Stomach " — Fixed on the Banks of the Potomac. ORE than a century ago a young surveyor, Captain of the Virginia troops, camped with Braddock's forces upon the hill now occupied by the "Washington Observatory, looked down as Moses looked from Nebo upon the promised land, until he saw growing before his prophetic sight the city of the future, the Capital of a vast and free people then unborn. This youth was George "Washington. The land upon which he gazed was the un- dreamed of site of the undreamed of city of the Republic, then to be. This youth, ordained of God to be the Father of the Republic, was the prophet of its Capital. He fore- saw it, he chose it, he served it, he loved it; but as a Capital he never entered it. 22 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. Gazing from the green promontory of Camp Hill, what was the sight of land and water upon which the youthful surveyor looked down ? It was fair to see, so fair that Humboldt declared after traveling around the earth, that for the site of a city the entire globe does not hold its equal. On his left rose the wooded bights of Georgetown. On his right, the hills of Virginia stretched outward toward the ocean. From the luxu- ' rious meadows which zoned these hills, the Potomac River — named by the Indians Cohonguroton, River of Swans — from its source in the Alleghany Mountains, flowing from north-west to south-west, here expanded more than the width of a mile, and then in concentrated majesty rolled on to meet Chesapeake Bay, the river James, and the ocean. South and east, flowing to meet it, came the beautiful Anacostin, now called Eastern Branch, and on the west, winding through its pictur- esque bluffs, ran the lovely Rock Creek, pouring its bright waters into the Potomac, under the Hights of Georgetown. At the confluence of these two rivers, girdled by this bright stream, and encompassed by hills, the young surveyor looked across a broad amphitheatre of rolling plain, still covered with native oaks and un- dergrowth. It was not these he saw. His prescient sight forecast the future. He saw the two majestic rivers bearing upon their waters ships bringing to these green shores the commerce of many nations. He saw the gently climbing hills crowned with villas, and in the stead of oaks and undergrowth, broad streets, a populous city, magnificent buildings, outrivaling the temples of antiquity — the Federal City, the Capital of the vast Re- public yet to be ! The dreary camp, the weary march, A GOVERNMENT ON WHEELS. 23 privation, cold, hunger, bloodshed, revolution, patient victory at last, all these were to be endured, outlived, before the beautiful Capital of his future was reached. Did the youth foresee these, also? Many toiling, strug- gling, suffering years bridged the dream of the young surveyor and the first faint dawn of its fulfillment. After the Declaration of Independence, before the adop- tion of the Constitution of the United States, its govern- ment moved slowly and painfully about on wheels. As the exigencies of war demanded, Congress met at Phila- delphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton, and New York. During these troubled years it was the ambition of every infant State to claim the seat of government. For this purpose New York offered Kingston ; Rhode Island, Newport ; Maryland, Anapoiis ; Virginia, Williamsburg. June 21, 1783, Congress was insulted at Philadelphia by a band of mutineers, which the State authorities could not subdue. The body adjourned to Princeton ; and the troubles and trials of its itinerancy caused the subject of a permanent national seat of government to be taken up and discussed with great vehemence from that time till the formation of the Constitution. The resolutions of- fered, and the votes taken in these debates, indicate that the favored site for the future Capital lay somewhere be- tween the banks of the Delaware and the Potomac — "near Georgetown," says the most oft-repeated sentence. Octo- ber 30, 1784, the subject was discussed by Congress, at Trenton. A long debate resulted in the appointment of three commissioners, with full power to lay out a district not exceeding three, nor less than two miles square, on the banks of either side of the Delaware, for a Federal 24 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON". town, with power to buy soil and to enter into contracts for the building of a Federal House, President's house, house for Secretaries, etc. Notwithstanding the adoption of this resolution, these Commissioners never entered upon their duties. Prob- ably the lack of necessary appropriations did not hinder them more than the incessant attempts made to repeal the act appointing the Commissioners, and to substitute the Potomac for the Delaware, as the site of the antici- pated Capital. Although the name of President Wash- ington does not appear in these controversies, even then the dream of the young surveyor was taking on in the President's mind the tangible shape of reality. First, after the war for human freedom and the declaration of national independence, was the desire in the heart of George Washington that the Capital of the new Nation whose armies he had led to triumph, should rise above the soil of his native Dominion, upon the banks of the great river where he had foreseen it in his early dream. That he used undue influence with the successive Con- gresses which debated and voted on many sites, not the slightest evidence remains, and the nobility of his char- acter forbids the supposition. But the final decision at- tests to the prevailing potency of his preferences and wishes, and the immense pile of correspondence which he has left behind on the subject, proves that next to the establishment of its independence, was the Capital of the Republic dear to the heart of George Washington. May 10, 1787, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Georgia voted for, and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland against the proposition of Mr. Lee of Virginia, that the Board of Treasurv should take measures for HOW THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT IN CONGKESS. 25 erecting the necessary public buildings for the accommo- dation of Congress, at Georgetown, on the Potomac River, as soon as the soil and jurisdiction of said town could be obtained. Many and futile were the battles fought by the old Congress, for the site of the future Capital. These bat- tles doubtless had much to do with Section 8, Article 1, of the Constitution of the United States, which declares that Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive leg- islation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not ex- ceeding ten miles square,) as may, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States. This article was assented to by the convention which framed the Consti- tution, without debate. The adoption of the Constitution was followed spontaneously by most munificent acts on the part of several States. New York appropriated its public buildings to the use of the new government, and Congress met in that city April 6, 1789. On May 15, following, Mr. White from Virginia, presented to the House of Representatives a resolve of the Legislature of that State, offering to the Federal government ten miles square of its territory, in any part of that State, which Congress might choose as the seat of the Federal gov- ernment. The day following, Mr. Seney presented a similar act from the State of Maryland. Memorials and petitions followed in quick succession from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The resolution of the Vir- ginia Legislature begged for the co-operation of Mary- land, offering to advance the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to the use of the general gov- ernment tow r ard erecting public buildings, if the Assem- 26 TEN YEARS IN" WAS KING TON. bly of Maryland would advance two-fifths of a like sum. Whereupon the Assembly of Virginia immediately voted' to cede the necessary soil, and to provide seventy-two thousand dollars toward the erection of public buildings. "New York and Pennsylvania gratuitously furnished ele- gant and convenient accommodations for the government" during the eleven years which Congress passed in their midst, and offered to continue to do the same. The Leg- islature of Pennsylvania went further in lavish gener- osity, and voted a sum of money to build a house for the President. The house which it built was lately the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania. The present White House is considered much too old-fashioned and shabby to be the suitable abode of the President of the United States. A love of ornate display has taken the place of early Re- publican simplicity. When George Washington saw the dimensions of the house which the Pennsylvanians were building for the President's Mansion, he informed them at once that he would never occupy it, much less incur the expense of buying suitable furniture for it. In those Spartan days it never entered into the head of the State to buy furniture for the * Executive Mansion." Thus the Chief Citizen, instead of going into a palace like a sa- trap, rented and furnished a modest house belonging to Mr. Robert Morris, in Market street. Meanwhile the great battle for the permanent seat of government went on unceasingly among the representatives of conflicting States. No modern debate, in length and bitterness, has equalled this of the first Congress under the Constitution. Nearly all agreed that New York was not sufficiently cen- tral. There was an intense conflict concerning the rela- tive merits of Philadelphia and Germantown ; Havre de VIRGINIA INJURED. 27 Grace and a place called Wright's Ferry, on the Susque- hanna ; Baltimore on the Patapsco, and Connogocheague on the Potomac. Mr. Smith proclaimed Baltimore, and the fact that its citizens had subscribed forty thousand dollars for public buildings. The South Carolinians cried out against Philadelphia because of its majority of Qua- kers who, they said, were eternally dogging the Southern members with their schemes of emancipation. Many others ridiculed the project of building palaces in the woods. Mr. Gerry of Massachusetts declared that it was the hight of unreasonableness to establish the seat of government so far south that it would place nine States out of the thirteen so far north of the National Capital ; while Mr. Page protested that New York was superior to any place that he knew for the orderly and decent be- havior of its inhabitants, an assertion, sad to say, no longer applicable to the city of New York. September 5, 1789, a resolution passed, the House of Representatives " that the permanent seat of the govern- ment of the United States ought to be at some conven- ient place on the banks of the Susquehanna, in the State of Pennsylvania. The passage of this bill awoke the deepest ire in the members from the South. Mr. Madi- son declared that if the proceedings of that day could have been foreseen by Virginia, that State would never have condescended to become a party to the Constitution. Mr. Scott remarked truly : " The future tranquillity and well being of the United States depended as much on this as on any question that ever had or ever could come before Congress;" while Fisher Ames declared that every principle of pride and honor, and even of patriotism, was engaged in the debate. 28 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. The bill passed the House by a vote of thirty-one to nineteen. The Senate amended it by striking out " Sus- quehanna," and inserting a clause making the permanent seat of government Germantown, Pennsylvania, provided the State of Pennsylvania should give security to pay one hundred thousand dollars for the erection of public buildings. The House agreed to these amendments. Both Houses of Congress agreed upon Germantown as the Capital of the Republic, and yet the final passage of the bill was hindered by a slight amendment. June 28, another old bill was dragged forth and amended by inserting "on the River Potomac, at some place between the mouths of the Eastern Branch and the Connogocheague." This was finally passed, July 16, 1790, entitled "An Act establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the government of the United States." The word temporary applied to Philadelphia, whose dis- appointment in not becoming the final Capital was to be appeased by Congress holding their sessions there till 1800, when, as a member expressed it, "they were to go to the Indian place with the long name, on the Potomac." Human bitterness and dissension were even then rife in both Houses of Congress. The bond which bound the new Union of States together was scarcely welded, and yet secession already was an openly uttered threat. An amendment had been offered to the funding act, pro- viding for the assumption of the State debts to the amount of twenty-one millions, which was rejected by the House. The North favored assumption and the South opposed it. Just then reconciliation and amity were brought about between the combatants precisely as they often are in DINNER TABLE LEGISLATION. Z9 our own time, over a well-laid dinner table, and a bot- tle of rare old wine. Jefferson was then Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treas- ury. Hamilton thought that the North would yield and consent to the establishment of the Capital on the Poto- mac, if the South would agree to the amendment to as- sume the State debts. Jefferson and Hamilton met acci- dentally in the street, and the result of their half an hour's walk "backward and forward before the President's door" was the next day's dinner party, and the final, irrevocable fixing of the National Capital on the banks of the Potomac. How it was done, as an illustration of early legislation, which has its perfect parallel in the leg- islation of the present day, can best be told in Jefferson's own words, quoted from one of his letters. He says : " Hamilton was in despair. As I was going to the Pres- ident's one day I met him in the street. He walked me backward and forward before the President's door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which the legislature had been wrought ; the disgust of those who were called the creditor States ; the danger of the secession of their members, and the separation of the States. He observed that the members of the adminis- tration ought to act in concert .... that the President was the centre on which all administrative questions finally rested; that all of us should rally around him and support by joint efforts measures approved by him, .... that an appeal from me to the judgment and dis- cretion of some of my friends might effect a change in the vote, and the machine of government now suspended, might be again set in motion. I told him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject, not having yet 60 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. informed myself of the system of finance adopted .... that if its rejection endangered a dissolution of our Un- ion at this incipient stage, I should deem that the most unfortunate of all consequences, to avert which all par- tial and temporary evils should be yielded. " I proposed to him, however, to dine with me the next day, and I would invite another friend or two, bring them into conference together and I thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail by some mutual sacrifices of opinion to form a compromise which was to save the Union. The discussion took place. .... It was finally agreed to, that whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union and of concord among the States was more important, and that therefore it would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded to effect which some members should change their votes. But it was observed that this pill would be peculiarly hitter to Southern States, and that some concomitant meas- ure should he adopted to sweeten it a little to them, There had before been a proposition to fix the seat of govern- ment either at Philadelphia or Georgetown on the Poto- mac, and it was thought that by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterward, this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the fer- ment w r hich might be excited by the other measure alone. So two of the Potomac members, [White and Lee,] but White with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive, agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton agreed to carry the other point .... and so the assumption was passed," and the permanent Capital fixed on the banks of the Potomac. MEN OF MARK, IN WASHINGTON. CHAPTER II. CROSS PURPOSES AND QUEER SPECULATIONS. Born of Much Bother — Long Debates and Pamphlets — Undefined Appre- hensions — Debates on the Coming City — Old World Examples — Sir James Expresses an Opinion — A Dream of the Distant West — An Old- time Want — A Curious Statement of Fact — " Going West" — Where is the Centre of Population — An Important Proclamation — Original Land Owners — Well-worn Patents — Getting on with Pugnacious Planters — Obstinate David Burns — A " Widow's Mite" of Some Magnitude — How the Scotchman was Subjugated — "If You Hadn't Married the Widow Custis " — A Rather "Forcible Argument" — His Excellency " Chooses " — The First Record in Washington — Old Homes and Haunts — Purchase of Land — Extent of the City. AS we have seen, the Federal City was the object of George Washington's devoted love long before its birth. It was born through much tribulation. First came the long debates and pamphlets of 1790, as to whether the seat of the American government should be a commercial capital. Madison and his party argued that the only way to insure the power of exclusive leg- islation to Congress as accorded by the Constitution, w T as to remove the Capital as far from commercial interests as possible. They declared that the exercise of this author- ity over a large mixed commercial community would be impossible. Conflicting mercantile interests would cause constant political disturbances, and when party feelings ran high, or business was stagnant, the commercial capi- tal would swarm with an irritable mob brim full of wrongs and grievances. This would involve the neces- sity of an army standing in perpetual defense of the o2 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. capital. London and Westminster were cited as exam- ples where the commercial importance of a single city had more influence on the measures of government than the whole empire outside. Sir James Macintosh was quoted, wherein he said " that a great metropolis was to be considered as the heart of a political body — as the focus of its powers and talents — as the direction of pub- lic opinion, and, therefore, as a strong bulwark in the cause of freedom, or as a powerful engine in the hands of an oppressor." To prevent the Capital of the Re- public becoming the latter the Constitution deprived it of the elective franchise. The majority in Congress op- posed the idea of a great commercial city as the future Capital of the country. Nevertheless when a plan for the city was adopted it was one of exceptional magnifi- cence. It was a dream of the founders of the Capital to build a city expressly for its purpose and to build it for centuries to come. In view of the vast territory now comprehended in the United States their provision for the future may seem meagre and limited. But when we remember that there were then but thirteen States, that railroads and telegraphs were undreamed of as human possibilities — that nearly all the empire west of the Po- tomac was an unpenetrated wilderness, we may wonder at their prescience and wisdom, rather than smile at their lack of foresight. Even in that early and clouded morn- ing there were statesmen who foresaw the later glory of the West fore-ordained to shine on far off generations. Says Mr. Madison : "If the calculation be just that we double in fifty years we shall speedily behold an aston- ishing mass of people on the western waters The swarm does not come from the southern but from THE COMING WEST. 33 the northern and eastern hives. I take it that the centre of population will rapidly advance in a south-westerly di- rection. It must then travel from the Susquehanna if it is now found there — it may even extend beyond the Potomac /" Said Mr. Vining to the House, " I confess I am in favor of the Potomac. I wish the seat of government to be fixed there because I think the interest, the honor, and the greatness of the country require it. From thence, it appears to me, that the raj^s of government will naturally diverge to the extremities of the Union. I declare that I look upon the western territories from an awful and striking point of view. To that region the unpolished sons of the earth are flowing from all quarters — men to whom the protection of the laws and the controlling force of the government are equally necessary." In the course of the debate Mr. Calhoun called atten- tion to the fact that very few seats of government in the world occupied central positions in their respective coun- tries. London was on a frontier, Paris far from central, the capital of Russia near its border. Even at that early date comparatively small importance was attached to a geographical centre of territory as indispensable to the location of its capital. The only possible objection to a capital near the sea-board was then noted by Mr. Madison who said, " If it were possible to promulgate our laws by some instantaneous operation, it would be of less conse- quence where the government might be placed," a possi- bility now fulfilled by the daily news from the Capital which speeds to the remotest corner of the great land not only with the swiftness of lightning but by lightning itself. Although the States have more than doubled since the days of this first discussion on where the Capital of the 3 34 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. United States should be, it is a curious fact that the cen- •tre of population has not traveled westward in any pro- portionate ratio. According to a table calculated by Dr. Patterson of the United States mint, in 1840 the centre of population was then in Harrison County, Virginia, one hundred and seventy-five miles west of the city of Wash- ington. At that time the average progress westward since 1790 had been, each ten years, thirty-four miles. "This average has since increased, but if it be set down at fifty miles, it will require a century to carry this centre five hundred miles west of Washington, or as far as the city of Nashville, Tennessee." I state this fact for the benefit of crazy capital-movers who are in such haste to set the Capital of the Nation in the centre of the Continent. I have given but a few of the questions w T hich were discussed in the great debates which preceded the final lo- cating of the Capital on the banks of the Potomac. They are a portion of its history, and deeply interesting in their bearing on the present and future of the Capital city. The long strife ended in the amendatory proclamation of President Washington, done at Georgetown the 30th day of March, in the year of our Lord 1791, and of the independence of the United States the fifteenth, which concluded with these words: "I do accordingly direct the Commissioners named under the authority of the said first mentioned act of Congress to proceed forthwith to have the said four lines run, and by proper metes and bounds defined and limited, and thereof to make due re- port under their hands and seals ; and the territory so to be located, defined and limited shall be the whole terri- tory accepted by the said act of Congress as the district for the permanent seat of the government of the United GENEEAL WASHINGTON AND DAVY BUENS. 35 States." Maryland had ceded of her land ten miles square for the future Capital. Nothing seemed easier than for these three august commissioners, backed by the power- ful Congress, to go and take it. But it was not so easy to be done. In addition to the State of Maryland the land belonged to land-holders, each one of whom was a lord on his own domain. Some of these held land pa- tents still extant, dating back to 1663, and 1681. These lords of the manor were not willing to be disturbed even for the sake of a future Capital, and displayed all the iras- cibility and tenacity regarding price which characterize land-holders of the present day. If we may judge from results and the voluminous correspondence concerning it, left by George "Washington, the three commissioners who were to act for the government did not "get on" very well with the pugnacious planters who were ready to fight for their acres — and that the greater part of the negotiating for the new city finally fell to the lot of the great Executive. One of the richest and most famous of these land-owners was David Burns. He owned an immense tract of land south of where the president's house now stands, extending as far as the Patent Office called in the land patent of 1681 which granted it, "the Widow's Mite, lyeing on the east side of the Anacostin River, on the north side of a branch or inlett in the said river, called Tyber." This " Widow's Mite " contained six hundred acres or more, and David Burns was in no wise willing to part with any portion of it. Although it laid within the territory of Columbia, ceded by the act of Maryland for the future Capital, no less a personage than the President of the United States could move one whit David Burns, and even the President found it to be no 36 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. easy matter to bring the Scotchman to terms. More than once in his letters he alludes to him as " the obsti- nate Mr. Burns," and it is told that upon one occasion when the President was dwelling upon the advantage that the sale of his lands would bring, the planter, testy Davy, exclaimed : " I suppose you think people here are going to take every grist that comes from you as pure grain, but what would you have been if you hadn't married the widow Oustis." $>■ After many interviews and arguments even the pa- tience of "Washington finally gave out and he said: " Mr. Burns, I have been authorized to select the loca- tion of the National Capital. I have selected your form as a part of it, and the government will take it at all events. I trust you will, under these circumstances, enter into an amicable arrangement." Seeing that further resistance was useless, the shrewd Scotchman thought that by a final graceful surrender he might secure more favorable terms, thus, when the Presi- dent once more asked : " On what terms will you sur- render your plantation?" Said humble Davy: " Any that your Excellency may choose to name." The deed conveying the land of David Burns to the commissioners in trust, is the first on record in the city of Washington. This sale secured to David Burns and his descendants an immense fortune. The deed provided that the streets of the new city should be so laid out as not to interfere with the cottage of David Burns, jl That cottage still stands in famous "Mansion Square," and the reader will find its story further on in the chapter devoted to the Old Homes and Haunts of Washington. The other original owners of the soil on which the city of Washington was built were THE NEW CAPITAL LIMITS. 37 Notley Young, who owned a fine old brick mansion near the present steamboat landing, and Daniel Carroll, whose spacious abode known as the Duddington House, still stands on New Jersey Avenue, a little south-east of the Capitol. On the 31st of May, Washington wrote to Jef- ferson from Mount Vernon, announcing the conclusion of his negotiations in this wise — the owners conveyed all their interest to the United States on consideration that when the whole should be surveyed and laid off as a city the original proprietors should retain every other lot. The remaining lots to be sold by the government from time to time and the proceeds to be applied toward the improvement of the place. The land comprised within this agreement contains over seventy-one hundred acres. The city extends from north-west to south-east about four miles and a half, and from east to south-west about two miles and a half. Its circumference is fourteen miles, the aggregate length of the streets is one hundred and ninety-nine miles, and of the avenues sixty-five miles. The avenues, streets and open spaces contain three thou- sand six hundred and four acres, and the public reserva- tions exclusive of reservations since disposed of for pri- vate purposes, five hundred and thirteen acres. The whole area of the squares of the city amounts to one hundred and thirty-one million, six hundred and eighty- four thousand, one hundred and seventy-six square feet, or three thousand and sixteen acres. Fifteen hundred and eight acres were reserved for the use of the United States. CHAPTER III. THE WORK BEGUN IN EARNEST. Washington's Faith in the Future — Mr. Sparks is " inclined to think " — A Slight Miscalculation — Theoretical Spartans — Clinging to Old World Glories — Jefferson Acts the Critic — He Communicates Some Ideas — Models of Antiquity — Babylon Revived — Difficulty in Satisfying a Frenchman's Soul — The Man who Planned the Capital — Who was L'Enfant? — His Troubles — His Dismissal — His Personal Appearance, Old Age, Death and Burial-Place — His Successor — The French Genius " Proceeded " — The New City of Washington — A Magnificent Plan — All About the City — The Major not Appreciated — "Getting on Badly" — L'En- fant Worries Washington — A Record which Can Never Perish — An Over- paid Quaker — Jefferson Expresses his Sentiments — A Sable Franklin — The Negro Engineer, Benjamin Bancker — A Chance for a Monument. THE majority of Congress were opposed to a commer- cial Capital, yet there are many proofs extant that to the hour of his death George Washington cherished the hope that the new city of his love would be not only the capital of the nation, but a great commercial metropolis of the world. Mr. Jared Sparks, the histo- rian, in a private letter says: "I am inclined to think that Washington's anticipations were more sanguine than events have justified. He early entertained very large and just ideas of the vast resources of the West, and of the commercial intercourse that must spring up between that region and the Atlantic coast, and he was wont to regard the central position of the Potomac as affording the most direct and easy channel of communication. Washington's faith m its future. 39 Steamboats and railroads have since changed the face of the world, and have set at defiance all the calculations founded on the old order of things ; and especially have they operated on the destiny of the West and our entire system of internal commerce, in a manner that could not possibly have been foreseen in the life-time of Washing- ton." Throughout the correspondence of Washington are scattered constant allusions to the future niascnifi- cence of the Federal City, the name by which he loved to call the city of his heart, allusions which show that his faith in its great destiny never faltered. In a letter to his neighbor, Mrs. Fairfax, then in England, he said: "A century hence, if this country keejDS united, it will produce a city, though not as large as London, yet of a magnitude inferior to few others in Europe." At that time, after a growth of centuries, London contained eight hundred thousand inhabitants. Three-fourths of Wash- ington's predicted century have expired, and the city of Washington now numbers one hundred and fifty thou- sand people. The founders of the Capital were all very republican in theory, and all very aristocratic in practice. In speech they proposed to build a sort of Spartan capital, fit for a Spartan republic ; in fact, they proceeded to build one modeled after the most magnificent cities of Europe. European by descent and education, many of them allied to the oldest and proudest families of the Old World, every idea of culture, of art, and magnificence had come to them as part of their European inheritance, and we see its result in every thing that they did or proposed to do for the new Capital, which they so zealously began to build in the woods. The art-connoisseur of the day was 40 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. Jefferson. He knew Europe, not only by family tradi- tion but by sight. Next to Washington he took the deepest personal interest in the projected Capital. Of this interest we find continual proof in his letters, also of the fact that his taste had much to do with the plan and architecture of the coming city. In a letter to Major L'Enfant, the first engineer of the Capital, dated Phila- delphia, April 10, 1791, he wrote : "In compliance with your request, I have examined my papers and found the plans of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Carisruhe, Amsterdam, Strasburg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyons, Montpelier, Marseilles, Turin, and Milan, which I send in a roll by post. They are on large and accurate scales, having been procured by me while in those respective cities my- self. . ; . . Having communicated to the President be- fore he went away, such general ideas on the subject of the town as occurred to me, I have no doubt in explaining himself to you on the subject, he has interwoven with his own ideas such of mine as he approved When- ever it is proposed to present plans for the Capital, I should prefer the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity, which have had the approbation of thousands of years ; and for the president's house I should prefer the celebrated fronts of modern buildings, which have already received the approbation of good judges. Such are Galerie clu Louise, the Gardes Meubles, and two fronts of the Hotel de Salm." On the same day he writes to Washington: "I received last night from Major L'Enfant a request to furnish any plans of towns I could for examination. I accordingly send him by this post, plans of Frankfort-on-the-Main, etc., which I pro- cured while in those towns respectively. They are none THE MAN WHO PLANNED THE CAPITAL. 41 of them, however, comparable to the old Babylon revived in Philadelphia and exemplified." But these two fathers of their country, as time proved, "did not know their man." Had they done so, they would have known in advance that a mercurial Frenchman would never at- tempt to satisfy his soul with acute angles of old Baby- lon revived, through the arid and level lengths of Phil- adelphia. The man who planned the Capital of the United States not for the present but for all time, was Peter Charles L'Enfant, born in France in 1755. He was a lieutenant in the French provincial forces, and with others of his countrymen was early drawn to these shores, by the mag- netism of a new people, and the promise of a new land. He offered his services to the revolutionary army as an en- gineer, in 1777, and was appointed captain of engineers February 18, 1778. After being wounded at the siege of Savannah, he was promoted to major of engineers, and served near the person of Washington. Probably at that time there was no man in America who possessed so much genius and art-culture in the same directions as Major L'Enfant. In a crude land, where nearly every arti- san had to be imported from foreign shores, the chief designer and architect surely would have to be. Thus we may conclude at the beginning, it seemed a lucky circumstance to find an engineer for the new city on the spot. The first public communication extant concerning the laying out of the city of Washington is from the pen of General Washington, dated March 11, 1791. In a letter dated April 30, 1791, he first called it the Federal City. Four months later, without his knowledge, it received 42 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. its present name in a letter from the first commissioners, Messrs. Johnson, Stuart, and Carroll, which bears the date of Georgetown, September 9, 1791, to Major L'En- fant, which informs that gentleman that they have agreed that the federal district shall be called The Ter- ritory of Columbia, (its present title,) and the federal city the city of Washington, directing him to entitle his map accordingly. In March, 1791, we find Jefferson addressing Major L'Enfant in these words: "You are desired to proceed to Georgetown, where you will find Mr. Ellicott em- ployed in making a survey and map of the federal territory. The special object of asking jowc aid is to have the drawings of the particular grounds most likely to be approved for the site of the federal grounds and buildings." The French genius " proceeded," and behold the result, the city of "magnificent distances," and from the begin- ning of magnificent intentions, — intentions which almost CO 7 to the present hour, have called forth only ridicule — be- cause in the slow mills of time their fulfillment has been so long delayed. As Thomas Jefferson wanted the chess- board squares and angles of Philadelphia, L'Enfant used them for the base of the new city, but his genius avenged itself for this outrage on its taste by transversing them with sixteen magnificent avenues, which from that day to this have proved the confusion and the glory of the city. French instinct diamonded the squares of Phila- delphia with the broad corsos of Versailles, as Major L'Enfant's map said, "to preserve through the whole a reciprocity of sight at the same time." A copy of the Gazette of the United States, published A nation's capital on papek. 43 in Philadelphia, January 4, 1792, gives us the original magnificent intentions of the first draughtsman of the new city of Washington. The following description is annexed to the plan of the city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, as sent to Con- gress by the President some days ago : PLAN OF THE CITY INTENDED AS THE PERMANENT SEAT OF THE GOV- ERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PROJECTED AGREEABLY TO THE DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN PURSU- ANCE OF AN ACT OF CONGRESS, PASSED ON THE 16TH OF JULY, 1790, " ESTABLISHING A PERMANENT SEAT ON THE BANKS OF THE POTOMACK." BY PETER CHAKLES L'EHFAKI. OBSERVATIONS EXPLANATORY OF THE PLAN. I. The positions of the different grand edifices, and for the several grand squares or areas of different shapes as they are laid down, were first determined on the most advantageous ground, commanding the most extensive prospects, and the better susceptible of such improvements as the various interests of the several objects may require. II. Lines or avenues of direct communication have been de- vised to connect the separate and most distant objects with the principals, and to preserve throughout the whole a reciprocity of sight at the same time. Attention has been paid to the pass- ing of those leading avenues over the most favorable ground for prospect and convenience. III. North and south lines, intersected by others running due east and west, make the distribution of the city into streets, squares, &c, and those lines have been so combined as to meet at certain points with those diverging avenues so as to form on the spaces " first determined," the different squares or areas which are all proportioned in magnitude to the number of ave- nues leading to them. 44 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. ME. ELLICOTT "DOES BUSINESS." Every grand transverse avenue, and every principal divergent one, such as the communication from the President's house to the Congress house, &c, are 160 feet in breadth and thus divided : Ten feet for pavement on each side, is 20 feet , Thirty feet of gravel walk, planted with trees on each side, 60 feet Eighty feet in the middle for carriages, 80 feet 160 feet The other streets are of the following dimensions, viz. : Those leading to the public buildings or markets, . . 130 Others, 110-90 In order to execute the above plan, Mr. Ellicott drew a true meridian line by celestial observation, which passes through area intended for the Congress house. This line he crossed by another due east and west, and which passes through the same area. The lines were accurately measured, and made the basis on which the whole plan was executed. He ran all the lines by a transit instrument, and determined the acute angles by actual measurement, and left nothing to the uncertainty of the compass. EEFERENCES. A. The equestrian figure of George Washington, a monu- ment voted in 1783 by the late Continental Congress. B. An historic column — also intended for a mile or itinerary column, from whose station, (at a mile from the Federal House,) all distances and places through the Continent are to be cal- culated. C. A Naval itinerary column proposed to be erected to cele- brate the first rise of a navy, and to stand a ready monument to perpetuate its progress and achievements. A MAGNIFICENT PLAN. 45 D. A church intended for national purposes, such as public prayers, thanksgivings, funeral orations, &c, and assigned to the special use of no particular sect or denomination, but equally open to all. It will likewise be a proper shelter for such monu- ments as were voted by the late Continental Congress for those heroes who fell in the cause of liberty, and for such others as may hereafter be decreed by the voice of a grateful nation. E. E. E. E. E. Five grand fountains intended with a con- stant spout of water. N. B. There are within the limits of the springs twenty-five good springs of excellent water abundantly supplied in the dri- est seasons of the year. F. A grand cascade formed of the waters of the sources of the Tiber. G. G. Public walk, being a square of 1,200 feet, through which carriages may ascend to the upper square of the Federal House. H. A grand avenue, 400 feet in breadth and about a mile in length, bordered with gardens ending in a slope from the house on each side ; this avenue leads to the monument A, and con- nects the Congress garden with the I. President's park and the K. Well improved field, being a part of the walk from the President's House of about 1,800 feet in breadth and three- fourths of a mile in length. Every lot deep colored red, with green plats, designating some of the situations which command the most agreeable prospects, and which are best calculated for spacious houses and gardens, such as may accommodate foreign ministers, &c. L. Around this square and along the M. Avenue from the two bridges to the Federal House, the pavements on each side will pass under an arched way, under whose cover shops will be most conveniently and agreeably situated. This street is 106 feet in breadth, and a mile long. The fifteen squares colored yellow are proposed to be divided among the several States of the Union, for each of them to im- 46 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. prove, or subscribe a sum additional to the value of the land for that purpose, and the improvements around the squares to be completed in a limited time. The centre of each square will admit of statues, columns, obelisks, or any other ornaments, such as the different States may choose to erect, to perpetuate not only the memory of such individuals whose councils or mili- tary achievements were conspicuous in giving liberty and inde- pendence to this country, but those whose usefulness hath rendered them worthy of imitation, to invite the youth of suc- ceeding generations to tread in the paths of those sages or he- roes whom their country have thought proper to celebrate. The situation of those squares is such that they are most advantageously seen from each other, and as equally distributed over the whole city district, and connected by spacious avenues round the grand federal improvements and as contiguous to them, and at the same time as equally distant from each other as circumstances would admit. The settlements round these squares must soon become connected. The mode of taking possession of and improving the whole district at first must leave to posterity a grand idea of the patriotic interest which promoted it. Two months after the publication of those magnificent designs for posterity, Major L'Enfant was dismissed from his exalted place. He "was a Frenchman and a genius. The patrons of the new Capital were not geniuses, and not Frenchmen, reasons sufficient why they should not and did not "get on" long in peace together. Without doubt the Commissioners were provincial, and limited in their ideas of art and of expenditure ; with their colonial experience they could scarcely be otherwise; while L'En- fant was metropolitan, splendid, and willful, in his ways as well as in his designs. Hampered, held back, he yet "builded better than he knew," builded for posterity. The executor and the designer seldom counterpart each DISMISSING A MAN OF GENIUS. 47 other. L'Enfant worried Washington, as a letter from the latter, written in the autumn of 1791, plainly shows. He says: "It is much to be regretted that men who possess talents which fit them for peculiar purposes should almost invariably be under the influence of an untoward disposition I have thought that for such employment as he is now engaged in for prose- cuting public works and carrying them into effect, Ma- jor L'Enfant was better qualified than any one who has come within my knowledge in this country, or in- deed in any other. I had no doubt at the same time that this was the light in which he considered himself." At least, L'Enfant was so fond of his new "plan" that he would not give it up to the Commissioners to be used as an inducement for buying city lots, even at the command of the President, giving as a reason that if it was open to buyers, speculators would build up his beloved avenues (which he intended, in time, should outrival Versailles) with squatter's huts — -just as they afterwards did. Then Duddington House, the abode of Daniel Carroll, was in the way of one of his triumphal avenues, and he ordered it torn down without 'leave or license, to the rage of its owner and the indignation of the Commissioners. Dud- dington House was rebuilt by order of the government in another place, and stands to-day a relic of the past amid its old forest trees on Capitol Hill. Nevertheless its first de- molition was held as one of the sins of the uncontrollable L'Enfant, who was summarily discharged March 6, 1792. His dismissal was thus announced by Jefferson in a letter to one of the Commissioners : "It having been found im- practicable to employ Major L'Enfant about the Federal City in that degree of subordination which was lawful 48 TEN" YEAES IN WASHINGTON". and proper, he has been notified that his services are at an end. It is now proper that he should receive the re- ward of his past services, and the wish that he should have no just cause of discontent suggests that it should be liberal. The President thinks of $2,500, or $3,000, but leaves the determination to you." Jefferson wrote in the same letter : " The enemies of the enterprise will take the advantage of the retirement of L'Enfant to trumpet the whole as an abortion." But L'Enfant lived and died within sight of the dawning city of his love which he had himself created — and never wrought it, or its projectors any harm through all the days of his life. He was loyal to his adopted government, but to his last breath clung to every atom of his personal claim upon it, as pugnaciously as he did to his maps, when commanded to give them up. He lived without honor, and died without fame. Time will vindicate one and perpetuate the other in one of the most magnificent capitals of earth. His living picture lingers still with more than one old inhab- itant. One tells of him in an unchangeable "green sur- tout, walking across the commons and fields, followed by half-a-dozen hunting clogs." Also, of reporting to him at Fort Washington in 1814 to do duty, and of first receiv- ing a glass of wine from the old soldier-architect and en- gineer before he told him what to do. Mr. Corcoran, the banker, tells how L'Enfant looked in his latter days : " a rather seedy, stylish old man, with a long blue or green coat buttoned up to his throat, and a bell-crowned hat ; a little moody and lonely, like one wronged." He lived for many years on the Digges' farm, the estate now owned by George Riggs, the banker, situated about eight miles from Washington. He was buried in the A FIGHTING QUAKER SUCCEEDS. 49 family burial-ground, in the Digges' garden. When the Digges family were disinterred, his dust was left nearly alone. There it lies to-clay, and the perpetually growing splendor of the ruling city which he planned, is his only monument. He was succeeded by Andrew Ellicott, a practical en- gineer, born in Buck's County, Pennsylvania. He was called a man of "uncommon talent" and "placid tem- per." Neither saved him from conflicts, (though of a milder type than L'Enfant's,) with the Commissioners. A Quaker, he yet commanded a battalion of militia in the Revolution, and " was thirty-seven years of age when he rode out with Washington to survey the embryo city." He finished, (with certain modifications,) the work which L'Enfant began. For this he received the stupendous sum of $5.00 per day which, with "expenses," Jefferson thought to be altogether too much. In his letter to the Commissioners dismissing L'Enfant, he says : " Ellicott is to go on to finish laying off the plan on the ground, and surveying and plotting the district. I have remonstrated with him on the excess of five dollars a day and his ex- penses, and he has proposed striking off the latter." After Ellicott concluded laying out the Capital, he be- came Surveyor-General of the United States; laid out the towns of Erie, Warren and Franklin, in Pennsylva- nia, and built Fort Erie. He defined the boundary divid- ing the Republic from the Spanish Possessions ; became Secretary of the Pennsylvania Land Office, and in 1812 Professor of Mathematics at West Point, where he died August, 1820, aged 66. EUicott's most remarkable assistant was Benjamin Bancker, a negro. He was, I believe, the first of his \ 50 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. race to distinguish himself in the new Republic. He was born with a genius for mathematics and the exact sci- ences, and at an early age was the author of an Almanac, which attracted the attention and commanded the praise of Thomas Jefferson. When he came to "run the lines" of the future Capital, he was sixty years of age. The caste of color could not have grown to its hight at that day, for the Commissioners invited him to an official seat with themselves, an honor which he declined. The pic- ture given us of him is that of a sable Franklin, large, noble, and venerable, with a dusky face, white hair, a drab coat of superfine broadcloth, and a Quaker hat. He was born and buried at Ellicott's Mills, where his grave is now unmarked. Here is a chance for the rising race to erect a monument to one of their own sons, who in the face of ignorance and bondage proved himself "every inch a man," in intellectual gifts equal to the best. CHAPTEK IV. OLD WASHINGTON. How the City was Built — "A Matter of Moonshine" — Calls for Paper — Besieging Congressmen — How they Raised the Money — The Government Requires Sponsors — Birth of the Nation's Capital — Seventy Years Ago in Washington — Graphic Picture of Early Times — A Much-Marrying City — Unwashed Virginian Belles — Stuck in the Mud — Extraordinary Religious Services. "TVTOTHING in the architecture of the city of Wash- J_l mgton calls forth more comment from strangers than the distance between the Capitol and the Executive Departments. John Randolph early called it "the city of magnificent distances," and it is still a chronic and fashionable complaint to decry the time and distance it takes to get any where. In the days of a single stage line on Pennsylvania Avenue, these were somewhat la- mentable. But five-minute cars abridge distances, and make them less in reality than even in the city of New York. It is a mile and a half from the northern end of the Navy-yard bridge to the Capitol, a mile and a half from the Capitol to the Executive Mansion, and a mile and a half from the Executive Mansion to the corner of Bridge and High Streets, Georgetown. We are con- stantly hearing exclamations of what a beautiful city Washington would be with the Capitol for the centre of a square formed by a chain of magnificent public build- ings. John Adams wanted the Departments around the 52 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. Capitol. George Washington but a short time before his death, gave in a letter the reasons for their present posi- tion. In going through his correspondence one finds that there is nothing, scarcely, in the past, present or future of its Capital, for which the Father of his Country has not left on record a wise, far-reaching reason. In this letter, he says : " Where or how the houses for the President, and the public offices may be fixed is to me, as an individual, a matter of moonshine. But the re- verse of the President's motive for placing the latter near the Capitol was my motive for fixing them by the former. The daily intercourse which the secretaries of departments must have w T ith the President would render a distant situation extremely inconvenient to them, and not much less so would one be close to the Capitol ; for it was the universal complaint of them all, that while the Legislature was in session, they could do little or no business, so much were they interrupted by the individual visits of members in office hours, and by calls for paper. Many of them have disclosed to me that they have been obliged often to go home and deny themselves in order to transact the current business." The denizen of the present time, who knows the Secretaries' dread of the average besieging Congressman, will smile to find that the dread was as potent in t]j3 era of George Washing- ton as it is to-day. A more conclusive reason could not be given why Capitol and Departments should be a mile apart. The newspapers of that day were filled w r ith long articles on the laying out of the Capital city. We find in a copy of The Philadetyhia Herald of January 4, 1795, after a discussion of the Mall — the yet-to-be gar- den extending from the Capitol to the President's house — HOW THEY RAISED THE FUNDS. 53 the following far-sighted remarks on the creation of the Capital. It says : " To found a city, for the purpose of making it the depository of the acts of the Union, and the sanctuary of the laws which must one clay rule all North America, is a grand and comprehensive idea, which has already become, with propriety, the object of public respect. The city of Washington, considered under such important points of view, could not be calculated on a small scale ; its extent, the disposition of its avenues and public squares should all correspond with the magnitude of the objects for which it was intended. And we need only cast our eyes upon the situation and plan of the city to recognize in them the comprehensive genius of the President, to whom the direction of the business has been committed by Congress." The letters of Washington are full of allusions to the annoyance and difficulty attending the raising of suffi- cient money to make the Capitol and other public build- ings tenantable by the time specified, 1800. He seemed to regard the prompt completion of the Capitol as an event identical with the perpetual establishment of the government at Washington. Virginia had made a dona- tion of $120,000, and Maryland one of $72,000; these were now exhausted. After various efforts to raise money by the forced salen^of public lots, and after abort- ive attempts to borrow money, at home and abroad, on the credit of these lots, amidst general embarrassments, while Congress withheld any aid whatever, the urgency appeared to the President so great as to induce him to make a personal application to the State of Maryland for a loan, which was successful, and the deplorable credit of the government at that time is exhibited in the fact that the 54 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON. State called upon the credit of the Commissioners as an additional guarantee for the re-payment of the amount, $100,000, to which Washington alludes as follows: "The necessity of the case justified the obtaining it on almost any terms ; and the zeal of the Commissioners in making themselves liable for the amount, as it could not be had without, cannot fail of approbation. At the same time I must confess the application has a very singular appear- ance, and will not, I should suppose, be very grateful to the feelings of Congress." I have cited but a few of the tribulations through which the Capital of the nation was born. Not only was the growth of the public buildings hindered through lack of money, but also through the "jealousies and bickerings" of those who should have helped to build them. Human nature, in the aggregate, was just as in- harmonious and hard to manage then as now. The Com- missioners did not always agree. Artisans, imported from foreign lands, made alone an element of discord, one which Washington dreaded and deprecated. He went clown with his beloved Capital into the Egypt of its building. He led with a patience and wisdom undreamed of and unappreciated in this generation, the straggling and dis- cordant forces of the Republic from oppression to free- dom, from chaos to achievement — he came in sight of the promised land of fruition and prosperity, but he did not enter it, this father and prophet of the people ! George Washington died in December, 1799. The city of Washington was officially occupied in June, 1800. The only adequate impression of what the Capital was at the time of its first occupancy, we must receive from A BATHER PECULIAR PICTURE. 55 those who beheld it with living eyes. Fortunately sev- eral have left graphic pictures of the appearance which the city presented at that time. President John Adams took possession of the unfinished Executive Mansion in November, 1800. During the month Mrs, Adams wrote to her daughter, Mrs. Smith, as follows: "I arrived here on Sunday last, and without meeting with any ac- cident worth noticing, except losing ourselves when we left Baltimore, and going eight or nine miles on the Frederic road, by which means we were obliged to go the other eight through the woods, where we wandered for two hours without finding guide or path But woods are all you see from Baltimore till you reach the city, which is only so in name. Here and there is a small cot, without a glass window, interspersed amongst the forests, through which you travel miles without see- ing any human being. In the city there are buildings enough, if they were compact and finished, to accommo- date Congress and those attached to it; but as they are, and scattered as they are, I see no great comfort for them. If the twelve years in which this place has been considered as the future seat of government had been im- proved as they would have been in New England, very many of the present inconveniences would have been re- moved. It is a beautiful spot, capable of any improve- ment, and the more I view it the more I am delighted with it." Hon. John Cotton Smith, of Connecticut, a distin- guished member of Congress, of the Federal school of politics, also gives his picture of Washington in 1800: "Our approach to the city was accompanied with sensa- tions not easily described. One wing of the Capitol only 56 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. had been erected, which, with the President's house, a mile distant from it, both constructed with white sand- stone, were shining objects in dismal contrast with the scene around them. Instead of recognizing the avenues and streets portrayed on the plan of the city, not one was visible, unless we except a road, with two buildings on each side of it, called the New Jersey Avenue. The Pennsylvania, leading, as laid down on paper, from the Capitol to the presidential mansion, was then nearly the whole distance a deep morass, covered with alder bushes which were cut through the width of the intended ave- nue during the then ensuing winter. Between the Pres- ident's house and Georgetown a block of houses had been erected, which then bore and may still bear, the name of the six buildings. There were also other blocks, consist- ing of two or three dwelling-houses, in different direc- tions, and now and then an insulated wooden habitation, the intervening spaces, and indeed the surface of the city generally, being covered with shrub-oak bushes on the higher grounds, and on the marshy soil either trees or some sort of shrubbery. Nor was the desolate aspect of the place a little augmented by a number of unfinished edifices at Greenleaf's Point, and on an eminence a short distance from it, commenced by an individual whose name they bore, but the state of whose funds compelled him to abandon them, not only unfinished, but in a ruin- ous condition. There appeared to be but two really com- fortable habitations in all respects, within the bounds of the city, one of which belonged to Dudley Carroll, Esq., and the other to Notley Young, who were the former proprietors of a large proportion of the land appropri- ated to the city, but who reserved for their own accom- ME. PEACOCK'S DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS. 57 modation ground sufficient for gardens and other useful appurtenances. The roads in every direction were muddy and unimproved. A sidewalk was attempted in one in- stance by a covering formed of the chips of the stones which had been hewn for the Capitol. It extended but a little way and was of little value, for in dry weather the sharp fragments cut our shoes, and in wet weather covered them with white mortar, in short, it was a "new settle- ment." The houses, with one or two exceptions, had been very recently erected, and the operation greatly hurried in view of the approaching transfer of the national gov- ernment. A laudable desire was manifested by what few citizens and residents there were, to render our condition as pleasant as circumstances would permit. One of the blocks of buildings already mentioned was situated on the east side of what was intended for the Capitol square, and being chiefly occupied by an extensive and well-kept ho- tel, accommodated a goodly number of the members. Our little party took lodgings with a Mr. Peacock, in one of the houses on New Jersey Avenue, with the ad- dition of Senators Tracy of Connecticut, and Chipman and Paine of Vermont, and Representatives Thomas of Maryland, and Dana, Edmond and Griswold of Connec- ticut. Speaker Sedgwick was allowed a room to himself — the rest of us in pairs. To my excellent friend Dav- enport, and myself, was allotted a spacious and decently furnished apartment with separate beds, on the lower floor. Our diet was varied, but always substantial, and we were attended by active and faithful servants. A large proportion of the Southern members took lodg- ings at Georgetown, which, though of a superior order, were three miles distant from the Capitol, and of course 58 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. rendered the daily employment of hackney coaches in- dispensable. Notwithstanding the unfavorable aspect which Wash- ington presented on our arrival, I can not sufficiently express my admiration of its local position. From the Capitol you have a distinct view of its fine undulating surface, situated at the confluence of the Potomac and its Eastern Branch, the wide expanse of that majestic river to the bend at Mount Vernon, the cities of Alexandria and Georgetown, and the cultivated fields and blue hills of Maryland and Virginia on either side of the river, the whole constituting a prospect of surpassing beauty and grandeur. The city has also the inestimable advantage of delightful water, in many instances flowing from co- pious springs, and always attainable by digging to a moderate depth, to which may be added the singular fact that such is the due admixture of loam and clay in the soil of a great portion of the city that a house may be built of brick made of the earth dug from the cellar, hence it was not unusual to see the remains of a brick- kiln near the newly-erected dwelling-house or other edi- fice. In short, when we consider not only these advan- tages, but what, in a national point of view is of superior importance, the location on a fine navigable river, acces- sible to the whole maritime frontier of the United States, and yet easily rendered defensible against foreign inva- sion, — and that by the facilities of inter-population of the Western States, and indeed of the whole nation, with less inconvenience than any other conceivable situation, — we must acknowledge that its selection by Washington as the permanent seat of the federal government, affords a striking exhibition of the discernment, wisdom and fore- PRETTY GIRLS OF SEVENTY YEARS AGO. 59 cast which characterized that illustrious man. Under this impression, whenever, during the six years of my connec- tion with Congress, the question of removing the seat of government to some other place was agitated — and the proposition was frequently made — I stood almost alone, as a northern man, in giving my vote in the negative." Sir Augustus Foster, secretary of legation to the Brit- ish minister at Washington, during the years 1804-6, has left an amusing account on record both of the ap- pearance of the Capital and the state of its society during the administration of President Jefferson : " The Spanish envoy, De Caso Yrujo, told Sir Augustus it was difficult to procure a decent dinner in the new Capital without sending the distance of sixty miles for its mate- rials. Things had mended somewhat before the arrival of Sir Augustus, but he still found enough to surprise and bewilder him in the desolate vastness and mean ac- commodations of the unshaped metropolis." Of private citizens Sir Augustus says: "Very few private gentlemen have their houses in Washington. I only recollect three, Mr. Brent, Mr. Tayloe, and Mr. Car- roll." .... Most of the members of Congress, it is true, keep to their lodgings, but still there are a sufficient number of them who are sociable, or whose families come to the city for a season, and there is no want of handsome ladies for the balls, especially at Georgetown ; indeed, I never saw prettier girls anywhere. As there are but few of them, however, in proportion to the great number of men who frequent the places of amusement in the federal city, it is one of the most marrying places on the whole continent Meagre the march of intel- lect so much vaunted in the present century ; the literary 60 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. education of these ladies is far from being worthy of the age of knowledge, and conversation is apt to flag, though a seat by the ladies is always much coveted. Dancing and music serve to eke out the time, but one got tired of hearing the same song everywhere, even when it was : " Just like love is yonder rose." " No matter how this was sung, the words alone were the man-traps ; the belle of the evening was declared to be just like both, and the people looked around as if the listener was expected to become on the instant very ten- der, and to propose Between the young ladies, who generally not only good looking, but good tempered, and if not well informed, capable of becoming so, and the ladies of a certain time of life, there is usually a wide gap in society, young married women being but seldom seen in the world ; as they approach, however, to middle age, they are apt to become romantic, those in particular who live in the country and have read novels fancying all manner of romantic things, and returning to the Capital determined to have an adventure before they again retire; or on doing some wondrous act which shall make them be talked about in all after time. Others I have known to contract an aversion to water, and as a substitute, cover their faces and bosoms with hair powder, in order to ren- der the skin pure and delicate. This was peculiarly the case with some Virginia damsels, who came to the halls at Washington, and who in consequence were hardly less tolerable than negroes. There were but few cases of this I must confess, though as regards the use of the powder, they were not so uncommon, and at my balls I, thought it advisable to put on the tables of the toilette room not a foreigner's picture. 61 only rouge, but hair powder, as well as blue powder, which had some customers " In going to assemblies one had sometimes to drive three or four miles within the city bounds, and very often at the great risk of an overthrow, or of being what is termed i stalled,' or stuck in the mud Cards were a great resource during the evening, and gaming was all the fashion, at brag especially, for the men who frequented society were chiefly fiom Virginia or the Western States, and were very fond of this the worst gambling of all games, as being one of countenance as well as of cards. Loo was the innocent diversion of the ladies, who when they looed pronounced the word in a very mincing manner " Church service can certainly never be called an amuse- ment ; but from the variety of persons who are allowed to preach in the House of Representatives, there was doubtless some alloy of curiosity in the motives which led one to go there. Though the regular Chaplain was a Pres- byterian, sometimes a Methodist, a minister of the Church of England, or a Quaker, or sometimes even a woman took the speaker's chair; and I don't think that there was much devotion among the majority. The New Eng- enders, generally speaking, are very religious; though there are many exceptions, I cannot say so much for the Marylanders, and still less for the Virginians." Notwithstanding the incongruous and somewhat dis- graceful picture which Sir Augustus paints of the Capital City of the new Republic, he goes on to say: "In spite of its inconveniences and desolate aspect, it was I think the most agreeable town to reside in for any length of time," which if true insures our pity for what the remain- der of our native land must have been. CHAPTER V. THE NOBLEST WARD OF CONGRESS. A Ward of Congress — Expectations Disappointed — Funds Low and People Few — Slow Progress of the City — First Idea of a National University — A Question of Importance Discussed — Generous Proposition of George Washington — Faith Under Difficulties — Transplanting an Entire Col- lege — An Old Proposition in a New Shape — What Washington "Society" Lacks — The Lombardy Poplars Pefuse to Grow — Perils of the Way — A Long Plain of Mud — " The Forlornest City in Christendom " — Egyptian Dreariness — Incomplete and Desolate State of Affairs — The End of an Expensive Canal — The Water of Tiber Creek — American " Boys " on the March — Divided Allegiance of Old — The Stirring of a Nation's Heart — Ready to March to her Defense — A Personal Interest — - Patriotism Aroused — The First-born City of the Republic — Truly the Capital of the Nation. WASHINGTON was incorporated as a city by act of Congress, passed May 3, 1802. The city, planned solely as the National Capital, was laid out on a scale so grand and extensive that scanty municipal funds alone would never have been sufficient for its proper improve- ment. From the beginning it was the ward of Congress. Its magnificent avenues, squares and public buildings, could receive due decoration from no fund more scanty than a national appropriation. At first Congress appro- priated funds with much spirit and some liberality, but there were many reasons why its zeal and munificence waned together. At this day it has not fulfilled the most sanguine expectations of its founders. In Jefferson's GENEROUS PEOPOSAL OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 63 time its population numbered but five thousand persons, and for forty years its increase of population only aver- aged about five hundred and fifty per annum. Many stately vessels sail down the Potomac to the Chesa- peake and the James and out to the ocean ; but the Potomac is far from being the highway of commerce. The wharves of Washington and Georgetown are empty compared with those of New York, or even of Balti- more. For generations there was neither commerce nor manufacture to induce men of capital to remove from large cities of active business to the new city in the wilderness, whose very life depended on the will of a majority of Congress. Washington's idea of the National Capital far outleaped his century. His vision of its future greatness comprehended all that the capital of a great nation should be. He foresaw it, not only as the seat of national commerce, but the seat of national learning. One of the dearest projects of his last days was the founding of a National University at the city of Wash- ington. The following references to this subject in a letter from him to the commissioners of the Federal dis- tricts, with an extract from his last will, but faintly ex- press the intense interest which he manifested in the National University, both in his daily life, and familiar correspondence : — "WASHINGTON TO COMMISSIONERS OF FEDERAL DISTRICTS. " The Federal city, from its centrality and the advantages which in other respects it must have over any other place in the United States, ought to be preferred as a proper site for such a Univer- sity. And if a plan can be adopted upon a scale as extensive as I have described, and the execution of it should commence 64 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. under favorable auspices in a reasonable time, with a fair prospect of success, I will grant in perpetuity fifty shares in the navigation of the Potomac River toward the endowment of it." feom Washington's will. " I give and bequeath in perpetuity the fifty shares which I hold in the Potomac Company (under the aforesaid acts of the legislature of Virginia) toward the endowment of a University to be established within the limits of the District of Columbia, under the auspices of the general government, if that govern- ment should incline to extend a fostering hand toward it. And until such Seminary is established and the funds arising from these shares shall be needed for its support, my further will and desire is, that the profits arising therefrom whenever the divi- dends are made be laid out in purchasing stock in the Bank of Columbia, or some other bank at the discretion of my executors, or by the Treasurer of the United States for the time being, under the direction of Congress, providing that honorable body should patronize the measure; and the dividends proceeding from the purchase of such stock are to be vested in more stock, and so on, till a sum adequate to the accomplishment of the object be obtained, of which I have not the smallest doubt before many years pass away, even if no aid and encouragement is given by legislative authority, or from any other source." The correspondence of "Washington and Jefferson abound with consultations concerning this great National Univer- sity. During his stay in Europe, Jefferson had become personally conversant with its ancient seats of learning, and longed to see somewhat of the splendor of their cul- ture transferred to his own native land. So great was his zeal on this subject, both he and John Adams favored the plan at one time of transferring to this city the entire college of Geneva, professors, students, all. But George A LEARNED PROPOSITION. 65 "Washington opposed the transplanting of an entire body of foreign scholars to the new Republic, almost as ear- nestly as he did that of a horde of foreign laborers to build the Capitol, he believing both to be inimical to the growth of republican principles and feelings in a newly created republic. Three-fourths of a century have passed since Washing- ton, Jefferson and Adams consulted together concerning the National University of the future. Alas ! it is still of the future. The dream of its fulfillment was dearer to the father of his country, probably, than to any other mortal. The explicit provision made for it in his will proves this. That bequest went finally, I believe, to a college in Virginia. Columbia College, feeble, small and old, is the nearest approach to the National University of which the National Capital can boast to-day. Strange after the lapse of nearly a century, the other evening the friends of this feeble and stunted college, including the President of the United States, high officials, learned pro- fessors, foreign ministers, and gentlemen of the press, assembled in Wormley's comfortable dining-room, and over an " epicurean banquet " discussed what Jefferson and Washington did in their letters — a National Univer- sity for the National Capital. The desire of Washington although not yet fulfilled, must in time become a reality. The National Capital, already the centre of fashion, and rapidly becoming the seat of National Science as well as of National Politics and Government, is the natural seat of National Learning. The educational element, the high-toned culture which always marks the mental and moral atmosphere surrounding a university is to-day the marked lack of what is termed " society in Washington." 66 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. The United States Government is doing much for science. There is a greater number of persons actively devoted to scientific pursuits in the National Capital than in any other city of the Union. Washington is already the seat of more purely intellectual activity than any other Ameri- can city. The scientific library of the Smithsonian In- stitute is one of the best in the world. New departments of the Government devoted to Science are continually being established on sure and ever-spreading foundations. All these facts point to the final and crowning one — the University of the Nation at the National Capital. For a time, after the incorporation of the city, its foun- ders and patrons zealously pursued plans for its improve- ment. But failing funds, a weak municipality, and indif- ferent Congresses, did their work, and for many years " the city of magnificent distances " had little but those distances of which to boast. Jefferson had Pennsylvania avenue planted with double rows of Lombardy poplars from Executive Mansion to Capitol, in imitation of the walk and drive in Berlin known as Unter den Linden. But the tops of the poplars did not flourish, and the roots were troublesome, and in 1832 the hoped for arcade came to naught. In truth Pennsylvania avenue was one long plain of mud, punched with dangerous holes and seamed with deep ravines. The interlacing roots of the poplars made these holes and ravines the more dangerous, till an appropriation, during the admin- istration of Jackson, caused them to be dug up and the entire avenue to beNnacadamized, notwithstanding a large minority in Congress could find no authority in the Con- stitution for such an unprecedented provision for the pub- lic safety. Every Congress was packed with strict con- WONDEKFUL CHANGES. 67 structionists and economists, who opposed every effort to improve the National Capital. Many, narrow, sectional and provincial, had no comprehension of the plan of a city founded to meet the wants of a great nation, rather than to suit the convenience of a meagre population. A city planned to become the magnificent Capital of a vast people could not fail through its very dimensions to be oppressive to its citizens, if the chief weight of its im- provement was laid upon their scanty resources. A National Capital could only be fitly built by the Nation. For many years the Congress of the United States refused to do this to any fit degree, and the result for more than one generation was the most forlorn city in Christendom. At a recent meeting of the friends of Columbia College Attorney General Williams stated that when he first visited Washington, in 1853, the " Egypt " of Indiana could not compare in dreariness and discomfort with the Capital of the Nation. In 1862 Washington was a third rate Southern city. Even its mansions were without modern improvements or conveniences, while the mass of its buildings were low, small and shabby in the extreme. The avenues, superb in length and breadth, in their proportions afforded a painful contrast to the hovels and sheds which often lined them on either side for miles. Scarcely a public building was finished. NoLgoddess of liberty held tablary guard over the dome of the Capitol." Scaffolds, engines and pulleys everywhere defaced its vast surfaces of gleam- ing marble. The northern wing of the Treasury building was not even begun. Where it now stands then stood the State departments, crowded, dingy and old. Even the southern wing of the Treasury was not completed as 68 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON". it was begun. Iron spikes and saucers on its western side had been used to conclude the beautiful Greek orna- mentation begun with the building. All public offices, magnificent in conception, seemed to be in a state of crude incompleteness. Everything worth looking at seemed unfinished. Everything finished looked as if it should have been destroyed generations before. Even Pennsylvania avenue, the grand thoroughfare of the Cap- ital, was lined with little two and three story shops, which in architectural comeliness have no comparison with their ilk of the Bowery, New York. Not a street car ran in the city. A few straggling omnibuses and helter-skelter hacks were the only public conveyances to bear members of Con- gress to and fro between the Capitol and their remote lodg- ings. In spring and autumn the entire west end of the city was one vast slough of impassible mud. One would have to walk many blocks before he found it possible to cross a single street, and that often one of the most fashionable of the city. " The water of Tiber Creek," which in the magnificent intentions of the founders of the city were " to be carried to the top of Congress House, to fall in a cascade of twenty feet in height and fifty in breadth, and thence to run in three falls through the gardens into the grand canal," instead stretched in ignominious stagnation across the city, oozing at last through green scum and slime into the still more ignominious canal, which stood an open sewer and cess-pool, the receptacle of all abominations, the pest-breeder and disgrace of the city. Toward the construction of this canal the city of Washington gave $1,000,000 and Georgetown and Alex- andria $250,000 each. Its entire cost was $12,000,000. It was intended to be another artery to bring the com- DURING THE WAR. 69 merce of the world to Washington, and yet the Wash- ington end of it had come to this ! Capitol Hill, dreary, desolate and dirty, stretched away into an uninhabited desert, high above the mud of the West End. Arid hill, and sodden plain showed alike the horrid trail of war. Forts bristled above every hill-top. Soldiers were entrenched at every gate-way. Shed hos- pitals covered acres on acres in every suburb. Churches, art-halls and private mansions were filled with the wounded and dying of the American armies. The end- less roll of the army wagon seemed never still. The rattle of the anguish-laden ambulance, the piercing cries of the sufferers whom it carried, made morning, noon and night too dreadful to be borne. The streets were filled with marching troops, with new regiments, their hearts strong and eager, their virgin banners all untarnished as they marched up Pennsylvania avenue, playing "The girl I left behind me," as if they had come to holiday glory — to easy victory. But the streets were filled no less with soldiers foot-sore, sun-burned, and weary, their clothes begrimed, their banners torn, their hearts sick with hope deferred, ready to die with the anguish of long de- feat. Every moment had its drum-beat, every hour was alive with the tramp of troops going, coming. How many an American " boy," marching to its defence, be- holding for the first time the great dome of the Capitol rising before his eyes, comprehended in one deep gaze, as he never had in his whole life before, all that that Capi- tol meant to him, and to every free man. Never, till the Capital had cost the life of the beautiful and brave of our land, did it become to the heart of the Americaft citizen of the nineteenth century the object of personal love that 70 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON. it was to George Washington. To that hour the intense loyalty to country, the pride in the National Capital which amounts to a passion in the European, in the American had been diffused, weakened and broken. In ten thou- sand instances State allegiance had taken the place of love of country. Washington was nothing but a place in which Congress could meet and politicians carry on their games at high stakes for power and place. New York was the Capital to the New Yorker, Boston to the New Englander, New Orleans to the Southerner, Chicago to the man of the West. There was no one central rally- ing point of patriots to the universal nation. The unfin- ished Washington monument stood the monument of the nation's neglect and shame. What Westminster Abbey and Hall were to the Englishman, what Notre Dame and the Tuileries were to the Frenchman, the unfinished and desecrated Capitol had never been to the average American. Anarchy threatened it. In an hour the heart of the nation was centered in the Capital. The nation was ready to march to its defence. Every public building, every warehouse was full of troops. Washing- ton city was no longer only a name to the mother wait- ing and praying in the distant hamlet; her hoy was camped on the floor of the Kotunda. No longer a far off myth to the lonely wife ; her husband held guard upon the heights which defended the Capital. No longer a place good for nothing but political schemes to the vil- lage sage ; his hoi/, wrapped in his blanket, slept on the stone steps under the shadow of the great Treasury. The Capital, it was sacred at last to tens of thousands, whose beloved languished in the wards of its hospitals or slept the sleep of the brave in the dust of its cemeteries. Thus SACKED TO THE MARTYRS OF LIBERTY. 71 from the holocaust of war, from the ashes of our sires and sons arose new-born the holy love of country, and venera- tion for its Capital. The zeal of nationality, the passion of patriotism awoke above the bodies of our slain. Na- tional songs, the inspiration of patriots, soared toward heaven. National monuments began to rise consecrated forever to the martyrs of Liberty. Never, till that hour, did the Federal city — the city of George "Washington, the first-born child of the Union, born to live or to per- ish with it, — become to the heart of the American peo- ple that which it had so long been in the eyes of the world — truly the Capital of the Nation. CHAPTER VI. THE WASHINGTON OF THE PRESENT DAY. Hopes Realized — A Truly National City — Washington in 1873 — Major L'En- fant's Dream — Old and New — " Modern Improvements " — A City of Pal- aces — The Capital in All Its Glory — Traces of the War — Flowers on the Ramparts — Under the Oaks of Arlington — Ten Years Ago — The Birth of a Century — The Reign of Peace — The Capital of the Future. AND now ! The citizen of the year of our Lord 1873 sees the dawn of that perfect day of which the founders of the Capital so fondly and fruitlessly dreamed. The old provincial Southern city is no more. From its foundations has risen another city, neither Southern nor Northern, but national, cosmopolitan. Where the "Slough of Despond" spread its waxen mud across the acres of the West End, where pedestri- ans were "slumped," and horses "stalled," and discom- fort and disgust prevailed, we now see broad carriage drives, level as floors, over which grand equipages and pony phaetons glide with a smoothness that is a luxury, and an ease of motion which is rest. Where ravines and holes made the highway dangerous, now the concrete and Nicholson pavements stretch over miles on miles of inviting road. Where streets and avenues crossed and re-crossed their long vistas of shadeless dust, now plat on plat of restful grass " park " the city from end to end. Double rows of young trees line these parks far as the time's changes. 73 sight can reach. In these June days they fill the air with tender bloom. Gazing far on through their green ar- cades the sight rests at last where poor Major L'Enfant dreamed and planned that it one day would, — on the restful river, with its white flecks of sails, upon distant meadows and the Virginia hills. Old Washington was full of small Saharas. Where . the great avenues in- tersected acres of white sand were caught up and carried through the air by counter winds. It blistered at white heat beneath your feet, it flickered like a fiery veil before your eyes, it penetrated your lungs and begrimed your clothes. Now where streets and avenues cross, emerald " circles " with central fountains, pervading the air with cooling spray, with belts of flowers and troops of children, and restful seats for the old or the weary take the place of the old Saharas. In every direction tiny parks are blooming with verdurous life. Concrete walks have taken the place of their old gravel-stone paths. Seats — thanks to General Babcock — everywhere invite to sit down and rest beneath trees which every summer cast a deeper and more protecting shadow. The green pools which used to distill malaria beneath your windows are now all sucked into the great sewers, planted at last in the foundations of the city. The entire city has been drained. Every street has been newly graded. The Tiber, inglorious stream, arched and covered forever from sight, creeps in darkness to its final gulf in the river. The canal, drained and filled up, no longer breeds pestilence. Pennsylvania avenue has outlived its mud and its poplars, to be all and more than Jefferson dreamed it would be, — the most magnificent street on the continent. Its lining palaces are not yet built, but 74 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. more than one superb building like that of the Daily National Republican soars high above the lowly shops of the past, a forerunner of the architectural splendor of the buildings of the future. Cars running every five min- utes have tajten the place of the solitary stage, plodding its slow way between Georgetown and the Capital. Cap- itol Hill, which had been retrograding for more than forty years, has taken on the look of a suddenly growing city Its dusty ways and empty spaces are beginning to fill with handsome blocks of metropolitan houses. Even the old Capital prison is transformed into a handsome and fashionable block of private dwellings. The im- provements at the West End are more striking. Solid blocks of city houses are rising in every direction, taking the place of the little, old, isolated house of the past, with its stiff porch, high steps, and open basement doorway. Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut avenues are al- ready lined with splendid mansions, the permanent winter homes of Senators and other high official and military officers. The French, Spanish, English and other foreign governments have bought on and near these avenues lor the purpose of building on them handsome houses for their separate legations. The grounds of the Executive Mansion are being enlarged, extending to the Potomac with a carriage drive encircling, running along the shore of the river, extending through the Agricultural Smith- sonian and Botanical garden grounds, thus fulfilling the original intent of connecting the White House with the Capitol by a splendid drive. The same transformation is going on in the Capitol grounds. Blocks of old houses have been torn down and demolished, to make room for a park fit to encircle the Capitol, which can never be GRAND PULIC BUILDINGS. 75 complete till it takes in all the rolling slopes which lie between it and the Potomac. No scaffolding and pulleys now deface the snowy surfaces of the Capitol. Unim- peded the dome soars into mid-air, till the goddess of liberty on its top seems caught into the embrace of the clouds. The beautiful Treasury building is completed, and a block further on, the click of ceaseless hammers and the rising buttresses of solid stone tell of the new war and navy departments which are swiftty growing beside the historic w T alls of the old. Even the Wash- ington monument has been taken into hand by Gen- eral Babcock, to whom personally the Capital owes so much, and by a fresh appeal to the States he hopes to re-arouse their patriotism and insure its grand comple- tion. Flowers blossom on the ramparts of the old forts, so alert with warlike life ten years ago. The army roads, so deeply grooved then, are grass-grown now. The long shed-hospitals have vanished, and stately dwell- ings stand on their already forgotten sites. The "'boys " who languished in their wards, the boys who marched these streets, who guarded this city, how many of them lie on yonder hill-top under the oaks of Arlington, and amid the roses of the Soldier's Home. Peace, prosperity and luxury have taken the place of war, of knightly days and of heroic men. The mills of time grind slowly. What a tiny stroke in its cycles is a single century. One hundred years ! The year nineteen hundred! Then if the father of his country can look down from any star upon the city of his love he will behold in the new Washington that which even he did not foresee in his earthly life — one of the most magnificent cities of the whole earth. CHAPTER VII. WHAT MADE NEW WASHINGTON. • Municipal Changes — Necessity of Reform — Committee of One Hundred Constituted — Mr. M. G. Emery Appointed Mayor— The " Organic Act" Passed — Contest for the Governorship of Columbia District — Mr. Henry D. Cooke Appointed — Board of Public Works Constituted — Great Im- provements Made — Opposition — The Board and its Work — Sketch of Alexander B. Shepherd — His Efforts During the War— Patriotic Example. A SKETCH of the territorial government which now rules the District of Columbia, will account for new Washington and the many beneficent changes which have renovated the city. As early as the winter of 1868, efforts were made to se- cure a united government for the entire District, instead of the triple affair then in operation, viz. : municipal cor- porations for Washington and Georgetown, and the Levy court for the County. Under that regime no system of general improvements could be established. The District was under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress and was obliged to beg and plead with that body for permission to begin and for appropriations to pay for each improvement, as its increasing business and population imperatively de- manded. Again, the extension of the right of suffrage and the consequent increase of the number of ignorant voters, made it apparent that something must be done to prevent the control of the cities falling into the power of DIFFICULTIES OF "A LITTLE BILL." 77 a class of petty ward politicians of the very worst order, who had sprung up just after the war, and who had already caused considerable uneasiness in the minds of the solid and thinking portion of the community, by the rapid man- ner in which they had managed to increase the public debt without showing any corresponding public benefits. It was at first proposed to have the District governed by commissioners to be appointed by the President, and I believe bills to that effect were introduced into Con- gress by Senator Hamlin, and Mr. Morrill, of Maine, but were defeated. Of course the proposed change was very unpopular, and the Washington Common Council passed a series of resolutions protesting against any interference with the government then existing. The extravagance and venality of the administration of 1868-9, however, awakened the sober and thoughtful minded citizens to the absolute necessity of a radical and vigorous reform, and during the winter of 1869-70 a committee of one hundred was constituted, to whom was given the task of perfecting a bill granting a territorial government to the District, and of the urging of its passage by Con- gress. This bill failed to pass that session, and there next came a bitter political contest, resulting in the election of Hon. M. G. Emery as Mayor of Washington. The evils which it was supposed Mr. Emery would correct, did not seem to lessen during his administration, and in the following winter the project of a new govern- ment was revived and urged with so much vigor that Congress, on the 21st of January, 1871, passed what is now known as the "Organic Act," establishing and de- fining the powers of the territorial government of the District of Columbia. Immediately following the pas- 78 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON". sage of this act there appeared four prominent candi- dates for the governorship of the young territory, viz : Messrs. M. G. Emery, Sayles J. Bowen, Jas. A. Magruder, and Alex. R. Shepherd. Messrs. Emery and Bowen soon subsided, and the contest narrowed to between Messrs. Shepherd and Magruder. It was unmistakably the popular desire that the ap- pointment should be given to Mr. Shepherd. He had been more prominent than any other individual named in securing the change effected ; the nucleus of the Or- ganic Act is said to have been drafted by him, and the en- ergy and sagacity he had shown in his public life pointed him out as peculiarly fit for the position. Besides, he had gained the popular confidence by his unvarying in- tegrity and fearless independence, and by a quality too rarely observed in a public man — positive manliness. Colonel Magruder, the Georgetown candidate, was quite popular in that city, where he had for a number of years been the collector of customs. Though at that time he was not extensively known in Washington, those who were his friends were ardent and untiring in their support. It soon became evident that the appointment of either of these gentlemen would cause extreme dissatisfaction to the supporters of his competitors, and as it was espe- cially desirable that the new government should com- mence its operations with perfect good feeling pervading all the different parties, a governor was sought who should harmonize all differences, and Henry D. Cooke, of the firm of Jay Cooke & Co., a gentleman of unim- peachable integrity, who had kept aloof from all factions and who, in fact, was one of Mr. Shepherd's warmest supporters, was at length selected. A WELL-SEASONED "BOAED." 79 Then came the appointment of that body of men, against whom so much abuse has been hurled, but to whose energies the existence of the new Washington I have portrayed is wholly attributable, viz : the Board of Public Works. This Board was at first composed of Messrs. A. R. Shepherd, A. B. Mullett, S. P. Brown, and James A. Magruder, with the Governor as president ex- officio. Since then Messrs. Mullett and Brown have re- signed, and their places have been filled by Messrs. Adolf Cluss, and Henry A. Willard. I may state also that the first Secretary of the District was N. P. Chipman, and that when he was elected as the delegate to Congress, the position was given to E. L. Stanton, the son of the late Secretary Stanton, by whom it is now filled. All the gentlemen I have named are men of clear intel- ligence, excellent business capacity, and positive energy. The amount of labor performed by the Board of Public Works can scarcely be imagined by one who has not lived right here in the District, and observed the complete and almost magical changes that have taken place. Embar- rassed at the very commencement of their career by the slipshod manner in which improvements had been carried on under the old corporations, they soon encountered a violent opposition from many citizens who should have heartily supported their efforts. This opposition was or- ganized and persistent, leaving no artifice untried to hin- der and check the efforts of the Board, seeking injunction after injunction in the courts, and finally appealing to Congress and effecting an investigation which lasted for four months, and was as searching and minute as any ever attempted by that body, but which ended not only 80 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. in the absolute acquittal of the Board of every charge alleged, but in a cordial commendation of their acts by the committee which conducted the inquiry. I wish to give this Board of Public Works the credit to which they are justly entitled. When I read the slanders that are cast upon them, I want to ask the authors if they would prefer the dingy, straggling, muddy, dusty Wash- ington of two years ago to the bright, compact, clean and beautiful city of to-day ? The "head and front" of this Board, the man who has infused a portion of his own enthusiasm into his fellow members, the man to whose comprehensive mind and untiring energy the success of the Board is almost en- tirely due, who was made vice-president and executive officer by his colleagues because they recognized his great abilities, and were content to follow where he should lead, is Alexander R. Shepherd of Washington. He is a native of Washington, was born in 1835, and is consequently now but thirty-eight years old. His father died when he was quite a boy, and at the early age of ten years he began the rough struggle of life. He at first started to learn the carpenter's trade, but finding that unsuitable to his tastes he entered a store, as errand boy. At seventeen he was taken into the plumbing establishment of Mr. J. W. Thompson, as clerk. By industry, fidelity and ability, he at length attained a partnership in that house, and upon Mr. Thompson's retirement, succeeded to the full control of the business, which under his skillful management has so rapidly grown that it now defies competition with any similar establish- ment south of New York. When the war of the Rebellion broke out, Mr. Shep- STORY OF A SUCCESSFUL LIFE. 81 herd was mainly instrumental in forming the* Union party in Washington, proving loyal amidst the bitter hostility of many of his best friends. As early as the 15th of April, 1861, he enlisted as a private soldier, and for three months shouldered his musket in defense of the National Capital. In the same year he was elected a member of the Common Council, and again in 1862, when he was made president of that body. In 1867 he was appointed a member of the Levy court, and in that capacity first developed his ability and energy as a pub- lic man. He was president of the Citizens' Reform As- sociation during the Emery campaign, and was, I believe, the prime mover of Mr. Emery's nomination, and con- tributed by his efforts largely to that gentleman's success. At that election Mr. Shepherd was chosen to the Board of Aldermen, which position he held when appointed to the Board of Public Works. In person Mr. Shepherd is a tall, noble looking man, with a large, well-formed head, sharply-defined features, massive under jaw and square chin, indicative of the indomitable perseverance and firmness which are the most prominent traits in his character. Although a self- made marl, he has acquired a fund of information which many a collegian might envy. His mind is thoroughly disciplined, his perceptions keen, his decisions rapid, and his language vigorous and terse. In private life he is universally respected and esteemed. His benevolence is unbounded, and beside subscribing liberally to every pub- lic appeal, he performs innumerable acts of private char- ity, which few know save the grateful recipients. ^It was believed by the majority of people that Gov- ernor Cooke would retain his position only until the fu- 82 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. sion of the irritated factions was effected, and that in the event of his resignation Mr. Shepherd would be ap- pointed his successor. Whether Governor Cooke retires before the end of his term or not, it is the universal be- lief that Mr. Shepherd will be the second governor of the District of Columbia. He is a representative man, embodying in his history and character more emphatically, perhaps, than any other man, the new life of the new city of Washington. CHAPTER VIII. BUILDING THE CAPITOL. George Washington's Anxiety about it — His View of it Politically — Various Plans for the Building — Jefferson Writes to the Commissioners — His Letter to Mr. Carroll — "Poor Hallet " and His Plan— Wanton De- struction by the British, A. D. 1814 — Foundation of the Main Building Laid — The Site Chosen by Washington Himself — Imposing Ceremonies at the Foundation — Dedicatory Inscription on the Silver Plate — Inter- esting Festivities — The Birth of a Nation's Capital — Extension of the Building — Daniel Webster's Inscription — His Eloquent and Patriotic Speech — Mistaken Calculations — First Session of Representatives Sit- ting in "the Oven" — Old Capital Prison — Immense Outlay upon the Wings and Dome — Compared with St. Peter's and St. Paul's — The Goddess of Liberty — The Congressional Library — Proposed Altera- tions — What Ought to be Done. aEORGE WASHINGTON believed the building of the Capitol to be identical with the establishment of a permanent seat of government. To the consumma- tion of this crowning building, the deepest anxiety and devotion of his later years were dedicated. Next to de- termining a final site for the city was the difficulty of deciding on a plan for its Capitol. Poor human nature had to contend awhile over this as it seems to have to about almost everj^thing else. A Mr. S. Hallet had a plan : Dr. Thornton had one, also. Jefferson wrote "to Dr. Stewart, or to all the gentlemen" Commissioners, January 31, 1793 : " I have, under consideration, Mr. Hallet's plans for the Capi- tol, which undoubtedly have a great deal of merit. Doctor 84 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. Thornton has also given me a view of his. The grandeur, sim- plicity and beauty of the exterior, the propriety with which the departments are distributed, and economy in the mass of the whole structure, will, I doubt not give it a preference in your eyes as it has done in mine and those of several others whom I have consulted. I have, therefore, thought it better to give the Doctor time to finish his plan, and for this purpose to delay until your meeting a final decision. Some difficulty arises with respect to Mr. Hallet, who, you know, was in some degree led into his plan by ideas which we all expressed to him. This ought not to induce us to prefer it to a better ; but while he is liberally rewarded for the time and labor he has expended on it, his feelings should be saved and soothed as much as possible. I leave it to yourselves how best to prepare him for the possibil- ity that the Doctor's plans may be preferred to his." February 1, 1793, Jefferson writes from Philadelphia to Mr. Carroll — " Dear Sir : — Doctor Thornton's plan for a Capitol has been produced and has so captivated the eyes and judgments of all as to leave no doubt you will prefer it when it shall be exhibit- ed to you ; as no doubt exists here of its preference over all which have been produced, and among its admirers no one is more decided than him, whose decision is most important. It is simple, noble, beautiful, excellently distributed and moderate in size. A just respect for the right of approbation in the Com- missioners will prevent any formal decision in the President, till the plan shall be laid before you and approved by you. In the meantime the interval of apparent doubt may be improved for settling the mind of poor Hallet whose merits and distresses in- terests every one for his tranquillity and pecuniary relief." These quotations are chiefly interesting in connection with the fact that poor, pushed-to-the-wall Hallet re- bounded afterwards, notwithstanding Jefferson's enthu- "poor hallet" wins THE DAT. 85 siasm over Thornton's plan, and Washington's declaration that it combined "grandeur, simplicity and convenience." The architects preferred the design of Hallet and in build- ing retained but two or three of the features of Doctor Thornton's plan. After the burning of the Capitol wings by the British, August, 1814, Mr. B. H. Latrobe, of Maryland, began to rebuild the Capitol on Stephen Hallet's plan. The foundations of the main building were laid March 24, 1818, under the superintendence of Charles Bulfinch, and the original design was completed in 1825. The site of the Capitol was chosen by George Washington, on a hill ninety feet above tide-water, commanding a view of the great plateau below, the circling rivers, and girdling hills — a hill in 1663 named " Room," later Rome, and owned by a gentleman named " Pope." September 18, 1793, the south-east corner of the Capi- tol was laid by Washington with imposing ceremonies. A copy of The Maryland Gazette, published in Annapolis, September 26, 1793, gives a minute account of the grand Masonic ceremonial, which attended the laying of that august stone. It tells us that " there appeared on the southern bank of the river Potomac one of the finest com- panies of artillery that hath been lately seen parading to receive the President of the U. S." Also, that the Com- missioners delivered to the President, who deposited in the stone a silver plate with the following inscription : " This south-east corner of the Capitol of the United States of America, in the city of Washington, was laid on the 18th day of September, 1792, in the thirteenth year of American Inde- pendence ; in the first year, second term of the Presidency of George Washington, whose virtues in the civil administration 86 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. of his country have been as conspicuous and beneficial, as his military valor and prudence have been useful, in establishing her liberties, and in the year of Masonry, 5793, by the President of the United States, in concert with the Grand Lodge of Mary- land, several lodges under its jurisdiction and Lodge No. 22 from Alexandria, Virginia. rSigned] Thomas Johnson, } „ L ° J _ / Lommission- David Stewart, > , „ ^ „ I ers, etc. Daniel Carroll, ; The Gazette continues : — " The whole company retired to an extensive booth, where an ox of 500 lbs. weight was barbecued, of which the company generally partook with every abundance of other recreation. The festival concluded with fifteen successive volleys from the artillery, whose military discipline and manoeuvres merit every commendation." " Before dark the whole company departed with joyful hopes of the production of their labors." Fifty-eight years later, near this spot another corner- stone was deposited bearing the following inscription in the writing of Daniel Webster : — " On the morning of the first day of the seventy-sixth year of the Independence of the United States of America, in the city of Washington, being the fourth day of July, eighteen hundred and fifty-one, this stone designed as the corner-stone of the ex- tension of the Capitol, according to a plan approved by the President in pursuance of an act of Congress was laid by MILLARD FILMORE, PRESIDENT of the united states, Assisted by the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodges, in the presence of many Members of Congress, of officers of the Execu- FIFTY YEAES LATEE. 87 tive and Judiciary departments, National, State and Districts, of officers of the Army and Navy, the Corporate authorities of this and neighboring cities, many associations, civil and military and Masonic, officers of the Smithsonian Institution, and National Institute, professors of colleges and teachers of schools of the Districts, with their students and pupils, and a vast concourse of people from places near and remote including a few surviv- ing gentlemen who witnessed the laying of the corner-stone of the Capitol by President Washington, on the 18th day of Sep- tember, 1793. If, therefore, it shall hereafter be the will of God that this structure shall fall from its base, that its foundation be upturned, and this deposit brought to the eyes of men ; be it then known that on this day the Union of the United States of America stands firm, that their constitution still exists unim- paired, and with all its original usefulness and glory growing every day stronger and stronger in the affections of the great body of the American people, and attracting more and more the admiration of the world. And all here assembled, whether be- longing to public life or to private life, with hearts devoutly thankful to Almighty God for the preservation of the liberty and happiness of the country, unite in sincere and fervent prayer, that this deposit, and the walls and arches, the domes and towers, the columns and entablatures, now to be erected over it may endure forever. " God Save the United States of America. DANIEL WEBSTER, Secretary of State of the United States" In the speech made by Mr. Webster on this occasion he uttered the following words : — " Fellow citizens, what contemplations are awakened in our minds as we assemble to re-enact a scene like that performed by Washington! Methinks I see his venerable form now be- fore me as presented in the glorious statue by Houdon, now in the Capitol of Virginia We perceive that mighty 88 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. thoughts mingled with fears as well as with hopes, are strug- gling with him. He heads a short procession over these then naked fields ; he crosses yonder stream on a fallen tree ; he as- cends on the top of this eminence, whose original oaks of the forest stand as thick around him as if the spot had been devoted to Druidical worship and here he performs the appointed duty of the day." Fifty-eight years stretched between this scene and the last and already the mutterings of civil revolution stirred in the air. Could Webster have foreseen that the mar- ble walls of the Capitol whose corner-stone he then laid would rise amid the thunder of cannon aimed to destroy it and the great Union of States w r hich it crowned, to what anguish of eloquence would his words have risen ! The Capitol fronting the east was set by an astronomi- cal observation of Andrew Ellicott. Its founders were as much mistaken in the direction which the future city would take as they were in the future commerce of the Potomac. They expected that a metropolis would spring up on Capitol Hill, spreading on to the Navy Yard and Potomac. Land-owners made this impossible by the price they set upon their city lots. The metropolis defied them — went clown into the valley and grew up behind the Capitol. The north w T ing of the central Capitol was made ready for the first sitting of Congress in Washington, November 17, 1800. By that time the walls of the south wing had risen twenty feet and were covered over for the tempo- rary use of the House of Representatives. It sat in this room named "the oven" from 1802, until 1804. At that time the transient roof w r as removed and the wing com- pleted under the superintendence of B. II. Latrobe until EEMINTSCENCE OF THE KEBELLION". 89 its completion. The House occupied the room of the Li- brary of Congress. The south wing was finished in 1811. The original Capitol was built of sandstone taken from an island in Acquia Creek, Virginia. The island was pur- chased by the government in 1791 for $6,000 for the use of the quarry. The interior of both wings was destroyed by fire when the British took the city in 1814, the outer walls remaining uninjured. Latrobe, who had resigned in 1813, was re-appointed after the fire to reconstruct the Capitol. The following December, Congress passed an act leasing a building on the east side of the Capitol, the building afterwards so famous as " Old Capitol Prison," and which was crowded with prisoners during the war of the Rebellion. Congress held its sessions in this building till the rebuilt Capitol was ready for occupation. By act of Congress, September 30, 1850, provision was made for the grand extension wings of the Capitol, to be built on such a plan as might be approved by the President. The plan of Thomas C. Walter was accepted by President Fillmore, June 10, 1851, and he was ap- pointed architect of the Capitol to carry his plan into execution. Walter was the architect of Girard College, Philadelphia, and to him we owe the magnificent marble wings and iron dome of the Capitol. The dome cost one million one hundred thousand dollars. The win^s cost six millions five hundred thousand dollars. The height of the interior of the dome of the Capitol from the floor of the rotunda is 180 feet and 3 inches. The height of the exterior from the floor of the basement story to the top of the crowning statue is 287 feet and 5 inches. The interior diameter is 97 feet. The exterior diameter of the drum is 108 feet. The greatest exterior diameter is 90 TEN YEARS m WASHINGTON". 135 feet, 5 inches. The Capitol is 751 feet, 4 inches long, 31 feet longer than St. Peter's in Rome, and 175 feet longer than St. Paul's in London. The height of the interior of the dome of St. Peter's is 330 feet. The height of the interior of the dome of St. Paul's is 215 feet. The height of the exterior of St. Peter's to the top of lantern is 432 feet. The height of the exterior of the dome of St. Paul's is 215 feet. The ground actually covered by the Capitol is 153,112 square feet or 652 square feet more than 3 1-2 acres. Of these the old building covered 61,201 square feet and the new wings with connecting corridors, 91,311 square feet. The dome of the Capitol is the highest structure in America. It is one hundred and eight feet higher than Washington Monument in Baltimore ; sixty-eight feet higher than Bunker Hill Monument and twenty-three feet higher than the steeple of Trinity Church, New York. Mr. Walter was succeeded by Mr. Edward Clarke, the present architect of the Capitol. Thus far Mr. Clarke's work has consisted chiefly in finishing and harmonizing the work of his varied and sometimes conflicting prede- . cessors. Under his supervision the dome has been com- pleted, and Thomas Crawford's grand goddess of liberty, sixteen and one-half feet high, has ascended to its summit while he has wrought out in the interior the most harmo- nious room of the Capitol — the Congressional Library. The greatest work which he still desires to do is to put the present front on the rear of the Capitol facing the city, and to draw forth the old freestone fronts and re- build it with marble, making a grand central portico par- allel with the magnificent marble wings of the Senate and House extension. To rebuild the central front will cost ANCIENT MYTHS AND MODERN REALITIES. 91 two millions of dollars. The face of the Capitol will never be worthy of itself till this is accomplished. The grand outward defect of the Capitol is the slightness and insignificance of the central portico compared with the superlative Corinthian fronts of the wings. Between their outreaching marble steps, beside their majestic mon- oliths the central columns shrink to feebleness and give the impression that the great dome is sinking down upon them to crush them out of sight. There is something soaring in the proportions of the dome. Its summit seems to spring into the empyrean. Its proud goddess poised in mid-air, caught in their swift embrace, seems to sail with the fleeting clouds. Nevertheless its tremen- dous base set upon that squatting roof threatens it with perpetual annihilation. From the very beginning the Capitol has suffered as a National Building from the conflicting and foreign tastes of its decorators. Literally begun in the woods by a na- tion in its infancy, it not only borrowed its face from the buildings of antiquity, but it was built by men, strangers in thought and spirit to the genius of a new Bepublic, and the unwrought and unimbodied poetry of its virgin soil. Its earlier decorators, all Italians, overlaid its walls with their florid colors and foreign symbols ; within the Ameri- can Capitol, they have set the Loggia of Raphael, the voluptuous ante-rooms of Pompeii, and the Baths of Titus. The American plants, birds and animals, representing prodigal nature at home, though exquisitely painted are buried in twilight passages, while mythological bar-maids, misnamed goddesses, dance in the most conspicuous and preposterous places. The Capitol has already survived this era of false decorative art. 92 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. Congress in 1859 authorized a Commission of distin- guished American artists, comprising Messrs. Brown, Lumsden and Kensett, to study the decorations of the Capitol and report upon their abuses. Their suggestions are beginning to be followed, and yet so carelessly, that af- ter the lapse of fourteen years they need reiteration. The Artist Committee recommended an Art Commission, com- posed of those designated by the united voice of America. Artists as competent to the office who shall be the chan- nels for the distribution of all appropriations to be made by Congress for art purposes, and who shall secure to artists an intelligent and unbiased adjudication upon the designs they may present for the embellishment of the na- tional buildings. When one remembers some of the Con- gressional Committees who have decided on decorations for the Capitol even within the last ten years, it is enough to make one cry aloud for a Commission designated by artists, whose art-culture shall at least be sufficient to tell a decent picture from a daub, a noble statue from a pretense and a sham. In conclusion the Commission of Artists said : — " The erection of a great National Capitol seldom occurs but once in the life of a nation. The opportunity such an event affords is an important one for the expression of patriotic ele- vation, and the perpetuation, through the arts of painting and sculpture, of that which is high and noble and held in reA'erence by the people ; and it becomes them as patriots to see to it that no taint of falsit}^ is suffered to be transmitted to the future up- on the escutcheon of our national honor in its artistic record. A theme so noble and worthy should interest the heart of the whole country, and whether patriot, statesman or artist, one im- pulse should govern the whole in dedicating these buildings and grounds to the national honor." CHAPTER IX. INSIDE THE CAPITOL. A Visit to the Capitol — The Lower Hall — Its Cool Tranquillity — Artistic Treasures — The President's and Vice-President's Rooms- — The Marble Room — The Senate Chamber — "Men I have Known" — Hamlin — Foote — Foster — Wade — Colfax — Wilson — The Rotunda— Great Historical Paint- ings — The Old Hall of Representatives — The New Hall— The Speaker's Room — Native Art — "The Star of Empire " — A National Picture. COME with me. This is your Capitol. It is like passing from one world into another, to leave be- hind the bright June day for the cool, dim halls of the lower Capitol. No matter how fiercely the sun burns in the heavens, his fire never penetrates the twilight of this grand hall, whose eight hundred feet measure the length of the Capitol from end to end. Here, in Egyptian Colonnades', rise the mighty shafts of stone which bear upon their tops the mightier mass of marble, and which seem strong enough to support the world. In the summer solstice they cast long, cool shadows, full of repose and silence. The gas-lights flick- ering on the walls, send long golden rays through the dimness to light us on. We have struck below the jar and tumult of life. The struggles of a nation may be going on above our heads, yet so vast and visionary are these vistas opening before us, so deep the calm which surrounds us, we seem far away from the world that we 94 TEN YEAES IN" WASHINGTON. have left, in this new world which we have found. Every time I descend into these lower regions I get lost. In wandering on to find our way out, we are sure to make numerous discoveries of unimagined beauty. Here are doors after doors in almost innumerable succession, open- ing into departments of commerce, agriculture, etc., whose every panel holds exquisite gems of illustrative painting. Birds, flowers, fruits, landscapes, in rarest fresco and color, here reveal themselves to us through the dim light. It would take months to study and to learn these pic- tures which artists have taken years to paint. They make a department of art in themselves, yet thousands who think that they know the Capitol well are not aware of their existence. At the East Senate entrance, look at these polished pillars of Tennessee marble, their chocolate surface all flecked with white, surrounding a staircase meet for kings. They are my delight. Look at these foliated capitals, flowering in leaves of acanthus and tobacco. Look up to this ceiling of stained glass, its royal roses opening wide their crimson hearts above you ; these too are my delight. I am not one of those who can sneer at the Capitol. Its faults, like the faults of a friend are sacred. I know them, but wish to name them not, save to the one who only can remedy. It bears blots upon its fair face, but these can be washed away. It wears ornaments vulgar and vain, these can be stripped off and thrown out. Below them, beyond them all, abides the Capitol. The surface blemish vexes, the pretentious splendor offends. These are not the Capitol. We look deeper, we look higher, to find beauty, to see sublimity, to see the Capitol, august and imperishable ! The four marble staircases leading to the Senate Cham- THE BEAUTIES OF TriE MARBLE ROOM. 95 ber and Hall of Representatives, in themselves alone em- body enough of grace and magnificence to save the Capi- tol from cynical criticism. We slip through the Senate corridor, you and I, to the President's and Vice-President's rooms. Their furniture is sumptuous, their decoration op- pressive. Gilding, frescoes, arabesques, glitter and glow above and around. There is not one quiet hue on which the tired sight may rest. Gazing, I feel an indescrib- able desire to pluck a few of Signor Brumidi's reel leg- ged babies and pug-nosed cupids from their precarious jDerches on the lofty ceilings, to commit them to nurses or to anybody who will smooth out their rumpled little legs and make them look comfortable. We are Americans, and need repose ; let us, therefore, pass to the Marble Room, which alone, of all the rooms of the Capitol, suggests it — " The end of all, the poppied sleep." Its atmosphere is soft, serene, and silent. Its ceiling is of white marble, deeply paneled, supported by fluted pillars of polished Italian marble. Its walls are of the exquisite marble of Tennessee — a soft brown, veined with white — set with mirrors. One whose aesthetic eyes have stud- ied the finest apartments of the world says that to him the most chaste and purely beautiful of all is the Marble Room of the American Capitol. Americans though we are, we have no time to rest, albeit we sorely need it. It is not for you or me to linger in marble rooms, maundering of art. Molly, rocking her baby out on the Western prairie, wants to know all about the Senate ; baby is going to be a senator some day. Moses, on that little rock-sown farm in New England, has his " chores all 96 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. done." He rests in the Yankee paradise of kerosene, butternuts, apples, and cider. Yet to make his satisfac- tion complete, he must know a little more about the Capi- tol. Molly and Moses both expect us to see for them what they can not come to see for themselves. So let us peep into the Senate. It can not boast of the ampler pro- portions of the Hall of Representatives. Its golden walls and emerald doors can not rescue it from insignificance. The ceiling of this chamber is of cast-iron, paneled with stained glass — each pane bearing the arms of the different States, bound by most ornate mouldings, bronz- ed and gilded. The gallery, which entirely surrounds the hall, will seat one thousand persons. Over the Vice- President's chair, the section you see separated from the rest by a net-work of wire, is the reporters' gallery. The one opposite, lined with green, is the gallery of the diplo- matic corps ; next are the seats reserved for the Senators' families. The Senators sit in three semi-circular roAVS, behind small desks of polished wood, facing the Secretary of the Senate, his assistants, the special reporters of de- bates, and the Vice-President. On a dais, raised above all, sits the Vice-President. I have seen six men preside over the Senate. Hamlin, slow, solid, immobile, and good-natured. Foote, silver-haired, silver-toned, the king of parliamentarians. Foster of Connecticut, that most gentle gentleman, who went from the Senate bearing the good will of every Senator what- ever his politics. Wade, the most positive power of all, with his high, steep head, shaggy e3ebrows, beetling per- ceptive brow, half roofing the melancholy eyes, the rough- hewn nose, the dogged mouth, and broad immovable chin. Life lines our faces according to its will and gaz- "MEN I HAYE KNOWN." 97 ing on the furrows of this one, one reads the story of the whole battle. Looking, there was no need that its own- er should tell what a warfare life had been since the poor farmer-boy, more than half a century ago, turned his face from the Connecticut Valley and striving with the earth beneath his feet dug his way (on the Erie Canal) toward the West to fortune, and to an honorable fame. Then came Schuyler Colfax, who brought into the silent and stately Senate the habits of the bustling noisy house. It was a hard seat for "Schuyler," that Vice-President's chair, and he came at last to vacate it regularly by two o'clock that he might write in the seclusion of the Vice- President's room a few of those ten thousand popular per- sonal letters which made his chief lever of influence with the people and which he always used to write in the Speaker's chair. As President of the Senate he was usually just, always urbane, never impressive. He had not the presence which filled the seat to the sight, nor the dignity which commanded attention, and silence. Under his ruling the Senate changed its character per- ceptibly from a grave august body to a buzzing and in- attentive one. As the President of the Senate seldom listened to a speaker, the Senators as rarely took the trouble to listen to each other. The question discussed might be of the gravest import to the whole nation, the speaker's words, to himself, might be of the most tremen- dous importance to the national weal, just the same he had to empty them upon vacancy, speaking to nothing in par- ticular, while the Vice-President looked another way, and his colleagues went on scribbling letters, whispering po- litical secrets to each other, munching apples in the aisles or smoking in the open cloak-rooms, with feet aloft. 98 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. Vice-President Wilson, without an atom of parliamen- tary experience, has already won the hearts and improv- ed the manners of the Senate by simply giving attention to its debates. No matter how tiresome, he steadfastly looks and listens. The humblest speaker — seeing that he has one pair of eyes fixed upon him, one direct immova- ble point toward which he may direct his remarks — takes heart, and in spite of himself makes a better speech than would be possible were he beating a vacuum, and speak- ing to nobody in particular. Even his listening constit- uency and the next day's Globe is not such an incentive to present inspiration as two steadfast eyes and one pair of good listening ears. We leave the Senate Chamber by the western gallery. Here in the niche at the foot of the staircase, correspond- ing to Franklin's on the opposite side, stands the noble figure of John Hancock. The stairs are of polished white marble and the painting above them leading to the gen- tlemen's gallery of the Senate, in its setting of maroon cloth represents the battle of Chapultapec in all the ar- dor of its fiery action. We saunter on along the breezy corridors through whose open windows we catch delicious glimpses of the garden city, the gliding river and the distant hills, past the Supreme Court room into the great rotunda. The rotunda is ninety-five feet in diameter, three hun- dred feet in circumference and over one hundred and eighty feet in height. Its dome contains over eight mil- lions eight hundred thousand pounds of iron, presenting the most finished specimen of iron architecture in the world. The panels of the rotunda are set with paintings of life-size, painted by Vanderlyn, Trumbull and others. "IF I WERE A MAtf." 99 The Declaration of Independence ; the surrender of Bur- goyne ; surrender of the British Army, commanded by Lord Cornwallis, at Yorktown, Virginia, October 19, 17S1; resignation of General Washington at Annapolis, December 23, 1783, all by Colonel Trumbull; the bap- tism of Pocahontas by Chapman ; landing of Columbus by Vanclerlyn; De Soto's discovery of Gk&&BJ3&&&? by Powell. Like most works of genius these paintings have many merits and many defects. Perhaps the favorite of all is the Embarcation of the Pilgrims in the Speedwell at Delft Haven, by Bobert W. Weir. Its figures and the fabrics of its costumes are wonderfully painted ; so, too, is the face of the hoary Pilgrim who is giving thanks to God for their safe passage across stormy seas to the land of deliverance ; but the enchantment of the picture is the face of Bose Standish. If I were a man, I would marry such a face out of all the faces on the earth, for the being which it represents. These eyes, blue as heaven and as true, would never fail you. No matter how low you might fall, you could see only in them purity, faith, devotion, tenderness, and unutterable love — and all for you. The group in bas-relief over the western entrance of the rotunda was executed by Cappelano, a pupil of Can- ova. It represents the preservation of Captain Smith by Pocahontas. The design was taken from a rude engrav- ing of the event in the first edition of Smith's History of Virginia. The idea is national, but you see the execu- tion is preposterous. Powhatan looks like an English- man, and Pocahontas has a Greek face and a Grecian head-dress. The alto-relievo over the eastern entrance of the rotunda represents the Landing of the Pilgrims. The pilgrim, his wife and child are stepping from the 100 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. , prow of a boat to receive from the hand of an Indian, kneeling on the rock before them, an ear of corn. Good Indian. He was no relation to the Modoc ! Still the little boy evidently has no faith in him for he is tugging at his father's arm as if to hold him back from that ear of corn or the hand that holds it. Over the south door of the rotunda we have Daniel Boone and two Indians in a forest. Boone has dispatched one Indian and is in close battle with the other. The lat- ter is doing his best to strike Boone with his tomahawk, but Boone averts the blow, by his rifle in one hand, while the other drawn back holds a long knife which he is about to run through his foe. The action is exciting enough for the New York Ledger, although rendered tangled and cramped by a too narrow space. It commemorates an occurrence which took place in the year 1773. This, as well as the landing of the Pilgrims, was .executed by Causici, another pupil of Canova. Over the northern door of the rotunda we have William Penn standing un- der an elm, in the act of presenting a treaty to the Indi- ans. Penn is dressed as a Quaker, and looks as benevolent as the crude stone out of which he is made will let him. This panel was executed by a Frenchman named Genelot. We pass through the noblest room of the Capitol, the old Hall of Representatives and through the open cor- ridor directly into the new Hall of Representatives. It occupies the precise place in the south wing which the Senate Chamber does in the northern wing. Like the Sen- ate room, the light of day comes to it but dimly through the stained glass roof overhead. Like that, also, it is en- tire, encircled by a corridor opening into smoking apart- ments, committee rooms, the Speaker's room, etc., which WHERE OUR LAWS ARE MADE. 101 monopolize all the out of door air, and every out of door view. The air of the central chamber is pumped into it by a tremendous engine at work in the depths of the Capitol and admitted through ventilators one under each desk. You see these are covered with shining brass plates which by a touch of the foot can be adjusted to ad- mit a current of fresh air, or shut it off, according to the wish of the occupant of the chair above it. In former times these ventilators were uncovered, and then were used to such an extent as spittoons by the honorable gen- tlemen above them, and filled to such a depth with to- bacco quids and the stumps of cigars that the odor from them became unbearable and they had to be covered up. The Hall of Representatives is 139 feet long, 93 feet wide and 30 feet high with a gallery running entirely around the Hall, holding seats for 1200 persons. Like the Senate, the ceiling is of iron work bronzed, gilded and paneled with glass, each pane decorated with the arms of a State. At the corners of these panels in gilt and bronze are rosettes of the cotton plant in its various stages of bud and blossom. The Speaker's desk, splendid in pro- portion, is of pure white marble, while crossed above his head are two brilliant silk flags of the United States. One of the panels under the gallery at his left is filled with a painting in fresco, by Brumidi. The Speaker's room, in the rear of his chair across the inner lobby, is one of the most beautiful rooms in the Capitol. Its ornaments are not as glaring as those of the President's and Vice-President's rooms, while its mirrors, carved book-cases, velvet carpets and chairs, give it a look of home comfort as well as of luxury. It has a bright outlook upon the eastern grounds of the Capitol, and its 102 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. walls are hung with portraits of every speaker from the First Congress to the present one. We pass through the private corridor looking from the Speaker's room out into the grand colonnaded vestibule opening upon the great portico of the south extension. These twenty-four columns and forty pilasters have blos- somed from native soil. Athens, Pompeii, Rome, are left out at last, and looking up to these flowering capitals we see corn-leaves, tobacco, and magnolias budding and blooming from their marble crowns. Every column, ev- ery pilaster bears a magnolia, each of a different form, all from casts of the natural flower. And far below, beneath the Representatives' Hall, there is a row of monolithic columns formed of the tobacco and thistle. It is above the marble staircase opposite, leading to the ladies' gal- lery, that we see painted on the wall covering the entire landing, the great painting of Leutze, representing the "Advance of Civilization ;" " Westward the Star of Em- pire takes its way" — is its motto. At the first glance it presents a scene of inextricable confusion. It is an emigrant train caught and tangled in one of the highest passes of the Rocky Mountains. Far backward spread the Eastern Plains; far onward stretches the Beulah of promise, fading at last in the far horizon. The great wag- ons struggling upward, tumbling downward from moun- tain precipice into mountain gorge, hold under their shak- ing covers every type of westward moving human life. Here is the mother sitting in the wagon-front, her blue eyes gazing outward, wistfully and far, the baby lying on her lap ; one wants to touch the baby's head, it looks so alive and tender and shelterless in all that dust and turmoil of travel. A man on horseback carries his wife, THE 2STEW-B0EN WEST. 103 her head upon his shoulder. Who that has ever seen it will forget her sick look and the mute appeal in the suf- fering eyes. Here is the hold hunter with his racoon cap, the pioneer boy on horseback, a coffee-pot and cup dangling at his saddle, and oxen — such oxen ! it seems as if their friendly noses must touch us j they seem to be feeling out for our hand as we pass up to the gallery. Here is the young man, the old man, and far aloft stands the advance guard fastening on the highest and farthest pinnacle the flag of the United States. Confusing, disappointing perhaps, at first glance, this painting asserts itself more and more in the soul the oft- ener and the longer you gaze. Already the swift, smooth wheels of the railway, the shriek of the whistle, and the rush of the engine have made its story history. But it is the history of our past — the story of the heroic West. It is one of a thousand which should line the walls of the Capitol, feeding the hearts of the American people to the latest generation with the memory of our forefathers, showing by what toilsome ways they followed the Star of Empire and made the paths of civilization smooth for their children's feet. CHAPTER X. OUTSIDE THE CAPITOL. The Famous Bronze Doors — The Capitol Grounds — Statue of Washington Criticised — Peculiar Position for " the Father of his Country " — Horace Greenough's Defence of the Statue — Picturesque Scenery Around the Capitol — The City and Suburbs — The Public Reservation — The Smith- sonian Institution — The Potomac and the Hights of Arlington. TE come back to the grand vestibule of the southern wing, to the flowering magnolias, tobacco and corn- leaves of the marble capitals, and pass out to the great portico. This is one of the famous bronze doors designed by Eogers, and cast in Munich. How heavy, slow, and still, its swing! The other opens and closes upon the central door of the north wing, leading to the vestibule of the Senate. Here, from the portico we look out upon the eastern grounds of the Capitol in the unsullied panoply of a June morning, across the closely shorn grass, the borders of roses and beds of flowers, through the vista of maples With their green arcade of light and shadow, to the august form of George Washington sitting in the centre of the grounds in a lofty cerule chair mounted on a pedestal o± granite twelve feet high. This is the grandest and most criticised work of art about the Capitol. The form being nude to the waist and the right arm outstretched, it is a current vulgar joke * IDEALITY VERSUS FACT. 105 that he is reaching out his hand for his clothes which are on exhibition in a case at the Patent Office. It is true that a sense of personal discomfort seems to emanate from the drapery — or lack of it — and the pose of this colossal figure. George Washington with his right arm outstretched, his left forever holding up a Roman sword, half naked, yet sitting in a chair, beneath bland summer skies, within a -veiling screen of tender leaves is a much more comfort- able looking object than when the winds and rains and snows of winter beat upon his unsheltered head and un- covered form. This statue was designed in imitation of the antique statue of Jupiter Tonans. The ancients made their statues of Jupiter naked above and draped below as being visible to the gods but invisible to men. But the average American citizen, being accustomed to seeing the Father of his country decently attired in small clothes, naturally receives a shock at first beholding him in next to no clothes at all. It is impossible for him to reconcile a Jupiter in sandals with the stately George Washing- ton in knee-breeches and buckled shoes. The spirit of the statue, which is ideal, militates against the spirit of the land which is utilitarian if not commonplace. Nevertheless, in poetry of feeling, in grandeur of con- ception, in exquisite fineness of detail and in execution, Horatio Greenough's statue of George Washington is transcendently the greatest work in marble yet wrought at the command of the government for the Capitol. It is scarcely human, certainly not American, but it is god- like. The face is a perfect portrait of Washington. The veining of a single hand, the muscles of a single arm are triumphs of art. Washington's chair is twined with acanthus leaves and 106 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. garlands of flowers. The figure of Columbus leans against the back of the seat to the left, connecting the history of America with that of Europe ; an Indian chief on the right represents the condition of the country at the time of its discovery. The back of the seat is ornamented in basso- relievo with the rising sun, the crest of the American arms, under which is this motto : " Magnus ab integro smculorum nascitur ordo." On the left is sculptured in bas-relief the genii of North and South America under the forms of the infant Hercules strangling the serpent, and Iphiclus stretched on the ground shrinking in fear from the contest. The motto is " Incite posse puer cui non riser e par entes^ On the back of the seat is the fol- lowing motto : " Simulacrum istud ad magnum Liber - talis exemplum. Nee sine ipsa duraturum" One of the greatest works of contemporary art, the masterpiece of a master, it has been the subject of more rude and vulgar jests than any other piece of American sculpture. The painful disparity which so often exists between the judgment of the multitude and the inspira- tion of the creator has never been more touchinfflv ill us- trated than in the following words of Horatio Greenough, concerning this monument to his own genius and to the Father of his country. He says : " It is the birth of my thoughts, I have sacrificed to it the flower of my days, and the freshness of my strength ; its every lineament has been moistened with the sweat of my toil and the tears of my exile. I would not barter away its association with my name for the proudest fortune that avarice ever dreamed of. In giving it up to the nation that has done me the honor to order it at my hands, I respectfully claim for it that protection which is the boast of civilization to A RAMBLE IN" THE CAPITOL GROUNDS. 107 afford art, and which a generous enemy has more than once been seen to extend even to the monuments of its own defeat." Retracing our steps to the rotunda, we turn westward through the main hall of the Congressional Library to the lofty colonnade outside, from whose balcony we look clown upon the view which Humbolt declared to be the most beautiful of its type in the whole world. Directly below us, past the western terrace of the Capitol, with its open basin full of gold fishes flashing in the sun, stretch the Capitol grounds. Many varieties of trees already grown to forest hight spread their interlacing roof of cool, green shadow over the malachite sward below. Beds of flowers set in the grass, from the early March crocuses to the November blooming roses, make the grounds fragrant and precious with their presence. Here the dandelion spreads its cloth of gold in early May. Here the chrysan- themums fringe the snow with pallid gold in white Decem- ber. Now the fountains are lapsing in dreamy tune through the long June hours, and the seats under the trees are filled with visitors. Nurses with children in their arms, old men and women leaning on their staffs, lovers "billing and cooing" through the long twilight and starlight sea- sons. Beyond spreads the city, every ugly outline hid- den and lost in a waving sea of greenery rippling and toss- ing above it. The great avenues run and radiate in all directions. Pennsylvania Avenue stretches straight on between its border of shade trees to its acropolis one mile distant, the great Treasury gleaming in the sun, and the white chimneys of the Executive Mansion peering above the trees ; and still on, till it joins the primitive streets of Georgetown. Massachusetts Avenue, broad, straight, 108 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. magnificent, spans the city from end to end unbroken. Virginia Avenue to the left, goes on to meet Long Bridge, leading far into the Old Dominion. Directly in front stretches the public reservation yet to be made splendid as the Nation's Boulevards, but already holding the Congressional gardens and conservatories, the unique towers, and picturesque grounds of the Smithsonian In- stitution, the broad flower-banded terraces of the Agri- cultural Department, and the incomplete Washington Monument. Beyond we see the wide Potomac, flecked all over with snowy sails, far down old Alexandria, dingy on its farther shore ; opposite the Heights of Arlington, and amid its immemorial oaks ; Arlington House with the stars and stripes floating free from its crowning summit. CHAPTER XL ART TREASURES OF THE CAPITOL. Arrival of a Solitary Lady — " The Pantheon of America" — II Penserosa — Milton's Ideal— Dirty Condition of the House of Representatives — The Goddess of Melancholy — Vinnie Ream's Statue of Lincoln — Its Grand Defects — Necessary Qualifications for a Sculptor — The Bust of Lincoln by Mrs. Ames — General Greene and Roger Williams — Barbarous Gar- ments of Modern Times — Statues of Jonathan Trumbull and Roger Sherman — Bust of Kosciusco — Pulling His Nose — Alexander Hamilton — Fate of Senator Burr — Statue of Baker — His Last Speech Prophetic — The Glory of a Patriotic Example — The Lesson which Posterity Learns — Horatio Stone, the Sculptor — Washington's Statue at Richmond — Neglected Condition of the Capitol Statuary — Curious Clock — Gro- tesque Plaster Image of Liberty — Webster — Clay — Adams — The Pan- theon at Rome — The French Pantheon — Bar-Maid Goddess — Dirty Cus- toms of M. C's — Future Glory of America. A SOLITARY lady has arrived in the old Hall of the House of Representatives ; or, as Senator Anthony eloquently calls it, "the Pantheon of America." "Con- sidering her age," (as women sweetly say of each other,) "she looks quite young." What her precise age may be, I am as unable to tell you as that of any other of my friends. The daughter of Saturn and Vesta, we may, at least, conclude that she has lived long enough to look older than she does. Her name is "II Penserosa," and, " to judge by appearances," she seems to have flourished, about twenty-five of our mortal years. Yet Milton sung of her in his youth, before an unruly wife and three dis- obedient daughters, (who perversely wished to understand 110 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. the alphabet which they read to their blind father,) had made him crabbed and loftily sour towards women — Milton sung of this maid who has but lately arrived in Washington : " Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of cypress lawn, Over thy decent shoulders drawn ; Come, but keep thy wonted state With even step and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes." Now, if this maiden can keep on holding her head up, with looks perpetually " commercing with the skies " so that it will be impossible for her to see all the tobacco- juice and apple-cores beneath and round about her, it will conduce greatly to her peace of mind. I am sorry that "the Pantheon of America" is not a cleaner looking place. It's a pity, as we have a Pantheon, that its shabbi- ness and dirt should nourish to a degree that is absolutely melancholy. I am sure it was in obedience to the law of fitness that the committee of the Congressional Library or some other committee, brought the Goddess of Melan- choly in here, to hold her eyes and nose aloft, and to stand supreme queen, regnant of dust and gloom and American " expectoration." " Hail ! divinest Melancholy." I am glad, judging by your face, that you are of the lym- phatic temperament, and that consequently, all this dirt will afflict you less than it does me. But the more I look at your impassive and soulless countenance the more I THE GODDESS OF MELANCHOLY. Ill fear that, after all, you are but a feeble counterfeit of Milton's goddess or of the divine maiden conceived and born in, " Woody, Ida's inmost grove." In speaking of this marble, my heart will not let me forget that it was wrought by a hand self-taught; yet no less, standing where it does, it must be measured — some- what, at least — by the standards of art. The figure, di- minutive even in its femininity, suffers to insignificance by being set almost directly behind the gaunt and elon- gated form of Miss Ream's "Lincoln;" yet it is in the figure, in its pose and gentle curves, its chaste and grace- ful drapery, "the stole of cypress lawn, over the decent shoulders drawn" in the firm yet delicate hand which holds it in its place — in these only it is that the artist has caught and fastened in stone the aspect of the " goddess, sage and holy." The face is meaningless. Not a line, not a curve, not an expression indicates a capacity for melancholy, contemplation or anything else emotional or intellectual. No mortal women ever really meditated for a minute who did not get her hair pushed back further from her eyes than this, but these regulation locks run straight down the little, senseless Greek face in a mathe- matical angle, inclissolubly banded by a little perked up helmet, embossed with seven stars. Why these stars? "11 Penserosa" was not nearly enough related to "that starred Ethiop queen" Cassiope, to have borrowed the helmet to wear even in the old Hall of the old House of Representatives "in the United States of America." As for the Ream statue of Lincoln, (like many people,) the first glance at it is the most satisfactory that you will 112 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. ever have. It will never look as well again. Some de- clare this very palpable lack to be in the subject — Mr. Lincoln's own face and form — but many others note it to be in this representation of them. Mr. Lincoln's living face was one of the most interesting ever given to man. There was more than fascination in its rugged homeliness ; there was in it the deeper attraction of suffering and sym- pathy. It outrayed from every line engraven there by human pain and love and longing. But no soul can put into a statue or painting more than it has in itself. In this statue of Mr Lincoln we have his rude outward im- age, unilluminated by one mental or spiritual character- istic. It is mechanical, material, opaque. Mrs. Sarah Ames, in her bust of Lincoln, which stands just behind our friend, "II Penserosa," has transfixed more of the soul of Lincoln in the brow and eyes of his face than Miss Ream has in all the weary outline of her many feet of marble. In the bust the lower part of the face is ideal- ized into weakness. Without his gauntness and rugged- ness Lincoln is not Lincoln. But any one who ever saw and felt the deep, tender, sad outlook of his living hu- manity must thank Mrs. Ames for having reflected and transfixed it in the brows and eyes of this marble. Just outside of its alcove, at the right hand of the door which enters the New House of Representatives, stand side by side, the two statues from Rhode Island — one of General Green, the other of Roger Williams. That of General Green is spirited and exquisitely fine in detail; while that of Roger Williams is the one ideal statue in our Pantheon. Both were executed in Rome — the first by Henry R. Brown, the second by Franklin Simmons, of Providence, Rhode Island. No portrait of Roger Wil- PICTURESQUE ATTIRE. 113 liams being in existence, Mr, Simmons lias evolved from imagination and his inner consciousness a quaint, poetic figure and a dreamlike face, above whose lifted eyelids seems to hover a seraphic smile. Then it is refreshing to turn from the stove-pipe hats, shingled heads and angu- lar garments in which the men of our generation do pen- ance, to the flowing locks, puckered knee-breeches, with their dainty tassels, and the ample ruffs in which the holy apostle of liberty represents his name and time. He holds a book in his hand, on whose cover is inscribed the words, " Soul Liberty," and, with open, uplifted glance and free pose seems about to step forward into air, with lips just ready to open with words of inspiration. Opposite, on the other side of the Hall, stand together Connecticut's contribution — the statues of Jonathan Trum- bull and Roger Sherman. They are of heroic size and at first glance are most imposing. When you walk nearer, and soberly survey them, you see that Roger Sherman looks solid and stolid, and you see also (at least, I do,) that old Jonathan Trumbull, with his down-perked head and narrow-lidded eyes, looks like a meditative rooster — an immense human chanticleer, who had paused in his lording career for a minute's meditation. Mind, I don't say but this may be a grand statue, in its way, I only ob- serve that it is a very repelling one to me. Just round the angle of the alcove on a box set on end, covered with tattered black cambric, stands a bust of Kosciusko, by H. D. Saunders. Poor Kosciusko ! His nose always needs wiping ; and what a pedestal for a Pantheon! A candle or a soap box, probably, half cov- ered with black tags; then on his nose celestial, the dust alights and lodges always. It is so provocative — the tip 114 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. of it; every bumpkin who approaches it taps or pulls it. Thus, literally, Kosciusko's nose is seldom clean. One day it was. Some pitying hand had washed the entire face. If you could have seen the difference between Kosciusko clean and Kosciusko exiled, dirty and forlorn ! A few steps from this bust stands the statue of Alexander Hamilton, by Horatio Stone — a noble figure, spirited in posture and beautiful in countenance. No painted por- trait can give so grand an idea of the great Federalist to posterity. It is eight feet high and represents Hamilton in the attitude of impassioned speech. It is persuasive rather than declamatory, for the lifted hands droop, the face presses slightly forward, the eyes look out from un- der their royal arches deep and steadfast, while the sun- shine pouring down the dome lights up every lineament with the intensity of life. The execution of the statue is exquisite, while in pose and expression it is the embodi- ment of majesty and power. Burr — who presided over the Senate, who with the pride, subtlety and ambition of Lucifer, planned and executed to live in the future amid the most exalted names of his time — sleeps dishonored and accursed ; while the great rival that he hated, whose success he could not bear, whose life he destroyed, comes back in this majestic semblance to abide in the Capitol. Thus we behold in this statue not only a " triumph of art " but also a triumph of that final retributive compen- sation of justice which sooner or later crushes every wron ployed making wreaths for the heads of these mascu- line heroes. From the dome look down Clovis, Charle- magne, St. Louis, Louis XIV., XVI., XVII., Marie An- toinette, Madame Elizabeth, with a central glory to rep- resent Deity. The dome of our own rotunda is a florid imitation of this. We have Franklin, Washington, and troops of goddesses, who look like bar-maids; but from COMING GLORY OF THE FUTURE. 119 the focal apex we have omitted God, whose eye is needed for such an assembly. The magnificent facade which leads to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Palace is nine hundred feet long, paneled with tracery and decorated with rows of majestic statues of the kings and queens of England, from the conquest to the present time. Let us hope that it will never be defiled from beginning to end, as our own magnifi- cent legislative halls, with tobacco-juice from the mouths of demoralized men. The earth has never had but one absolutely perfect building, in itself the final consummate flower of art — the Parthenon — consecrated first to woman, the Virgin House, sacred to Athena. Beneath its pure and perfect dome there was nothing to divert the gazer's contemplation from the simplicity and majesty of mass and outline. The whole building, without and within, was filled with the most exquisite pieces of sculpture, executed under the guidance of Phidias. The grand cen- tral figure was the colossal statue of the Virgin Goddess, wrought by the hand of Phidias himself. The weight of gold which she carried, says Thucydides, was forty talents. Could a wooden fence guard so much gold in our Christian Pantheon to-day ? It was a happy thought which dedi- cated this old hall of the nation to national art, but it far outleaped its century. That which shall truly be the Pantheon of America is not for us. The children of later generations, a far-off procession, may come up hither to worship the diviner forms of the future, the majestic statues of the nation's best — its sons grand in manhood, its daughters divine in w 7 omanhood ; but, with here and there a rare exception, our eyes who live to-day will see them not. CHAPTER XII. WOMEN WITH CLAIMS. The Senate Reception Room — The People Who Haunt It — Republican "Ladies in Waiting" — "Women with Claims" — Their Heroic Persist- ency — A Widow and Children in Distress — Claim Agents — The Com- mittee of Claims — A Kind-hearted Senator's Troubles — Buttonholing a Senator — A Lady of Energy — Resolved to Win — An " Office Brok- eress" — A Dragon of a Woman — A Lady who is Feared if not Re- spected — Her Unfortunate Victims — Carrying "Her Measure" — The Beautiful Petitioner — The Cloudy Side of her Character — Her Subtle Dealings — Her Successes — How Government Prizes are Won. THE room itself means only grace, beauty and silence. The moment had not come for dis-illusion, thus I went forth without a word regarding its human aspect. To-day, dear friends, we will go in and face that. We sit down in the shadow of this Corinthian pillar, and, look- ing out see the most noticeable fact is that this lofty apartment is thronged with women. A number are con- versing with senators ; others are gazing toward the doors which lead into the Senate. Some seem to be waiting with eager eyes and anxious faces ; others are leaning back upon the sofas in attitudes of luxurious listlessness. Do you ask why they are here ? Are they studying the stately proportions and exquisite finesse of the ante- room? Not at all. It is not devotion to the aesthetic arts nor the inspiration of patriotism, which brings these women thither. They are a few, only a very few, of the WAITING AND WEARY. 121 women — with "claims," who, through the sessions of Congress haunt the departments, the White House and the Capitol. The dejected looking woman on the sofa opposite is a widow, with numerous small children. You may be cer- tain by the unhopeful expression of her face that it is her own claim which, almost unaided and alone, she is trying to " work through " Congress. Her home is far distant. She borrowed money to come here, she borrows money to support her children, money to pay her own board; borrows money to pay the exorbitant fees of the claim- agent, who, constantly fanning the flame of "great ex- pectations," assures her every day that Congress will pay her the thousands which she demands for her losses — will pay her this very session. Meantime the session is al- most ended, and the widow's claim, on which hangs such a heavy load of debt and fear, lies hidden and forgotten in the pigeon-hole of the Committee of Claims. While it lies there, gathering dust, she a cheaply clad, care- faced woman, no longer young, and never pretty, has grown to be most bfcrdensome to Senator , espe- cially to the chairman of that committee. Irksome, not to be desired, is the importunate presence of this forlorn woman. No less irksome to these functionaries is the sight of her hundred sisters in distress — more or less; poor widows, with small children, with personal claims upon the Government. The chairman dreads the sight of this woman and of her like. He dreads it the more that he is perfectly certain that her case is not reached, and will not be this session. A kind-hearted man, he is unwilling to set the seal of despair on her face by telling her the truth. She finds it out at last, and then remem- 122 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. bering all his evasions, in her disappointment and hopeless poverty, she denounces him as "deceitful and heartless," whereas the honorable gentleman was only trying to be kind. Meanwhile the Senate' is too much interested in immense claims involving millions, to be paid out of the National Treasury, too much absorbed in the discussion of the universal, to be able' to come down to the small particular of a poor widow, with hungry children, whose only heritage was lost in the war. In time, whose cycles may be as long as those of the Circumlocution Of- fice and the Court of Chancery — but some time, when the widow has borrowed and spent more money than the whole claim is worth, it may be investigated, and full or partial justice done. In either case, it will take more than she receives to pay the many expenses which she has incurred during her long years of waiting. Do 3011 wonder that her face looks doleful while she waits for Senator to come in to answer her card, sent into the Senate Chamber. Here he is and we can hear what he says, " I am very sorry, Madame ; but it has grown to be too late. I fear that Jour case can not be reached this session." Poor woman. It would have been better for you to have staid at home, kept out of debt, worked with your hands to have supported your children. That would have been a hard life, but not so hard as the mortification, suspense, and defeat of this, and the long years of labor after all. See that sharp-faced woman, with darting, prying eyes. She rushes in one door and out of another. She hurries back. She meets a senator, and " button-holes him," after the fashion of men, and begins conversing in the most importunate manner. He makes a retreat. Lo ! in A WOMAN TO BE FEARED. 123 a moment she attacks another, leading him triumphantly to a sofa, where we witness a tete-a-tete, on the feminine side, carried on with marked emphasis and much gesticu- lation. This woman not only has one claim in Congress, she has many, and not one her own. She is a claim- agent, an office-brokeress. She buys claims, and specu- lates in them as so much stock. She takes claims on commission, deluding many a poor victim into the belief that "my influence" and "my friends," Senator So-and- So and Secretary P. Policy, will insure it a triumphant passage and a remunerative end, tf without -fail.'* It is not strange, through sheer pertinacity and by dint of end- less worrying, she often succeeds. She is purely feline in her tactics — ever alert, watchful, wary, cunning, and so she worries her victims and wins. She is one of the world's disappointed, dissatisfied ones; so, more than all else, we will be sorry for her. What God meant to be a fair life has been striven away in one weary struggle for the worldly honor and conventional prestige lying just above her reach. And to her the most pleasurable ex- citement in all the claim profession is the delusion that it affords her of personal power and of association with the great ! Pardon me, good friends, for calling a name. I must call it, for it is true. Here comes a very dragon of a woman. I am as afraid of her as if she had horns. I was going to say that she was a man-woman, which is the greatest monstrosity of the genus feminine. But I honor my brethren too much for such a comparison, and so will simply say — in manners, she is a dragon. The men whom she seizes must think so ; they give her her way, because they are afraid of her. Too well they know that, if they 124 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. do not yield her point — if they do not at least promise her their influence — if they do not assure her that they will do all in their power to carry "her measure" — that she will attack them in the street, in the legislative lobbies, in the quiet of their lodgings, everywhere, anywhere, till they do. She is no covert power. She proclaims aloud that she has come to Washington to carry a measure through Congress to establish some man in power. And she does it because her tongue is a scourge and her pres- ence a fear. Leaning back in a chair, no one near her, you see a fair woman, whose beautiful presence seems at variance with the many anxious and angular and the few coarse women around her. The calmness of assured position, the serene satisfaction of conscious beauty, envelop her and float from her like an atmosphere. We feel it even here. Plumes droop above her forehead, velvet draperies fall about her form. We catch a glimpse of laces, the gleam of jewels. Look long into her face ; its splendor of tint and perfection of outline can bear the closest scrutiny. Look long, and then say if a soul saintly as well as serene looks out from under those penciled arches, through the dilating irises of those beguiling eyes. Look, and the unveiled gaze which meets yours will tell you, as plainly as a gaze can tell, that adulation is the life of its life, and seduction the secret of its spell. This beauty would not blanch before the profanest sight ; it is the beauty of one who tunes her tongue to honeyed accents, and lifts up her eyelids to lead men down to death. She comes and goes in a showy carriage. She glides through the corridors, haunts the galleries and the ante-rooms of the Capitol — everywhere conspicuous in her beauty. All who behold HOW PLACE AND POWER* ARE WON. 125 her inquire, Who is that beautiful woman ? Nobody seems quite sure. Doubt and mystery envelop her like a cloud. "She is a rich and beautiful widow/' "She is unmarried/' " She is visiting the city with her husband." Every gazer has a different answer. There are a few, deep in the secrets of diplomacy, of legislative venality, of governmental prostitution, who can tell you she is one of the most subtle and most dangerous of lobbyists. She is but one of a class always beautiful and always success- ful. She plays for large stakes, but she always wins. The man who says to her, " Secure my appointment, make sure my promotion, and I will pay you so many thousands," usually gets his appointment, and she her thousands. Does she wait like a suppliant ? Not at all. She sits like an empress waiting to give audience. Will she receive her subjects in promiscuous assemblage ? No ; if you wait long enough you will see her glide over these tessellated floors, but not alone. Far from the ears of the crowd, in rooms sumptuous enough for the Sybarites, this woman will dazzle the sight of a half demented and wholly be- wildered magnate, and then tell him what prize she wants. With alluring eyes and beguiling voice she will besiege his will through the outworks of his senses, and so charm him on to do her bidding. He promises her his influence ; he promises her his power ; her fa- vorite shall have the boon he demands, whether it be of emolument or power. Thus some of the highest prizes in the Government are won. Unscrupulous men pay wily women to touch the subtlest and surest springs of influence, and thus open a secret way to their public success. No longer the question is : Shall women participate in politics ? 126 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. shall they form a controlling element in the Govern- ment ? But, as there are women who will and do exert this power, shall it remain abject, covert, equivocal, de- moralizing, base ? Or shall it be brave and pure and open as the sun ? CHAPTER Xni. THE CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY. Inside the Library — The Librarian — Sketch of Mr. Spofford — How Congres- sional Speeches are Manufactured — " Spofford " in Congress — The Li- brary Building — Diagram— Dimensions of the Hall — The Iron Book Cases — The Law Library — Five Miles of Book Shelves — Silent Study — "Abstracting " Books — Amusing Adventure — A Senator in a Quandary — Making Love under Difficulties — Library Regulations — Privileged Per- sons — Novels and their Readers — Books of Reference — Cataloguing the Library — The New Classification — Compared with the British Museum — Curious Old Newspapers — Files of Domestic and Foreign Papers — One Hundred Defunct Journals — Destruction of the Library by English Troops — An Incident of the War of 1814 — Putting it to the Vote — " Car- ried Unanimously " — Wanton Destruction — Washington in Flames — A Fearful Tempest — The Second Conflagration — 35,000 Volumes De- stroyed — Treasures of Art Consumed — Congressional Grants — The New Library — Extensive Additions — The Next Appropriation — The Grand Library of the Nation. THE most remarkable fact of the present connected with the Congressional Library., is its Librarian,, Mr. Ainsworth R. Spofford. Mr. Spofford was appointed Assistant Librarian by President Lincoln, December 31, 1S64, and upon the resignation of Mr. Stephenson the same month succeeded him as Librarian. Mr. Spofford was formerly connected with the secular press of Cincinnati, Ohio, and was also engaged in the book trade in the same city. But neither fact accounts for his almost unlimited practical knowledge of books of every age and in every language. He is him- 128 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. self a vast library in epitome. If you wish to inform yourself upon any subject under the sun, if you have any right or privilege to inform Mr. SpofTord of that fact, in five minutes you will have placed before you a list, writ- ten down rapidly from memory, of the best works extant upon the subject named, and in as few moments as it will take to find them, and draw them forth from their dusty nests, you will have them all heaped on a table before you, ready for your search and research, and all the head- aches they will be sure to give you. Mr. SpofTord has the credit among experts of writing many Congressional speeches for honorable gentlemen whose verbs and nominatives by chronic habit disagree, and whose spelling-books were left very far behind them, but who nevertheless are under the imperative necessity of writing learned speeches of which their dear constitu- ents may boast and be proud. By the way, a lady in pri- vate life in Washington, — a scholar and caustic writer,— used to earn all her pin money, before her ship of fortune came in, by writing, in the solitude of her room, the learned, witty and sarcastic speeches which were thun- dered in Congress the next day, by some Congressional Ju- piter, who could not have launched such a thunder-bolt to have saved his soul had it not been first forged and elec- trified by a woman. The Librarian of Congress is too much absorbed by his routine labors to have much time or strength to spare for the writing out of Congressional speeches. But daily and almost hourly he suggests and supplies the materials for such speeches. When a mem- • ber whose erudition is not remarkable, stands up in his seat, backing every sentence he utters on finance, law or politics, by great authority, more than one mentally THE SECRET FIRE OF MANY SPEECHES. 129 exclaims, " Spofford ! " We know where he has been. Mr. Spofford is a slight gentleman in the prime of life, of nervous temperament with very straight, smooth hair, classic features and a placid countenance. Always a gentleman, his patience and urbanity are inexhaustible, if you have the slightest claim upon his care. If you have not, and he has no intention of being " bothered," his " shoo fly " capabilities are equally effectual. Like most book-people, Mr. Spofford's nervous life far outruns his material forces. He needs more sunshine, air and out-of-door existence, as most Americans do. Therefore I here cast him a crumb of sisterly counsel, born of grati- tude and selfishness. Spend more time on the Rock Creek and Piney Branch roads, on the hills and by the sea, Mr. Spofford. Then may you live long, prosper, and grow wiser, for the sake of my books, and everybody's ! The halls of the Library of Congress are among the most chaste, unique and indestructible of all the halls of the Capitol. The Library occupies the entire central portion of the western front of the original Capitol. The west hall extends the entire length of the western front flanked by two other halls, one on the north the other on the south side of the projection. DIAGRAM OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Vestibule. a Door. ■a n 3 o CD fc West Hall of Library. 13 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. The west hall which a few years since made the whole Library, is 91 feet 6 inches in length, 34 feet wide and 38 feet high, the other two halls of the same hight are 29 feet 6 inches wide and 95 feet long. The halls are lighted by windows looking out upon the grounds of the Capitol and by roof lights of stained glass. The ceiling is iron and glass, and rests on foliated iron brack- ets each weighing a ton. The pilasters and panels are of iron painted a neutral hue tinged with pale green and burnished with gold leaf. The floors are of tessellated black and white marble. The iron book-cases on either side rise story on story, floored with cast-iron plates, pro- tected by railings, and traversed by light galleries. In- cluding the Law Library, these halls contain 26,148 feet, or nearly five miles of book-shelving, and contain over 210,000 volumes. The iron floors are covered with kamjrfulicon floor cloth, a compound of India-rubber and cork, which possesses the triple advantage of being clean, light and cheap. The leg of every chair has a pad of solid India-rubber under it. Nobody is allowed to speak above a whisper ; thus the stolid turning, or the light flut- ter of leaves make the only sound which stirs the silence. Alcove after alcove line the halls, but with the excep- tion of two devoted to novels and other light reading, left open for the ladies of members' families, they are all securely locked and protected by a net-work of wire, and thus the chance of pilfering and of flirting are both shut in behind that securely fastened little padlock. Before the era of locking up, many books were " abstracted" from the Library and never returned. And it is said that the alcoves were used during the ses- sions of Congress by the belles of the Capitol for recep- LOYE IN THE LIBRARY. 131 tion rooms in which they received homage and listened to marriage proposals. The story is told of "a wealthy Southern representative gleaning materials for a speech in an upper section," who was suddenly stopped in his pursuit after knowledge above by the knowledge ascend- ing from below that "a penniless adventurer" was that moment persuading his pretty daughter to elope in the alcove under him. It did not take the parent long to de- scend into that alcove. The daughter did not elope. The halls are lined with wide tables and arm-chairs provided for all who wish to make use of the treasures of the Library. Tickets with blanks can be filled with the name of any book desired, over the signature of the applicant, who retains the book while remaining in the Library. On the back of those tickets are printed the following regulations of the Library : 1. Visitors are requested to remove their hats, 2. No loud talking is permitted, 3. No readers under sixteen years of age are permitted. 4. No book can be taken from the Library. 5. Readers are required to present tickets, for all books wanted, and to return their books and take back their tickets before leaving the Library. 6. No reader is allowed to enter the alcoves. No books can be taken out of the Library except on the responsibility of a member of Congress. Till within a very few years, books were allowed to be taken by strangers who presented a written permit to do so from a Congressional official. This courtesy resulted in the destruction and loss of so many valuable works, it had to be abolished and the stringent rules of the present time 132 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. established and strictly enforced. An act of Congress provided that books can be taken out of the Library only by the President of the United States, Members of the Cabinet, Judges of the United States Supreme Court, Members of the Senate and House of Representatives, Secretary of the Senate, Clerk of the House and mem- bers of the Diplomatic Corps. This privilege of course includes the families of these official gentlemen. Forgetting this fact, the long list of story-books and new novels often " charged" to these State names would be something ridiculous. Dealers in light literature suffer somewhat from this privilege. The copyright law and the Congressional Library together provide society and State with all the surface literature that they want during their sojourn in "Washington. For reference the books are most extensively and thoroughly used by all seekers after knowledge. American and foreign authors line the tables in these quiet halls daily, and the results of their research are usually given to the world. Legal, political, and historical works are the ones most constantly called for and searched. From 1815 to 1864 the Library was catalogued on the system adopted by Mr. Jefferson according to Bacon's Division of Science. This classification adapted to a small library was inadequate to the necessities of thousands of consulting readers. Mr. Spoffbrd, on his advent as Libra- rian, went to Avork to simplify the system. The result was a complete catalogue of all the books in the great Library arranged alphabetically under the heads of authors. A proof of the perfection of this arrangement is, that any book hidden in the farthest corner of the most distant alcove is handed to a reader at the tables within five BARBARIANS AT WASHINGTON. 133 minutes after his application, while in the British Museum he would do well if he got it in the space of half an hour. Till the reign of Mr. Spofford, newspapers, as valuable documentary history, had almost been ignored by the guardians of the Library. This great defect Mr. Spofford has done much to eradicate and remeclv. Files of all the leading New York dailies are now regularly kept. Some unbroken files have been secured, including those of the New York Evening Post, from its beginning in 1801, the London Gazette from 1665, the French Moniteur (Royal, Imperial, and Republican,) from 1789, the Illustrated London Neics, the Almanac de Gotha from 1776, and a complete set of every newspaper ever published in the District of Columbia, including over one hundred now no more. Before the last progressive regime, even after Congress had appropriated $75,000 for the replenishing of the Library, the entire national collection did not con- tain a modern encyclopedia, or a file of a New York daily newspaper, or of any newspaper except the venerable Washington National Intelligencer. De Bow's Review was the only American magazine taken, " but the Lon- don Court Journal was regularly received, and bound at the close of each successive year ! " The Congressional Library is the only one in the world utterly fire-proof, without an atom of wood or of any combustible material in its miles of shelving. Before it attained to this indestructible state it suffered much. First from the British. On the evening of August 24, 1814, after the battle of Bladensburg, General Ross led his victorious troops into the Federal City. As they ap- proached the Capitol a shot was fired by a man concealed in a house on Capitol Hill. The shot was aimed at the 134 TEN YEAES IX WASHINGTON. British general, but only killed his horse. The enraged Britons immediately set fire to the house which contained the sharp-shooter, who, it is said, was a club-footed gar- dener-barber Irishman. The unmanageable troops were drawn up in front of the unfinished Capitol, a wooden scaffolding, occupying the place of the Rotunda, joining the two wings. They first fired a volley into the windows and then entered the building to prepare it for destruc- tion. Admiral Cockburn ascended to the Speaker's chair, and derisively exclaimed : " Shall this harbor of Yankee Democracy be burned ? All for it say aid by all who have received the Nation's highest honor. Society, in its way, exacts as much of the ladies of the White House, as party politics do of the men who administer state affairs in it. A lack of entertainment caused part of the universal discontent, already voiced against the hero President, whose heroic ways were busy, and naturally the ways of policy or diplomacy. The second winter of President Taylor's term, the ladies of his family seemed to have assumed more prominently and publicly the social duties of their high position. A reception at the President's house, March 4, 1850, was of remarkable brilliancy. Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Benton and Cass, with many beautiful and cultured women, then added their splendor to society in Washington. The auguries of a brilliant year were not fulfilled. Amid the anguish of his family, President Taylor died at the White House, July 9, 1850. When it was known that he must die, Mrs. Taylor became insensible, and the agonized cries of his family reached the surrounding streets. THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. 227 Dreadful to the eyes of the bereaved wife were the pomp and show with which her hero was buried. After he became President, General Taylor said, that " his wife had prayed every night for months that Henry Clay might be elected President in his place." She sur- vived her husband two years, and to her last hour never mentioned the White House in Washington, except in its relation to the death of her husband. She was succeeded by a woman of superior intellect, who in a different sphere had proved herself an equally devoted wife. Mrs. Abigail Filmore, the daughter of a Baptist clergyman, grew up in Western New York, when it was a frontier and a wilderness. Yearning for intellect- ual culture, with all the drawbacks of poverty and scanty opportunity, she obtained sufficient knowledge to become a school-teacher. It was while following this avocation that she first met her future husband, the thirteenth President of the United States, then a clothier's appren- tice, a youth of less than twenty years, himself, during the winter months, a teacher of the village school. They were married in 1826, and began life in a small house built by her husband's hands. In this little house the wife added to her duties of maid-of-all-work, house-keeper, hostess and wife, the avocation of teacher. She bore full half of the burden of life, and the husband, with the weight of care lifted from him by willing and loving hands, rose rapidly in the profession of law, and in less than two years was chosen a member of the State Legis- lature. Thus, side by side, they worked and struggled from poverty to eminence. Strong in intellect and will, her delights were all femi- nine. Her tasks accomplished, she lived in books and 228 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. music, flowers and children. At her death, her husband said : " For twenty-seven years, my entire married life, I was always greeted with a happy smile." She entered the "White House a matron of commanding person and beau- tiful countenance. She was five feet six inches in height, with a complexion extremely fair and pure, blue, smiling eyes, and a wealth of light-brown curling hair. A per- sonal friend of Mrs. Filmore, writing from Buffalo, says : " When Mr. Filmore entered the White House, he found it entirely destitute of books. Mrs. Filmore was in the habit of spending her leisure moments in reading, I might almost say, in studying. She was accustomed to be surrounded with books of reference, maps, and all the other requirements of a well fur- nished library, and she found it difficult to content herself in a house devoid of such attractions. To meet this want, Mr. Fil- more asked of Congress, and received an appropriation, and se-. lected a library, devoting to that purpose a large and pleasant room in the second story of the White House. Here Mrs. Fil- more surrounded herself with her little home comforts ; here her daughter had her own piano, harp, and guitar, and here Mrs. Filmore received the informal visits of the friends she loved, and, for her, the real pleasure and enjoyments of the White House were in this room." Mrs. Filmore was proud of her husband's success in life, and desirous that no reasonable expectation of the public should be disappointed. She never absented her- self from the public receptions, dinners, or levees, when it was possible to be present; but her delicate health fre- quently rendered them very painful. She sometimes kept her bed all day, to favor that weak ankle, that she might be able to endure the fatigue of the two hours she would be obliged to stand for the Friday evening levees. A DAUGHTEK OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 229 Mrs. Filmore was destined never to see again her old home in Buffalo, with mortal eyes. She contracted a cold on the day of Mr. Pierce's inauguration, which resulted in pneumonia, of which she died, at Willard's Hotel, Wash- ington, 1853. What she is in the memory of her husband, may be judged by the fact — that he has carefully pre- served every line that she ever wrote him, and has been heard to say that he could never destroy even the little notes that she sent him on business, to his office. The child of this truly wedded pair, Mary Abigail Fil- more, was the rarest and most exquisite President's daugh- ter that ever shed sunshine in the White House. She survived her mother but a year, dying of cholera, at the age of twenty- two, yet her memory is a benison to all young American women, especially to those surrounded by the allurements of society and high station. She was not only the mistress of many accomplishments, but pos- sessed a thoroughly practical education. She was taught at home, at Mrs. Sedgwick's school, in Lenox, Massachu- setts, and was graduated from the State Normal School of New York, as a teacher, and taught in the higher depart- ments of one of the public schools in Buffalo. She was a French, German, and Spanish scholar; was a proficient in music; and an amateur sculptor. She was the rarest type of woman, in whom was blended, in perfect propor- tion, masculine judgment and feminine tenderness. In her were combined intellectual force, vivacity of temper- ament, genuine sensibility, and deep tenderness of heart. She saw clearly through the forms and shows of life, her views of its duties were grave and serious; yet, in her intercourse with others, she overflowed with bright wit, humor and kindliness. Her character was revealed in her 230 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. face, for her soul shone through it. Words cannot tell what such a nature and such an intelligence would be, presiding over the social life of the Nation's House. She used her opportunities, as the President's daughter, to minister to others. She clung to all her old friends, with- out any regard to their position in life ; her time and tal- ents were devoted to their happiness. She was constantly thinking of some little surprise, some gift, some journey, some pleasure, by which she could contribute to the hap- piness of others. After the death of her mother, she went to the desolate home of her father and brother, and, emulating the example of that mother, relieved her father of all household care ; her domestic and social qualities equalled her intellectual power. She gathered all her early friends about her ; she consecrated herself to the happiness of her father and brother ; she filled her home with sunshine. With scarcely an hour's warning, the final summons came. "Blessing she was, God made her so," and in her passed away one of the rarest of young American women. CHAPTER XXIY. THE WHITE HOUSE DURING THE WAR. Under a Cloud — "A Woman Among a Thousand " — Revival of By-gone Days — Another Lady of the White House — A " Golden Blonde " — Instinct Alike with Power and Grace — A Fun-Loving Romp — Harriet with her Wheelbarrow of Wood — A Deed of Kindness — The Wheel Turns Round — An Impression Made on Queen Victoria — In Paris and on the Continent — An American Lady at Oxford — Gay Doings at the Capital — Rival Claims for a Lady's Hand — Reign- ing at the White House — Doing Double Duty — Visit of the Prince of Wales — Marriage of Harriet Lane — As Wife and Mother — Mrs. Abraham Lincoln — Standing Alone — A Time of Trouble and Perplexity — Concilia- tory Counsels Needful — Rumors of War — the Life of the Nation Threat- ened — Whispers of Treason — Awaiting the Event — Peculiar Position of Mary Lincoln — A Life-long Ambition Fulfilled — The Nation Called to Arms — Contagious Enthusiasm — What the President's Wife Did — Noth- ing to do but " Shop " — Sensational Stories Afloat — Stirring Times at the Capital — What Came from the River — The Dying and the Dead — Churches and Houses Turned into Hospitals — Arrival of Troops — " Mrs. Lincoln Shopped " — The Lonely Man at the White House — Letters of Rebuke — An Example of Selfishness — Petty Economies — The Back Door of the White House — An Injured Individual — Death of Willie Lincoln — Injustice which Mrs. Lincoln Suffered — The Rabble in the White House — Valuables Carried Away — Big Boxes and Much Goods — Going West — Mrs. Lincoln Disconsolate — False and Cruel Accusations — Considerable Personal Property — Missing Treasures — Mrs. Lincoln as a Woman — Tears and Mimicry— The Faults of a President's Wife. MRS. FRANKLIN PIERCE entered the White House under the shadow of ill-health and sore bereave- ment, having seen her last surviving child killed before her eyes on a railroad train, after the election of her husband to the Presidency of the United States. 232 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. Mrs. Pierce was remarkable for fragility of constitution, exquisite sensitiveness of organism, and deep spirituality of nature. She instinctively shrank from observation, and nothing could be more painful to her in average life than the public gaze. She found her joy in the quiet sphere of domestic life, and herein, through her wise counsels, pure tastes, and devoted life, she exerted a powerful influence. One who knew her writes : " Mrs. Pierce's life, as far as she could make it so, was one of retirement. She rarely participated in gay amusements, and never enjoyed what is called fashionable society. Her natural endowments were of a high order. She inherited a judgment singularly clear, and a taste almost unerring. The cast of her beauty was so dream-like ; her temper was so little mingled with the common characteristics of woman ; it had so little of caprice, so little of vanity, so utter an absence of all jealousy and all anger ; it was so made up of tenderness and devotion, and yet so imaginative and fairy-like in its fondness, that it was difficult to bear only the sentiments of earth for one who had so little of life's clay." It was but natural that such a being should be the life- long object of a husband's adoring devotion. Nor is it strange that the husband of such a wife, reflecting in his outer life the urbanity, gentleness, and courtesy which marked his home intercourse, in addition to his own per- sonal gifts, should have been, what Franklin Pierce was declared to be, the most popular man, personally, who ever was President of the United States. Notwithstand- ing her ill health, her shrinking temperament, and per- sonal bereavement, Mrs. Pierce forced herself to meet the public demands of her exalted station, and punctually presided at receptions and state dinners, at any cost to THE GLORY OF A GOLDEN BLONDE. 233 herself. No woman, by inherent nature, could have been less adapted to the full blaze of official life than she, yet she met its demands with honor, and departed from the White House revered by all who had ever caught a glimpse of her exquisite nature. She died December, 1863, in Ando- ver, Massachusetts, and now rests, with her husband and children, in the cemetery at Concord, New Hampshire. During the administration of Mr. Buchanan, the White House seemed to revive the social magnificence of old days. Harriet Lane brought again into its drawing- rooms the splendor of courts, and more than repeated the elegance and brilliancy of fashion, which marked the administration of Mr. John Quincy Adams. Harriet Lane, the adopted daughter of James Bu- chanan, and " lady of the White House " during his ad- ministration, was one of those golden blondes which Oliver Wendell Holmes so delights to portray. " Her head and features were cast in noble mould, and her form which, at rest, had something of the massive majesty of a marble pillar, in motion was instinct alike with power and grace." Grace, light and majesty seemed to make her atmosphere. Every motion was instinct with life, health and intelligence. Her superb physique gave the impression of intense, harmonious vitality. Her eyes, of deep violet, shed a constant, steady light, yet they could flash with rebuke, kindle with humor, or soften in tender- ness. Her mouth was her most peculiarly beautiful fea- ture, capable of expressing infinite humor or absolute sweetness, while her classic head was crowned with masses of golden hair, always worn with perfect simplicity. As a child she was a fun-loving, warm-hearted romp. 234 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. When eleven years of age she was tall as a woman, never- theless Mr. Buchanan, one day looking from his window, saw Harriet with flushed cheek and hat awry, trundling through the leading street of Lancaster a wheelbarrow, full of wood. He rushed out to learn the cause of such an unseemly sight, when she answered in confusion, " that she was on her way to old black Aunt Tabitha with a load of wood, because it was so cold." A few years later this young domestic outlaw, having been graduated with high honor from the Georgetown convent, was shining at the Court of St. James, at which her uncle was American Minister. Queen Victoria, upon whom her surpassing brightness and loveliness seemed to make a deep impres- sion, decided that she should rank not as niece or daughter, but as the wife of the United States Minister. Thus the youthful American girl became one of the " leading ladies " of the diplomatic corps of St. James. On the continent and in Paris she was everywhere greeted as a girl-queen, and in England her popularity was immense. On the day when Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Tennyson received the degree of Doctor of Civil Laws at the University of Oxford, her appearance was greeted by loud cheers from the students, who arose en masse to re- ceive her. From this dazzling career abroad, she came back to her native land, to preside over the President's House. She became the supreme lady of the gayest ad- ministration which has marked the government of the United States. Societies, ships of war, neck-ties were named after her. Men, gifted and great, from foreign lands and in her own, sought her hand in marriage. Such cu- mulated pleasures and honors probably were never heaped upon any other one young woman of the United States. THE PKINCE OF WALES AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 235 At White House receptions, and on all state occasions, the sight of this golden beauty, standing beside the grand and gray old man, made a unique and delightful contrast, which thousands flocked to see. Her duties were more onerous than had fallen to the share of any lady of the White House for many years ; the long diplomatic ser- vice of Mr. Buchanan abroad involving him in many obli- gations to entertain distinguished strangers privately, aside from his hospitalities as President of the United States. During his administration the Prince of Wales was enter- tained at the White House, who presented his portrait to Mr. Buchanan and a set of valuable engravings to Miss Lane, as "a slight mark of his grateful recollection of the hospitable reception and agreeable visit at the White House." During the last troubled months of Mr. Buchanan's ad- ministration, he always spoke with warmth and gratitude of Miss Lane's patriotism and good sense. Neither he nor her country ever suffered from any conversational lapse of hers, which, in a day so rife with passion and injustice, is saying much. In 1863, Miss Lane was confirmed in the Episcopal church at Oxford, Philadelphia, of which her uncle, Rev. Edward L. Buchanan, was the rector. In 1866, Miss Lane was married, at Wheatland, to Mr. Henry Elliott Johnston of Baltimore, a gentleman who had held her affections for many years. The congenial pair now abide in their luxurious home in Baltimore, and in private life, as wife and mother, she is as beautiful and more beloved than when, as Miss Lane, she was the proud lady of the President's House. It was the misfortune of Mrs. Lincoln to be the only 236 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. woman personally assailed who ever presided in the White House. She entered it when sectional bitterness was at its height, and when the need of her country for the holiest and highest ministry of women was deeper than it had been in any era of its existence, even that of the Revolution. In that troubled hour, the White House needed a woman to preside over it of lofty soul, of conse- crated purpose, of the broadest and profoundest sympa- thies, and of self-forgetting piety. The life of the Nation was threatened. The horror of war was imminent. The capital was menaced, as it had never been before, by the treason of its own children. Wives, mothers and daughters, in ten thousand homes, were looking into the faces of husbands, sons and fathers, with trembling and with tears, and yet with sacrificial patriotism. They knew, they felt that the best-beloved were to be slain on their country's battle-fields. With what supreme devotion and consecration, would Abigail Adams, or a thousand women of her heroic type, have approached the Nation's House as the wife of its President in such an hour. It was the hour for self-forgetting — the hour of sacrifice. Personal vanity and elation, excu- sable in a more peaceful time, seemed unpardonable in this. Yet, in reviewing the character of the Presidents' wives, we shall see that there was never one who entered the White House with such a feeling of self-satisfaction, which amounted to personal exultation, as did Mary Lincoln. To her it was the fulfillment of a life-long ambition, and with the first low muttering of Avar distinctly heard, on every side, she made her journey to Washington a tri- umphal passage. A single month, and the President's call for troops to VIEW OF "TIIK CITY OF THE SLAIN." — ARLINGTON. ! in. and date of death of each THE WHITE HOUSE DURING THE WAR. 237 protect the capital had penetrated the remotest hamlet of the land. All the manly life-blood of the Nation surged toward its defence. All the heart of its womanhood went up to God, crying for its safety. In the distant farm-house women waited, breathless, the latest story of battle. In the crowded cities they gathered by thousands, crying, only, " Let me work for my brother : he dies for me ! " With the record of the march and the fight, and of the unseemly defeat, the newspapers teemed with gossip con- cerning the new lady of the White House. While her sister-women scraped lint, sewed bandages, and put on nurses' caps, and gave their all to country and to death, the wife of its President spent her time in rolling to and fro between Washington and New York, intent on extrav- agant purchases for herself and the White House. Mrs. Lincoln seemed to have nothing to do but to " shop," and the reports of her lavish bargains, in the newspapers, were vulgar and sensational in the extreme. The wives and daughters of other Presidents had managed to dress as elegant women, without the process of so doing becom- ing prominent or public. But not a new dress or jewel was bought by Mrs. Lincoln that did not find its way into the newspapers. Months passed, and the capital had become one vast hospital. The reluctant river every hour laid at the feet of the city its priceless freight of lacerated men. The wharves were lined with the dying and dead. One cease- less procession of ambulances moved to and fro. Our streets resounded with the shrieks of the sufferers which they bore. Churches, halls and houses were turned into hospitals. Every railroad-train that entered the city bore fresh troops to the Nation's rescue, and fresh mourners 238 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON". seeking their dead, who had died in its defence. Through all, Mrs. Lincoln " shopped." At the "White House, a lonely man, sorrowful at heart, and weighed down by mighty burdens, bearing the Nation's fate upon his shoulders, lived and toiled and suffered alone. His wife, during all the summer, was at the hotels of fashionable watering-places. Conduct compara- tively blameless in happier times, became culpable under such exigencies and in such shadow. Jarred, from the beginning, by Mrs. Lincoln's life, the Nation, under its heavy stress of sorrow, seemed goaded at last to exaspera- tion. Letters of rebuke, of expostulation, of anathema even, addressed to her, personally, came in to her from every direction. Not a day that did not bring her many such communications, denouncing her mode of life, her conduct, and calling upon her to fulfil the obligations, and meet the opportunities of her high station. To no other woman of America had ever been vouch- safed so full an opportunity for personal benevolence and philanthropy to her own countrymen. To no other American woman had ever come an equal chance to set a lofty example of self-abnegation to all her countrywomen. But just as if there were no national peril, no monstrous national debt, no rivers of blood flowing, she seemed chiefly intent upon pleasure, personal flattery and adula- tion; upon extravagant dress and ceaseless self -gratifi- cation. Vain, seeking admiration, the men who fed her weak- ness for their own political ends were sure of her favor. Thus, Avhile daily disgracing the State by her own ex- ample, she still sought to meddle in its affairs. Woe to Mr. Lincoln if he did not appoint her favorites. Prodigal SELLING MILK AT THE BACK DOOK. 239 in personal expenditure, she brought shame upon the President's House, by petty economies, which had never disgraced it before. Had the milk of its dairy been sent to the hospitals, she would have received golden praise. But the whole city felt scandalized to have it haggled over and peddled from the back door of the White House. State dinners could have been dispensed with, without a word of blame, had their cost been consecrated to the soldiers' service ; but when it was made apparent that they were omitted from personal penuriousness and a desire to devote their cost to personal gratification, the public cen- sure knew no bounds. From the moment Mrs. Lincoln began to receive re- criminating letters, she considered herself an injured indi- vidual, the honored object of envy, jealousy and spite, and a martyr to her high position. No doubt some of them were unjust, and many more unkind ; but it never dawned upon her consciousness that any part of the provocation was on her side, and after a few tastes of their bitter draughts she ceased to open them. Even death did not spare lifer. Willie Lincoln, the loveliest child of the White House, was smitten and died, to the unutterable grief of his father and the wild anguish of his mother. She mourned according to her nature. Her loss did not draw her nearer in sympathy to the nation of mothers that moment weeping because their sons were not. It did not lead her in time to minister to such, whom death had robbed and life had left without alleviation. She shut herself in with her grief, and demanded of God why he had afflicted her ! Nobody suffered as she suffered. The Nation's House wore a pall, at last, not for its tens of thousands of brave sons slain, but for the President's 240 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. child. The Guests' Room, in which he died, Mrs. Lincoln never entered again ; nor the Green Room, wherein, decked with flowers, his fair young body awaited burial. In the same way, Mrs. Lincoln bewept her husband. And there is no doubt but that, in that black hour, she suffered great injustice. She loved her husband with the intensity of a nature, deep and strong, within a narrow channel. The shock of his untimely and awful taking- off, might have excused a woman of loftier nature than hers for any accompanying paralysis. It was not strange that Mrs. Lincoln was not able to leave the White House for five weeks after her husband's death. It would have been stranger, had she been able to have left it sooner. It was her misfortune, that she had so armed public sympathy against her, by years of indifference to the sorrows of others, that when her own hour of supreme anguish came, there were few to comfort her, and many to assail. She had made many unpopular innovations upon the old, serene and stately regime of the President's house. Never a reign of con- cord, in her best day, in her hour of affliction it degen- erated into absolute anarchy. I believe the long-time steward had been dethroned, that Mrs. Lincoln might manage according to her own will. At-any-rate, while she was shut in with her woe, the White House was left without a responsible protector. The rabble ranged through it at will. Silver and dining-ware were carried off, and have never been recovered. It was plundered, not only of ornaments, but of heavy articles of furni- ture. Costly sofas and chairs were cut and injured. Ex- quisite lace curtains were torn hito rags, and carried off in pieces. ABOUT THE BIG BOXES. 241 While all this was going on below, Mrs. Lincoln, shut up in her apartments, refused to see any one but servants, while day after day, immense boxes, containing her per- sonal effects, were leaving the White House for her newly- chosen abode in the West. The size and number of these boxes, with the fact of the pillaged aspect of the White House, led to the accusation, which so roused public feel- ing against her, that she was robbing the Nation's House, and carrying the national property with her into retire- ment. This accusation, which clings to her to this day, was probably unjust. Her personal effects, in all likeli- hood, amounted to as much as that of nearly all other Presidents' wives together, and the vandals who roamed at large through the length and breadth of the White House, were quite sufficient to account for all its missing treasures. The public also did Mrs. Lincoln injustice, in consider- ing her an ignorant, illiterate woman. She was well- born, gently reared, and her education above the average standard given to girls in her youth. She is a fair mis- tress of the French language, and in English can write a more graceful letter than one educated woman in fifty. She has quick perceptions, and an almost unrivalled power of mimicry. The only amusement of her desolate days, while shut in from the world in Chicago, when she refused to see her dearest friends and took comfort in the thought that she had been chosen as the object of pre- eminent affliction, was to repeat in tone, gesture and expression, the words, actions and looks of men and women who, in the splendor of her life in Washington, had happened to offend her. Her lack was not a lack of keen faculties, or of fair culture, but a constitutional 16 242 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. inability to rise to the action of high motive in a time when every true soul in the nation seemed to be im- pelled to unselfish deeds for its rescue. She was incapable of lofty, impersonal impulse. She was self-centred, and never in any experience rose above herself. According to circumstance, her own ambitions, her own pleasures, her own sufferings, made the sensation which absorbed and consumed every other. As a President's wife she could not rise above the level of her nature, and it was her misfortune that she never even approached the bound of her opportunity. CHAPTER XXV. THE WHITE HOUSE NOW— ITS PRESENT OCCUPANTS. After the War — The Home of President Johnson — Shut Up in the Moun- tains — Two Years of Exile — A Contrast — Suffering for their Country — Secretly Burying the Dead — A Wife of Seventeen Years — Midnight Studies — Broken Down — A Party of Grandchildren — " My Dears, I am an Invalid "— " God's Best Gift to Man "—The Woman Who Taught the President — A " Lady of Benign Countenance " — Doing the Honors at the White House— " We are Plain People "—The East Room Filled with Vermin — Traces of the Soldiers — A State of Dirt and Ruin — Mrs. Patterson's Calico Dress — In the Dairy — A Nineteenth Century Wonder — How the Old Carpets were Patched — The Greenbacks are Forthcoming — How $30,000 were Spent — Buying the Furniture — Working in Hot Weather — " Wrestling with Rags and Ruins " — " Renovated from Top to Bottom "—What the Ladies Wore, and What They Didn't— The Mem- ory of Elegant Attire — Impressing the Public Mind — How Unperverted Minds are Affected — " Bare-necked Dowagers — " A Large Crowd of Bare Busts " — Elderly Ladies with Raven Locks — The Opinion of a Woman of Fashion — Very Good Dinners — Obsequious to the Will of " the People " — Doors Open to the Mob — Sketching a Banquet — Senti- mental Reflections on the Dining Room — The Portraits of the Presidents — The Impeachment Trial — Peace in the Family — The Grant Dynasty — Looking Home-like — Mrs. Grant at Home — What Might Be Done, if — What Won't Work a Reformation — A Pity for Miss Nellie Grant — How She Suddenly " Came Out "—"A Full Fledged Woman of Fashion"— A " Shoal of Pretty Girls" — How a Certain Young Lady was Spoilt — Brushing Away " the Dew of Innocence " — Need of a Centripetal Soul — Society in the Season — Rare Women with no Tastes — The Wives of the Presidents Summed Up. MRS. LINCOLN was succeeded in the White House by three women, who entered its portals through the fiery baptism of suffering for their country's sake. 244 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. While President Johnson was performing his duties as Senator in Washington, his family were shut up in the mountains of East Tennessee, where the ravages of war were most dreadful. For more than two years he was unable to set eyes on either wife or child. While many of the mushroom aristocracy, who afterwards looked upon them so superciliously, were coining their ill-gotten dol- lars out of the blood of their country, these brave, loyal women were being " hunted from point to point, driven to seek refuge in the wilderness, forced to subsist on coarse and insufficient food, and more than once called to bury with secret and stolen sepulture those whom they loved, murdered because they would not join in deeds of odious treason to union and liberty." President Johnson's youngest daughter entered the White House a widow, recently bereaved of her husband, who fell a soldier in the Union cause. His wife, who at seventeen was his teacher, when " in the silent Avatches of the night the youthful couple studied together," when their weary tasks were done, came to the White House broken in health and spirits, through the suffering and bereavements through which she had passed. She was never seen but on one public occasion at the White House, that of a children's party, given to her grand- children. At that time she was seated in one of the republican court-chairs of satin and ebony. She did not rise when the children or guests were presented, but simply said, " My dears, I am an invalid," and her sad, pale face and sunken eyes proved the expression. She is an invalid now ; but an observer would say, contemplat- ing her, " A noble woman, God's best gift to man." It was that woman who taught the President, after she "PLAIN" PEOPLE FROM TENNESSEE." 245 became his wife ; and in all their early years she was his assistant counsellor and guide. Liable to be arrested for the slightest offense ; ofttimes insulted by the rabble, Mrs. Johnson performed the per- ilous journey from Greenville to Nashville. Few who were not actual participators in the civil war can form an estimate of the trials of this noble woman. Invalid, as she was, she yet endured exposure and anxiety, and passed through the extended lines of hostile armies, never uttering a hasty word, or, by her looks, betraying in the least degree her harrowed feelings. She is remem- bered by friend and foe as a lady of benign countenance and sweet and winning manners. During her husband's administration, the heavy duties and dubious honors of the White House were performed by her oldest daughter, Martha Patterson, the wife of Senator Patterson of Tennessee. That lady's utterance, soon after entering the White House, was a key to her character, yet scarcely a promise of her own distinguislied management of the President's house. She said : " We are plain people from the mountains of Tennessee, called here for a short time by a national calamity. I trust too much will not be expected of us." The career of Mrs. Lincoln had chilled the people to expect little from the feminine administrator of the White House; but from Martha Patterson they received much, and that of the most unobtrusive and noble service. The family of the new President arrived in June. Here was a new field entirely for the diffident woman who was compelled to do the honors, in lieu of her mother — a confirmed invalid. The house looked anything but inviting. Soldiers had wandered unchallenged through 246 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON". the entire suites of parlors. The East Room, dirty and soiled, was filled with vermin. Guards had slept upon the sofas and carpets till they were ruined, and the im- mense crowds who, during the preceding years of war, filled the President's house continually had worn out the already ancient furniture. No sign of neatness or com- fort greeted their appearance, but evidences of neglect and decay everywhere met their eyes. To put aside all ceremony and work incessantly, was the portion of Mrs. Patterson from the beginning. It was her practice to rise very early, don a calico dress and spotless apron, and then descend to skim the milk and attend to the dairy before breakfast. Remembering this fact, of a President's daughter, in the President's house, in the nineteenth cen- tury, for a brief moment, let us cease to bemoan the homely virtues of our grandmothers as forever dead and buried. At the first reception of President Johnson, held Janu- ary 1, 1866, the White House had not been renovated. Dingy and destitute of ornament Martha Patterson had by dint of covering its old carpets with pure linen, and hiding its wounds with fresh flowers, and letting her beau- tiful children loose in its rooms, given it an aspect of purity, beauty and cheer, to which it had long been a stranger. In the spring, Congress appropriated thirty thousand dollars to the renovation of the White House. After consulting various firms, Mrs. Patterson found that it would take the whole amount to furnish simply the par- lors. Feeling a personal responsibilhVy to the government for the expenditure of the money, unlike her predecessor, she determined not to surpass it. She made herself its WRESTLING WITH RAGS AND EITINS. 247 agent, and superintended the purchases for the dismantled house herself. Instead of seeking pleasure by the sea, or ease in her own mountain home, the hot summer waxed and waned only to leave the brave woman where it found her, wrestling with rags and ruins that were to be reset, repolished, " made over as good as new." For herself ? No, for her country ; and all this in addition to caring for husband, children and invalid mother. The result of this ceaseless industry and self-denial was, the President's house in perfect order and thoroughly renovated from top to bottom. When it was opened for the winter season, the change was apparent and marvel- ous, even to the dullest eyes, but very few knew that the fresh, bright face of the historic house was all due to the energy, industry, taste and tact of one woman, the Presi- dent's daughter. The warm comfort of the dining room, the exquisite tints of the Blue Room, the restful neutral hues meeting and blending in carpets and furniture in many rooms of the White House still remain harmonious witnesses of the pure taste of Martha Patterson. The dress of the ladies of the White House was equally re- markable. The public had grown to expect loud display in the costume of its occupants. But all who went to see the " plain people from Tennessee " overloaded with new ornaments, were disappointed. Instead, they saw beside the President a young, golden-haired woman, dressed in full mourning, — the sad badge still worn for the gallant husband slain by war, — and a slender woman with a single white flower in her dark hair. Instead of the lace bosom and arms, the pronounced hues and glittering jewels which had so long obtained in that place, they saw soft laces about the throat ending the high corsage ; a robe of 248 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. soft tints and a shawl of lace veiling the slender figure. It was like a picture in half tints, soothing to the sight ; yet the dark hair, broad brow and large eyes were full of silent force and reserved power. Little was expected, even in dress, of these " plain people from Tennessee," yet the chaste elegance of their attire was never surpassed by any ladies of the White House, and its memory re- mains an example which it is a pity that ladies of society are so slow to imitate. The impression made upon the public mind by the tone and spirit of their attire is significant as gathered from the utterance of contemporaneous newspapers. It be- trays how dress of an opposite character always affects unperverted minds. A journal of the day says : " Mrs. Patterson, who stood at the right of the President, wore a black Lyons velvet, a shawl of white thread lace falling over her dress. The simple, unaffected grace of this lady, and her entire freedom from pretension, either in garb or manner, attracted highly favorable comment. Mrs. Pat- terson is quite a young lady, and when some of the bare- necked would-be juvenile dowagers were presented to her, the contrast was entirely in favor of the President's daughter." " Mrs. Stover assisted the President, and won golden opinions from sensible people for her faultless taste, and high-necked costume in a large crowd of bare busts. Elderly ladies, whose truthful wrinkles, despite their raven locks, betrayed their years, stood about her in low bodices, exposing to view shoulders long ago bereft of beauty and symmetry. Mothers, whose daughters walked beside them, in similar attire, gathered about her in their flashing diamonds and expensive apparel, but no peer of hers eclipsed her rich simplicity. Alone she stood, so taste- BEFORE DINNER. 249 fully arrayed that the poor who came were not abashed by her presence, nor the rich offended by her rarer toilette. The per- fect harmony of her appearance pleased the eyes of all." The spirit of these comments redeems them from the faintest touch of Jenkinsism. In this connection, it is easy to understand the comment of a woman of fashion, on Mrs. Stover. She said: "She has very fine points, which would make any woman a belle, if she knew how to make the most of them." The state dinners given by President Johnson, were never surpassed in any administration. They were con- ducted on a generous, almost princely scale, and reflected lasting honor upon his daughter, to whom was committed the entire care and arrangement of every social enter- tainment. Simple and democratic in her own personal tastes, Mrs. Patterson had a high sense of what was due to the position, and to the people, from the family of the President of a great Nation. This sense of duty and jus- tice led her to spare no pains in her management of official entertainments, and the same high qualities made her keep the White House parlors and conservatories open and ready for the crowds of people who daily visited them, at any cost to her own taste or comfort. The following sketch of the last state dinner given by President Johnson, written by a personal friend, is so vivid and life-like, bringing the historic house so near, in the closing hours of an administration, I am constrained to give it to you: " Late in the afternoon, I was sitting in the cheerful room occupied by the invalid mother, when Mrs. Patterson came for me to go and see the table. The last state dinner was to be 250 TEN YEARS IX WASHINGTON. given this night, and the preparation for the occasion had been commensurate with those of former occasions. " I looked at the invalid, whose feet had never crossed the apartment to which we were going, and by whom the elegant entertainments, over which her daughters presided, were totally unenjoyed. Through the hall, and down the stairway, I fol- lowed my hostess, and stood beside her in the grand old room. " It was a beautiful, and altogether a rare scene, which I viewed in the quiet light of that closing winter day. The table was arranged for forty persons, each guest's name being upon the plate designated on the invitation list. In the centre stood three magnificent ormolu ornaments, filled with fadeless French flowers, while, beside each plate, was a bouquet of odorous green- house exotics. It was not the color or design of the Sevres China, of green and gold, the fragile glass, nor yet the massive plate, which attracted my admiration, but the harmonj^ of the whole, which satisfied and refreshed. From the heav}^ curtains, depending from the lofty windows, to the smallest ornament in the room, all was ornate and consistent. I could not but con- trast this vision of grandeur with the delicate, child-like form of the woman who watched me with a quiet smile, as I enjoyed this evidence of her taste, and appreciation of the beautiful. All day she had watched over the movements of those engaged in the arrangement of this room, and yet so unobtrusive had been her presence, and so systematically had she planned, that no confusion occurred in the complicated domestic machinery. For the pleasure it would give her children, hereafter, she had an artist photograph the interior of the apartment, and he was just leaving with his trophy, as we entered. All was ready and complete, and when we passed from the room, there was still time for rest before the hour named in the cards of invitation. "It was almost twilight, as we entered the East Room, and its sombreness and wondrous size struck me forcibly. The hour for strangers and visitors had passed, and we felt at liberty to wander, in our old-fashioned way, up and down its great length." THE MEMOET OF THAT AFTEKISTOO^". 251 " It was softly raining, we discovered, as we peered through the window, and a light fringe of mist hung over the trees in the grounds. The feeling of balmy comfort one feels in watch- ing it rain, from the window of a cozy room, was intensified by the associations of this historic place, and the sadness of time was lost in the outreachings of eternity. Its spectral appear- ance, as we turned from the window and looked down its shad- owy outlines, the quickly succeeding thoughts of the many who had crowded into its now deserted space, and the remembrance of some who would no more come, were fast crowding out the practical, and leaving in its place mental excitement, and spirit- ualized nervous influences. Mrs. Patterson was the first to note the flight of time, and, as we turned, to leave with the past the hour it claimed, her grave face lighted up with a genuinely happy expression, as she said: 'I am glad this is the last enter- tainment ; it suits me better to be quiet, and in my own home. Mother is not able to enjoy these things. Belle is too young, and I am indifferent to them — so it is well it is almost over.' " As she ceased speaking, the curtains over the main entrance parted, and the President peered in, ' to see,' he said, ' if Mar- tha had shown me the portraits of the Presidents.' Joining him in his promenade, we passed before them, as they were hanging in the main hall, he dwelling on the life and character of each, we listening to his descriptions, and personal recollec- tions. " At the dinner, afterwards, not the display of beautiful toil- ettes, nor the faces of lovely women, could draw from my mind the memory of that afternoon. More than ever, I was con- vinced that the best of our natures is entirely out of the reach of ordinary events, and the finest fibres are rarely, if ever, made to thrill in sympathy with outward influences. Grave states- men, and white-haired dignitaries chatted merrily with fair young ladies, or sedate matrons ; but turn where I would, the burden of my thoughts were the remarks of Mrs. Patterson, whose unselfish devotion to her father, deserves a more fitting memorial than this insignificant mention. With her opposite 252 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. him, and by her proximity, relieving him of much of the neces- sity of entertaining, he enjoyed and bestowed pleasure, and won for these social entertainments a national reputation. " During the impeachment trial of her father, unflinchingly Mrs. Patterson bent every energy to entertain, as usual, as be- came her position, wearing always a patient, suffering look. Through the long weeks of the trial, she listened to every re- quest, saw every caller, and served every petitioner, (and only those who have filled this position, know how arduous is this duty,) hiding from all eyes the anxious weight of care oppress- ing herself. That she was sick after the acquittal, astonished nobody who had seen her struggling to keep up before." But no matter what the accusations against Andrew Johnson, they died into silence without touching his fam- ily. If corruption crossed the outer portals of the White House, the whole land knew that they never penetrated into the pure recesses of the President's home. Whatever Andrew Johnson was or was not, no partisan foe was bitter or false enough to throw a shadow of reproach against the noble characters of his wife and daughters. There was no insinuation, no charge against them. There was no furniture or ornaments gone ; nor could any one say that they had received costly presents : — no expen- sive plate, no houses, horses, or carriages. No family ever left Washington more respected by the powerful, more bewept by the poor. From the Nation's House, which they had redeemed and honored, they went back empty-handed to their own dismantled home, followed by the esteem and affection of all w T ho knew them. The White House holds the record of their spotless fame. Generations will pass before, from its grand old rooms, will fade out the healing and saving touches of one President's daughter. DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE WHITE IIOUSE. 253 The life of the White House under the administration of President Grant is a purely domestic one. It is the remark of all who have known its past, that the White House never looked so home-like as at the present time. It took on this aspect under the reign of Martha Patter- son. But since then, pictures and ornaments have been added, one by one, till all its old-time stiffness seems to have merged into a look of grand comfort. Its roof may leak occasionally, and it certainly was built before the day of " modern conveniences," and may be altogether inadequate to be the President's house of a great Nation ; nevertheless, that Nation has no occasion to be ashamed of its order or adornment to-day. As in the Johnson administration, the house is bright- ened by ever-blooming flowers, and the presence of happy children. Mr. Dent, the venerable father of Mrs. Grant, also makes a marked feature of its social life, and is the ob- ject not only of the ceaseless devotion of his family, but of the respect of all their visitors. Mrs. Grant is now, as she always has been, devoted to her family. Her chief enjoyment is in it, in its cares and pleasures ; the latter, however, in her present life, largely preponderating. Born without the natural gifts or graces which could have made her a leader of other minds, even in the surface realm of society, she is, nevertheless, very fond of social entertainments, and enters into them with a good nature, and visible enjoyment, which at times goes far to take the place of higher and more positive charac- teristics. If to the affectionate domestic life of the White House could be added a finer culture and higher intellect- ual quality as the highest social centre of the land, giving exclusive tone to the official society, it might do more 254 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. than words could tell to redeem from frivolity and vicious dissipation the fashionable life of the capital. Mere good nature, good clothes, and unutterable commonplace are not forces sufficient to, in themselves, work out this reformation. On the whole it is . a sad sight to see a President's daughter, an only daughter, at an age when any thought- ful mother would shield her from the allurements of pleas- ure, and shut her away in safety to study and grow to harmonious and beautiful womanhood, suddenly launched into the wild tide of frivolous pleasure. Thus, while the daughters of Senators and Cabinet ministers, far from Washington, under faithful teachers, were learning truly how to live, and acquiring the discipline and accomplish- ments which would fit them to adorn their high estate, Ellen Grant, a gentle girl of seventeen, with mind and manners unfed and unformed, suddenly " came out " a full-fledged young woman of fashion, spoken of almost exclusively as the driver of a phaeton, and the leader of the all-night " German." As a result, Washington is crowded with a shoal of pretty girls, bright and lovely as God had made them ; by a false life, late hours, voluptuous dances, made already hard, old, blase, often before their feet have touched the first verge of womanhood. I think of one, but one, amid hundreds, the daughter of a high officer, graceful, taste- ful, the queen of dancers, and of all night revels, but empty of mind, hard of heart, brazen of manners ! Who looking on her face can fail to see that the dew of inno- cence is brushed from it forever. The prevailing lack of fashionable society in Washing- ton, to-day, is high motive, purity of feeling, a more MRS. GEANT AT HOME. 255 varied and brighter intelligence. These all exist, and in no meagre proportion, but as scattered elements, they wait the supreme social queen, the centripetal soul which shall draw them into one potent and prevailing power that shall lift the whole social life of the capital to a higher plane of assthetic attire, culture, and amusement. For- tunately, Mrs. Grant has been surrounded by numerous ladies in official life of superior mental endowment and culture, and true social grace. This is especially true of a portion of " the ladies of the Cabinet," of the Senators' wives from several States, and of no small number among the wives of Representatives. Many ladies, whose hus- bands are in Congress, bring the most exquisite tastes in art, music and literature, and the loveliest of womanhood to grace the life of "Washington. For what is termed its " society " in the " season," the pity is these rare women have no taste, it is to them a burden, or an offence, and they have never yet combined in organized force (which alone is power) to uplift and redeem it. Nevertheless, Washington is rapidly becoming an intel- lectual as well as social centre. The large and varied in- terests which concentrate in a national capital tend more and more to draw the highest intellectual as well as social forces into its life. These need but assimilation, fusion, unity and purpose to develop into the most superb mani- festation of civilization. In looking back upon the wives of the Presidents, we discover, with but two or three exceptions, they were women of remarkable powers and exalted character. CHAPTER XXVI. MRS. GRANT'S RECEPTION— GLIMPSES OF LIFE. Mrs. Grant at Home — A Reception — Feeling Good-Natured — Looking After One's Friends — Ready to Forgive — Mr. Grant's " Likeable Side " — The East Room on a Reception Day — "The Nation's Parlor" — Rags and Tatters Departed — The Work of Relic-hunters — Internal Arrangements — Eight Presidents, All In a Row — " As Large as Life " — Shadows of the Departed — A Present from the Sultan of Turkey — A List of Finery — A Scene Not Easily Forgotten — How They Wept for Their Martyr — Tales which a Room Might Tell — David, Jonathan'and Sir Philip Sidney Superseded — Underneath the Gold and Lace — " Into the Ear of a Fool- ish Girl" — The Census of Spittoons" — " A Horror in Our Land" — An Under-bred People — " We Talk too Loud " — Preliminaries to Perfection — " More Than Shakspeare's Women " — The Shadow of Human Nature — Two " Quizzing" Ladies — Nothing Sacred to Them — An Illogical Dame — Her "Precarious Organ" — A "Vice that Thrives Amid Christian Graces " — How some Pious People " Avenge their Defrauded Souls " — A Lady of Many Colors — " A New Woman" — A Vegetable Compari- son — What " a Good Little Girl" was Allowed To Do — The Lady of the Manor — Women Who are Not Ashamed of Womanhood — Observed and Admired of All — Another " Reigning Belle " — Sketch of a Perfect Woman — After the Lapse of Generations — The " German " — " You Had Better Be Shut Up" — The " Withering" of Many American Women — Full Dress and No Dress — What the Princess Ghika Thinks — A Young Girl's Dress — " That Dreadful Woman " — '■'My Wife's " Dress — The Reso- lution of a Young Man. IT is Tuesday — Mrs. Grant's day — and all the gay world is going to the White House, besides a portion of that world which is not gay. Mrs. Grant's morning receptions are very popular, and deservedly so. This is not because the ladjj is in any A RECEPTION AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 257 sense a conversationalist, or has a fine tact in receiving, but rather, I think, because she is thoroughly good- natured, and for the time, at least, makes other people feel the same. At any rate, there was never so little for- mality or so much genuine sociability in the day-recep- tions at the White House as at the present time. Gen- eral Babcock pronounces your name without startling voir out of your boots by shouting it, as on such occasions is usually done. He passes it to the President, the Presi- dent to Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Grant to ladies receiving with her. After exchanging salutations with each, you pass on to make room for others, and to find your own personal friends dispersed through the great rooms. They are in each of them ; loitering in the Blue Room, where the re- ceiving is going on ; chatting in the Green Room ; prom- enading in the Red Room. You may go through the long corridor into the state dining-room, into the conserv- atories, full of flowers and fragrance, and back, if you choose, to your starting-point, where the President and Mrs. Grant are still receiving. This is one of the pleasantest facts of these morning receptions — the informal coming down of the President to receive with Mrs. Grant. I have never been accused of over enthusiasm for him, but find myself ready to forgive in him the traits which I cannot like, when I see him, with his daughter, beside Mrs. Grant. Then, it is so perfectly evident that, whatever the President may or may not be, " Mr. Grant " has a very true and likeable side, with which nobody is so well acquainted as Mrs. Grant. Here is the East Room, that you have read about so long. It never looked so well before. There are flaws in the harmony of its decorations which we might pick 17 258 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. at ; but we won't, as we are not here to-day to find fault. Besides, it is too pleasant to see that the nation's parlor, erst so forlorn, has absolutely taken on a look of home comfort. In proportions it is a noble room, long and lofty. It has seven windows — three in front, facing Pennsylvania avenue and Lafayette square ; three look- ing out upon the presidential grounds and the Potomac ; and a stately bay window overlooking the Treasury. It has four white marble mantel-pieces, two on each side. It has eight mirrors, filling the spaces over the mantels and between the windows. Richly wrought lace curtains have taken the place of the tatters left there a few years ago, when the curtains of the White House windows were scattered over the country in tags, taken home by relic-hunters. Over these hang draperies of crimson brocatelle, surmounted by gilt cornices, bearing the arms of the United States. The walls and ceilings are frescoed, and from the latter depend three immense chandeliers of cut glass, which, when lighted, blaze like mimic suns. On the walls hang the oil portraits, in heavy gilt frames, of eight Presidents of the United States. Opposite the door, as you enter, is the portrait of Filmore. On the other side of the mantel, that of Lincoln. Next beyond the bay window, that of Washington ; all of life size. Beyond the further mantel is that of Franklin Pierce. Above the door opposite, one of John Adams. Above the next door, of Martin Van Buren ; the next, of Polk ; the last above the entrance door, of John Tyler. The carpet on the East Room, last year, was presented to the United States by the Sultan of Turkey. It seemed like one immense rug, covering the entire floor, and filled the room with an atmosphere of comfort, grand, soft, and THE MEMOET OF A CEETAIN DAY. 259 warm. The chairs and sofas are of carved wood, crimson cushioned. A handsome bronze clock ticks above one of the mantels, the others are adorned with handsome bronzes. The air is summer warm. On the whole, isn't the people's parlor a pleasant place? I never enter it, but comes back to me that tearful April morning when, in the centre of this floor, under the white catafalque, lay the body of Abraham Lincoln, dead. The crowd pressing in then, how different from this one! Rugged soldiers bent down and kissed his face and wept, women scattered flowers upon his breast, with their tears. Rich and poor, old and young, black and white, all crowded round his coffin, and wept for him, — one, only one, of the most au- gust, of the martyrs of liberty. Think what tales the room could tell, since the day when Abigail Adams dried her clothes from the weekly wash, in it, if it but had a tongue. Stand here, and see the stately procession move by. Believe in your own day, my dears. You need not go back to Sir Philip Sidney, to find a perfect gentleman, nor to David and Jonathan, to find faith and love between man and man, passing the love of woman, nor to the days of chivalry, to find true knights who would die for you. Here are men bearing, under all this glitter of gold and lace, bodies battered and maimed in their country's cause. There, is a man, pour- ing foolish nothings into the ear of a foolish girl, who would die for the truth. We are far from being a thorough-bred people. The census of spittoons is a horror in our land. We talk too loud, and too long; we gesticulate too much; we can not keep quiet. We need, at least, more capacity for repose, more unselfish consideration for the sensibilities of others, 260 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. more of the golden rule, before we can flower into the perfection of fine breeding. Yet, no less here, are men at once strong and gentle, brave and tender, gallant and yet true. Here are all and more than Shakespeare's women: Juliet, searching for her Romeo ; Miranda, looking through her starry eyes for a " thing divine " even in the Red Room ; tender Imogen; fair Titania; Portia, with hair of golden brown; and Desdemona, imprudent, fond, yet truth itself. Here is not only the beauty and the belle, but the sibyl, whose divining eyes beyond volition, strike below every sham and every falsehood. Yet here, too, falls the shadow of human nature. There stand two ladies, whose supreme enjoyment here is "quiz- zing." Among their thousand " dear friends " here, not one is too sacred to be ridiculed. One of these ladies, at least, would feel as if she had forfeited "her soul's salva- tion," if she were to go to the theatre, or to give counte- nance to a dance; but it does not occur to her, that she puts that jjrecarious organ in the slightest peril, when she stands in a public assembly, and ridicules her friends. These ladies are merely yielding to a vice which has grown with their years, strengthened with their strength, the vice that thrives amid Christian graces, the vice para- mount of the Christian church. The most unkind people whom I have ever known, have been distinguished for an ostentatious sort of piety. The most uncharitable con- clusions, the most pitiless judgments, the most merciless ridicule, that I have ever listened to, of poor human beings, I have heard from people high in the church, not from people of the so-called "world." This, not because the normal human nature in either differs, but because the people of the world have a thousand outlets and activities THE LADY OF THE MANOE. 261 which draw them away from microscopic inspection of the flaws in their neighbors; while ascetic pietists, denied legitimate amusements, shut out from innocent recreation, avenge their defrauded souls by feeding them on small vices. I offer no defence for a life of folly; there is nothing I should dread more, save a life of sin. Yet, if I were to make a choice, I would choose foolishness rather than meanness. This lady, flashing by in many hues, represents what one sees continually in Washington — a new woman. Not new to the city merely, but new to position and honor. These are but slight external accidents to a nature that has ripened from within, drawing culture, refinement, and dignity out of the daily opportunities of retired life. But, when the public position is all that gives the honor, how easy to tell it ! There is all the difference in the quality of the put-on, puckering manner, and the simple dignity of real ladyhood, that there is between the quality of a persimmon and a pomegranate. All she has is new. She, herself, is new. Her bearing and her honors do not blend. There is no soft and fine shading of thought, of manner, of accent, of attire. The sun of prosperity may strike down to a rarer vein, and draw it outward, to tone down this boastful commonplace; but we must bear the glare, the smell of varnish, and the crackle of veneering, during the process. When I was a very good little girl, I was allowed to read Mrs. Sherwood's Lady of the Manor, on Sunday. I read, and thought that heaven on earth must be shut up in a manor house. When I grew to be a somewhat big- ger girl, sailing down the Hudson, a manor house, rich in historic recollections, was pointed out to me. And here, 262 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. in my summer-time, comes the lady of this manor house, drops her gentle courtesy, and gives me her hand, making more than real the enchanted story of childhood. The lady of the manor in crude Washington revives the stately graces of old days. How quaint and rare they are ! How I look and long for it ; how glad I am when I find it, — that indefinable, yet ever-felt presence of fine womanliness, a thing as precious as the highest manliness, — each the rarest effer- vescence of human nature. I confess to a clinging adora- tion for it, whether felt in the lady of the manor or in the sad-eyed woman who cleans my gloves. The womanli- ness that is not ashamed nor dissatisfied with womanhood, nor yet vain of it; the womanliness that gives us the gracious, blending dignity and sweetness of wisdom and humility, of self-respect and reticence, of spirituality and tenderness — that ineffable charm of femininity, which is the counterpart and crown of manhood, in very distinc- tion equal with it, each together maintaining in equilib- rium the brain and soul of the human race. Even while I write word comes : The lady of the manor is dead. The quaint hood, the stately grace, the winning smile we shall see no more. All have gone into the darkness of death. And who was the lady of the manor, who for three winters in Washington has been the observed and admired of all who met her in the circles of society ? She was Cora Livingston Barton, the reigning belle of Jackson's administration. She was the daughter of Edward Livingston, who served his country as Member of Congress and Senator from Louisiana, as Secretary of State during Jackson's administration, and as United States Minister to France. Her father was as A PICTUKE OF A PEKFECT WOMAN. 263 distinguished for goodness as he was for noble intellect and exalted public service, and her mother was one of the most remarkable women who ever graced the Na- tional Capital. She was a social queen of the rarest endowments. She was the chosen friend and dear coun- sellor of two persons as opposite in nature and tempera- ment as General Jackson and Mrs. John Quincy Adams. She was a very queen of entertainers, as the wife of the Secretary of State, entertaining foreigners and Americans and political foes, with an ease, elegance and fascination of manner, which annihilated alike all prejudice and ani- mosity. She was a classical scholar, familiar with the best ancient and modern thoughts. The chosen counsellor of her husband in the gravest affairs of State, — a self-abne- gating mother, — a devout Methodist, she having chosen that communion as her own on account of the simplicity and fervor of its mode of worship. Of this rare woman, our " lady of the manor " was the only child. " Upon her she lavished extraordinary maternal devotion, hardly ever suffering her to be out of her sight. Her daughter had hardly reached girlhood when her beautiful mother assumed the simplest matronly attire. Ever afterwards she seemed rather displeased than flattered when allusions were made to her own still remarkable appearance." Cora Livingston was worthy to be the child of such a mother. She was the most famous telle of the Jackson administration. She married Thomas Barton, who went as Secretary of Legation with her father, the Minister to France, and who remained as Charge a" Affaires when Edward Livingston returned. In the course of time, mother and daughter, both 264 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. widows, spent their winters in New York and their sum- mers at Montgomery Place, that grand old manor on the Hudson, of which we catch glimpses through its imme- morial trees, as we sail by on the river. Here, beautiful and saintly, that mother died, October, 1860, at the age of seventy-eight. Warned by physicians to seek a softer climate, after the lapse of generations, in the winter of 1871 the daughter returned to Washington, the scene of her childish home and early triumphs. She did not belong to things gone by. With her two stately and beautiful nieces she be- came at once the centre of a rare group of friends, of the attention and reverence o| the first men in the State, and an object of admiring comment wherever she appeared. She appeared at many morning receptions. I see her now as I saw her the first time stepping from her carriage into the great portico of the White House, across its cor- ridor to the Blue Room, with the light, springing step of a girl ; and yet, the soft clinging black dress, the quaint hood of black silk, with its inside snowy ruche, all told that she made not the slightest pretence to youth. And now, in these summer days, comes the word : " While packing some books in a trunk to go to Montgomery Place, she bent down, burst a blood vessel in the head, and without warning died." • They have all been morning receptions to which I have asked you, — the " morning " ending at 5 P. M. I can- not invite you to go to the " German," which begins at 11 P. M. and ends at daybreak. I have too deep a care for your physical and spiritual health to ask you to do any such thing. When you read of the gay doings and bright assemblies here, perhaps you think it hard some- AMEEICAN WOMEN. 265 times that you must stay away in a quiet place to work or study. You feel almost defrauded because you are shut out from the splendor and mirth and flattery of fashion. You long for the pomp and glory of the world, and sigh that so little of either falls on your life-path. Thus I shall seem cruel to you when I say that you had better be shut up for the five years, even in a convent, silently growing toward a noble life in the world after- ward, than to be caught and carried on by its follies now, before you have learned how to live. Are you young ? Then you should be more beautiful at twenty-five, at thirty, at thirty-five, than you are now. Not with the budding bloom of first youth, that is as evanescent as it is exquisite. What a pity that it is beauty's only dower to so many American women. They waste it, lose it, then wilt and wither. I want you so to feel the sources of life to-day that you may grow, not fade; that you may bloom, not fade, into the perfect flower of womanhood. Terpsichore is a sad sight to me ; not because Terpsi- chore dances, for dancing in itself may be as innocent as a bird's flying ; not because she loves beautiful attire, for exquisite dress is a feminine fine art, as meet for a woman as the flower's tint, or the bird's plumage. I sigh at the sight of my pretty Terpsichore, because the first bloom of her exquisite youth is being exhaled and lost forever in a feverish, false atmosphere of being. Something of delicate sensibility, something of unconscious innocence, something of freshness of feeling, of purity of soul is wasted with the fresh young bloom of her cheeks in the midnight revel, lengthened into morning ; wasted in the heated dance, in the indigestible feast, in the wild, un- 266 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. healthy excitement through which she whirls night after night. Terpsichore, in her tattered tarletan dress, creep- ing to bed in the gray morning, after having danced all night, is a sad sight to see to any one who can see her as she is. Terpsichore's mother would be a sadder sight still, if she were not a vexatious one. She brought back from Europe the notion, which so many of our country- women think it fine to bring, that " full dress " is neces- sarily next to no dress. She tells you, in a supreme tone, that admits no denial, that you would not be admitted into the drawing-room of a court in Europe unless in full dress, viz., semi-nakedness. She would be nothing, if not European in style. Thus, night after night, this mother of grown-up daughters and sons appears in crowded assem- blies in attire that would befit in outline a child of eight years of age. If we venture to meet her ipse dixit on European style, with the assurance of the Princess Hele- na, Ghika, Dora Distier, one of the most learned and beautiful women of this world, that the conventional society dress of Europe is more immodest than any she saw while traveling over the mountains and valleys of the East, she will tell you that Princess Ghika " is not an authority on dress in Paris," which is doubtless true. Thus, in republican Washington, in glaring drawing- rooms, we are treated to a study of female anatomy, which is appalling. Don't jump to the conclusion that I want every lady to go to a party in a stuff dress, drawn up to her ears ; nor that I am so prudish as to think no dress can be modestly, as well as immodestly low. No matter how it be cut, the way in which a dress is worn is more impressive than the dress itself. I have seen a young girl's shoulders rise from her muslin frock as MEN" AND MODESTY. 267 unconsciously and as innocently as the lilies in the garden ; and I have come upon a wife and mother, in a public as- sembly, so dressed for promiscuous gaze that I have in- voluntarily shut my eyes with shame. I never saw Lydia Thompson ; but from what I have heard of her, have come to the conclusion that her attire is just as modest as that of many ladies whom I meet at fashionable parties. They cast up their eyes in horror at the name of poor Lydia Thompson. They go to see Lydia Thompson ! No, indeed ! How could their eyes endure the sight of that dreadful woman ? No less they them- selves offer gratis, to a promiscuous company, every even- ing, a sight, morally, quite as dreadful. The men, who pay their money to Lydia Thompson and her troupe, know that their dress and their burlesque, however ques- tionable, make at once their business and their livelihood. They cannot make the same excuse for their wives, their sisters, and their sweethearts, if they see them scaicely less modestly attired in some fashionable ball-room. Re- member this ; if you ever find yourself in such a place, the best men in that room, at heart, are not delighted with such displays. Being men, they will look at what- ever is presented to their gaze ; more, many will compli- ment and flatter the very woman, whose vanity at heart they pity or despise ; but it will always be with the mental reservation : " My wife should never dress like that ! " "I don't want to see my sister dancing round dances for hours in the arms of a man whom even I can- not think of without horror ; and if dances with him again, I'll not go to another ' German ; ' " said a young man to his mother, this very winter. This is perpetually the fact ; and it is the danger and 268 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. the shame of the round dances. Young girls guarded, from babyhood, from all contact with vice, from all know- ledge of men as they exist, in their own world of clubs and dissipation, suddenly " come out " to whirl, night after night, and week after week, in the arms of men whose lightest touch is profanation. It would be long before it would dawn upon the girl to dream of the evil in that man's heart ; far longer to learn the evil of his life ; yet no less, to her, innocent and young, in the very associa- tion and contact there is unconscious pollution. There is a sacredness in the. very thought of the body which God created to be the human home of an immortal soul. Its very beauty should be the soul of its holiness. Every where in Scripture its sacredness is recognized and en- forced. Therein are we told that our bodies are the tem- ples of God. We are commanded to make them meet temples for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit ; and our very dress, in its harmony and purity, should consecrate, not desecrate, the beautiful home of the soul. CHAPTER XXVII. INAUGURATION DAY AT WASHINGTON. My Own Private Opinion — Sublime Humanity in the Lump — The Climate Disagrees— The Little " Sons of War " Feeling Bad—" Think of the Babies " — Brutal Mothers — The "Boys in Blue " — " Broke their Backs and Skinned their Noses " — Our Heroes — Later Festivities — " Devoted to Art" — Scene in " the Avenue " — A Lively Time — The Mighty Drum-Major — West Point Warriors Criticised — Faultlessly Ridiculous — Pitilessly Dressed — " Taken for a Nigger " — Magnificent Display — The Oldest Regiment in the States — The President — The Senators — Invitation of the Coldstream Guards — The Strangers — Generals Sherman and Sher- idan — Admiral Porter — Sketches of Well-known Men — The Diplomatic Corps — Blacque Bey — Full Turkish Costume — Sir Edward Thornton — The Japanese Minister— Senator Sumner Appears — The Supreme Court — Senator Wilson — Cragin, Logan, and Bayard — Vice-President Colfax — Enter, the President — Congress Alive Again — The Valedictory — Taking the Oaths—" The Little Gentleman in the Big Chair "—His Little Speech — His Wife and Family Behind — The New President — Memories of Another Scene — Grand Jubilation — The Procession — The Curtain Falls. I DON'T like Inauguration day, but I hope you do,ior will, when I have told you what a gala day it is to many — to all who stay at home, and catch the splendor which it sheds, through lines of printer's ink. Surely, there is something inspiriting and uplifting in the sight of massed humanity, in throbbing drums and soaring music, in waving pennons and flashing lances, all laden with heroic memories, all bristling with intelligence and the conscious power of human freedom ; but, in our climate, and at the inauguration season of the year, en- 270 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. thusiasm and patriotism demand a fearful price in nerve, muscle, and human endurance. If you doubt it, think of the West Point Cadets — those young sons of war, in- ured to martial training — who sank to the pavements in the ranks, at the last inauguration of President Grant, over- come, and insensible with the bitter cold which chilled and benumbed even the warm currents of their strong young hearts. Think of the babies who shuddered and cried in their mothers' arms, who would see the sight, if baby died ! No less the second inaugural procession of President Grant transcended, in civic and military splendor, any sight seen in Washington since the great review when the boys in blue, fresh from the victory of bloody battle- fields, broke their backs and skinned their noses, in the June sun of 1865, for the sake of shouting thousands who came hither to behold them. Oh what a sight was that! when the bronzed and haggard, and aged-in-youth faces of the boys before us, made our hearts weep afresh at the thought of the upturned faces of the boys left behind — some in the cruel wilderness, some in half dug graves on solitary hill-sides, and lonely plains — all left behind forever, for freedom's sake. Who that knew old Washington can forget it ? This is another Wash- ington. But here they come ! Safe from cold and wind, thanks to — I look up. From this window, on Fifteenth street, you can see Pennsylvania avenue past the Treas- ury building, (whose marble steps are boarded in from the advancing people,) to the Executive Mansion, glit- tering white through the leafless trees just beyond. Oppo- site is Lafayette square, the prettiest little park of its size in the United States. Above, you see the towering mansard of Corcoran's building, " Devoted to Art," and THE SIGHTS OF INAUGUKATION DAY. 271 just this side, the lofty brown front of the Freedman's Savings Bank. The avenue opens before you — a broad, straight vista, with garlands of flags, of every nation and hue, flung across from roof to roof. Above glitters an absolutely cloudless sky, dazzlingly blue, and pitilessly cold. The very tree-boughs swing like crystals glittering and freezing in the sun. The air seems full of rushing fiends, or rushing locomotives running into each other with hideous shrieks, whichever you please (on the whole, I prefer locomotives, being fresher). Your imagination need not be Dantean to make you feel that there is a dreadful battle going on in the air, above you and about you. The imps come down and seize an old man's hat, and fly off with a woman's veil, and blow a little boy into a cellar. The bigger air-warriors, intent on bigger spoil, sweep down banners, swoop off with awnings, concentrate their forces into swirling cyclones in the middle of the streets, and bang away at plate-glass windows till they prance in their sockets. Before such unfriendly and tricksy foes, through the biting air, comes the great procession. First, a battalion of mounted police ; then West Point, with its band and drum-major. Not a sprite of the air has caught the baton of its drum-major. Not a sting of zero, has stiffened that fantastic arm as he lifts and swings the symbol of his foolishness. He is as inimitable in the bleak and dusty street as when I saw him last, on the velvet sward of West Point, that delicious evening in October. Some-» thing utterly ridiculous to look at, is refreshing, and any- thing more faultlessly ridiculous than the drum-major of West Point I never saw. I believe it is fashionable to find fault with West Point ; 272 TEN YEAHS IN WASHINGTON. but I wouldn't give much for anybody who could see these boys and not admire them. They have their faults (their caste and their army exclusiveness sometimes reaches an absurd pitch) but look at them ! What faces, what muscle, what manhood ! Their movement is the perfect poetry of motion ; a hundred men stepping as one. What marching, and at what odds ! They are so pitilessly dressed ! Thousands of men come behind, warmly muf- fled ; but the West Point Cadets have on their new uni- forms, single jackets. More than one will receive through it the seeds of death this morning. What wonder, that two while standing in line sank insensible with the cold, not an hour ago. But, dear me ! to think that more than one of them should be taken for a " nigger ! " The colored Cadet is whiter than a dozen of his class-mates, and has straight hair. In the distance rises, wave on wave, a glittering sea of helmets ; bayonets flash, plumes wave, bands play ; all tell one story — the love of military pomp and parade, the pride and patriotism which brings these soldiers back to celebrate the second inauguration of their chief ; and at what cost of suffering to many of them. What cold and hunger, and delay on the way, and now ! what nerve and will it takes to march in a wind like this ! After West Point comes Annapolis. Petty " Middies," young and slender, in their suits of dark blue ! As a body, they are younger than the West Pointers, and slighter. Nor can any comparison be drawn between their marching, for the Middies drag their howitzers. They look true sons of their class ; and for intelligence, chivalric manners, and gentle manhood, the true officer of the American navy is unsurpassed. THE OBSERVED OF ALL OBSERVERS. A {6 The Midshipmen are followed by the famous United States Marine Corps, then the Old Guard of New York with Dodworth's band, the Washington Light Infantry, the Corcoran Zouaves, the Washington Grenadiers, the St. Louis National Guard. The Philadelphia City Troop, in navy-blue jackets, tight knee-breeches, white braid trim- ming, high boots, bearskin helmets with silver mountings — the oldest regiment in the United States, two years older than the government, organized in 1774, and furnished men to every war of this country since. It was in the battles of Trenton, and Princeton in the Revolutionary War, and has in its armory a letter from General Wash- ington thanking the regiment for its services. Now, the President's mounted guard, in dark blue, yel- low-trimmed uniform, regulation-hat and black feathers. Now, the President in open barouche, drawn by four horses, with the Senate Committee, Senators Cragin, Logan and Bayard. The President looks decidedly cooler than usual, and less indifferent ; at least he has just lifted his hat, to the shouting crowd in the street, which requires an impulse of self-denial this morning. Now come the Boston National Lancers. They have left their milk-white steeds there, and to their chagrin, no doubt, are mounted on sorry Virginian roans instead, — old road and car horses, who act dazed and daft under their light unwonted burdens. The Lancers are the old- est cavalry regiment of Massachusetts, organized in 1836, under Governor Edward Everett. This dashing looking squadron, which has the reputation of being one of the most perfect military organizations of the United States, is dressed in scarlet cloth coats, faced with a light blue and trimmed with gold lace, sky-blue pants with yellow 18 274 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. stripes on sides, Polish dragoon cap, gold trimmings, flowing white feathers and aiguillette, cavalry boots with patent leather tops, white belts and shoulder straps ; red epaulettes, with blue trimmings for the privates, and gold for the officers, and armed with cavalry sabre and lance, on which is appended a small red flag. The Albany Burgess Corps, another famous regiment, led by Capt. Henry B. Beecher, son of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, made a splendid appearance. They are uniformed in scarlet coats, trimmed with white, light blue pants, buff stripe, and bearskin shakoes, with gold clasp — similar to the celebrated English Coldstream Guards. But we shall not reach the capitol till next week, unless we leave the rest of this splendid procession, — the " or- phans of soldiers and sailors," the burnished and flower- garlanded fire-engines, the brave firemen, black and white, and the civic societies. The strangers who rushed on to inauguration, swarmed the galleries till they overflowed as they did on Credit Mobilier days. Generals Sherman, and Sheridan and Admiral Porter ; the first tall and red ; the second, little, round, red and bullet-headed ; the third, tall, straight and black, are all being intently gazed at. The Diplomatic Corps enter the chamber by the main entrance, led by Blacque Bey, the dean of the Corps, a tall, dark, gray-haired, handsome man, wearing scarlet fez and full Turkish court regalia ; next, the English Min- ister, Sir Edward Thornton, a white-haired, ruddy-faced, black-eyed, shrewd-looking gentleman ; next, the Peru- vian Minister, Colonel Freerye, followed by the Italian and French Ministers, with all the representatives of for- eign governments, in order of seniority — over fifty min- isters, secretaries and attaches in full uniform, excepting TAKING THE OATHS. 275 Mr. Mori, Minister from Japan, in citizen's dress. Just now Mr. Sumner appears, for the first time in months. He looks pale, and shows the traces of the acute suffering through which he has passed. His appearance creates a buzz on floor and in gallery, and many senators go over to him and exchange friendly greetings. Now the Su- preme Court appear, in their robes of office, kicking them high up behind, as usual, and take their seats in front of the Vice-President's desk. At fifteen minutes to twelve o'clock, Vice-President elect Wilson, escorted by Senators Cragin, Logan, and Bayard, comes down the centre aisle and takes his seat at the right of Vice-President Colfax. At three minutes before twelve, the President appears, leaning on the arm of Senator Cragin, followed by Logan and Bayard, and takes the seat assigned him, in front of the Secretary's table. A deep hush falls on the throng, as if something awful were about to happen. It 's a sort of Judgment-Day atmosphere, yet nothing more terrific fol- lows than the pleasant voice of Vice-President Colfax, be- ginning the words of his valedictory. (My ! I forgot to say that the dying Congress has come to life again, and is comfortably, and perforce quietly seated between the Senate and Diplomatic Corps.) Now comes the new Vice- President's little speech. Then the oaths of office, the swearing in of new senators, the proclamation of the President convening an extra session of the Senate, to begin this minute, when all start for the back door— no, it's the front door of the Capitol, the Supreme Court leading, kicking up their gowns worse than usual. On the eastern portico, what do we see ? Below, a vast mass of human beings, line on line of soldiers — cav- alry, artillery and infantry ; a line of battle flags at the 276 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. base of the steps — shot-riddled, battle-torn, all shuddering or numb in the freezing air. Before us, a little gentle- man sits down in a big chair — Washington's inaugural chair, we are told. (Oh ! no, we're not at all sentimental.) A big gentleman, the Chief Justice, who has most un- accountably fringed out in a long grey beard and a muf- fling moustache, holds forth with solemnity a big Bible. The little gentleman kisses it — kisses these words from the eleventh chapter of Isaiah : " ' And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. " ' And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord ; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears.' Then he rises, and, with manuscript in his hands, be- gins to " battle with the breeze," and to read his inaugu- ral, which nobody hears. Behind him sits his wife and daughter, the ladies of the Cabinet, the Diplomatic Corps. What a compound of the ornamental and comfortable? Yet nobody is comfortable — not here. We can catch no word through the outbearing wind, yet know that for the second time Ulysses S. Grant has sworn to the oath of office, according to the constitution, and for four more years is made President of the United States. It seems but yesterday we saw a loftier head, a sadder face, bowed above that book, within one little month of its eternity ; when, amid the booming of cannon and the huzzas of the people, Abraham Lincoln for the second time was pro- nounced the people's President, and by the same lips which now utter the same words for another, a happier, a more fortunate man. THE INAUGURATION PROCESSION. 277 Now the carnival of salute ; the Middies fire their how- itzers, thirty-seven guns; the Second Artillery fire twenty- one salvos; the Firemen ring the bells of their engines; ten thousand men warm their hands with hat swinging, and make their throats sore with shouting. Amid all, the multitude and the procession surge back towards the Executive Mansion. Between the latter and Lafayette square, the review, the return inarch, the military pa- geant culminates. The President, with lady friends, en- ters the pavilion built for the purpose, and the troops march by, encircling two solid squares; the West Point Cadets appear below Corcoran's building, marching down- ward, as the magnificent New York Regiment — a thousand men — just arrived after an all night's freezing delay, have reached Fifteenth street, marching up. The entire body of soldiery march and mass, till as far as the eyes can reach through the glittering sunshine, one only sees gleam- ing helmets, flashing bayonets, glancing sabers, the Cadets on double quick, the Middies firing their howitzers, offi- cers displaying fine horses and uniforms, drum-majors tossing their batons, bands playing, and cannon thunder- ing. Amid all these the four horses dashing before the Pres- idential barouche, bear the President to the Executive door, which now mercifully shuts them from our sight. CHAPTER XXVIH. THE NEW PRESIDENT— THE INAUGURATION BALL. How Sixty Thousand Dollars were Spent — Something wrong : " 'Twas ever Thus " — Recollection of another Festival — How " the dust " was Raised — A Fine Opportunity for a Few Naughty Words — Lost Jewels — The Col- ored Folks in a Fix— Overpowered by Numbers — Six Thousand People Clamoring for their Clothes ! — " Promiscuous " Property — A Magnifi- cent " Grab " — Weeping on Window-ledges — Left Desolate — Walking under Difficulties — The Exploits of Two Old Gentlemen — Horace Greeley Loses his Old White Hat — He says Naughty Words of Washington — Seeking the Lost — Still Cherished by Memory — Some People Remind General Chipman — " Regardless of Expense " — A Ball- Room Built of Wooden Laths and Muslin — A Little Too Cold — Gay Decorations — How " Delicate " Women can Endure the Cold — Modesty in Scanty Garments — The President Frozen — The " Cherubs,, Perched up Aloft," Refuse to Sing — On the Presidential Platform — Ladies of Distinction — Half-frozen Beauties — " They did not Make a Pretty Picture " — Why and Wherefore ? — A Protest againt " Shams " — A Stolid Tanner who Fought his Way. UNTOLD time, and trouble, and sixty thousand dol- lars were expended on the last inauguration ball building, and yet there was something the matter with the inaugural ball. There is always something the mat- ter with every inauguration ball. When I wish to think of a spot especially suggestive of torments, I think of an inauguration ball. There was the one before the last, held in the Treasury Building. The air throughout the entire building was perforated with a fine dust ground till you felt that you were taking in with every breath a myriad homoeopathic doses of des- THE CLOTHES OF SIX THOUSAND PEOPLE. 279 iccated grindstone. The agonies of that ball can never be written. There are mortals dead in their grave be- cause of it. There are mortals who still curse, and swear, and sigh at the thought of it. There are diamonds, and pearls, and precious garments that are not to their owners because of it. The scenes in those cloak and hat rooms can never be forgotten by any who witnessed them. The colored messengers, called from their posts in the Treasury to do duty in these rooms, received hats and wraps with perfect facility, and tucked them in loop-holes as it hap- pened. But to give them back, each to its owner, that was impossible. Not half of them could read numbers, and those who could soon grew bewildered, overpowered, ill-tempered and impertinent under the hosts that ad- vanced upon them for cloaks and hats. Picture it ! Six or more thousand people clamoring for their clothes ! In the end they were all tumbled out " promiscuous " on the floor. Then came the siege ! Few seized their own, but many snatched other people's gar- ments — anything, something, to protect them from the pitiless morning, whose wind came down like the bite of death. Delicate women, too sensitive to take the prop- erty of others, crouched in corners, and wept on window ledges ; and there the daylight found them. Carriages, also, had fled out of the scourging blast, and the men and women who emerged from the marble halls, with very little to wear, found that they must " foot it " to their habitations. One gentleman walked to Capitol Hill, nearly two miles, in dancing pumps and bare-headed ; another performed the same exploit, wrapped in a lady's sontag. Poor Horace Greeley, after expending his wrath on the stairs and cursing Washington anew as a place that should 280 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. be immediately blotted out of the universe, strode to his hotel hatless. The next day and the next week were consumed by people searching for their lost clothes, and General Chipman says that he still receives letters de- manding articles lost at that inauguration ball. Well, our latest brought discomfort, and discomfiture of another sort. Neither money, time nor labor were stinted in this leviathan, that still lifts up its broken and propped up back in Judiciary square. The building was 350 feet long. The ball-room 300 by 100 feet. All this was temporary, built of light boards, lined with lighter muslin. You might as well have attempted to have warmed Pennsylvania avenue as such a place on such a night. Twenty-four hours before the ball the wind-devils went at it. If a host from the pit had received full power to move and dismember it, it could scarcely look more forlorn than it did one Monday morning. They had sat on its spine in one place till it curved in, punched it up in another till it was hunchbacked. They had inflated its sides till they swelled out like an inflated balloon, while the air was black with the tar-rags, seaming its roof, which flying imps were carrying up to high heaven. No less the official report said of the inside: "The mighty American Eagle spreads his wings above the Pres- ident's platform. He has suspended, from his pinions, streamers one hundred feet in length, caught up on either side by coats of arms. The circumference of this vast design is one hundred and eighty feet. The President's reception platform is sixty feet long, and thirty feet wide. Twelve pilasters support alternate gold-figured, red and blue stands, on which are pots of blooming flowers. The platform and steps are richly carpeted. In the rear of the DANCING IN THE COLD. 281 balcony, are immense festoons of flags, banners, shields, radiating from a huge illuminated star of gas-lights." What were all those white and rosy walls of cambric, to the all-pervading polar wave that froze sailors' fingers, and struck West Point Cadets to the pavements, in con- gestive chills, at noonday? Why, they were nothing but an immense sieve, to strain that same polar wave through on to the persons of delicate (?) women, who, without money, and without price, for the sake of dubious admi- ration and commend, in promiscuous assemblies, outvie Lydia Thompson in paucity of attire. But the ball. My intention was to say, that the Presi- dent was so near frozen in the day-time, he was not suf- ficiently thawed out to appear under that spreading eagle, until half-past eleven o'clock, when the north wind swooped in from behind, and he congealed again immedi- ately. The President's platform was at the north end, and all the muslin splendors of the presidential dressing and waiting-room could not, and did not, warm that polar wave. The thousands of canary-birds perched aloft, who were expected to burst into simultaneous song at the sight of him, and to trill innumerable preludes in honor of Miss Nelly, instead, poor wretches, had, one and all, gone to bed, with their toes tucked in their feathers, and their bills buried in their breasts, in dumb effort to keep them from freezing. Not a canary-bird sang. No, they were as paralyzed with cold as the bipeds below. On the presidential platform, the President and Mrs. Grant sat, the central figures. A little in the rear, sat Mrs. Fish — stately, lovely, and serene as ever; and just behind her, the Secretary of State. Next, were Mrs. Boutwell and Miss Boutwell, and the Secretary of the 282 • TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. Treasury; then came, dream-like, Mrs. Creswell, hand- some Mrs. Williams, and motherly Mrs. Delano. Ellen Grant stood beside her mother, and Edith Fish hovered beside her's — both winsome and unaffected girls, though .the girlish grace of the latter shows, already, the fine in- tellectual quality of her mother. The Governor of the District, with his wife and daughter, and numerous other officials, filled the platform. Back of the Cabinet stood the Foreign Ministers, bereft of their court attire, but glittering with decorations. Tall Lady Thornton bent like a reed in the blast ; and Madame Flores, the beautiful young wife of the Minister from Equador, glowed in her warm rich beauty, even at zero. Alas! that all those wondrous tints of blue and gold, of royal purple and emerald, of lavender and rose, all the gleam of those diamonds, all the show of necks and arms, which was to have made the glory of this "court circle," alas ! that they were all held in eclipse, by layers on lay- ers of wrappings, till, at a little distance, the whole plat- form seemed to be filled with a crowd of animated mum- mies, set upright, whose motions were as spasmodic and jerky as those of Mrs. Jarley's wax works. It was very sensible — the only refuge from certain death — that all those necks and arms, diamonds, pearls, velvets and satins, should hide away under ermine capes, cloaks and shawls; but, lumped in aggregate, they did not make a pretty pic- ture (the wraps, I mean). Indeed, the polar wave sub- merged the presidential platform, and made anything but a picturesque success. And how unlucky, when for the first time in the history of inauguration balls, there was a "cubby" for every hat and wrap, that every man and woman should be obliged to keep them on. A "presidential platform" WHY? 283 But why a "presidential platform/' and why a private presidential "supper room" at an inauguration ball? Both are vulgarly pretentious. Both are preposterous, in the representatives of a republican people, in a national assembly. I am not a universal leveller. I respect the inevitable distinctions begotten of personal taste and con- dition. I make this remark to add a little force to my protest against meretricious, and fictitious pretence and shams. The President, as an individual, is not under the slightest obligation to invite anybody that he does not want, to his private dinner table. But when the Presi- dent, as the President, comes into the presence of a pro- miscuous assembly of the people, through whose gift he holds all the honor he possesses, — a citizen uplifted by citizens to the chief magistracy of their government, how false to republican fact is the feeling that perches him up, and hedges him about, with a mock heroic exclusive- ness, as if he were a king, or demi-god, instead of a stolid tanner, who fought his way to place and power, conferred on him by a nation of stavers and fighters like himself. CHAPTER XXIX. THE UNITED STATES TREASURY— ITS HISTORY. The Responsibilities and Duties of the Secretary of the Treasury — " The Most Remarkable Man of His Time " — Three Extraordinary Men — Ham- ilton Makes an Honest Proposal — How to Pay the National Debt — The New Secretary at Work — Laying the Foundation of Financial Opera- tions — The Mint at Philadelphia — A Little Personal Abuse — The Secre- tary Borrows Twenty Dollars — Modern Greediness — The Genius Be- comes a Lawyer — Burning of Becords — Hunting for Blunders and Frauds — The Treasury Building — Treasury Notes go off Nicely — Mr. Crawford Under a Cloud — He Comes out Gloriously — A Little Variety — A Vision of Much Money — Fidgety Times — Lighting the Mariner on His Way — Old Debts Raked Up — Signs of the Times — Under Lincoln — S. P. Chase as Secretary — The National Currency Act — Enormous Increase of the National Debt — Facts and Figures — The Credit of the Government Sus- tained — President Grant's Rule — George S. Boutwell made Secretary — Great Expectations — Mr. BoutwelPs Labors, Policy and Success — The Great and Growing Prosperity of the Nation. AFTER the Declaration of Independence, the first thing that the Continental Congress did was to organize a Treasury Department for the new government of the colonies. Michael Hilligas and George Clymer were appointed Joint-Treasurers of the United Colonies. They were to reside in Philadelphia, and to receive each a salary of five hundred dollars the first year, and to give bonds in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars. The second year their salary was raised to eight hundred dollars each. In a short time George Clymer was sent to Congress as a delegate from Pennsylvania, and Michael Hilligas re- THE FIBST TEEASUEEES OF THE UNITED STATES. 285 mained Treasurer for the Colonies to the close of the Eevolution. In six months after the resignation of Mr. Clymer, a committee of five persons was appointed to assist him to superintend the small Treasury. Three months after, an office was created in which to keep the Treasury accounts. That office was an itinerant, like Congress, following it to whatever place it assembled. Acts were passed for the establishment of a National Mint. Alas ! the poor Con- tinentals had no precious ore to coin, and never struck off a dollar or cent. An Auditor General's office was organized, and John Gibson appointed, with an annual salary of one thousand and sixty-six dollars and sixty- seven cents. The office of Comptroller of the Treasury was created November 3, 1778, and Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., appointed, with a salary of four thousand dollars. Money was pain- fully scarce. That made it the more imperative that this poor little empty Treasury should have some supreme responsible head who, by the adroit magic of financial genius, should create a way to fill it, and by some way provide cash for the unprovided-for emergencies which were perpetually imminent. Thus in September, 1781, Congress repealed the act appointing five Commissioners, and in their stead appointed a single supreme " Superin- tendent of Finance." The first high functionary of the Treasury was Robert Morris, of Philadelphia. He had already distinguished himself for his remarkable financial talents as a merchant, and for his devoted patriotism. Besides, he was the inti- mate friend and confidential adviser of Washington. He was the man for the place and the hour. He kept the credit 286 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. of the struggling Colonies afloat in their direst moment. He gave from his private fortune without stint, and added thereto the contributions of the infant nation. When even Washington was ready to give up in despair, because he had no money to pay his troops, and the troops were ready to surrender and disband from sheer misery and suffering, Robert Morris applied to " the purser of our allies, the French," and saved the perishing army and the struggling republic. He proved then, what has been proved so conspicuously since during a still greater strug- gle, that he who preserves the credit of his country in the hour of its peril is as truly a patriot as he who dies for her sake on the battle-field. Notwithstanding his benefactions, at the close of the Revolution, the jealousy among foremost men was so great, it was found to be impossible to give to one man the precedence and power in so responsible a place. The claims of the three contending sections were acknowl- edged by the appointment of three Commissioners : one from the Eastern, one from the Middle, and one from the Southern districts, in the persons of Samuel Osgood, Walter Livingston and Arthur Lee. Robert Morris be- came a member of the Convention which framed the Con- stitution of the United States, and concluded his public services to his country as United States Senator. At the end of three years, the administration of the three Commissioners of Finance had proved so inhar- monious and unsuccessful that the country was nearly bankrupt, and the Union of States ready to break into ruins, for lack of money to pay its expenses and hold it together. The Constitution of the United States went into effect THE NATIONAL TREASURY. 287 March 4, 1789, and Congress went into its first session in the City of New York. Two subjects moved it to its depths at once — the impending bankruptcy of the coun- try, and the location of the National Capital. The pre- vention of the first depended upon the establishment of the latter. The Nation was impoverished by a long and harassing war, and depressed by an enormous debt which that war had caused. The Nation possessed no statistics indicating the resources of the country, and there was no department organized through which fiscal operations could be carried on. The strife between the Northern and Southern States, concerning the location of the Capital, made harmonious financial legislation impossible during the opening session of the first Congress. But the committee appointed to organize a system for the collection of the revenue, were equal to its accomplishment. After four months' delibera- tion, July 31, 1789, the first important act connected with the Treasury Department was passed, entitled "An act to regulate the collection of the duties imposed by law on the tonnage of ships or vessels, and on goods, wares and mer- chandise." September 2, 1789, the fundamental act es- tablishing the Treasury Department was enrolled as a whole, and passed. The new Department consisted of a Secretary of the Treasury, a Comptroller, an Auditor, a Treasurer, a Reg- istrar, and an assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury. It was decided that the settlement of all public accounts should be in the Treasury Department, making the Sec- retary of the Treasury the head of the Fiscal Department of the Government, placing him, however, under the au- thority and requirements of either House of Congress. 288 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. He superintends the collection and disbursement of the revenue of the United States, from every source derived, except that of the Post Office. He receives the returns of the revenue in general, and reports to Congress all plans of finance, and the final results of his own official action, and that of his subordinates. The first popular candidate for the position of chief of the Treasury Department was Oliver Wolcott, a son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his own services to his country, both under the Colonial Govern- ment and the Union, were acknowledged to have been important. Meanwhile Washington, who was more anx- ious to find out how he was to get money to pay the pub- lic debt, than to find a man to pay it, invited his intimate and tried friend, Robert Morris, to give him the benefit of his advice. In one of their interviews, the great chief groaned out: "What is to be done with this heavy na- tional debt?" "There is but one man," said the astute financier, " who can help you, and that man is Alexander Hamilton. I am glad that you have given me the oppor- tunity to disclose the extent of the obligation I am under to him." In ten days after the establishment of the Treasury Department, Alexander Hamilton was appointed its chief. He was still in the flower of his youth, but had already proved himself, not only in practical action, but in the rarest gifts of pure intellect, to be the most versatile and remarkable man of his time. Of good birth, yet, at twelve years of age, dependent upon his own exertions for support, he bore, at that tender age, the entire responsibility of a large shipping house. He seemed endowed with the qual- ity of intellect which amounts to inspiration — unerring in THE FIRST CHIEF OF THE TREASURY. 289 perception, sure of success. The boy-manager of the ship- ping house earned his bread in the day time, and in the night wrote articles on commercial matters, equally re- markable for their comprehensiveness and practical knowl- edge. A native of St. Croix, West Indies, at fourteen he came to the United States ; at eighteen, entered Kings, now Columbia College, where he at once attracted attention by his brilliant essays on political subjects. At the begin- ning of the Revolution, he raised and took command of a company of artillery. The same transcendent intuition which made him supreme as a financier, made him re- markable as a soldier. In Washington's first interview with him, he made him his aide-de-camp, and through the entire Revolutionary war, he was called "the right arm " of the Commander-in-chief. At the close of the war he returned to New York, and stepped at once to the very front of his profession. A more remarkable and interesting group of men probably never discussed and decided the fate of a nation, than Washington, Morris, and Hamilton. Morris, wise, expe- rienced, analytic ; Washington, grave, thoughtful, far-see- ing, slow to invent, but ready to comprehend, and quick to follow the counsel which his judgment approved ; Hamilton, young, impetuous, impassioned, prophetic, yet practical; in comprehension and gifts of creation, the su- preme of the three. Never was a nation more blessed than this, in the united quality of the men who decided its financial destiny. The first official act of Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, was to recommend that the domestic and for- eign war debt be paid, dollar for dollar. When the paper containing this recommendation was read before Con- 19 290 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. gress, it thought that the new Secretary of the Treasury had gone mad. How was a nation of less than four mil- lions of people to voluntarily assume a debt of seventy- five millions of dollars! Hamilton thought that this ag- gregated debt, created for the support of the national cause, should be assumed by the individual States; the outstanding Continental money to be funded at the rate of one dollar in specie for each hundred in paper, and the whole united to make the national resources available for the security of the public creditors. The long strife in Congress over this great fundamental financial question is a matter of history. There appeared to be no national resources to meet such a demand. There was not money enough in the Treasury to pay cur- rent expenses, to say nothing of paying a debt of tens of millions. Probably no body of legislators in the world ever represented wisdom, statesmanship, pertinacity of opinion so tried in the fiery crucible of war, poverty and suffering, as did this first Congress ; yet it was left to the untried minister of finance of thirty-three to save the na- tional credit against mighty odds, and to foresee and to foretell the future resources of a vast, consolidated people. This inspiration of enthusiasm and faith, combined with practical administrative force, and a broad financial policy, averted the horrors of national bankruptcy, preserved the credit of the government, and gave to the sufferings of Valley Forge and the surrender at Yorktown their final fruition. The young financier, bearing his burden alone, seemed to hold in himself the guarantee of future triumph. He gave to the most despairing a security of success when they remembered that, at the age of nineteen, this same SAVED FROM BANKRUPTCY. 291 young prophet and patriot was the "right hand" of Washington. The long struggle ended in the adoption of Hamilton's great financial scheme of funding the domestic debt. When the government was removed to Philadelphia, the Treasury was established in a plain building in Arch street, two doors east from Sixth. Here Morris, Hamil- ton and Washington were united in the closest bonds of personal friendship. Then followed, in rapid succession, those great state-papers on finance from Hamilton, whose embodiment into laws fixed the duties on all foreign pro- ductions, and taxed with just distinction the home luxuries and necessities of life. From these were evolved in gradual development the entire system of the Treasury Department of the United States. Time has proved how perfect were the plans which sprang without precedent from the brain of Alexander Hamilton. First, from his suggestions came the act which established the routine by which customs were to be collected. Then came the acts for the levying of taxes and the accumula- tion of the revenue. Then the imposition on ships and our commercial marine, foreign and domestic. Next, a bank was established for the depository of collected funds, and their distribution throughout the country. Then was needed the crown of the grand financial structure — a legalized institution for the coinage of gold and silver. To accomplish this great design, Hamilton recommended for the adoption of Congress the establishment of a mint for the purposes of national coinage, and the act was passed April 2, 1792, fixing the establishment at the then seat of government, Philadelphia, from whence, through later legislation, it has never been transferred. 292 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. While consuming himself for his country, Hamilton was harassed by the abuse of personal and political enemies, and suffering for the adequate means to support his family. While building up the financial system which was to redeem his country, the state of his own finances may be judged by the following letter from him to a per- sonal friend, dated September 30, 1791 : " Dear Sir : — If you can conveniently let me have twenty dollars for a few days, send it by bearer. A. H." The amount of personal toil he performed for the gov- ernment was enormous. Talleyrand, who was at this time a refugee in Philadelphia, after his return to France, spoke with admiring enthusiasm of the young American patriot. In speaking of his experience in America, he once said : " I have seen in that country one of the wonders of the world — a man, who has made the future of the Nation, laboring all night to support his family." Nobody believes that any servant of his country should be compelled to this, to-day, yet had not long-sufficed sel- fishness made them insensible to it, the over-greedy legis- lator of to-day might learn from the example of Alexander Hamilton a salutary lesson. After six years of personal service in the Treasury, amid personal and political opposition, greater than has ever assailed any one statesman ; after seeing his financial system a part of the governmental policy of his country, Hamilton resigned his office, and resumed the practice of law in the city of New York. Established in that day of small things, in human judg- ment it seems impossible that the brain of one man could SIX TEAES IN THE TREASUKY. 293 have devised a monetary system that would anticipate all the varied, conflicting and unexpected demands of a country as large and swiftly developed as ours. Yet, with slight modifications, the system of Hamilton has met all exigencies, saved the national credit, and assured the national prosperity through the deepest trials. It paid the national debt of the Kevolution, and of 1812, and in the War of the Rebellion, when the governmental expenses of a single day were more than the national in- come for a whole year in Hamilton's time, the foresight and genius of this man of thirty-three had suggested ways for the vast accumulation and disbursement. Personally, Hamilton was under middle size, slight, well-proportioned, erect and graceful. His complexion was white and pink, his features mobile, his expression vivacious, his voice musical, his manner cordial, his entire appearance attract- ive and refined. Alexander Hamilton was succeeded by Oliver Wolcott, Jr., as Secretary of the Treasury. The great act of Mr. Wolcott's administration was the revision and completion of the laws relative to the collection of the revenue. He carried out, through his administration, the great funda- mental principles of national finance established by Ham- ilton, and was re-appointed by John Adams. When, in 1800, the Treasury Department performed its six days' journey from Philadelphia to Washington, it went into a plain, three-story building, facing Fifteenth street, erected for the Treasury. It was near the unfinished White House, and, like all the first Federal buildings, plain and small. It was so small, when first taken possession of, that it did not even afford sufficient room for the clerical force, then fifty in number. Its cramped space made it 294 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. necessary to deposit all the official records brought from Philadelphia in a house known as Sears' store, and the records, which would now be invaluable, were all consumed. The first official act of the Treasury Department of national interest, dated at the national capital, directed that the Secretary should make an annual report to Con- gress of the state of the finances of the nation, contain- ing estimates of the public revenue and expenditure, as well as plans for improving and increasing the revenues. Hamilton had done this voluntarily, and his example, of a Cabinet officer making communications with Congress, was now made imperative by the action of law. May 10, 1800, Samuel Dexter, another signer of the Declaration of Independence, was appointed Secretary of the Treas- ury in place of Oliver Wolcott. On the election of Jef- ferson, the foe of the Hamiltonian financial policy, the Washingtonian era of the Federal Government ended, and Mr. Dexter found himself out of harmony with the Government. After the lapse of a year, President Jef- ferson set the precedent of removal, and, January 26, 1802, appointed Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treas- ury. Albert Gallatin was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1761. After receiving a liberal education, he came to this country at the age of eighteen. He became a tutor in Harvard College, but removing to Philadelphia, .then the national capital, rose so high in public esteem that in 1790, at the age of thirty, he was elected to Congress, and afterwards to the Senate. In this body, his reports on matters of finance attracted universal attention, and, as a result, he was made Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. President Jefferson, on handing him his SEARCHING FOB HAMILTON'S BLUNDEBS. 295 commission, said : " Mr. Gallatin, your most important duty will be to examine the accounts, and all the records of your department, in order to discover the blunders and frauds of Hamilton, and to ascertain what changes will be required in the system. This is a most important duty, and will require all your industry and acuteness. To do it thoroughly, you may employ whatever extra ser- vice you require." Gallatin was an ardent partisan of the President, and declares, himself, that he undertook his task of exposing Hamilton, and bringing his lofty head low, with great zest and thoroughness. But his hunt for " blunders " and venality merged soon into a labor of love. Upon his just and comprehensive mind, Hamilton's perfect system, day by day, revealed itself. By the time he had mastered its details, and measured its completeness, he was filled with admiration. " In the honest enthusiasm of a truly great mind he went to Mr. Jefferson and said : i Mr. President, I have, as you directed, made a thorough examination of the books, accounts and correspondence of my depart- ment, from its commencement. I have found,' said the conscientious Secretary, 'the most perfect system ever formed. Any change under it would injure it.' Hamil- ton made no blunders, committed no frauds; he did nothing wrong." Albert Gallatin marked his administration by a series of reports regarding the best method of canceling the na- tional debt, the proper policy of disposing of the public lands, and the legality and necessity of establishing a national bank. Thus, contrary to his original intention, he associated himself with Morris and Hamilton as one of the three founders of the financial policy of the nation. 296 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. By the year 1804, the business of the Treasury had so increased, that an effort was made toward the erection of a building, to become the especial depository of the records. An idea may be given of the demands of the infant govern- ment and its notions of economy, in the facts that this vaunted fire-proof public building is much smaller than an unpretentious private dwelling of the present time, and that it cost less than the sum of twelve thousand dollars. Mr. Madison, on his accession to the Presidency, re- tained Mr. Gallatin at the head of the Treasury. On March 1, 1809, an act of Congress directed that all warrants drawn on the Treasury by the Secretaries of the different executive departments, should designate the ap- propriation to which they were charged. June 18, 1812, war was declared, and Congress was convened in special session, to consider the necessities of the Treasury. Out of the legislation which followed, came our present internal revenue laws. Mr. Gallatin, af- ter having held his office longer than any of his predeces- sors, resigned, and went on a foreign mission. A period of extreme money depression succeeded his resignation. August 24, 1814, the British troops entered Washington, and, with the Capitol and other public buildings, burned the Treasury. The business of the Treasury, for a con- siderable time afterwards, was carried on in what was known as "the Seven Buildings," in the western part of the city. George N. Campbell, of Tennessee, Mr. Gallatin's suc- cessor, attempted to negotiate a loan of twenty-five mil- lions of dollars, but failed, and resigned his office. The national credit was at its lowest ebb. THE MAN AND THE HOUE. 297 When the need of a great man is absolute, Providence usually has one ready for the emergency. He appeared at this crisis, in the person of Alexander J. Dallas, of Pennsylvania. On entering upon his office, as head of the Treasury, he replied to the request of Congress, that he should suggest ways for the restoration of the public credit, in one of the most powerful documents extant in the archives of the Treasury. Mr. Dallas so inspired the faith of the capitalists of the country, that the national credit was at once restored. " The Treasury notes, issued on the universal opinion that they would be a drug in the market, rose to a premium." Mr. Monroe made W. H. Crawford, of Georgia, Secre- tary of the Treasury. Under him, the routine of the Department was improved by the appointment of a sec- ond Comptroller and four additional Auditors. Charges of malfeasance were brought against him toward the close of his term of office. They were examined by a com- mittee consisting of John Kandolph, Edward Livingston, and Daniel Webster, who pronounced the charges false. President John Quincy Adams recalled Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, then Minister to England, and made him Secretary of the Treasury. Under Andrew Jackson's Presidency, the conservative management of the Treasury Department changed into "the anti-bank period." His administration was marked by five different Secretaries, and a prevailing state of excitement. The first Secretary of the Treasury, under Jackson, was Samuel D. Ingham, of Pennsylvania, whose trust ended in a violent breakinorup of the Cabinet. He was succeeded by William J. Detnre, of Pennsylvania, who refused to remove the national deposits from the United 298 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. States Bank, and was dethroned by Roger B. Taney, of Maryland. The Senate refused to confirm his appoint- ment, and Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, was in- stalled in the office, holding it to the end of Jackson's administration. April 1, 1833, the Treasury Building was for the third time destroyed by fire, and a large amount of valuable public documents destroyed. Afterwards, the business of the Department was carried on in a row of brick build- ings opposite Willard's Hotel. At this time the "Agent of the Treasury," was changed to Solicitor of the Treas- ury, and a sixth Auditor was created. Jackson's admin- istration closed with an "apparent plethora of money among the people, and the glorious consummation of pay- ing off the national debt." Mr. Woodbury continued at the head of the Treasury, under President Van Buren. It was his fate to be its director " in the times of unparalleled plenty, speculation and extravagance, and two years afterwards, to witness a pecuniary revulsion that had no precedent in financial history." In 1837, financial ruin dismayed the Nation. Congress was convened by special proclamation, to devise ways and means to relieve the people. Specie payments were suspended, and all business involved in apparent ruin. Binding laws were passed, divorcing the Govern- ment from all banking institutions, and a new policy was created for the control of our national finances. Under Presidents Harrison and Tyler there were five Secretaries of the Treasury : Thomas Ewing, of Ohio ; Walter Howard, of Pennsylvania; John C. Spencer, of New York, and George M. BcblcT of Kentucky. Presi- dent Polk made Robert J. Walker the head of the Treas- -* 0M< THE APOSTLE OF FEEE-TRADE. 299 ury. He was known as "the apostle of free trade." His administration was marked by the introduction of the pres- ent warehousing system, based upon English precedent; by his reciprocity system between Canada and the United States abolishing all customs and imports, and the establish- ment of an "Interior Department" upon the old over- grown Land Office, with a Cabinet officer to administer its affairs, under the title of Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary of the Treasury, under President Taylor, was William M. Meredith, of Pennsylvania; who was suc- ceeded, under President Fillmore, by Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. Secretary Corwin established the present light- house department and wrote the instructions regarding light-vessels, beacons and buoys. This beneficent legisla- tion gave over six hundred lights to protect the hitherto neglected mariner on his way. The Chief of the Treasury under President Pierce, was James Guthrie, of Kentucky. He is remembered as a strict and efficient officer, carrying out in minutiae, the duties and laws of the department. He discovered out- standing balances against the Treasury, which, if collected, would more than pay the national debt. Of this sum he collected hundreds of millions into the Treasury, and raised the standard of efficiency in the Treasury service by demanding monthly, instead of quarterly reports, from all its employes. Three Secretaries of the Treasury served under James Buchanan — Howell Cobb, of Georgia; Philip F. Thomas, of Maryland; and John A. Dix, of New York. A mone- tary crisis, almost as severe as that of 1837, marked this administration. The throes of Secession shook the Union to its foundation, and the Secretaries of the Treasury, 300 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. like all other public servants, were occupied with the "signs of the times," the swiftly advancing portents of revolution, more than with the mere financial duties of the public Treasury. Abraham Lincoln began his troubled administration by the appointment of Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, as Secre- tary of the Treasury. Never was man asked to help steer the ship of state through more overwhelming breakers. With the dissolution of the Union imminent, the national debt had increased to three times the amount it was at the close of the previous administration. The number of clerks which, in 1861, was three hundred and eighty- three, in 1864 was two thousand. Such a demand was without precedent, and arose from the immense labor of examining accounts, and of preparing and supervising the national currency and securities. The first important measure of Mr. Chase's administra- tion was the "Internal Revenue Act," which, in four years, increased the income of the Government from forty-one millions to three hundred and nine millions. Next came the great "National Currency Act," which, though severely criticised, and probably not free from de- fects, nevertheless established a paper currency of equal value in every part of the Union, and was, at least, in keeping with the principles of our Government, and freer from chances of corruption and abuse than any other system yet adopted. It met the awful demand of the hour, and offered the guarantee of redemption, rather than of loss and ruin. In a single month, the tax upon the income of the Treasury became stupendous. In one clay, it paid out for quartermasters' stores alone, forty-six millions of dollars— "VAST INCREASE OF THE NATIONAL DEBT. 301 more than were needed to support the entire National Government during the first year of "Washington's ad- ministration. In four years, the public debt, from ninety millions, had grown to be two thousand six hundred mil- lions — yet under this mighty demand, with two millions of its sons withdrawn from productive labor, the exports of the country were double what they had ever been be- fore, and the credit of the Government of the United States day by day increased. When Mr. Chase was appointed Chief Justice by Mr. Lincoln, his high seat in the Treasury was taken by Hon. William Pitt Fessenden, whose brief career as Secretary of the Treasury was marked by a single State paper of great ability. He was succeeded by Hugh McCulloch, of Indiana, who dispensed the duties of his office creditably till the close of Johnson's administration. President Grant, upon his accession to the Presidency, chose George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, to be Secre- tary of the Treasury. Mr. Boutwell had already served as Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and now on him devolved the huge task of reducing the high impost and revenue tax created by the war debt, and borne as a mighty burden by the people. He had to lighten the load on the people's shoulders, and yet keep the national tax high enough to meet the interest, and reduce the amount of the national debt — in fine, he was expected to relieve the Nation, and to pay the national debt at the same time. A more conflicting demand never rested on a Financial Minister. How ably he met it, the "monthly statement" of the perpetual ebb of the war debt, with the constant legislation to reduce all revenue taxation to the luxuries of life, were ample proof. 302 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. Before the election of Mr. Boutwell, as United States Senator from Massachusetts, to succeed Vice President Henry Wilson, the President appointed Judge Richardson, Acting Assistant Secretary, to be Secretary of the Treas- ury. Judge Richardson stepped from comparative ob- scurity, and an opposite sphere of labor, to his present high official position. There are many who challenge his claim to it, and his fitness for it. Time may prove one, and disprove the other. As Secretary of the Treas- ury, his official record is yet to be made — until his admin- istration has been marked by an act of national import- ance, it is too early to pronounce a verdict. In the statistics of the Treasury Department, we read the marvellous financial history of our country. In them we trace the material progress of the Nation from its be- ginning. In the accounts current business of the country, we learn that in the years 1793, '94, '95, '96, the Nation imported productions valued at one hundred and seventy- four millions of dollars. In the years 1866, '67, '68, '69, the United States exported values to the amount of nine- teen hundred millions. The value between these sums marks the growth of population, territory, and material resources in the space of seventy years — surely, a narrow span in the life of a nation ! CHAPTER XXX. INSIDE THE TREASURY— THE HISTORY OF A DOLLAR. A Washington Tradition — "Old Hickory" Erects his Cane — "Put the Building Right Here " — Treasury Corner-Stone Laid — Robert Mills' Dis- colored Colonnade — Where " Privileged Mortals" Work — A Very Costly Building — Rapid Extension of Business — Splendid Situation of the Building — The Workers Within — The Government Takes a Holiday — The Business of Three Thousand People — The Mysteries of the Treasury — Inside the Rooms — Mary Harris's Revenge — The "Drones" in the Hive — Making Love in Office Hours — Flirtations in Public — A Vast Ref- uge for the Unfortunate — Two Classes of Employes — A List of Miserable Sinners — A Pitiful Ancient Dame — A Protkgi of President Lincoln — Women's Work in the Treasury — The Bureau of Printing and Engrav- ing — A very Hot Precinct — Rendering a Strict Account — Not a Cent Missing — The "Chief's" Report— Dealing in Big Figures — The Story of a Paper Dollar — In the Upper Floor — The Busy Workers — Night Work— Where the Paper is Made— The "Localized Blue Fibre"— The Obstacle to the Counterfeiter — The Automatic Register — Keeping Watch — The Counters and Examiners — Supplying the Bank Note Com- panies — "The American" and "The National" — An Armed Escort — No Incomplete Notes Possible — Varieties of Printing — The Contract ■with Adams' Express — Printing the Notes and Currency — Internal Rev- enue Stamps — Thirty Young Ladies Count the Money — Manufacturing the Plates — The Engraving Division — " The Finest Engravers in the Country " — The Likeness of Somebody — Transferring a Portrait — " Men of Many Minds " — The Division of Labor — Delicate Operations — A Pressure of Five or Six Tons — The Plate Complete — "Re-entering" a Plate — An "Impression" — How Old Plates are Used up — A Close In- spection — Defying Imitation — The Geometric Lathe — Tracing " Lines of Beauty " for More than Forty Years. IT is one of the traditions of "Washington that Andrew Jackson decided the exact site of the present Treasury Building. 304 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. After the third destruction by fire, in 1833, of the early Treasury Buildings, a great strife came up concern- ing the location of the new Treasury. Worn out with the claims of " rival factions," it is said that President Jackson walked out a few rods from the White House one morning, and thrusting his cane into the ground, ex- claimed : " Put the building right here ! " This ended all disputes, and the end of the " old hero's " cane marked the north-east corner of the present site of the Treasury of the United States. Though nearly approached by the patent office, the Treasury Building, in architectural splendor, ranks next to the Capitol. Its corner-stone was laid in 1834 by Levi Woodbury, then Secretary of the Treasury. The original building was designed by Robert C. Mills, whose long and discolored colonnade on Fifteenth street is still visible. It was built of the freestone brought from near Acquia Creek, Virginia, which has touched with premature din- giness too many of the Federal buildings of the Capital. But in the Treasury its long line of smut is lost in the marble splendor of the extensions. The extension of the building was authorized in 1835, and built from the de- signs of Thomas W. Walter. It embodies the most per- fect Grecian architecture, adapted to modern uses. It surrounds a hollow square, on which its inner offices look out on green grass and cooling fountain through the summer heats. Instead of cooped-up cells, the lower stories of the Treasury are filled with airy apartments, in which privileged mortals serve their country and earn their bread and butter. The new Treasury is built of gleaming granite brought from Dix Island, on the coast of Maine. THE TEEASUEY BUILDING. 305 The walls of the extension are composed of pilasters, resting on a base which rises some twelve feet above the ground on the southern or lower side. Between the pi- lasters are antce or belt-courses, nobly moulded ; the facings of the doors and windows bear mouldings in harmony. The southern, western and northern fronts present mag- nificent porticoes. Its lofty pillars are of the Ionic order, and the entire building is at last surmounted by a massive balustrade. The south wing was completed and occupied in 1860. The west wing was completed in 1863 — the north in 1867— the whole at a cost of $6,750,000. The exterior is four hundred and sixty-four feet by two hun- dred and sixty-four feet. The Treasury was begun and consummated on a truly magnificent scale, and with the expectation that it would meet every demand of its own branch of the public ser- vice for at least a century. Like every one of the public buildings, it is already too small to accommodate the over- crowded bureaus of its own departments, several of which, for want of room in the Treasury Building, alreadj^ oc- cupy other houses in different parts of the city ; and yet there is not space left for those who remain. Before the year 1900, another Treasury Building as magnificent as the one now our pride, will be indispensable to the ever-increas- ing demand of the departments of the financial service. The Treasury borrowed its face from the Parthenon ; and, as it turns it toward the Potomac this May morning, it is one of the fairest sites in Washington. From the southern portico we look across sloping tree-shaded mead- ows. Beyond, we see the shimmering river, with its gir- dle of green, and above, " the flush and frontage of the hills." When flowers, and trees and soft lights shall have 20 306 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. taken the place of all this glare — how beautiful it will be to the eyes of generations to come. But even now the bright grass, flower-parterres and lapsing fountains are pleasant to behold, while the southern front of the Treasury is an object upon which the eyes must always rest with a sense of satisfaction. The Capitol lords it over the east, but the Treasury reigns over the west end. To be sure, it stands upon the poorest make-believe of an Acropolis, but coming along Pennsylvania avenue we look up to its noble facade and fair Ionic columns gleaming before us, as a compensation for the poverty of beauty in the streets which we travel. The western windows overlook the grounds of the presi- dential mansion, now gay with flowers and dazzling with sunshine, their trees decked in the vivid foliage of a southern June-time. How many pairs of weary human eyes look up from their tasks within these walls, and, without knowing it, thank God for this fair outlook. The breeze-blown grass, the fragrant winds, the lavish light of these open windows — to dusty lips and tired eyes which take them in — are God's own benedictions. Hundreds of such look up from their desks. Past the great fountain, tossing its diamonds be- low, past the sunny knolls and mimic mounds of newly- cut grass, above the bloom-burdened trees and all the ten- der verdure of early spring and summer, they see the windows of the presidential reception-room, whose doors, through all the winter months, are besieged by an army of office and favor seekers, but which are shut and silent and deserted now, while " the Government " drives among the hills or loiters by the sea. But I began to talk about the Treasury, and no matter INSIDE. THE TEEASUET. 307 how I wander for ever so many pages, I must come back to it again. It is easier to comprehend the outside than the inside of it. One might as well try to snatch up a city and portray it in a sitting, as even to outline the Treasury of the United States in a single chapter. It holds a metropolis within its walls. It affords daily employment to over three thousand persons, and thou- sands more daily throng its halls. Just a glimpse into this vast human hive makes us long for a Dickens to embody the romance and reveal the mysteries of the Treasury. The story of the Circumlocution Office and the Court of Chancery pale before the revelations and un- dreamed of human experiences which it holds. Before you, behind you, and on either side stretch out the great marble paved halls. Out of these open numberless rooms, whose shut doors stare blankly, or whose half-open blinds wink and blink at each other through the gleaming cross lights. Over these doors you read significant inscriptions, such as First Comptroller's Office, First Auditor's Office, etc. You ascend the great stairs and find other halls, such as those below, and like them lined on each side by doors. Over these you read, "Loan Branch," "Redemption Branch," "Office of the Register," "Office of Secretary of the Treasury, " etc. Many of the open doors reveal to you large airy apartments filled with busy men and women. Many more show you narrow, one-winclowed apartments, each containing a desk, or desks, with its scribe, or scribes. Here we see men who have grown gray, weak-limbed and wizened in those rooms beside those desks. They have grown to be as automatic as their pens, and as narrow as their rooms. Here also are thousands of men in their 308 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON". prime and in their youth representing every phase of character. In this hall, just by this door, Mary Harris watched for the man who had robbed and ruined her — and just here she shot him. Poor thing ! With her blighted face she is a maniac, now in the Asylum across the river. These halls are as thronged as Broadway, and their denizens' are as cosmopolitan. People of all nations and costumes come and go along their vast vistas. There are drones in this hive. These are office hours, yet here and there may be seen a young man and maiden whose in-door costume marks them as employes of the Treasury, loitering in the shadow of pillar or alcove, lin- gering by stair or doorway, saying very pleasant things to each other, doubtless, after the manner of young maidens and men. Flirting or making love in the flare of the public must always be a desecration of the heart's best sanctities. Beside, Sassafras and Sacharissa, you ought to be at work. It is precisely such as you who have brought discredit even upon the faithful and unfortunate, and some- times rebuke upon the whole Treasury Department. For, as a rule, the Treasury, like all the other departments of Washington, is a vast refuge for the unfortunate and the unsuccessful. The only exceptions are found in two clas- ses, viz. : those who use departmental life as the lad- der by which to climb to a higher round of life and ser- vice, and those who seek it without half fulfilling its duties, Ibecause too inefficient to fill any other place in the world well. Unpractical authors, sore-throated, pulpitless cler- gymen, briefless lawyers, broken down merchants, poor widows, orphaned daughters, and occasionally an adven- turer, masculine and feminine, of doubtful or bad degree, — all are found within the Treasury. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S PROTEGE. 309 I remember an aged woman, with bent back and long, wasted fingers, sitting behind the door in the Redemption Bureau. Her dim eyes peered through her spectacles and her poor fingers trembled, as she tried to coimt the dirty, ragged currency. "Alas! sad eyes," I thought, "by this time rest from toil should have come to you." "It is pit- iful," I said, to the kind gentleman who reigned over the division, "that one so old should have to come through rain and snow to fulfil a daily task. Is she not too old to do her duty well ! " "No," was the answer, "she does it very well. But if not, she would never be removed. She is a protege of President Lincoln." But any one who fancies that even woman's work in the Treasury Department is a sinecure, should climb to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. You may climb, but you cannot enter unless you hold a written "sesame" from the Secretary of the Treasury ; so sacred and guarded is this very hot precinct in which Uncle Samuel creates his "Almighty Dollar." The business of this Bureau is to engrave, print, and perfect for delivery to the United States Treasurer, all United States notes, Treasury checks, gold notes, drafts, fractional currency notes, all bonds and revenue stamps issued by the Government of the United States. At the close of each day, every fraction which has passed through the division for the last twelve hours must be accounted for. If a cent is missing, all the work- ers of the Bureau are detained until the missing fraction is certainly found and safely deposited in the vault of the Treasury. The vast monetary responsibility resting on the Chief of this Bureau may be judged from a statement 310 ten yeaes in Washington. made, in his own report, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1872. " There has been finished and delivered to the proper officers of the Government by this Bureau, during the fiscal years ending June 30, 1870, 1871, 1872, in notes, bonds and securities, $2,050,141, and 331,273,955 stamps, and not a note, nor a sheet, nor a portion of a sheet or note has been lost to the Government." But I hold the " open sesame ; " so come with me and be- gin the story of a paper dollar. Walking through the long, cool corridors and the airy saloons of the lower Treasury, who would dream that afar up, close under its clinging roof, ceaseless fires burn, engines play, eager shuttles fly, and patient hands ply through all the nights and days to make the people's dollar! Here in these low, close rooms, these crowded halls, whose roofs press down so low that even a child, in many places, could not stand erect be- neath it, patient men and women, — weary, gray, and old, — and youth, with its first tints yet unbleached by the burning atmosphere in which it toils, — all are at work mak- ing the paper dollar. Sometimes in the dark night, down the granite colon- nades, athwart the great trees dimly waving in mid-air, across the lapsing fountains, stream long gleams of light shooting from the tiny loop-hole windows high up under the Treasury roof. They dart from the Printing Bureau of the Nation. While the Nation sleeps, its servants, through the long, still hours, go on making the people's money ! First, the paper ! It is all manufactured at " Glen Mills," near Philadelphia, by the Messrs. Wilcox, who own the mills, and are the patentees of the "localized blue fibre," made of jute, which runs through the right-hand end of THE STOEY OF A PAPEK DOLLAE. 311 the fractional currency and United States notes, and on the back of the bonds, etc. This fiber is the obstacle to the counterfeiter, and can only be overcome by oiling or soiling the spurious paper, so that its absence cannot be discovered. The paper is chemically prepared, and the application of an acid will change the tint to one color, and an alkali, to another. Thus any attempt to alter the filling-in or denomination of the stamped check, is de- feated. A Government superintendent resides at Glen's Falls, who, with a corps of assistants, receives the paper from the contractors, counts, examines, holds it carefully guard- ed night and day, until delivered to the Treasury of the United States. To each paper-making machine is attached an automatic register, by which the mill-owners account to the Government for every square inch and sheet re- corded by this register, the register being locked, and the key held securely in the pocket of a Government officer, who watches the work. During its manufacture and storage at the mills, this paper is guarded, by day and night, by a regularly organized "watch." The Government Su- perintendent has a corps of counters and examiners un- der his direction, who examine and count the paper, as received from the makers, before it is packed away for shipment. The account is sent to the Department, and paid each day by the Secretary. The paper is supplied the Bank Note Companies only upon requisition from the Bureau at Washington. Mr. Bemis, the Superintendent, makes a report to the Print- ing Bureau, also to the Secretary of the Treasury, of all the paper delivered to him. The first journey made by this governmental infant, is to the Bank Note Companies 312 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. — two of them, one in New York, the other in Philadel- phia — the American and the National — that there may not be any dangerous monopoly of priceless charms. It is borne to the depot by an armed escort, and conveyed on the cars by Adams' Express. The New York Com- pany, printing tints, must turn over to the Company print- ing backs, notes equivalent to the paper, and the second Company must similarly account to the Government for every incomplete note received — thus neither can possess itself wholly of this beloved child. One Company prints the tints of one denomination, and the back of the other, no Company executing on the same note both printings. The national bank notes, hitherto engraved and printed entirely in New York, coming only to the Government Printing Bureau for numbering and sealing, hereafter will be exclusively engraved and printed in the Treasury. The jute-fibred paper will also be used in their making, as it is in the United States notes. The face of the Treas- ury notes is printed in black and green, the back in green. The National Bank Note face dares to be printed in black, and its back in black and green. This tinted and outlined paper is conveyed to the Treas- ury by Adams' Express, who have the contract for carry- ing all the Government moneys and securities. When it reaches the Treasury, the work yet to be done by the Printing and Engraving Bureau, before the paper is complete as Government money, is to print the face upon the United States notes, and hereafter, on the National Bank notes, to plate-seal, to number, trim, and cut them into single notes; to trim, surface-seal, and cut into single notes the ten, fifteen, and twenty-five, frac- tional currency notes; to print the face of, trim, surface- HOW UNCLE SAM'S MONEY IS MADE. 313 seal, and separate the fifty cent notes; trim, snrf ace-seal, and number the "funded loan bonds;" to trim, number, and surface-seal, the national bank notes ; and to print the faces upon all the tints for internal revenue-stamps, al- ready printed in New York. Besides all this work, the following are entirely engraved and printed in the Bu- reau of the Treasury: All strip-tobacco and snuff -stamps, stub and sheet snuff-stamps, domestic and customs cigar- stamps, compound, liquor-stamps, crew lists ships' regis- ters, brewers' permits, all the new special tax-paid stamps, (sixteen in number,) all miscellaneous bonds, gold notes, checks, drafts, etc. When this precious paper, with its black and green lines and tints, fresh from the Bank Note Companies, arrives at the Treasury, it is placed into the hands of thirty young ladies for counting, one lady counting it twice, then pass- ing it to another, for verification. The next act in the process of making a dollar, is the manufacture of the plates used in printing. They are made in the engraving division of the Bureau, under the supervision of Mr. Casilear, a gentleman distinguished in his profession, who presides over a corps of the finest en- gravers in the country. Their work upon the plate of the United States note, is the engraving of its different parts. First, the face which it is to bear. This is always noticeably a perfect likeness of the person whom it rep- resents. A daguerreotype or photograph is used. On the metallic plate of the daguerreotype the features are drawn lightly, the artist following accurately the lines of the portrait. If a photograph is used, gelatine is laid over it, and the picture is traced. From this outline on the plate, an impression is printed. This impression, by a 314 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. chemical process, is transferred to a steel plate covered with wax. The outlines are then traced on steel, the wax removed, and the face, in outline, is then on the steel. The shading is then completed. So many phases of consummate skill are necessary to the completion of a single dollar note, that "many men of many minds" are required to perfect a single plate. One has a genius for landscape, another for portraits, an- other for animal figures. The portrait is given to one, the lettering to another, the ornamental work to a third, and on and on. These fragments of the perfect picture to be, are executed upon separate bits of soft steel. When the lines on them are completed, these different bits of soft steel are put into an iron box, case-hardened and annealed in a crucible of intense heat, then sud- denly cooled by dipping them in oil, which utterly hard- ens the soft steel. Rolls of soft steel are then prepared. By the application of a powerful press, the various pic- tures and lines, that the artists have engraved, are taken up by the soft steel rollers from the hard steel plate. The intaglio work appears on the roll, just as it after- wards appears on the note. Now, the note-face is in fragments on the surface of the separate rolls. Next, the rolls are hardened, and placed in a transfer press over a flat plate of soft steel. Upon this plate, the operator of the press, by applying the lever, can, if necessary, impose a pressure equal to five or six tons. This pressure transfers the fragmentary picture to the plate. Then its counterpart picture is set in exact juxtaposition. The operator uses his steady hand, and skilled eyes, to set like a mosaic, each fragment of the complete design. Then moving the roller softly, THE DIFFICULTIES OF A COUNTEKFEITEK. 315 to and fro, to equalize the pressure on every part of the picture, he continues to do so till the plate is hardened. He then passes a soft roll over it, and the entire note-face is taken up. In turn, this roll is hardened, and the note- face transferred from it to a soft steel plate. This final plate, hardened and polished, is the plate from which the note is at last printed. After this plate has been used for thirty thousand im- pressions, its fading lines are restored by "re-entering" the plate with a roll. It is then used for thirty thousand impressions more. When finally "used up," these plates are destroyed in the presence of a mixed committee of Treasury officers and members of Congress. Look closely at the United States notes, the fractional currency bonds, and the most valuable revenue stamps, and you will see many lines involved and intricate, run- ning to and fro in the most marvellous manner. These fines defy imitation. They are the best tantalizer and de- tective of the most accurate counterfeiter. The most ab- solute imitation, made by hand, can be instantly perceived under a glass. These involuting lines are the work of the geometric lathe, an instrument whose complicated wheels can be set to work out any combination of curved lines which the human mind can possibly conceive. The counterfeiter, with the same lathe, would be powerless to produce the same complications — "he would grow gray in endless and useless experiments, and even with a rec- ord of the combination, he could not so exactly re-pro- duce it, that an expert could not detect the imposition." The geometric lathe of the Treasury of the United States, is worked by Mr. Tichenor, who has been a skilled artist in such machinery for more than thirty years. 316 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. There are no more interesting objects in the Treasury, than the line of clear-eyed men who sit bent over their tasks, their subtle lines tracing the exquisite vignettes which have made the engravings of the United States Treasury so famous. Here is one who has been tracing these lines of beauty for more than forty years : his hair is white, but his keen, strong sight — drawing harmony, poetry, nature, and life, out of barest outline — remains undimmed. CHAPTER XXXI. THE WORKERS IN THE TREASURY— HOW THE MONEY IS MADE. The Dollar with the Counters — In the Tubs — Getting a Wetting — Servants of Necessity — That Scorching Roof — Brown Paper Bonnets — Earning their Daily Dollar — The Work Progressing — In the Press — A State of Dampness — Squaring Accounts — Calling for a Thousand Sheets — Ac- counting for Them — Superintending the Work — The Face-printing Divis- ion — The United States " Sealer " — One Hundred and Thirty-five Presses at Work — Printing Cigar-Stamps and Gold-Notes of Many Colors — Presses "Flying" — Quick with Dangerous Motion — With a Begrimed Face— The " Help-mate" of his Toil— The Fiery Little Brazier— What the Man Does — The Woman's Work — The Automatic Register — An Ob- server Without a Soul — Our Damp Little Dollar — The Drying Room — The First Wrinkles — Looking Wizened and Old — Rejuvenating a Dollar — Underneath Two Hundred and Forty Tons — Smooth and Polished — Precious to the Touch — A Virgin Dollar — The ' ' Sealer " at Work ■ — Mutilated Paper — What the Women are Paid — The Surface- Sealing Di- vision — Seal Printing — The Aristocratic Green Seal — The Numbering Division — Attended Solely by Women and Girls — Critically Examined — A Lady Charged with Errors — Securing Adequate Care — Dividing the Dollars — To Start Alone — Ladies Serene at Work — Snowy Aprons and Delicate Ribbons — Needling the Sheet — A Blade that Does Not Fail — Sorting the Notes — The Manipulation of the Ladies — The Dollar "in its Little Bed " — Dollar on Dollar — " Awaiting the Final Call " — The Mandate of Uncle Sam — Fourteen Divisions — Making up Accounts — Tracing a Note— A Perfect System of " Checks "—The Safeguards— The Chief of the Bureau. OMY ! that dollar ! I left far back, flying through the fair hands (more or less) of thirty lovely " counters/' to find it here, sopped in the tubs of the " wetters." Long trough-like tubs run down the middle of an attic- 318 TEN YEAES IN" WASHINGTON. room, at whose sides the roof slopes so low, a child could not stand under it. Even at its apex, a slender girl beside her tub can scarcely stand upright. At either side of the long troughs are rowed maids and matrons, some fair and young, some old and worn, all bearing unmistakably the mark of the servant of necessity. So near and hot to the brain is the scorching roof, each woman wears upon her head a covering of brown paper, for protection. Who will say these lowly servants of the Government do not earn the scanty pittance of their daily dollar ? In the " wetting division " is received, counted, and " wet down," all the paper that is to be plate printed. Here, in different stages of progression, we see blank sheets wetted for first printing, and sheets in preparation for second, third, and even fourth printing. The counters of this division put every twenty sheets in the hands of the wetters, who place them between cloths and submerge them in the liquid of the tubs before them. Every one thousand sheets, thus wetted, are placed between wooden boards, under the pressure of two hundred and fifty pounds. In these cerements they remain for three or four hours, when they are taken out, the top sheets made to change places with the middle ones, that uni- form dampness may be secured. The sheets are then laid again between the weights, to remain till the next morn- ing, when they are taken out, piled up under damp cloths to wait the call of the plate-printers. All this systematic saturation is indispensable to the securing of a fine print impression. A distinct account is kept with each printer, which must be " all right " before he goes home. For example, a plate-printer calls at the wetting division for a thousand PRINTING "THE PEOPLE'S DOLLAR." 319 sheets. These are given him, and charged at once on the books of the division. As fast as he prints his work, he sends it to the office of his printing division, and is credited with all the work that he has accomplished. At the close of the day, if he has any sheets left unprinted, he returns them to the wetting division, and is credited with them as sheets returned. His work performed and work re- turned must then be ascertained, and his account strictly balanced, before he can leave the Treasury. The wetting division is superintended by Mr. J. H. Lamb, who, with Mr. Ward Morgan, the head of the face-printing division, Mr. Edgar of the examining divis- ion, and Mr. Evans, the United States Sealer, have all been chosen to preside over their distinct divisions on account of their practical experience in plate-printing, gained by personal toil at the press itself. Now we come to the Face-printing Eoom of the trouble- some little dollar. One hundred and thirty-five presses are flying in this room and another • the latter printing the seals and tints of cigar-stamps, gold-notes, etc., in hues as varied as the leaves in autumn. Standing in this door, looking down this long, apartment, we see seventy-five presses flying at once. The air is quick with dangerous motion. Great shuttle-like fans flap above our heads. At every angle, presses, eager and ac- curate, seem ready to strike you, as well as the dollar, with unerring skill and execution. Beside each one stands a man, with face begrimed. Beside each man stands a woman, the helpmate of his toil. Between each flames a fiery little brazier, holding the gleaming plate to keen heat. The face printer runs his roller, wet ■with ink over the face of the absorbing plate. A cloth 320 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. ' in his hand comes swiftly after, leaving only the fine lines of the plate traced with ink. The ready woman lays the moist paper on the warm ink-lined plate. The printer touches the wheel, turns it, the sheet flies up. Lo ! at last, the beautiful new dollar ! The girl takes it instantly, lays it, face down, on top of its new-born breth- ren. Already the roller is passing again over the pol- ished plate, and her hands are outstretched to lay another sheet upon the waiting plate. In less than a minute another dollar is made. An automatic register is connected with each press; thus every sheet, note, or stamp printed, is recorded, and serves as a check on the counter and printer. The regis- ter is locked, and the key kept with the keeper of the registers, appointed by the Secretary. After leaving the press and being heaped a few mo- ments by its side, the next thing that happens to our damp little dollar, is to be dried. The moist sheets, spread upon racks, are carried to the drying room until the next morning. The drying process leaves the sheets with a rough, wrinkled surface. The little dollar comes forth from its first bed, looking wizened and old, and is immediately sent to the "pressing division" to be rejuve- nated. Here every thousand sheets, for six minutes, are subjected to a slow, steady pressure of two hundred and forty tons, from which every sheet issues smooth, soft, polished, and precious to the touch, as every soul will say who has been the first possessor of a virgin dollar. The pressing division is superintended by Mr. Eallon, the " Nestor " of the Bureau. Mr. Edgar, superintendent of the examining division, assisted by thirty young ladies, takes care of the face-printed work. Mr. Evans, the THE UNITED STATES SEALEE. 321 United States Sealer, examines all the seal and tint prints. All mutilated, are carried to the counting divis- ion before being sent to the Secretary for destruction. Each printer is allowed a small percentage for unavoid- able mutilation. If at the end of the month his number of mutilated exceeds this allowance, he is obliged to pay for the excess. Each printer works by " the piece," and pays the woman who helps him — the price being regulated by the Bureau — one dollar per day. After coming forth from the hydraulic presses, softly polished, every exquisite line and figure embossed in keen relief, the United States note sheets pass to the surface-sealing division. The process of seal-printing is the same as the first, and each sheet has to go through the same process the second time. Under the superin- tendence of Mr. Gray, six "Gordon " and six "Campbell" presses print the beautiful pink surface-seals. Here the small currencies, the national bank notes, the new special tax-paid stamps, receive the internal revenue seal. The " funded loan bond " alone is stamped with the aristocratic green seal. Having been sealed, the dollar must now be numbered, and for that purpose passes into the numbering division, where it receives the last touch of printing from machines attended solely by women and girls. This machine works on the same principle as the famous paging machine. The numbers are set on the surface of a small wheel, and with every stroke of the stamp the next consecutive number flies up into its place ; with the same stroke, a small roller, taking the red ink from the plate and feed- ing it to the type. These machines are regulated to change the numbers for a whole series. Two red num- 21 322 TEN" TEAES IN WASHINGTON". bers on each bill are put on by these machines. Intense care is necessary in this work, to prevent mistakes, and each bill is critically examined to ascertain its correct- ness. If mistakes are discovered at once, they can be rectified ; but the red ink soon hardens and becomes indelible. If the mistake is discovered too late to correct it, it is charged to the lady who made it. This has been found to be the only way to secure adequate care on the part of the numberers. The last line of printing is received in the red number set at top and bottom ; all that remains for the dollar, before starting on its journey into the wide, wide world, is to be divided from its brethren, that it may start alone. Thus the United States note sheet is carried into the separa- ting and trimming room. This used to be done by scis- sors, and gave to women, I believe, their first work in the Treasury. This room is one of the largest and busi- est in the Bureau, and second only to the printing-room in interest. The wheels, straps and pulleys reaching to the ceiling, with which its air is perforated, give it, at first glance, a complicated atmosphere, till the eyes rest upon the many ladies sitting serenely at work below. This work being all clean, and some of it dainty in its character, the result is visible in the tasteful attire of the workers, whose snowy aprons and delicate ribbons are in direct contrast to the worn and soiled raiment of the weary sisterhood of the tubs, and the inky presses of the wetting and printing divisions. Part of the woman's work of this room is to needle the sheets, which must be done so accurately, that when hundreds together are laid in the cutting machine, the glittering blade will strike through a single line, not wavering a hair's width women's work in the treasury. 323 through two hundred sheets. The room is thronged with those little guillotines, whose gleaming blades are in constant execution. Each Treasury note sheet which passes under them is cut into four notes at once, each sliding down, correctly sorted, into its own little box wait- ing below. Excepting the fractional currency cutters, all these exquisite machines are worked by ladies, who manipulate them with unerring accuracy. In this Bureau but one more thing remains for our dol- lar, that it should be laid " in its little bed," before it goes down to the Treasurer. This is speedily done, and its bed is a very dainty affair, — a pretty box, made in an adjoining room by pretty hands ; and pretty hands lay our dollar away; indeed dollar on dollar, so many in a box, which shuts them in — fair, tempting, tantalizing — out of sight, to await the call of the Treasurer and the mandate of Uncle Samuel. There are fourteen divisions in the Printing and En- graving Bureau. Yet it is its unyielding rule that not a sheet of paper can pass from the hands of one superinten- dent to his operatives without a verified count and a writ- ten receipt, which is made a permanent record in a book kept for the purpose. At the close of each day's labor, the operatives in every room report to its superintendent, before they leave the building, how much paper they have received, how much finished, returning the balance. The superintendent of each room makes a report, on a printed form, at the end of each day, showing the amount of paper received, delivered up to the morning, through the day, the amount delivered that day, the amount on hand. This report is delivered to the Chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and a duplicate sent to the 324 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON. Secretary. From these reports the Secretary compiles his report of the work of the entire Bureau, which must correspond with the report made by the Chief of the Bureau. When any given issue of notes or bonds is completed, the Secretary of the Treasury holds a report, which is a complete history of the issue through all its stages of growth, from beginning to end. The test of the utter thoroughness of this system, is that every note printed in this department from its beginning, if returned to superintendents, could be traced, through every stage, back to blank paper ; the books showing the date of its arrival, and by whom it was printed, sealed, numbered, separated, and delivered to the Treasurer of the United States. The system of checks used by the Bureau of Printing and Engraving is so perfect that it is almost impossible for the Government to lose a fraction from it. The paper is registered at the mills — every sheet accounted for. Every sheet manufactured is accounted for every day. To perfect a fraudulent issue, there would have to be a universal collusion between all the superintendents of all the divisions and all the operatives, and between the superintendents and operatives. Several high officers of the Printing Bureau are appointed by the Secretary, independent of the Chief of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, which is another security against danger. These are but a part of the safeguards within which the United States Treasury holds its dollars. Mr. McCartee, the present Chief of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving of the United States Treasury, is so utterly the master of the momentous machinery a chief's responsibilities. 325 which he " runs," that you cannot ask him a question concerning the labor in detail of his eleven hundred em- ployes, that he cannot answer more perfectly than the person doing the work. Beside his own practical knowledge of the business com- mitted to his charge in minutige, he employs only men trained from their youth up in the art of plate engrav- ing, to perform the skilled labor, or to superintend the divisions of this most important Governmental Bureau. The responsibilities and mental anxieties of its chief are so inexorable, that he must be at his post by a little past seven in the morning, and remain till five P. M. He must return about seven P. M., and remain until ten at night. Often the wheels and presses, and patient hands of this de- partment, go from day to day to be able to meet the en- ormous demand of the country upon its resources. No added comment is necessary to prove how honorable is its lowliest toil, or how indispensable to its chief are the highest mental and moral qualities. CHAPTER XXXII. THE LAST DAYS OF A DOLLAR. The Division of Issues— Ready for the World — Starting Right — Forty Busy Maids and Matrons — Counting Out the Money — Human Machines — A Lady Counting for a Dozen Years — Fifty Thousand Notes in a Day — Counting Four Thousand Notes in Twenty Minutes — Travelling on Be- half of Uncle Sam — In Need of a Looking- Over — " Detailed " for the Work — What has Passed Through Some Fingers — Big Figures — Packing Away the Dollars — The Cash Division — The Marble Cash-Room — The Great Iron Vault — Where Uncle Sam Keeps His Money — Some Nice Little Packages — Taking it Coolly — One Hundred Millions of Dollars in Hand — Some Little White Bags — The Gold Taken from the Banks of Richmond — Anxious to Get Their Money Back — A Little Difficulty — Not yet " Charged " — A Distinction without a Difference — Charming Variety — A Nice Little Hoard — Five Hundred Millions Stored Away — The Secret of the Locks — The Hydraulic Elevator — Sending the Money off — How the Money is Transported — Begrimed, Demoralized, and Despoiled — Where is our Pretty Dollar? — The Redemption Division — Counting Muti- lated Currency — Women at Work — Sorting Old Greenbacks — Three Hundred Counterfeit Dollars Daily — Detecting Bad Notes — " Short," "Over," and "Counterfeit" — Difficulty of Counterfeiting Fresh Notes —Vast Amounts Sent for Redemption — Thirty-one Million Dollars in One Year — The Assistant Treasurer at New York — The Cancelling Room — The Counter's Report — The Bundle in a Box — Awkward Respon- sibility — " Punching " Old Dollars — They are Chopped in Two — Paying for Mistakes — The Funeral of the Dollar — The Burning, Fiery Furnace — "The Burning Committee" — What They Burn Every Other Day— The End of the Dollar. FOLLOWING our dollar, we come this soft summer morning to the Division of Issues. It is in the Treas- urer's Bureau, and here, crisp, new and ready for its ad- ventures, our dollar has arrived. The fate that may COUNTING FIFTY THOUSAND NOTES A DAT. 327 await it out in the world, the wildest fancy cannot fore- tell ; but before it starts on its long pilgrimage, it must be again manipulated by fair fingers, to see that it starts " all right." We enter a long, light, airy room ; and here at a table sit forty or more maids and matrons, counting the new notes. Pretty maidens ! Pretty dollars ! Our dollar among the rest. Crinkling, fluttering, flying, the dollars ! Serene, silent, swift, the maidens ! That anything can be counted so rapidly and yet so accurately, defies belief. It is the marvel of this counting, that it is as infallible as it is flying. The fingers of forty women play the part of perfected machinery, the numbered notes passing through them with the celerity and regularity of auto- matic action. This perfection of mathematical movement is acquired only by long practice and by one order of intellect. There are persons who can never acquire this unerring accuracy of mind and motion combined. There is a lady sitting here who has been in this division since it was organized, in 1862, who can, upon demand, count fifty thousand notes in one day. As the department hours of work are from nine to three o'clock, and half an hour is taken at noon for lunch, these fifty thousand notes must all be counted in the space of five and a half hours. This is at a rate of nine thousand and ninety notes each hour, one hundred and fifty each minute and two and a half each second. The same lady will count four thou- sand legal tender notes in twenty minutes. These lady counters, with a number of their sister peers from the Redemption Division, perform numerous journeys for Uncle Samuel whenever the Treasury Offices in other 328 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. cities need a " looking over." At such times they are " detailed " to go and count the Government funds there. Through the fingers of these ladies has passed every note — legal tender or fractional — which has been issued by the United States since the beginning of the war of the rebellion. Every note, ever touched or seen, with all the gold-notes and the millions of imperfect bonds and notes never put in circulation — every one has passed through these same deft fingers. The total value of this vast amount, up to July, 1872, was about two thousand nine hundred million dollars, more than two hundred and twenty- three millions of which was in postal and fractional currency. As soon as the new money is counted, it is again put away — the legal tenders in strong paper wrappers, the fractional currency in paper boxes. All are sealed, put on a hand-cart, and rolled off to the vaults of the cash division, whither we still, you and I, pursue our little dollar. Passing through the cashier's office and the superb Marble Cash-room (to which we will soon return), at the opposite end we reach one almost exclusively occupied by the iron vault of the United States Treasury. The double iron doors swing slowly back, and we stand in the money vault of the nation. It looks light and airy as a china-closet. The sealed packages, lining the shelves to the ceiling, are full of money. I hold a small package in my hand of crisp, stamped paper, tied with common twine, and "take it coolly" when the keeper of these coffers tells me that the string ties in one hundred mil- lions of dollars.- It doesn't seem much ! On the shelf of a cosy closet are piled some little WHEEE THE MONEY IS STORED AWAY. 329 white bags which have done a deal of travelling. They hold the gold captured from Jefferson Davis's fleeing trains, taken from the banks of Richmond. You know the banks of Richmond have been very anxious to get their money back, and have sent numerous messengers after it. A small obstacle, in the shape of a fact, sepa- rates them from the object of their desire. This gold was rifled from the mint in New Orleans, and before it came to the banks of Richmond belonged to the Treasury of the United States. In this vault is packed away all the money not needed for circulation. A large portion of the money which lines these shelves has never been charged to the Treas- urer on the books of the department, therefore, techni- cally, is not yet money, although all ready for use. Every kind of note which the ingenuity of Uncle Sam and his servants ever devised, is here packed and guarded. The compartments of the safe not affording sufficient space, the floor is piled — and as carelessly, apparently, as if with potato or apple bags ; but not in fact. The value of every bag and package is known, and not one cent could be taken without being swiftly discovered and pursued. Piles on piles of little bags and packages! this is all, and yet they hold five hundred millions of dollars. Little bags and packages these are, all, and yet for them men toil, struggle, sin — sell their bodies and their souls! On each of the doors of this iron vault are two burg- lar-proof locks, of the most complicated construction, each on a combination different from the rest. But two or three persons know these combinations, and no per- son knows the combination to the locks on both doors. 330 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. Thus it is impossible that they should be fraudulently opened, save by collusion between two persons who know the combination. This is but one of the safeguards which the Government sets about its treasures. A few paces from the door of this vault is the elevator communicating with the room of the agent of Adams' Express Company, on the basement floor below. The motive power of this elevator is Potomac-water, from the water-mains. Two iron pistons, about eight inches in diameter, attached to the elevator platform, one on each side, move smoothly up and down in perpendicular iron cylinders. A turn of the handle admits the water into the cylinder beneath the pistons, which are forced up by the pressure, and with them the elevator. A reverse movement of the handle allows the water to escape from the cylinders, and the elevator descends. Its movements are noiseless, and it is managed with remarkable ease. Up and down, this servant, swift and silent, bears the moneys of the people. It is just descending, piled high with packages, some directed to banks, railroad and man- ufacturing companies. Others are addressed to assistant treasurers and depositors of the United States. Much is going to replace the old money already sent back to the Treasury for destruction. All will be carried away, as it was brought in its neophite state, by Adams' Express Com- pany, which is bound by contract to transact all the vast money transportation business of the Government. This contract confers mutual advantage, both on the Company and the Government. To the latter, because it obtains transportation at a much lower rate than it could other- wise do, paying but twenty-five cents for each thousand dollars transported ; while, at even this per cent, the Com- DETECTING COUNTEEFEITS. 331 pany can grow rich on the monopoly of the vast money transportation business of the Government of the United States. Alas ! for our dollar that went forth from the paternal door — as many another child has done — unsullied, only to return at a later day from its contact with the world, be- grimed, demoralized, despoiled. Where is our pretty dollar, fresh and pure ? Every delicate line defaced, tat- tered, filthy, worn out — this wretched little rag, surely, cannot be it ! And yet it is. This is what the world's hard hand has made our dollar. We have reached the Redemption Division of the Treas- urer's Bureau, and stand in one of the rooms devoted to the counting of mutilated currency and the detection of counterfeits. This difficult and responsible labor of the public service is performed solely by women. In the long rooms on either side of the marble hall, on the north ground floor of the Treasury Building, may be seen one hundred and fifty women, whose deft and deli- cate fingers are ceaselessly busy detecting counterfeits, identifying, restoring, counting and registering worn-out currency which has come home to be "redeemed." Each lady sits at a table by herself, that the money com- mitted to her may not become mixed with that to be counted by any other person. The fractional currency sent to the Treasury for re- demption is usually assorted by denominations only. The work of assorting by issues remains to be done by the counters of the Treasury. As there are four distinct issues of most of the denominations, each of which must be assorted by itself, this labor alone is a vast one to the 332 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. counters. Looking on their tables we see them heaped with little piles of currency, each made of a denomina- tion or issue different from the rest. Thus every new issue increases the labor of currency-redemption. With clear eyes and patient hand, the lady bending over this table takes up slowly every bill and scrutinizes it, first, to see if it be genuine. Over three hundred dollars in counterfeit notes are found in the fractional currency, daily. This fact alone is sufficient to make the counting of the Redemption Division far less rapid than that of the Division of Issues. The first thing that a lady at a redemption table does with her money packages is, to compare their number with the inventory which accompanies them. If there is none, she makes one. If there is a discrepancy between the packages and the number claimed, she refers to a clerk, that there may be no mistake. She then proceeds to the examination of a single package. After she has placed all the rest in a box, so that no strap or stray scrip from another bundle may mix with the first ; when she has scru- tinized and counted every note in the package, she puts the strap on again, marking it with her initials, the date, the amount, the "shorts," "overs," and "counterfeits." Thus she continues till every package has been counted. She then proceeds to assort the notes into packages, each containing one hundred notes, each of the same denomi- nation and issue, which she binds with a " brand new " printed strap again, marked with her initials and date. All the notes over even hundreds she places by them- selves. These in turn are given to distinct counters,/ whose sole business it is to make even hundreds out of these odd numbers. REDEMPTION" OF CURRENCY. 333 The first counter then enters in a book, having a blank form for the purpose, printed in duplicate on one side of each leaf, a statement of the result of her count, containing the net amount found due to the owner, the aggregate of the " shorts," the "overs," the " counterfeits" discovered and the amount claimed. One of these dupli- cates is retained in the book as her voucher ; the other is attached to the letter which accompanied the money ; all together are handed to the clerk, who draws the check which is to be sent in return ; or, if new currency is to be sent from the cash division, the clerk writes the order on which it is to be forwarded. This is the story of but one package of mutilated money of the tens of thousands that are received at the Treasury every day. The Government has provided the most munificent facilities for the redemption of its cur- rency and the maintenance of its credit in circulation. To what an extent the nation avails itself of these facili- ties no one can realize who has never visited the Treasury. Regular transportation, at the expense of the Government, is provided by express for the redemption of all currency. Everything demanded of its holders is, that they should send it in proper amounts ; then its transportation is paid, and new currency sent back in its stead. This liberality in the Government is partly accounted for in the fact that fresh notes are a prevention of counterfeits. A fresh, new note cannot be counterfeited. Its exquisite tints and lines cannot be reproduced by any false hand. Only after its beauty has been obscured is the attempt made. Thus it is said that counterfeiters " soil and rumple their spurious notes, to give them the appearance of having been in circulation a long time." Thus many banks 334 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON. never sort over or pay out any fractional currency which, they receive, but put it into packages and send it to the Treasury at the close of each day's business, so that nothing but clean notes are ever paid over their counters. By doing this they are saved the immense labor of re- assorting old notes, and afford their applicants the happi- ness of always receiving new ones. Only the room in which the express messengers deliver their remittances can give any idea of the vast amounts sent daily to the Treasury for redemption. Here we find counters, tables, and the floor piled high with damaged money from every State in the Union. Two and three hundred packages are often received by express in a sin- gle day. The greater part of these contain postage and fractional currency. The Assistant Treasurer of New York forwards a remittance of fractional currency every ten or twelve days, never less than one hundred thousand dollars, and the amounts sent from other treasury officers are proportionately large. Over thirty-one million dol- lars in fractional currency were received -and counted during the last fiscal year — about one hundred thousand dollars for each working day. Every note in this large sum has to be counted, studied, assorted with all others of the same denomination and issue ; strapped, labelled, reported, delivered — all done by women. The last room to which the counter carries our dollar is the cancelling room. She has just reported to the chief of the Redemption Division the result of her count, in the following duplicate report on the broad paper strap which binds her bundle of soiled notes : HOW THE WOEK IS DONE. 335 Amount, $5,000 00 From Fiftieth National Bank, New York City. Received July 9, 1873, by Mart Jones. Legal, Full Currency, Odds, Discounted, - $4,000.00 900.00 40.00 - 20.00 $4,960.00 Counterfeit, - $20.00 Discount, - - 5.00 Rejected, - 5.00 Short by Inventory, 15.00 Short by Strap, - $45.00 Over by Strap, - - 5.00 Net Short, - - $40.00 The $4,960 is immediately sent to the bank in any denomination of new notes requested, or if no such re- quest has been made, it is sent in exactly the denomina- tions received. And now our lady-counter proceeds to attend the cancelling of the notes which she has counted, and which the Treasury has already redeemed. A mes- senger carries her precious bundle in a box, but she must keep messenger, box, and bundle in sight; for, from the moment that she receives it, till she places it in the last cash-account clerk's hands, she is personally responsible for its contents. If, by any possibility, it could be spirited away, she would be obliged to pay for every ragged dol- lar out of her little stipend. This is a bustling sight. Messengers, each with a counter, are rushing in and out with their boxes full of strapped and labelled currency. Round a large table crowd many fair women, while every instant " thud ! thud ! " strike the precious packages. Each in turn is taken up by the canceller and set between the teeth of Uncle Sam's cancelling machine. This is fashioned out of two heavy horizontal steel bars, five feet in length, work- 336 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. ing on pivots. To the shorter end of each is attached a punch, while the other is connected by a* lever with a crank, in the sub-basement below, which is propelled by a turbine water-wheel furnished with Potomac-water from one of the pipes of the building. Under its grind- ing " punch " our poor little dollar goes, and with it a hundred dollars beside. With a savage accuracy it stabs two holes through every one. This is done for the pur- pose of absolute cancellation. Then each bundle is re- turned to its box, the messenger picks it up, the counter follows, and both hasten to the cash-account clerk of the division, whose business it is to see if all the money re- ceived and delivered to the counters, has been returned and accounted for. Not until she sees her box of can- celled notes safe in the hands of this clerk, does the counter's personal responsibility end. Near the punches in the cancelling room is a ferocious- looking knife, set in an axle, which is consecrated to the purpose of cutting the cancelled bundles in two, through the middle of each note. These are made into packages of one hundred thousand dollars of fractional currency, and larger sums of legal tender notes ; and are sent back to this office to be cut asunder by this knife. The duplicate paper and strap which our fair counter bound about this bundle, is so printed as to show, upon each half, the de- nomination, issue and amount of the notes enclosed. The counter's initials and the date of counting are also recorded at each end, as well as a number or letter to identify the bundle. These sundered notes are now sent, one-half to counters in the Secretary's office, the other half to counters in the Registrar's office, where every lit- tle wretched rag is re-counted. This is done as a check THE FUNERAL OF A DOLLAR. 337 on the Treasurer's counters, and to secure absolute accu- racy. If these second counters discover a "short" or a " counterfeit " passed over by the first fair fingers, the full amount is taken out of the wages of the counter whose initials the tell-tale package bears. The Treasury mills grind slowly ; but in the slow full- ness of time the separate " counts " of three offices — the Treasurer's, the Register's, the Secretary's — are finally reconciled. The integrity of the Government, throughout the whole existence of its minutest fraction, has been maintained and demonstrated. In the process there is not much left of our poor little dollar, and nothing left for us but to go to its funeral. Like most of us, it has had rather a hard time in this world of ours. Where has it not lived — from a palace to " a pig's stomach ;" and what has it not endured — from the scarlet rash to the small-pox — and to think that nothing remains for it now but to be burned ! Only through purgatorial flame can it be fully and finally "redeemed." About a quarter of a mile from the Treasury Depart- ment, in what is called " White Lot," stands the furnace which is to consume our dollar. The furnace, and the building in which it stands, was built expressly for this purpose for the sum of ten thousand dollars. The fur- nace is ten feet high, seven in diameter, circular and open at the top. With it is connected an air-blower, which is attached to an engine, the steam for which comes from a boiler some twenty rods distant. On the ground about lie piles of cinders — the metallic ashes of extinct dollars, compounded of pins, sulphur, printer's ink and dirt. To this furnace, filled with shavings in advance, every day comes " The Burning Committee," bearing the 338 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. boxes of doomed dollars, sealed finally in the Register's and Secretary's Bureaus. This Committee is formed of a person from each of these Bureaus, with a fourth not con- nected with the Departments. In their presence the final seals are broken — the complicated locks of the furnace opened. Then the packages are thrown into the flames, each " lot " being called and checked by the Committee, the amount averaging about one million five hundred thousand dollars every other day. At the same hour about one hundred thousand dollars in national bank notes are burned at another and smaller furnace. Beside cancelled money, internal revenue and postage stamps, checks and defective new money are all consumed in this furnace. Here the three official delegates, with a few spectators, stand to witness the sight. Worn out, used up, gone by — all pass into the furnace, our dollar w T ith the rest. The furnace is locked, by official hands, with nine distinct locks. A match is set to the shavings ; the smoke of the sacrifice begins to ascend — the Committee depart. The fire and the money are left alone together for the next twenty-four hours. To-morrow a smutty aerolite, smoth- ered in ashes, will be the significant "finis" of the story of our dollar. It has had its day ! CHAPTER XXXni. THE GREAT CASH-ROOM— THE WATCH-DOG OF THE TREASURY. No Need for Dirty Money — The Flowers of July — Money Affairs — The Great Cash-Room — Its Marble Glories — A Glance Inside — The Beautiful Walls— A Good Deal of Very Bad Taste— Only Made of Plaster— The Clerks of the Cash-Room — New Money for Old — The National Treasury — " The Watch-Dog " of the Treasury— The Custodian of the Cash— A Broken-nosed Pitcher — Ink for the Autographs — His Ancient Chair — "The General" — " Crooked, Crotchety and Great-hearted" — "Princi- ples " and Pantaloons — Below the Surface — An Unpaintable Face — An Object of Personal Curiosity — Dick and Dolly pay the General a Visit — How the Thing is Done — " Pretty Thoroughly Wrought Up " — A Couple without any Claims — Gratified in the Very Jolliest Fashion — Getting his Autograph — A Specimen for the Folks at Home — Realizing a Responsi- bility — Where the Treasurer Sleeps — Going the Round at Night — Mak- ing Assurance Sure — Awakened by a Strong Impression — Sleepless — In the " Small Hours " — Finding the Door Open — A Careless Clerk — The Care of Eight Hundred Millions — On the Alert — The Secretary's Room — Three at the Table — Doings and Duties — The Labors of the Secretary and Comptrollers — The Auditors — The Solicitor's Office — The Light- House Board — The Coast Survey — Internal Revenue Department. "VTOBODY need ever carry a smutty bit of money in -_ li Washington. Lay down the worst looking fraction you ever saw, upon the marble counter of the Cash-Room, and a virgin piece, without blemish, will be given you in its stead. Do you wish ten unsoiled u ones " for that ragged "ten" of yours? Take it to the Cash-Room, and the desire of your heart will be granted in a moment. To do this you turn out of Pennsylvania avenue towards 340 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. the north front of the Treasury. On either side, spread away broad beds of flowers. In April, their hyacinths sent great drifts of fragrance, blocks away ; in May, it was one great garden of roses, and now it has burst into a passion of bloom, a very carnival of color — the burning scarlet of the geraniums mocking the dazzling azure of the sky. On either side run these lavish hues. Before you, cooling the marble court beneath your feet, the great fountain tosses its spray. Toward you stretches the long restful shadow of the northern portico, inviting you to enter in. If your visit means "money," as it may, you pass di- rectly through the portico to the Cash-Room, into which it opens. No other room in the world as magnificent is devoted to such a purpose. It is seventy-two feet long, thirty-two feet wide, and twenty-seven feet six inches high. Exclusive of the upper cornice, the walls are built entirely of marble. Seven varieties meet and merge into each other, to make the harmony of its blended hues. From the main floor it rises through two stories of the building. Thus it has upper and lower windows, be- tween which a narrow bronze gallery runs, encircling the entire room. The base of the stylobate of the first story is black Vermont marble, the mouldings are Bardiglio Italian, the styles dove Vermont marble, the panels Sienna Italian, and the dies Tennessee. Above the stylo- bate, the styles are of Sienna marble. With these are contrasted the pale primrose tints of the Corinthian pilasters and a cornice of white-veined Italian marble. Opposite the windows, and in corresponding positions at the ends of the rooms, are panels of the dark-veined Bardiglio Italian marble, the exact size of the windows. THE a WATCH-DOG" OF THE TREASURY. 341 The stylobate and the styles and pilasters of the second story show the same tints and variety of marbles which mark the first. But the panels are of Sarran Golum marble, from the Pyrenees. The latter is one of the rarest of marbles; at a distance, of a blood-red hue. Upon nearer inspection, it reveals undreamed-of beau- ties in veining and tint. The pilasters of the second story are not like those of the first story, pure — but complex. They support a cor- nice, not of wrought marble, as all the remainder of the room would promise, but of plaster of Paris, fantastically wrought and profusely gilded. This cornice is another blot of that meretricious ornamentation which in so many noble spaces disfigures the Capitol. Extending the length of the room is a costly counter, of various marbles, surmounted by a balustrade of mahog- any and plate-glass. Within this are busy the clerks of the Cash-Room, and over this marble counter you, as one of its many proprietors, may receive, for the asking, ten " ones " for one " ten " — new money for old. From this superb room of the people we pass to that of the Treasurer, — " the watch-dog of the Treasury," — the man who holds and guards the untold millions of the nation. It is a plain room, very. No thought of luxury, it is easy to see, has touched an article of its furniture, from his well-worn chair to the broken-nosed pitcher which holds the General's ink ; that ink, thick as mud and black as Egyptian night, out of which he constructs these marvellous hieroglyphics, which, on our legal-tender notes, has become one of the most baffling studies of the nation. " The General ! " That's his name, from the roof to 342 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. the cellar of the vast Treasury; crooked, crotchety, great- hearted ; nobody swears so loud, or is so generous, or just, as " the General." Every afflicted soul, from the women, poor and old, who stand by the printing-presses under the scorching roof, to Mary Walker, whose devo- tion to " her principles," in the form of a pair of hideous little pantaloons, causes her justly to shedtiibs of tears, — all are sure of a hearing, and of redress, if possible, from " the General." His face is as astonishing as his signature. It is a Lincolnian face in this, that its best expression can never be transferred to a picture. In life it is rugged, ugly at first glance, genial at the second. The eyes twinkle with humor and kindness ; the wide mouth shuts tight with wilfulness and determination ; the whole ex- pression and presence of the man indicate energy, hon- esty, and power. General Spinner is an object of personal curiosity to all sight-seers who visit Washington. Dick and Dolly having puzzled their eyes for an hour, studying some fresh legal tender note, to discover by what process of evolu- tion and convolution the remarkable signature which it bears is fashioned, when they came to the Capital, pro- ceeded to the Treasury to see, not only the man who makes it, but how he makes it. Bluff, and even snappish at first approach, after a little wilful snarling, our Gen- eral subsides into the most amiable of mastiffs. He is an exception to the official class, in his hate of exclusiveness and his never-failing accessibility. Indeed, he would have far less to irritate him, if he made himself more unapproachable and remote. As it is, all sorts of tor- menting people, finding it perfectly easy to "get at him," do not neglect the privilege, and altogether keep GENERAL SPINNER'S AUTOGRAPH. 343 him pretty thoroughly " wrought up " with their never- ending and perpetually conflicting woes. Dicky and Dolly, fresh from their farm, who ask for no " place " in any " division " whatever, who have no alert grievance grumbling for redress, who wish for nothing hut, " Please, sir, will you just show us how you make it — that queer name ? " are sure to be gratified in the very jolliest fash- ion. The General stabs the old pen with three points down into the pudding-like ink which sticks to the bot- tom of the broken-nosed pitcher, and proceeds to pile it up in ridiculous little heaps at cross angles on a bit of paper. The result of his " piling," which Dick and Dolly watch with breathless interest, is his signature, which our happy friends bear off in triumph to show to the " folks at home." " Yes, sir, the autograph of the Treasurer of the United States ! and we saw him make it, we did ! A queer lookin' man, but good as pie, I can tell you ; has a feelin' for folks, as if he wasn't no better than them, if he does take care of all the money of the United States Treasury, which, I tell you, is a heap ! " The taking care of this money is a mighty responsibil- ity, which General Spinner realizes to the utmost. From his small room in the Treasury, a door opens into a still smaller one. In this little room, beneath the mighty roof of the Treasury, the keeper of its millions sleeps. Before he essays to do this, twice every night the guard- ian of the people's treasure goes himself to the money vault, and, with his own hand upon their handles, assures himself beyond doubt that the nation's money safes are inviolably locked. In order that he may do this every night before he at- tempts to sleep, and that he may never be beyond call in 344 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON. case of accident or wrong doing, the Treasurer of the United States absolutely lives, by day and by night, in the Treasury. It is told of him that, " Once, before he began sleeping in the Treasury, he was awakened in the night by a strong impression that something was wrong at the Department. He lay for a long time, tossing un- easily upon his bed, and trying to close his eyes and con- vince himself that it was a mere freak of an over-taxed brain ; but it would not be driven away. At last, about two o'clock in the morning, in order to assure himself that his impression was at fault, he arose, hastily dressed, and set out for the Treasury. On his way he met a watchman from the Department, hastening to arouse him, with the information that the door of one of the vaults had just been found standing wide open. A careless clerk, whose duty it was to close and lock the door, had failed to perform his duty that night, and the watchman, on going his rounds, had discovered the neglect." Since that night the Treasurer has slept in the Treas- ury, and been night-inspector of its doors and locks himself. It is not difficult to appreciate his personal anxiety and consciousness of vast responsibility, when we remem- fber that he is the hourly keeper of at least eight hundred million dollars which belong to the nation. There are very few officers of the Government who are called to bring to bear upon their daily duties the ceaseless vigi- lance, the sacrifice of personal ease and comfort in the service of the State, which characterizes the honest, tire- less, invincible " watch-dog of the Treasury." The room of the Secretary of the Treasury, in the Treasury building, has its outlook on the eastern side THE SECRETARY'S ROOM. 345 and grounds of the Executive Mansion. A wonderful fountain throws its million jets into the air at the foot of the great portico below, and another tosses its spray amid the green knolls opposite the President's windows. These grounds, swelling everywhere into gentle hills, covered with mossy turf, filled with winding walks, and bright- ened with parterres of flowers in summer months, are en- chanting in their beauty. Thus, you see, the Secretary's windows quite turn their backs on the noisy avenue. Their outlook is most serene. So is the aspect and atmosphere of the room. It is a nun of a room, folded in soft grays, with here and there a touch of blue and gold. The velvet carpet is gray ; the furniture, oiled black walnut, upholstered with blue cloth, each chair and sofa bearing " U. S." in a medallion on its back, while the carved window-cornices each hold in their centres the gilded scales of justice above the key of the Treasury. A full-length mirror is placed between these windows. On one side of the room is a book-case, in which the works of Webster, Calhoun, Washington, and Jefferson, are con- spicuous. The walls are frescoed in neutral tints, and the only pictures on them are chromo portraits of Lincoln and Grant. In the centre of this room, at a cloth-covered table, sits the Secretary of the Treasury and his assistants, besides, usually, a third dejected mortal, on the "anxious seat'* of expectancy for an office. The Secretary's office is charged with the general super- vision of the fiscal transactions of the Government, and of the execution of the laws concerning the commerce and navigation of the United States. He superintends the survey of the coast, the light-house establishment, 346 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. the marine hospitals of the United States, and the con- struction of certain public buildings for custom-houses and other purposes. The First Comptroller's office prescribes the mode of keeping and rendering accounts for the civil and diplo- matic service, as well as the public lands, and revises and certifies the balances arising thereon. The Second Comptroller's office prescribes the mode of keeping and rendering the accounts of the army, navy, and Indian departments of the public service, and revises and certifies the balances arising thereon. The office of Commissioner of Customs prescribes the mode of keeping and rendering the accounts of the cus- toms revenue and disbursements, and for the building and repairing custom-houses, etc., and revises and certifies the balances arising thereon. The First Auditor's office receives and adjusts the ac- counts of the customs revenue and disbursements, ap- propriations and expenditures on account of the civil list and under private acts of Congress, and reports the balances to the Commissioner of the Customs and the First Comptroller, respectively, for their decision thereon. The Second Auditor's office receives and adjusts all accounts relating to the pay, clothing and recruiting of the army, as well as armories, arsenals, and ordnance, and all accounts relating to the Indian Bureau, and re- ports the balances to the Second Comptroller for his de- cision thereon. The Third Auditor's office adjusts all accounts for sub- sistence of the army, fortifications, military academy, mil- itary roads, and the quarter-master's department, as well as for pensions, claims arising from military services pre- WHERE THE GOVERNMENT WORKS. 347 vious to 1816, and for horses and other property lost in the military service, under various acts of Congress, and reports the balances to the Second Comptroller for his de- cision thereon. The Fourth Auditor's office adjusts all accounts for the service of the Navy Department, and reports the balances to the Second Comptroller for his decision thereon. The Fifth Auditor's office adjusts all accounts for diplo- matic and similar services, performed under the direction of the State Department, and reports the balances to the First Comptroller for his decision thereon. The Sixth Auditor's office adjusts all accounts arising from the service of the Post-office Department. His decis- ions are final, unless an appeal be taken within twelve months to the First Comptroller. He superintends the col- lection of all debts due the Post-office Department, and all penalties and forfeitures imposed on postmasters and mail contractors for failing to do their duty ; he directs suits and legal proceedings, civil and criminal, and takes all such measures as may be authorized by law to enforce the prompt payment of moneys due to the department, in- structing United States attorneys, marshals, and clerks, on all matters relating thereto, and receives returns from each term of the United States courts of the condition and progress of such suits and legal proceedings ; has charge of all lands and other property assigned to the United States in payment of debts due the Post-office Depart- ment, and has power to sell and dispose of the same for the benefit of the United States. The Treasurer's office receives and keeps the moneys of the United States in his own office, and that of the de- positories created by the Act of August 6th, 1846, and 348 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 7 pays out the same upon warrants drawn by the Secre- tary of the Treasury, countersigned by the First Comp- troller, and upon warrants drawn by the Postmaster- General and countersigned by the Sixth Auditor, and recorded by the Register. He also holds public moneys advanced by warrant to disbursing officers, and pays out the same upon their checks. The Registrar's office keeps the accounts of public re- ceipts and expenditures, receives the returns and makes out the official statement of commerce and navigation of the United States, and receives from the First Comptroller and Commissioner of Customs all accounts and vouchers decided by them, and is charged by law with their safe keeping. The Solicitor's office superintends all civil suits com- menced by the United States (except those arising in the post-office department), and instructs the United States attorneys, marshals and clerks in all matters relating to them and their results. He receives returns from each term of the United States courts, showing the progress and condition of such suits ; has charge of all lands and other property assigned to the United States in payment of debts (except those assigned in payment of debts due the post-office department), and has power to sell and dispose of the same for the benefit of the United States. The Light-House Board, of which the Secretary of the Treasury is ex-officio president, but in the deliberations of which he has the assistance of naval, military and scien- tific coadjutors. United States Coast Survey. The Superintendent, with numerous assistants, employed in the office and upon the survey of the coast, are under the control of this depart- THE INTEKNAL KE VENUE DEPAKTMENT. 349 ment. A statement of their duties will be found in a future chapter. The new rooms of the Internal Revenue Department are very beautiful. They run the entire length of the new wing of the Treasury, looking out on the magnifi- cent marble court, with its central fountain below, the north entrance, the Presidential grounds and Pennsylva- nia avenue. They are covered with miles of Brussels carpeting, in green and gold. Their walls are set with elegant mirrors, hung with maps and pictures. There are globes, cases filled with books, cushioned furniture — all the accompaniments of elegant apartments, and one opening into the other, forming a perfect suite. CHAPTER XXXIV. WOMAN'S WORK IN THE DEPARTMENTS— WHAT THEY DO AND HOW THEY DO IT. Women Experts in the Treasury — General Spinner's Opinion — A Woman's Logic — The Gifts of Women — Their Superiority to Men — Money Burnt in the Chicago Fire — Cases of Valuable Rubbish — Identifying Burnt Greenbacks — The Treasure Saved — The Ashes of the Boston Fire — From the Bottom of the Mississippi — Mrs. Patterson Saves a " Pile" of Money — Money in the Toes of Stockings — In the Stomachs of Men and Beasts — From the Bodies of the Murdered and Drowned — Not Fairly Paid — One Hundred and Eighty Women at Work — "The Broom Brig- ade " — Scrubbing the Floors — The Soldier's Widow — -Stories which Might be Told — Meditating Suicide — The Struggle of Life — How a Thousand Women are Employed — Speaking of Their Characters — The Ill-paid Servants of the Country — Chief-Justice Taney's Daughters — Col- onel Albert Johnson's Daughter — A Place Where Men are Not Employed — Writing " for the Press " — Miss Grundy of New York — The Internal Revenue Bureau — " Marvels of Mechanical Beauty " — Women of Busi- ness Capacity — A Lady as Big as Two Books! — In a Man's Place — A Disgrace to the Nation — Working for Two, Paid for One — How "Re- trenchment " is Carried Out — In the Departments — Beaten by a Woman — The Post Office Department — Folding " Dead Letters " — A Woman who has Worked Well — " Sorrow Does Not Kill " — The Patent Office — The Agricultural Department — Changes Which Should be Made. IN several branches of the Treasury service, women have risen to the proficiency of experts. This is es- pecially true of them as rapid and accurate counters, as restorers of mutilated currency and as counterfeit detectors. General Spinner says: "A man will examine a note systematically and deduce logically, from the imperfect J WOMEN EXPERTS IN THE TREASURY. 351 engraving, blurred vignette or indistinct signature, that it is counterfeit, and be wrong four cases out of ten. A woman picks up a note, looks at it in a desultory fashion of her own, and says : ' That's counterfeit.' ' Why ? ' ' Because it is,' she answers promptly, and she is right eleven cases out of twelve." Yet this almost unerring accuracy is by no means the result of mere instinct, or of hap-hazard chance. It is the sequence of subtle perception, of fine, keen vis- ion, and of exquisite sensitiveness of touch. All women do not excel as counterfeit-detectors; nor can all become experts as restorers and counters of cur- rency. But wherever a woman possesses native quick- ness, combined with power of concentration, with train- ing and experience, she in time commands an absolute skill in her work, which, it has been proved, it is impossi- ble for men to attain. Her very fineness of touch, swift- ness of movement, and subtlety of sight give her this ad- vantage. Thus when notes are defaced or charred beyond ordinary recognition, they are placed in the hands of women for identification. After the great Chicago fire in 1871, cases of money to the value of one hundred and sixty-four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven dollars and ninety-eight cents, were sent to the United States Treasury for identification. They consisted of legal tenders, National State bank and fractional notes, bonds, certificates and coupons, internal revenue and postage stamps, all so shrivelled and burned, that they crumbled to the touch and defied unaided eye- sight. All these charred treasures were placed in the hands of a committee of six ladies, for identification. What patience, practice, skill, were indispensable to the fulfilment of this task, it is not difficult to conjecture. 352 TEN" TEAES IN WASHINGTON. "After unpacking the money from the raw cotton in which it travelled, as jealously swathed as the most precious jewellery, the ladies separated each small piece with thin knives made for the purpose, then laying the blackened fragments on sheets of blotting-paper, they decided by close scrutiny the value, genuineness and nature of the note. Magnifying glasses were provided, but seldom used, except for the deciphering of coupon-numbers or other mi- nute details. The pieces were then pasted on thin paper, the bank-notes returned to their respective banks, and the United States money put in sealed envelopes and deliv- ered to a committee of four, who superintended the final burning. The amount of one million, two hundred and twenty-six thousand, three hundred and forty-one dollars and thirty-three cents was identified — over seventy-six per cent, of the whole." A year later, Boston, from the ruins of its great fire, gathered the ashes of its money and sent it to the United States Treasury, begging identification and aid in restora- tion. Eighty-three cases came from that city, and these were so carefully packed that the labor of identification was greatly lightened. Of the eighty-eight thousand, eight hundred and twelve dollars and ninety-nine cents, which they contained, over ninety per cent, of the whole was identified by the same six ladies, who saved so much to individuals and to the Government from the Chicago fire. Besides money, a large amount of checks, drafts, prom- issory notes, insurance policies, and other valuable papers were identified by these same clear eyes and patient hands, and restored to their owners. The entire respon- sibility of the whole amount rested on them. The money was delivered to them, when it came, and on their reports MONET SAVED FROM FIRE AND WATER. 353 all remittances on it were made. It took over six months of constant labor to identify the money from these fires. The names of this committee of six are Mrs. M. J. Patterson, Miss Pearl, Mrs. Davis, Miss Schriner, Miss Wright, and Miss Powers. "Mrs. Patterson has been engaged for seven or eight years on what are called f affidavit cases' — cases where the money is too badly mutilated to be redeemed in the regular way, and the sender testifying under oath that the missing fragments are totally destroyed, receives whatever proportion of the original value allowed by the rules." The most noted case that she ever worked on was that of a paymaster's trunk that was sunk in the Mississippi, in the Robert Carter. After lying three years in the bot- tom of the river, the steamer was raised, and the money, soaked, rotten and obliterated, given to Mrs. Patterson for identification. She saved one hundred and eighty-five thousand out of two hundred thousand dollars, and the express company, which was responsible for the original amount, presented her with five hundred dollars, as a recognition of her services. All the money which she identifies passes from the hands of this lady to a committee of three — two gentle- men, one from the Treasurer's and one from the Regis- ter's office, and a lady from the Secretary's office. The duties of these three persons are identical. They re-count the money, seal it with the official seal of the three offices, and for so doing receive, per year, the gentlemen each eighteen hundred dollars, the lady twelve hundred dollars — one more illustration of the sort of justice be- tween the work of men and women, which prevails in the Treasury service ! 23 354 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. The identification and restoration of defaced and mu- tilated notes is a very difficult and important operation. From the toes of stockings, in which they have been washed and dissolved ; from the stomachs of animals, and even of men ; from the bodies of drowned and murdered human beings; from the holes of vice and of deadly dis- ease, these fragments of money, whose lines are often ut- terly obliterated, whose tissues emit the foulest smells, come to the Treasury, and are committed wholly to the supervision and skill of women. Let any just mind decide whether such labor does not deserve to be recognized and rewarded absolutely on its own merits. Such is its acknowleged value, that these Government experts have been allowed to go to distant parts of the country, to restore burnt money belonging to Adams' Express Company, because it was known that there was no one else in the land, who could perform this service. The whole basement floor of the north wing of the Treasury is occupied by the busy counters of mutilated money. Here sit one hundred and eighty women count- ers, restorers and detectors. Side by side, we see the faded and the blooming face. Here is the woman, worn and weary — born, more than likely, to ease and luxury — thankfully working to support herself and her children ; and at the very next table, a maiden, whose fresh youth, care has not yet worn out — each working with equal thank- fulness, to support herself, and besides, perhaps, father and mother, brother, sister or child. The time of toil, for one who must earn her living, is not long; indeed, the hours are fewer than the average hours of ordinary labor. She does not complain of them; THE BEUSH-AKD-BKOOM BEIGADE. 355 she is grateful for her chance. Yet her working-day is as long as her brother's. Her chance, alone, is less. For the same hours and the same toil, her stipend is one- fourth smaller than his smallest. At three o'clock P. M., hats and shawls come down from their pegs, lunch-baskets come forth from their hiding- places, the great corridors, and porticoes, and broad streets are thronged with homeward-wending workers. For the space of half an hour, the Treasury-offices and halls seem deserted, and then — Lo ! the Broom Brigade ! Cobwebs, dust and dirt, no longer dim the granite steps, the tessel- lated floors, the marble surfaces of the Treasury-building, as they used to do, years ago. Congress has provided a Broom Brigade, with fifteen dollars a month, to pay each member — and here they come, the sweepers, the dusters and the scrubbers — ninety women ! Three years ago, was established the present efficient system of daily cleaning of the Treasury, exclusively un- der feminine control, with what perfect result, all who re- member the Treasury as it was, and see it as it is, can bear witness. These ninety women-workers are under the exclusive control of a lady custodian. The organization, supervis- ion, general control, payment, etc., of this small army of sweepers, brushers and scrubbers, all devolve on her. She is a fair and stately woman, wearing a crown of snow-white hair, her soul looking out of eyes clear and bright, yet of tender blue. Her face tells its own story of sorrow out- lived, and of deep human sympathy. Did it tell any other, she would not be the right woman in the right place. No woman who has not suffered, who is not in profound sympathy with every form of human poverty 356 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON". and want, could of right reign over an army of women toilers, sweeping, scrubbing for bread. At 4 P. M., each day, ninety women enter a little room on the basement floor of the Treasury, there to exchange their decent street dress for the dusty garments of toil. As they as- cend the broad stairs and disperse — broom, duster, or scrubbing-brush in hand — to make the beautiful offices and broad halls fresh and bright for the next coming day, the lady who guards and guides them all — who knows the history of each one — what stories she might tell ! Here is a little woman whose husband was killed in the Union army, leaving her nothing but his memory, his small pension, and a pair of brave hands to support her- self and three little ones. Here are two bright little col- ored girls. They are students in Howard's University, and come every day after school, the long way to the Treasury, to earn a part of the money which is to insure their education. Here is a young woman whose keenly lined, sorrowful face is a history. " Months ago she came to the silver-haired lady in the custodian's room, and asked for work of any kind. The possibility to grant her re- quest did not then exist, and again and again, with little hope, she came. At last she applied when some necessi- tous vacancy in the ranks of workers rendered it possible for the lady to assign her at once to a place of employ- ment ; and gladly she gave it, for the petitioner was wan and despairing. After work and the departure of the throng, she again sought the lady, to thank her on her knees 'for saving her life.' She said, 'I had made up my mind to take my life if you refused me ; I had reached the end of every thing.' Then followed the oft-repeated story — deception, desertion, desperation, and the one last strug- THE LABOKS OF A THOUSAND WOMEN. 357 gle to live" — to live honestly by honest, albeit the lowliest toil. "Many a soldier's widow, struggling with smallest for- tune, has occasion to be thankful for the fifteen dollars earned here every month, although the walk and work seem insufferable at times. Many a soldier's orphan is sustained by the stroke of brush and broom, making hall and stair and wall brightly clean to the step and sight of coming vis- itors from far and near, and the same shining polish which some strangers may admire, on the perspected marble floors ancl wrought pilasters, is a source and means of maintenance to humble homes when a death, desertion, and (0 ! sadly often) drunkenness has removed the head and protector, and in which life means only toil and sor- row. Every one of these ninety women has her own story of trouble, and want, and endurance, which made up her past, and won for her, her niche in this scheme of labor." Near a thousand women, from the toilers of the tubs un- der its roof, to the Brush-and-Broom Brigade in its base- ment, are employed in the Treasury. Their labor ranges from the lowliest manual toil, to the highest intellectual employment. In the social scale ^they measure the entire gamut of society. In isolated instances, women of excep- tional character may still hold positions in the Treasury, and in so large a number, and under an unjust system of appointment, it would be strange if no such case could be found. But so powerful is the public sentiment roused against such appointments, it is impossible that they should be longer permitted, if known. The deepest wrong which their presence ever inflicted, was' the un- just suspicion which they brought upon a large body of intelligent, pure women. The truth is, there is not an- 358 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON". other company of women-workers in the land which num- bers so many ladies of high character, intelligence, culture, and social position. The country is not aware to what an extent its most noble public servants have died poor, nor how many of their wives and daughters have sought the Government Civil Service as the means of honorable self-support. Until within a short time, when the friends of their father raised a fund for their support, the daughters of Chief -Justice Taney were employed in the Treasury. The fair young orphan daughter of Robert J. Walker, once Sec- retary of the Treasury, now supports herself by service in the Internal Revenue. Governor Fairchild, of Wisconsin, found his beautiful wife, the daughter of a distinguished public man, occupying a desk in the Treasury. Mrs. Mary Johnson, daughter of Colonel Albert, who for a long series of years was head of the Topographical Bureau, has been for ten years a clerk in the Treasury. Her husband was Consul at Florence, where he died. Her father pass- ing away soon after, she found herself alone, with two young sons to rear and educate. She became a Govern- ment clerk, or, as that title is now officially denied to a woman, "a Government employe!' Her sons are growing up to honor her, one having entered the Naval School at Annapolis. Mrs. Tilton, sister of General Rob- ert Ould, is an "employe" in the Internal Revenue. The widow of Captain Ringgold is also there. The Quarter-master-General's Office, which is a division of the War Department, has been almost exclusively set apart for the widows, daughters, and sisters of officers of army or navy, killed or injured in the war. Almost with- out exception, the "employes" of this office are gentle- LADY-WEITEES AND THEIR LABORS. 359 women. It is filled with elegant and accomplished women, some of whom are remarkable for their literary and sci- entific attainments. These ladies now occupy offices pro- vided in a plain building on Fifteenth street. Their rooms are smaller and much more private than those of the Treasury opposite. Their work is the copying, recording, and registering of the letters of the department. No men are employed in these offices. Their superintendent is a lady, who has entire supervision of the ladies and the labor of this division. She is the widow of a naval officer who died in the service, a descendant of Benjamin Franklin, and occupies now, as she has all her life, the highest social position. She has children to support, and carries heavy of- ficial responsibilities — her duties are identical with those of the head of any other bureau — she receives only the stipend of the lowest male clerk, twelve hundred dollars. Elizabeth Akers Allen (Florence Percy), whose deep and tender lyrics call forth such universal response, held a po- sition in this office until her last marriage. Women of education and the finest intellectual gifts are to be found in every department. No inconsiderable num- ber attempt to bring their meagre nine hundred dollar salary up to the most ignorant man employe's twelve hun- dred, by writing for the press, or pursuing some artistic employment outside of office hours. The Treasury boasts of a number of more than ordi- nary women correspondents, whose letters have attracted wide attention by the really important information which they have imparted, concerning internal workings of De- partmental life and service. Foremost among these, is Miss Austine Snead (Miss Grundy, of the New York World). ""Miss Snead is the only and fatherless daughter 360 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. of an accomplished gentleman. She is a "Class-child" of Harvard College, a loyal Kentuckian whom, with her youthful and lovely mother, the vicissitudes of war drifted to the one work-shop of the Nation open to women. The loss of her position, by change of administration, forced her to turn to the chance of journalism, and in the branch of the profession which she entered, she rose at once to the foremost rank. Mrs. Snead, formerly a famous belle of Louisville, Kentucky, is one of the most patient, faith- ful, and accurate counters in the redemption division of the Treasury, and is beside, weekly correspondent of the Louisville Courier Journal. Both are women who wear industry, integrity, and honor as their jewels, far dearer to them than all the lost treasures of Fortune's more prosperous days. The Internal Eevenue Bureau, a branch of the Treas- ury Service, and occupying beautiful apartments in the Treasury Building, employs a large number of women. Copying, recording, filing of letters, and keeping accounts, make the chief work of this division. It demands a high order of clerical ability, and the books kept by these ladies are marvels of mechanical beauty. The complications and immensity of the Internal Rev- enue Service, make this one of the busiest offices in the entire Department. It contains from forty-five to fifty women — employes. Beside those who execute the ex- quisite copper-plate copying, there are many whose whole duty is "head work." This consists of examining, sort- ing, and filing the different daily communications received at the office. These are of one hundred and fifty varieties, concerning internal revenue, taxes, etc., subjects usually supposed not to be particularly lucid to the average fern- how woman's work is paid. 361 inine mind. Many are employed in examining, approv- ing, and recording reports of surveys of distilleries, and other important papers ; and such is the estimate placed on their business capacity, as thus applied, that their opinions on the papers are accepted without question. At one of these desks sits a lovely sylph-like creature, whose bird-like hands always reminds me of Charlotte Bronte's. She is scarcely bigger than the two big books which she handles and "keeps" — and to see her at them, perched upon a high stool, is " a sight." Born and reared in affluence, fragile in constitution, and exquisitely sensi- tive in organism, she is yet intellectually one of the best clerks — no "employes" in the Bureau. Years ago, she Was placed at this eighteen hundred dollar desk, which a man-clerk had just vacated. She has filled it, perform- ing its duties for seven or eight years, for the woman's stipend of nine hundred dollars. When the new Civil Service Rules first went into operation, she was awarded twelve hundred dollars per annum, for her service from that date. To have awarded her the remaining six hun- dred dollars, which was paid the man at the same desk, for doing the same work, would have been an equality of justice, from which the average official masculine mind instinctively recoiled. Apropos of the preponderance of favor with which this same official masculine mind is able to regard and reward itself, is the case of a lady in another division. She has mathematical genius, and is one of the best prac- tical mathematicians in the Treasury Department. Many of the statistical tables, for reports to Congress, are made out by her. Members of Congress, on the most import- ant committees, do not disdain to come to her for assist- 362 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. ance in making out their reports. Near two years ago, a man-clerk, in the same room with this lady, (who received his appointment through political favoritism,) became so dissipated, that he was totally unfitted to fulfil the duties of his desk, and he was carried by his friends to an ine- briate asylum. Since that time, this lady, in addition to the arduous duties of her own desk, has performed all the labor accruing to that of the absent inebriate. She whose official existence as a clerk is denied by the legislators who employ her, has performed steadily, for many months, the labor of two men-clerks. How much does she re- ceive for so doing? Nine hundred dollars a year. The eighteen hundred dollars, which she earns at one desk, is paid to the drunkard in whose name she earns it ! The Government, who support this man for being a drunkard, forces a woman to do his work for nothing, or lose the chance of earning the pittance paid to her in her own name. This lady, broken in health by her long-con- tinued and overtaxing toil, sees what before her? Surely not recognition or justice from the Government which she serves and honors, while it, through selfishness and injustice, disgraces itself. Of the forty-five ladies in the Internal Revenue Bu- reau, there is but one, and she fifty years of age, who has not more than herself to support on the pittance which she is paid. Nevertheless, whenever a spasmodic cry of "retrenchment" is raised, three women are always dismissed from office, to one man, although the men so greatly outnumber the women, to say nothing of their being so much more expensive. " One of the greatest advocates of economy took work from a woman whose pay was the invariable nine hun- MAN VERSUS WOMAN. 363 dred dollars per year, to give it to a man, who received for doing it, sixteen hundred dollars. No complaint was made of her manner of doing the work, but the head of the division said that she could count money, and he had not enough work for the men. Nothing was said of dis- missing the superfluous male clerks. The work given the manly mind, in this instance, was the entering of dates of redemption opposite the numbers of redeemed notes. A child of ten years could scarcely have blundered at it. The same date was written sometimes for two weeks at a time." The lady at the head of the woman's division of the Internal Revenue Bureau, has filled the position, with marked efficiency, for ten years, and upon the adoption of the new Civil Service Rules, she was authorized to re- ceive eighteen hundred dollars per annum. The lady who is one of the librarians of the library of the Treasury, is an accomplished linguist, a very intel- lectual woman. She was appointed by Mr. Boutwell, and received sixteen hundred dollars. There are some very important desks filled by ladies in the Fifth Auditor's office. Into their hands come all con- sular reports. To fulfil their duties efficiently, they must possess a knowledge of banking, as well as of mathe- matics. Before the Civil Service Rules were vetoed, several ladies competed in one, two, and three examinations. Thus several won, by pure intellectual test, twelve hun- dred dollars, sixteen hundred dollars, eighteen hundred dollars, and one or two, I believe, a twenty-two hundred dollars position. In the office of the Comptroller of the Treasury, are 364 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. some very important desks filled by ladies. One young lady in this office has charge of the correspondence with the national banks and engraving companies. This in- volves a complicated routine. The desk was formerly filled by a man who received fourteen hundred dollars. It was taken from him because he was two hundred let- ters behind date. The work which has been in charge of this lady for six or seven years, at nine hundred dollars per annum, is always even with the day. Another young lady, in this office, prepares an abstract of the circulation issued and returned by national banks, by means of which an immediate answer can be given, when information is asked, as to the outstanding circula- tion of any particular bank. Another laborious task, per- formed in this office by a lady, is the preparation of an abstract of the number of notes of each denomination and issue, work requiring great intellectual exactness and care. In the Post Office Department, there are forty-seven women who address "returned letters," i. e., letters which have miscarried, and which are to be returned, if the sig- nature, or anything inside the letter, gives a clue to whom it is to be sent. There are ten women who fold " dead letters," and three who translate foreign letters. The lady in charge of the women clerks in the Dead Letter Office, is the daughter of an officer high in rank in the army, now dead. Her grandfather was the Presi- dent of a New England college. Mrs. Pettigru King, whose father was the Governor of South Carolina, and a member of the United States Senate, herself a woman of remarkable talents, was long employed in the Dead- Letter Office. Sitting among many younger women, her THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 365 hands flying as swift as any of theirs — the daily task, that of re-directing two hundred letters, usually completed by her before that of any one else — we see a fair, round-faced, blue-eyed woman, whose sudden, bright glance and rapid movements at once fix our attention. She looks to be about fifty; she is in reality over seventy years of age. She and her history combined, probably make as remark- able a fact as the Dead-Letter Office contains. She is the widow of a clergyman. When the war broke out, her only son became hopelessly insane. "As he could not go to the war, I went myself," she said. As the As- sistant-Manager of the United States Sanitary Committee for an entire State," she raised, in money, ten thousand dollars, and collected and distributed ninety thousand hos- pital articles. She was in the field, in the hospital, and travelling between certain large cities, till the close of the war. Just as she finished her great work, she fell and broke one of her limbs. This confined her to her room for six months. In the meantime, her daughter's hus- band died, leaving her with three little children, and no income. Soon after, the mother lost what little she had, and the entire family were left penniless. After an un- successful attempt at the widow's forlorn hope, "keeping boarders," mother and daughter came to Washington, and sought for positions in the Departments. "Friends tried to dissuade us," said the old lady. " They told us that we must not come here, to mingle with such people as they thought were in the Departments. We have not seen them. I have been three years in the Post Office Department, and my daughter in the Treasury, and we have met none but respectable women." Three winters ago, by act of Congress, she was allowed 366 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. to place her insane son in the Lunatic Asylum here, free of charge, leaving her at liberty to assist her daughter in the support of her young family. Notwithstanding her war services, and the names of twenty prominent men in her native State attached to her papers, it took her six months to obtain, for herself and daughter, the chances to labor which she sought. "Sorrow does not kill," she says, and as we look into her beaming eyes, we say it does not even extinguish the brightness of a soul forever young, — and yet this lady, in a few eventful years, " lived through sorrow enough to break any heart less stout than hers." In the Patent Office, fifty-two women clerks are allowed by law. A few women are employed in copying Pension Rolls in the Pension Office, who have a room provided for them in the Patent Office. Ten or twelve women have work given them from the Patent Office, which they do at their homes. This work, as well as that done in the Office, consists chiefly of the drawing of models. Every model of all the tens of thousands received in the Patent Office, from the beginning to the present day, has thus been re-produced and preserved. Glazed transpar- ent linen is placed over the engraved lines, and through this, with ink and stencil, the most intricate and exquisite lines are drawn. To do this work perfectly, a lady must be something of an artist and draughtswoman. Magnify- ing glasses are used, and even with their aid, the work is most trying, and often destructive to the eyesight. The salary fixed for this work is ten hundred dollars per an- num. Those who take their work home, and are paid by the piece, make as much as those who give the work will allow. Here, of course, is a large opportunity for favor- A LADY TAXIDERMIST. 367 itism and injustice. Thus favorites are often allowed to do twice their share, while others get barely work enough to subsist. The Agricultural Department affords temporary em- ployment for numbers of women, for two or three months of the year, and two have permanent positions there. The temporary work is the putting up of seeds for uni- versal distribution, and occasionally copying is given out. Of the two ladies who find constant employment there, one is the assistant of Professor Glover, in taking charge of the Museum. She is the widow of a western editor, and at one time had exclusive control of a public journal (an agricultural one,) herself. She is a woman of large intelligence, a proficient in botany and natural history, which fact gave her, her present position, and enabled her to fill it with credit to herself. The other lady em- ploye is a taxidermist, who prepares the birds and insects for the Museum. The officers of this Department regard her as a proficient in her profession. She is a German, has been connected with the Department over six years, and has a room provided for her in the beautiful agricul- tural building. Woman's work in the Government Printing-Office, re- mains yet to be noticed, but enough has been mentioned, to prove its value in other branches of the Civil Service. It would be strange if so large a hive held no drones. It is doubtless true, that while many women are not only qualified, but actually perform the duties of the highest class desks, for an unjust pittance, many more do not even earn their nine hundred dollars per annum. There could be no more striking proof of the inequality and injustice which prevail in our Civil Service, than the 3G8 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON". fact that such persons, men and women, are appointed by men in power, really to be supported by the Gov- ernment, and receive from that Government, for ineffi- ciency and idleness, all, and more, than is paid often to the most intellectual, the most efficient, the most devoted of its servants. CHAPTER XXXV. WOMEN'S WORK IN THE TREASURY. The Scales of Justitia — Where They Hang and Where They Do Not Hang — The Difference Between Men and AVomen — Reform a "' Sham ! " — The First Women-Clerks — A Shameful and Disgraceful Fraud — What Two Women Did — Cutting Down the Salaries of Women — The First Wo- man-Clerk in the Treasury — Taking Her Husband's Place — Working "in Her Brother's Name" — A Matter of Expediency — The Feminine Tea-Pot — The Secretary Growls at the Tea-Pots — The Hegira Of the Tea-Pots — Thackeray's Opinion of Nature's Intentions — Blind on One Side — In War Days— General Spinner Visits Secretary Chase — "A Wo- man can Use Scissors Better than a Man " — Profound Discovery ! — " She '11 do it Cheaper"—- 1 ' Light Work"—" Recognized "—Besieged by Women — Scenes of Distress and Trouble — Hundreds of Homeless Wo- men — After the War — How the Appointments were Made — Creating an Interest — The Advantages of the " Sinners " — Infamous Intrigues — The Baseness of Certain Senators — Virtue Spattered with Mud — A Disgrace to the Nation — Secret Doings in High Places — New Civil Service Rules — Sounding Magnanimous — Passing the Examination — The Irrepressible Masculine Tyrants— The New Rules a Perfect Failure — Up to the Mark, but not Winning — An Alarming Suggestion — Men versus Women — Tam- pering with the Scales — How Much a Woman Ought to be Paid — Opin- ion of a Man in Power — Interesting Description of an Average Repre- sentative — " Keeping Women in Their Place " — Getting up a Speech on Women — The Man who Stayed at Home — Generosity of the " Back-Pay " Congress — What Women Believe Ought to be Done. ON the carved cornices which surmount windows and mirrors in the spacious Office of the Secretary of the Treasury may be seen, equally balanced above its keys, the scales of Justitia. Would that they symbolized the equal justice reigning through the minutest division of the great departments of the Government service. 24 370 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. i Weighted with human Selfishness, perhaps this is im- possible. Majestic in aspect, great in magnitude, in en- ergy and action, they will never be morally grand till they are established and perpetuated in absolute equity. In that hour the scales of Justitia will hang in equal bal- ance above the head of the masculine and feminine worker. Whatever their difference, there will be no dis- parity in the equity which shall measure, weigh and re- ward equal toil. To-day the departments of Govern- ment teem with kindness and favoritism to individual women. What they lack is justice to woman. This they have lacked from the beginning. What a comment on human selfishness is the fact, that with all the legislation of successive Congresses, the employment of women in the departments of the Government is to-day as it was in the beginning — perpetuated in favoritism and injustice. Civil Service Reform, as carried on, is a mockery and a sham. Nowhere has its hollow pretence been so visible — so keenly felt — as in its utter failure of simple justice to the woman-worker in the public service. From the beginning, when her work has been tacitly recognized and rewarded as a man's, her sex has been proscribed. The first work given to women from the Government was issued from the General Land Office, as early, if not earlier, than President Pierce's administra- tion, and consisted of the copying of land warrants. This work was sent to their homes. They received it in the name of some male relative, and for that reason were paid what he would have received for doing it, viz., twelve hundred dollars per annum. One lady supported a worth- less husband (the nominal clerk) and her two children in this way, doing all his work for him. Another supported THE ILL-PAID LADY-CLEKKS. 371 herself, her two nephews, and educated them out of the same salary. During Mr. Buchanan's administration, this work was taken out of feminine hands, to a very large extent, and the few allowed to retain it were paid only six hundred dollars. Somewhere in this era the first woman clerk ap- peared in the Treasury. She was a wife who, during her husband's illness, was allowed to take his desk and to do his work, for his support and their children's. This she continued to do until her second marriage ; but it was in her brothers name. She copied and recorded, did both well, and was paid — not because she did well, but because she did her work in the name of a man — sixteen hundred dollars per annum. Thus, while this lady performed the work of a man, and performed it in his name, as a woman her presence at the desk was a subterfuge, and her official existence ignored. Without recognition or acknowledgment, the woman- clerk system in the Treasury Department is an outgrowth of expediency. Like many another fact born of the same parentage, it soon proved its own right to existence, and refused to be extinguished. By the time that Secretary McCulloch made his advent, the feminine tea-pot had invaded every window-ledge. The Secretary complained of the accumulation of tea- pots in the Treasury of the nation. They vanished, and ceased to distill the gentle beverage for the woman-worker at her noonday lunch. "Nature meant kindly by wo- man when it made her the tea-plant," Thackeray says. The presence of her tea-pot was made a mental and moral sign, by political philosophers, that woman was un- fit for Government service. Nobody ever heard that the 372 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. costly cigars and tobacco which filled the man clerk's " nooning," to the exhilaration of his body and soul, was a like sign of his inability to perform prolonged service without the aid of stimulants. In war days, when tens of thousands of men were withdrawn from civil labor, and when one day's expense to the Government equalled a whole year's in the time of Washington, General Spinner went to Secretary Chase and said : "A woman can use scissors better than a man, and she will do it cheaper. I want to employ women to cut the Treasury notes." Mr. Chase consented, and soon the great rooms of the Treasury witnessed the unwonted sight of hundreds of women, scissors in hand, cutting and trimming each Treasury-note sheet into four separate notes. This was " light work ; " but if anybody supposes it easy, let him try it for hours without stopping, and the exquisite pain in his shoulder-joints and the blisters on his fingers will bear aching witness to his mistake. Washington was full of needy women, of women whom the exigencies of war had suddenly bereft of protection and home. In her appointment at that hour, political dif- ferences went for nothing. Every poor woman who ap- plied to the good General was given work if he had it. A pair of scissors were placed in her hands, and she was told to go at it. She had no official appointment or ex- istence. During 1862, these women were paid six hun- dred dollars per annum out of the fund provided by Con- gress for temporary clerks. A year or two later the working existence of these women was recognized in the annual appropriation bills. After that it did not take long to spread through the land that the Government Departments in Washington THE DEPARTMENTS DURING THE WAR. 373 offered work to women. The land was full — fuller than ever before of women who needed work to live. Ne- cessity, exaggeration, romance and sorrow, combined as propelling motives, and the Capital was soon overrun with women seeking Government employment. Then, more conspicuously than to-day, the supply far ex- ceeded the demand. The disappointment, the suffering, the sin which grew out of this fact, can never be meas- ured. The war had torn the whole social fabric like an earth- quake. Society seemed upheaved from its foundations — shattered, and scattered in chaos. Nowhere was this so apparent as in Washington. Women seeking their hus- bands ; women, whose husbands were dead, left penniless with dependent children. Young girls, orphaned and homeless, with women adventurers of every phase and sort, all, sooner or later, found their way to Washington. The male population was scarcely less chaotic. Men, re- strained and harmonized through life by the holiest influ- ences of home, found themselves suddenly homeless, herded together in masses, exposed to hardships, danger and undreamed-of temptations. " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," seemed to be blazoned on the painted sign-boards of the dens of drink and sin, and on the debauched and brazen faces of the stranger men and women who jostled each other on the crowded thorough- fares. While thousands escaped unharmed the moral pestilence which brooded in the air, tens of thousands more were touched with its blight, and fell. Men and women who would have lived and died innocent, in the safe shelter of peace and home, grew demoralized and desperate amid the 374 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON". rack and ruin of war. In the hour when human nature needed every sacred safeguard, it found itself bereft of the sweetest and best that it had ever known. This was especially true of the hundreds of homeless women in the Capital seeking employment. Congressional appropriations made woman's Government-employment at once a Con- gressional reward. Very soon, every woman's appoint- ment to work was at the mercy of some Member of Con- gress. Political or war-service might secure a man his, but what had the woman but her bereavements, or her personal influence ? For the sake of the former, noble men, in many instances, sought and found honest employment for noble women, for women who had given their husbands, sons and fathers, their own heart's blood, to their country, asking nothing in return but the chance to work for their own bread and their children's. In order to secure any Government position, the first thing a woman had to do was to go and tell her story to a man — in all probability a stranger — who possessed the appointing power, her chance of getting her place depend- ing utterly on the personal interest which she might be able to arouse in him. If he was sufficiently interested in her story, and in her, to make the official demand nec- essary, she obtained the coveted place, no matter what her qualifications for it, or her lack of them might be. If she failed to interest him, by no possibility could she se- cure that place, unless she could succeed in winning over to her cause another man of equal political power. If the men who held her chance for bread were good men, and she a good woman, well ; if they were bad men, and she a weak woman, not so well. In either case, the prin- ciple underlying the appointment was equally wrong. SECKET DEEDS OP MODEL CONGRESSMEN. 375 It was this unjust mode of appointment which, in so many instances, especially through the years of the war, placed side by side, with pure and noble women, the women-adventurers and sinners, whose presence cast so much undeserved reproach upon the innocent, and who caused the only shadow of disrepute which has ever fallen upon woman's Treasury-service. Even in the worst days this class formed the exceptions to a host of honorable and noble women, and yet the shameful fact cannot be wiped out that men, high in political power, because they had that power, made womanly virtue its price, and were meanly base enough to use the Civil Service of their country to pay for their own disgraceful sins. Because this was possible, pure women, working day by clay to sup- port themselves and their children, were covered with the shadow of unjust suspicion, while women, unworthy and profligate, were allowed the same positions, with equal honor and equal pay. There could be no greater moral injustice to woman than to place her employment under the Government on such a basis. It put the best under ban, while it drew those whose steps pointed downward swiftly along the in- evitable descent. There was but one redress that the State could offer to its daughters, that of making their chance equal to that of its sons. Then, if they failed, the failure would be their own ; if they succeeded, they would not be defrauded by the Government they served. The new Civil-Service Rules, whatever their impracti- cability in other ways, seemed to offer to the women- workers of the Government this redress. If education and fitness were to be made the standard of Departmental Service, alike for women as mem then the reign of favor- 376 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. itism and might must end. An idle woman, the pet of some man in power, would no longer receive all that was paid a woman filling the desks of two men. The woman who had proved, by years of efficient service at a man's desk, that she was more than equal to the performing of his duties, would cease to receive for doing them the pit- tance of the veriest idler in the lobbies, and no more. It sounded well ; magnanimous men and true women, yearning only for justice, and that it might be earned and won without ado, took heart. Educated women from North and South, East and West, flocked to the Capital to compete in impartial intellectual examination with men. Many of these were teachers — all women to whom self-support, or the support of others, were indispensable. The number of women who have passed the highest com- petitive examinations, is remarkable. Their life-long pur- suits and intellectual training made it impossible that, in this regard, they should prove second to men. The number so great, that all could receive appointments was not probable. In the face of so many new professions of equality of chance in the public service for women, the astonishing fact is, that while women pass the highest examinations with honor, it is men, with scarcely an exception, who pass into the highest places. With a mocking outcry of ". justice and equality," uttered to appease the universal demand, selfishness and might still prevail in all depart- mental appointments. Political and personal influence appoint women to-day, just as they did before one woman was summoned to compete in intellectual examination with men. "You were fools to expect a twelve-hundred-dollar AFRAID OF WOMEN COHPOSITOKS. 377 clerkship because you passed the examination of that class," said a high appointing officer of the Treasury to two ladies, one who had come from a far Western, the other from a far Eastern State. Both ladies passed the highest competitive examination — both, after months of wearing anxiety and struggle, with the wolf at the door, received — a nine-hundred-dollar clerkship. Did they re- ceive even that on the high merit of their competitive examination ? Not at all ; had their appointment de- pended on that, they would not have received one at all. Sick and worn out, they received it at last on the special plea of two men in office, each having political power in his respective State. With such results, I ask, what is a competitive exami- nation to women but a shame to the power that treacher- ously offers it ? The man who passes such an examina- tion cannot receive less than a twelve-hundred-dollar clerkship ; the woman who passes triumphantly the se- verest intellectual test offered by the Government, cannot receive more than a nine-hundred-dollar position. Why ? So many women came to Washington and proved, by actual mental examination, that they were fully competent to fill the highest civil offices in the departments, its officials became alarmed. " Taken on their attainments, they will push out the men," they exclaimed, in alarm. Then straightway they fell back, as men in power always do, to carry their own ends on unjust legislation. They based their decision on the Act of Congress of four years ago, which fixed the salary of all women employed in the Government Departments at nine hundred dollars per annum. The result of all the loud hypocritical outcry of civil 378 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. equality to women is, that hereafter, no matter how high the competitive examination which she passes, no matter what the services which she renders, no woman is to re- ceive more than nine hundred dollars per year for any appointment received after a certain date ; and no man, no matter how low the labor which he performs, be it only as a messenger to run through the halls, is to receive less than twelve hundred dollars per annum. Cast clown your scales, 0, Justitia, let them shiver to atoms on its marble floor for hanging in equal balance above the keys of the Treasury of the United States. They are a mocking lie. Beneath these desecrated sym- bols sits the Secretary of the Treasury, and to him a few shrinking, yet daring, women have appealed. "Four hundred dollars a year is enough for any woman to be paid for her work," replies this accidental potentate, borne from obscurity to power solely by the " boosting " of a friend, who lifted him from his unthought-of " bench " in Massachusetts, with no guarantee of fitness from his past, to the chief ship of the Treasury of the Nation. " Four hundred dollars is enough for any woman to receive for her work, and more than she could earn anywhere else," replies this man. This one remark, pitted against the facts recorded in this chapter, proved the man who made it as too narrow- minded and unjust, too pervaded with the caste and self- ishness of sex, to be fit to hold the appointing power over hundreds of women, in culture and intellectually more than his peers. No man whose spring of action is " might is right " has a right to rule. To-day nothing could be more humiliating to a high- spirited, intelligent, honorable woman, than to sit in the woman's work and wages. 379 gallery of the Hall of Representatives and be compelled to listen to a debate on woman's work and wages going on below. Yet if she never heard the words uttered by men who claim to be the representatives of the people, and who make the laws which define her rights and decide her rewards, she could never realize how selfish, ungenerous, and unjust is the average man who assumes to represent woman, and to legislate for her welfare. These men, on the average, are fairly good husbands and indulgent fathers. They are anything but tyrants, personally, to the women of their families. But their personal relations do not prevent them from placing a very low estimate upon the powers, performance, place and prospects of women in general. Their caste of sex infiltrates through every word they utter. The man who is " bound to keep woman in her place," before he makes a speech to that effect, rushes into the Congressional Library, and asks Mr. Spofford to give him every book which will help him to prove that woman is a weak and inefficient creature. He then proceeds to " cram " himself with a crude mass of statements, which he extracts pell-mell out of a heap of books. This un- assimilated and impracticable load he delivers, a few days later, to Congress, to the galleries, and to the Globe — to prove that — no matter what her qualities or qualifications, moral or mental — being a woman, for that fact alone, she must not be a clerk, but an "employe ;" and no matter what she has done or is capable of doing in the service of the Government, for that service she must receive but nine hundred dollars, and the sum be fixed by law. There are honorable exceptions — a few men in Congress who, in the broadest and best sense, are the friends of 380 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. woman. They form a small minority. The majority, after having made woman's very existence as a Govern- ment-worker to depend on their own personal favoritism or caprice, stand up in Congress and cast stones at the very class which they have themselves created. In nine cases out of ten, these men staid at home while others fought their country's battles. And now they reward the widows and orphans of soldiers and sailors by giving them a reluctant chance to earn their bread on half-pay. They do it under sufferance, while these legislators with- hold just remuneration, sneer at their work, and defame their characters. The Forty-second Congress, which, in its most hurried moments, could take time to vote to its members an in- crease of salary from five thousand to eight thousand a year, rejected without debate a proposition to give women- clerks in the departments equal compensation with men, for the same labor. What added proof is required to show that the law-making power of our land is fast be- coming a monied monopoly — a legislature for the rich — an ignorer of the poor. " Eight thousand dollars every twelve months, by dint of close economy, will keep my wife and daughters in silks and velvets ; will give them a phaeton by the sea, and make beautiful their paths upon the mountain tops! What to me are the wives and daughters of the poor ? What care of mine the widows and orphans of men who perished in their country's ser- vice, if they do support themselves and their children by working for this just Government, which I help to make, for nine hundred dollars a year! while I pay at least twelve hundred to the laziest masculine lout who dawdles with papers across the Treasury floors ? " LEGISLATING FOE WOMEN. 381 Yet there was scarely a Member of that Congress that would not repel with jest or sneer the mere mention of woman's demand, in the face of such injustice, to legislate for herself. If you would avert this catastrophe, gentle- men, show that you are capable of just legislation ; prove that the power of franchise does not always beget oppres- sion to the disfranchised. I point to the practical working of the new Civil-Service Rules, to your own greedy grasp of additional thousands, with the refusal to grant three meagre hundreds to working women, to prove that woman has no hope of justice in man's representation. Repre- sent her interests with half the eager avidity which marks your devotion to your own, and she will never ask to rep- resent herself. But no matter what her individual dis- taste to public responsibility, nothing is more apparent to the wide-visioned, thoughtful woman than that, in a re- public, the only possibility of obtaining personal justice lies in political equality. CHAPTER XXXVI. MR. PARASITE IN OFFICE— HOW PLACE AND POWER ARE WON. Government Official Life — Its Effects on Human Nature — Keeping his Eye Open — The Sweet and Winning Ways of Mr. Parasite — In Office — The Fault of " the People " and "my Friends" — Shrinking from Responsi- bilities—Pulling the Wool over the Eyes of the Innocent — Writing Let- ters in a Big Way— The "Dark Ways" of Wicked Mr. P A Suspicious Yearning for Private Life — The Sweets of Office — A Little Change of Opinion — A Man Afflicted with Too Many Friends — Forgetting Things that Were — John Jones is not Encouraged — Post-offices as Plenti- ful as Blackberries — Receiving Office-seekers — " The Worst Thing in the World for You " — Dismissing John — Over-crowded Pastures — John's Own Private Opinion — The "Mighty Messenger" — Government-Servants — Peculiar Impartiality of the Man in Office — What the Successful Man Said — I Change My Opinion of Him — A Certain Kind of Man, and Where He can be Found. r>\ OVERNMENTAL official life has one effect upon yjT those whom it benefits, which is anything but cred- itable to human nature. Mr. Parasite wants a high place in the governmental service, and circumstances favor his getting it. While there is any doubt about it, he does not disdain to use any influence within his reach to make it certain. How lovely he is to everybody whose good word or ill word may " tell " for or against him. How affable he is to every mortal, from the lowliest outspoken man in his home town, to the influential writer, whose powerful pen he wishes to propitiate. Mr. Parasite glides into his place ME. PAKASITE IN OFFICE. 383 with grace and resignation. "The people, the people, you know, and my friends — they forced it upon me. They quite overrate my fitness, quite. I shrink from such re- sponsibilities, such arduous labors; but, if my country needs me, if my constituents demand my services, I feel that I have no right to refuse, no right to consult my personal ease, although the desire of my heart is for the peaceful quiet of private life." Strange to tell, when an accommodating people are about to grant him the desire of his heart, Mr. Parasite suddenly starts up alert, and touches the springs of a most powerful enginery. He writes personal letters by thou- sands ; he has his friends — i. e. agents — at work for him everywhere, whispering with this one, arguing with that one, and urging his claims incessantly upon the appoint- ing power. But who, that did not know it, could be- lieve it. Chance to light upon Mr. Parasite about this time, and mention the subject of his possible appointment or election to him as one in which he is naturally interested. Lo ! amid all others, Mr. Parasite alone is indifferent. " Of course, it would be a compliment, a re-election or re-appointment. He would prize it much as a mark of confidence from the people, or the Government ; but really, so far as personal desires go, private life." Private life still fills the measure of his yearning. " Retirement " is still the goal of fris desire. This is but the weakness ; the crime of Mr. Parasite is revealed further on. The long suspense over, safely ensconced in that official chair, while its cushions are a new delight, its honors are fresh, its powers unwonted, perhaps a conscious- ness of gratitude remains with Mr. Parasite. It's a pleas- 384 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. ant office, very. Carpeted, cushioned, curtained, pictured, secluded. It is pleasant, very. This ever-acknowledged honor of official state, messengers flying at your bid, doors swinging noiselessly at your approach, hats springing into air as you pass by, lorgnettes lifted by fair hands in great assemblies, the crowd peering and shouting, " There goes the great Mr. Parasite ! " Sweet, also, are the newly- found uses of official power — sweeter even than to die for one's country. The privileges of patronage, the con- sciousness of power over the fate of others, the uses of power in ministering to self — first sought and last relin- quished — of all the gifts of office. While all these retain the charm of newness, a sense of gratitude may remain with Mr. Parasite towards those who led and lifted him to his high estate. Rarely strong in any man, the sense of gratitude with continued office is sure to die out. When he first enters, and the memory of fresh ser- vices remains with him, he may feel, at least faintly, that he owes something to somebody besides himself; but the longer he remains, the surer he is that all is his by right, all due to his own exalted merit. There comes a time when it seems as if that cushioned chair, that luxurious office, those muffled doors, those cringing messengers, were all made especially for him and to do him service. With a growing sense of security in his position, comes, perhaps, an unconscious indifference toward those who, in the be- ginning, helped to lift him toward it. There is no inten- tional ingratitude, only it is so easy for some natures to forget others when they cease to need them. Then, too, official place, even in a republican govern- ment, hourly feeds in a man his love of power, and his sense of personal importance. It feeds the vanity and SNUBBING AN OFFICE SEEKER. 385 self-satisfaction of poor human nature, when its fellows are dependent upon it even for the smallest favors. Few meet this test and survive it their noblest selves. It is astonishing how soon Mr. Parasite forgets that, a short time since, he was a seeker of favors himself, and is sure to be again, before old age strands him amid things gone by in the long-deferred haven of private life. While a feeling of dependence on others survives, an emotion of gratitude lingers, Mr. Parasite will try to treat other applicants for office as he desired to be treated a few short months since himself. But these emotions were never known to live through a single stress of a single term of office. Poor Mr. Parasite is very much beset ! Every hour in the day somebody wants something that somebody believes is in Mr. Parasite's power to bestow. It may be flattering, but it is also wearing, tearing, exasperating, and even maddening, sometimes, to a man to be deemed the dispenser of so much power and patronage. He can- not give everybody all that everybody may ask — of course not. This is not all his sin. His sin is this : He comes in time (usually in a marvellously short time) to regard every one seeking the patronage of his office as a mendicant on his personal bounty, rather than as a member of one class with himself. Because he gained the highest honor, he forgets that he got it on the very same principle that John Jones, who, armed with credentials from his minis- ter and doctor, so humbly sues for the post-office of Mud- town. He listens to the sister pleading for her brother, the wife for her husband, the father for his son, the poor man for himself, and because it is little each asks, de- spises each accordingly, lectures each on the folly of 25 386 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. wanting any Government place whatever. The one thing that he cannot remember, and which it is most de- lightful to forget, is that he was ever in John Jones' place himself. To be sure, he did not sue for the Mudtown post-office. He wanted a foreign ministry, a home secretaryship, to be a Senator, or, at least, a Governor. He begged or bar- tered for these Government-gifts precisely as John does for his post-office. Both are equally office-seekers ; but there is such disparity between John's little Alpha and the Omega of Mr. Parasite's desires, the latter does not rec- ognize in this seeker of small things his remotest cousin. Comparatively few dare demand ministries and secreta- ryships, while post-offices and their ilk are as plentiful as blackberries, and their pickers equally so — so plentiful that Mr. Parasite leans back in his cushioned chair, on his official tripod, and wonders which John Jones it will be next, and what he will want ; and, when one of the innumerable Johns, waiting outside, is admitted by a mighty messenger, whose official state is more over- whelming even than his master's, the suppliant quakes to the bottom of his boots in the presence of the power- ful potentate, Mr. Parasite. " What do you want ? " says the potentate, in a tone which implies in advance, " You can't have it." "Only the Mudtown post-office," says John, "or — or anything that I can get." "Impossible; I have nothing — nothing for you," says the potentate, in a remote and superior tone, which indi- cates, as only a tone can, that he, the potentate, needs nothing at present himself. And who can imagine that he ever did ? " Why on earth do so many of you come mk. parasite's grandeur. 387 for Government employment? Don't you know it is the worst thing in the world for you? You had better go to work. Do anything, rather than to hang upon the Government." Thus one John is dismissed, to go and browse in the closely-cropped and over-crowded pastures of the ineffi- cient and ne'er-do-well mediocrity. . Several days later, when John rebounds from the shock imparted by Mr. Parasite's grandeur, its momentum sends him pat against a fact. " Why, he is a hanger-on to the Government himself." Yes ; and so, in one sense, is every office-holder, from the President down to the mighty mes- senger who condescends to shut and open doors. It implies no discredit to be a server of the Government ; but it re- veals a very ignoble side of human nature, when the favored holder rebuffs the lowliest seeker as a being from another race, in any essential quality the antipodes of himself. A man w T ho has just been lifted by his friends from one high place to another, has long boasted, w T hile in power, " that he would not help a friend sooner than an enemy." I had a certain admiration for him till I knew that he said this, and proved it by his practice. There is some- thing true and grateful and noble lacking in a man's na- ture, when he turns from his friend as he would from an enemy, doing nothing for either; always taking, and never giving; always seeking, yet sneering at others who seek ; always subsisting on Government bounty and place himself, while he wounds, ignores, and sometimes insults the unfortunates who wish to do likewise and can't. This is Mr. Parasite, and he lives, reigns and nourishes, as parasites only can, in every department of govern- mental state. CHAPTER XXXVH. THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE— ITS MARVELS AND MYS- TERIES. The Post-Office — Its Architecture — The Monolithic Corinthian Columns — The Postal Service in Early Times — The Act of Queen Anne's Reign — " Her Majesty's Colonies " — After the Revolution — The First Postmaster- General— The Present Chief— A Cabinet Minister — The Subordinate Offi- cers — Their Positions and Duties — The Ocean Mail Postal Service — The Contract Office — The Finance Office — The Inspection Office — Complaints and Misdoings — Benjamin Franklin's Appointment — He Goes into Debt — One Hundred and Twenty Years Ago — Franklin Performs Wonderful Works — His Ideas of Speed — Between Boston and Philadelphia in Six Weeks — Dismissed from Office — The Congress of " The Confederation"— A New Post Office System — Franklin Comes In Again — The Inspector of Dead Letters — Not Allowed to Take Copies of Letters — Only Seventy- five Offices in the States — Primitive Regulations— Only One Clerk — Government Stages — The Office at Washington — Saved from the British Troops — Franklin's Old Ledger — The Present Number of Post Offices — The Dead Letter Office — The Ladies Too Much Squeezed — Some of the Ladies " Packed " — Opening the Dead Letters — Why Certain Persons are Trusted — Three Thousand Thoughtless People — Valuable Letters — Ensur- ing Correctness — The Property Branch — The Touching Story of the Pho- tographs — The Return Branch — What the Postmaster Says. THOUGH injured in comparison by the higher site and loftier walls of the Patent-Office opposite, the Post- Office, in itself, is one of the most beautiful public build- ings in Washington. It occupies the entire block situated on Seventh and Eighth streets west, and E and F streets north. Like the Treasury and Patent-Office, it incloses a grassy court-yard on which its inner offices look out. The architecture of the Post-Office is a modified Corin- THE POST-OFFICE. 389 thian, and is regarded by critics as the best representation of the Italian palatial ever built upon this continent. It was designed chiefly by F. A. "Walter, at that time archi- tect of the Capitol, an artist who has left monuments of architectural beauty behind him in marble which, seem- ingly, can never perish. On the Seventh street side there is a vestibule, the ceiling of which is composed of richly ornamented marbles, supported by four marble columns ; the walls, niches and floors are of marble, polished and tes- sellated. This is the grand entrance to the General Post- Oflice Department. The F street front affords accommo- dation to the city Post Office. It has a deeply recessed portico in the centre, consisting of eight columns grouped in pairs, and flanked by coupled pilasters supporting an entablature which girds the entire work. The portico is supported by an arcade which furnishes ample conven- ience for the delivery of letters, and the hurrying crowds which come after them. The Corinthian columns of this portico are each formed of a single block of marble, and each in itself is a marvel of architectural grace. The entrance for the mail wagons, on Eighth street, consists of a grand archway, the spandrels of which bear upon their face, sculpture representing Steam and Electricity, while a mask, representing Fidelity, forms the key-stone. The Postal Service of the country is the oldestbranch of the Government. As early as the year 1792, a propo- sition was introduced into the General Assembly of Vir- ginia, to establish the office of Postmaster-General of Virginia and other parts of America. The proposition became a law, but was never carried into effect. In 1710, during the reign of Queen Anne, the British Parliament established a General Post-Office for all Her Majesty's do- 390 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. minions. By this act, the Postmaster-General was per- mitted to have one chief letter office in New York, and other chief letter offices at some convenient place or places in each of Her Majesty's provinces or colonies in America. When the colonies threw off their allegiance to the Crown, especial care was given to preserving, as far as possible, the postal facilities of the country. When the Federal Constitution was adopted, the right was se- cured to Congress "to establish Post-Offices and Post- Roads." In 1789, Congress created the office of Post- master-General, and defined his duties. Other laws have since been passed, regulating the increased powers and duties of the Department, which is now, next to the Treasury, the most extensive in the country. The Postmaster-General, the head of the Department, is a member of the President's Cabinet, and is in charge of the postal affairs of the United States. The business of the various branches of the Department is conducted in his name and by his authority. He has a general su- pervision of the whole Department, and issues all orders concerning the service rendered the Government through his subordinates. During the first administrations of the Government, the Postmaster-General was not regarded as a Cabinet Minister, but simply as the head of a Bureau. In 1829, General Jackson invited Mr. Barry, the gentle- man appointed by him to that office, to a seat in his Cab- inet. Since that time, the Postmaster-General has been recognized, as ex-qfficio, a Cabinet Minister. The first Postmaster-General was Samuel Osgood, of Massachusetts. The present Postmaster is John A. J. Creswell, of Maryland. The subordinate officers of the Department are three INSIDE THE POST-OFFICE. 391 Assistant Postmaster-Generals, and the Chief of the In- spection Office. The Appointment Office is in charge of the First Assistant Postmaster-General. To this office are assigned all questions which relate to the establishment and discontinuance of post-offices, changes of sites and names, appointment and removal of postmasters, and route and local agents, as, also, the giving of instructions to postmasters. Postmasters are furnished with marking and rating-stamps and letter-balances by this Bureau, which is charged also with providing blanks and stationery for the use of the Department, and with the superintendence of the several agencies established for supplying postmasters with blanks. "To this Bureau is likewise assigned the supervision of the ocean-mail steamship-lines, and of the •foreign and international postal arrangements." The Contract-Office is in charge of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. To this office is assigned the busi- ness of arranging the mail service of the United States, and placing the same under contract, embracing all cor- respondence and proceedings affecting the frequency of trips, mode of conveyance, and time of departures and arrivals on all the routes ; the course of the mail between the different sections of the country ; the points of mail distribution ; and the regulations for the government of the domestic mail service of the United States. It pre- pares the advertisements for mail proposals, receives the bids, and takes charge of the annual and occasional mail lettings, and the adjustment and execution of the con- tracts. All applications for the establishment or alteration of mail arrangements, and the appointment of mail mes- sengers, should be sent to this office. All claims should be submitted to it for transportation service not under 392 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. contract, as the recognition of said service is first to be obtained through the Contract-Office as a necessary author- ity for the proper credits at the Auditor's-Office. From this office all postmasters at the ends of routes receive the statement of mail arrangements prescribed for the respective routes. It reports weekly to the Audi- tor all contracts executed and all orders affecting ac- counts for mail transportation; prepares the statistical exhibits of mail service, and the reports of the mail let- tings, giving a statement of each bid ; also of the contracts made, the new service originated, the curtailments or- dered, and the additional allowances granted within the year. The Finance-Office is in charge of the Third Assistant Postmaster-General. To this office is assigned the super- vision and management of the financial business of the Department not devolved by law upon the Auditor, em- bracing accounts with the draft offices and other deposi- tories of the Department; the issuing of warrants and drafts in payment of balances, reported by the Auditor to be due mail contractors and other persons ; the super- vision of the accounts of offices under orders to deposit their quarterly balances at designated points ; and the superintendence of the rendition by postmasters of their quarterly returns of postages. It has charge of the Dead-Letter Office, of the issuing of postage stamps and stamped envelopes for the prepayment of postage, and with the accounts connected therewith. To the Third Assistant Postmaster-General all post- masters should direct their quarterly returns ; those at draft-offices, their letters reporting quarterly the net pro- ceeds of their offices ; and those at depositing-offices, POST-OFFICE MACHINERY. 393 their certificates of deposit. To him should also be directed the weekly and monthly returns of the depositories of the Department, as well as applications and receipts for post- age stamps and stamped envelopes, and for dead letters. The Inspection-Office is in charge of a Chief Clerk. To this office is assigned the duty of receiving and examining the registers of the arrivals and departures of the mails, certificates of the service of roi^e-agents, and reports of mail failures ; noting the delinquencies of con- tractors, and preparing cases thereon for the action of the Postmaster-General ; furnishing blanks for mail registers and reports of mail failures, providing and sending out mail bags and mail locks and keys, and doing all other things which may be necessary to secure a faithful and exact performance of all mail contracts. All cases of mail depredation, of violations of law by private expresses, or by the forging and illegal use of postage stamps, are under supervision of this office, and should be reported to it. All communications respecting lost money-letters, mail depredations, or other violations of law, or mail locks and keys, should be directed to " Chief Clerk, Post-Office Department." All registers of the arrivals and departures of the mails, certificates of the service of rowte-agents, reports of mail failures, applications for mail registers, and all complaints against contractors for irregular or imperfect service, should be directed, " Inspection Office, Post-Office Depart- ment." Benjamin Franklin was appointed General Deputy Post- master of the Colonies, in the year 1753, with a salary between him and his confederates, of £600, if they could get it. This experiment brought him in debt £900, and 394 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. his success in expediting the mails, which he dwells upon with so much satisfaction in his writings, will create a smile in these days of electricity, steam, and "young- American" speed. In the year 1754, he gave notice that the mail to New England, which used to start but once a fortnight, in winter, should start once a week, all the year, " whereby answers might be obtained to letters between Philadelphia and Boston in three weeks, which used to require six weeks ! " Franklin was removed from his office by the British Ministry ; but in the year 1775, the Congress of the Con- federation having assumed the practical sovereignty of the Colonies, appointed a committee to devise a system of post-office communication, who made a report recom- mending a plan on the 26th of July, which on the same day was adopted, and Doctor Franklin unanimously ap- pointed Postmaster-General, at a salary of $1,000 per annum. The salary of the Postmaster-General was doubled on the 16th of April, 1779, and on the 27th day of December, of the same year, Congress increased the salary to $5,000 per annum. An Inspector of Dead Letters was also appointed, at a salary of $100 per annnm, who was under oath faithfully and impartially to discharge the duties of his office, and enjoined to take no copies of letters, and not to divulge the contents to any but Congress, or to those who were appointed by Congress for that purpose. Dr. Franklin, on the 7th of November, 1776, was succeeded as Post- master-General by his relative, Richard Bache, who re- mained in office till the 28th of Januaiy, 1782, when he was succeeded by Ebenezer Hazard, who was the last head of the General Post-Office under the Confederacy. PRIMITIVE POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS. 395 In 1790, there were but seventy-five post-offices in the United States, and but eighteen hundred and seventy-five miles of post routes. The General Post-Office, in 1790, was located in New York, and Samuel Osgood, of Massachusetts, was the first Postmaster-General under the Federal Government. His conception of the duties of his office were, doubtless, very humble, as he recommended "that the Postmaster-Gen- eral should not keep an office separate from the one in which the mail was opened and distributed ; that he might, by his presence, prevent irregularities, and rectify any mistakes that might occur ; " in fact, put the Post- master-General, his assistant, and their one clerk, in the city post-office, to see that its mails were assorted and made up correctly. The salary of Mr. Osgood was $1,500 per annum. Tim- othy Pickering was appointed by Washington, August 12, 1791, at an increased salary of $2,000. Joseph Haloshan was the last Postmaster-General appointed by Washing- ton. He was commissioned April 22, 1795, at a salary of $2,400 per annum. The office was located in Phila- delphia, in the year 1796, and was established at Wash- ington when the Federal Government was removed there. In 1802, the United States ran their own stages between Philadelphia and New York, finding coaches, drivers, horses, etc., and cleared in three years over $11,000, by carrying passengers. That sultry morning of August 25, 1814, when Admiral Cockburn and his drunken crew, eager for fresh destruc- tion, marched from Capitol Hill to the War Office, which they burned, and from it down F street to treat the Post- Office to the same fate, they found it on the site where its 396 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON". marble successor now stands, and under the same roof the Patent-Office. Says Charles J. Ingersoll, in his rambling history : " Dr. Thornton, then Chief of the Patent-Office, accompanied the detachment to the locked door of the repository, the key having been taken away by another clerk watching out of night. Axes and other implements of force were used to break in ; Thornton entreating, remonstrating, and finally prevailing on Major Waters, superintending the destruction, to postpone it till Thornton could see Colonel Jones, then engaged with Ad- miral Cockburn in destroying the office of the National Intelli- gencer, not far off on Pennsylvania avenue. Colonel Jones had declared that it was not designed to destroy private prop- erty, which Dr. Thornton assured Major Waters most of that in the Patent-Office was. A curious musical instrument, of his own construction, which he particularly strove to snatch from ruin, with a providential gust soon after, saved the seat of govern- ment from removal, for want of any building in which Congress could assemble, when they met in Washington three weeks afterwards. Hundreds of models of the useful arts, preserved in the office, were of no avail to save it ; but music softened the rugged breasts of the least musical of civilized people. Major Waters agreed, at last, to respite the patents and the musical instrument till his return from Greenleaf s Point, where other objects were to be laid in ruins." But with the explosion of the magazine at Greenleaf's Point, and the tornado, both of which made unexpected havoc with the lives of the British vandals, and their withdrawal under cover of night, they never came back to the Patent and Post-Office, to destroy it. It was, I believe, the only public building in the capital which escaped their torch. It was, however, destroyed by fire, December 15, 1836. INSIDE THE DEAD-LETTER OFFICE. 397 One of the most precious treasures, now in the posses- sion of the Post-Office Department, is the original ledger of Doctor Benjamin Franklin, Postmaster-General, 1776, which upon its title-page bears the following record : " This book was rescued from the flames, during the burning of the Post-Office Building, on Thursday morning, Dec. 15, 1836, by W. W. Cox, messenger of the office of the Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department." This ledger is now on file in the office of the Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department. Scorched and worn, it tells the story of time and fate. It embraces all the accounts of all the post-offices of the United States for the years 1776-77-78. These are all recorded in the handwriting of Doctor Franklin, and do not cover one hundred and twenty pages. The growth in the postal service may be partly measured by the fact that its money record, kept by Benjamin Franklin, running through eleven years, is equalled, at the present time, by the accounts of two days. When the philosopher was at the head of the Post-Office Department, there were eighty post-offices in the Confederation ; there are now thirty- two thousand post-offices in the United States, with the number constantly increasing. The Dead-Letter Office embodies more personal interest than any other in the Post-Office Department. It is a spacious room, unique in outline, many-windowed and well ventilated. It is surrounded by a wide gallery, sup- ported by spiral columns. An open iron staircase con- nects it with the lower 'office. It is set apart for the woman's work of this division. They are far out-num- bered by the men below, and yet in this narrow gallery they are sadly crowded. 398 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. Spacious as the Post-Office is, in going thereto, the same conclusion is forced upon one, which is apparent in every public building, that it is already too small for the vast and rapidly increasing demands of the public service. The gentlemen which you see at work below have nothing to complain of in lack of light or air, but the ladies above say that their little gallery is the escape valve to all the poisoned air below ; that their heads are so near the roof there is no chance for ventilation, and that sudden death, among their number, has been caused by the air- poison which pervades this gallery. The ladies need more room for a new office ; indeed, already they have over- flowed the gallery and are packed closely in the halls. Meanwhile, in an imposing-looking apartment beneath them, sit their brethren, on either side of the long table, opening the " dead-letters " which they are to re-direct. I believe there are fourteen clergymen, sitting at a single table, opening these letters. Preference is given to gentle- men of this profession, broken in health or fortune, as it is taken for granted that if they have lived to that age and fate, without ever having committed a dishonest act, it is most unlikely that they ever will — and that the treasure- letters are perfectly safe in their keeping. Moreover, their profession is also in their favor. They must have been unworldly-minded, says the reasoner, or they would never have chosen to be clergymen. Nearly all are elderly men, and among the number are a few old ones, — one, who has been in this office over fifty years, a brother of its one time Postmaster-General, Amos Kendall — hair white as snow — back bent over the table — hands trem- bling as he uses his knife — it is his life to go on opening his quota of daily letters, for the pittance of $1,200 per year. OPENING DEAD-LETTEKS. 399 " If he were refused the privilege," said an officer, " he would die at once." In this office, from the thirty thousand post-offices in the United States are received, annually, about three million five hundred thousand dead-letters ; unmailable letters, three hundred and sixty thousand ; blank letters, three thousand. It seems impossible that three thousand persons, in a single year, should post letters without a single letter traced on their envelopes ; nevertheless, this is true. In one corner of this office stand two men, by an open door, whose business it is to receive the dead-letters as they ascend to the office. They come up on an elevator — tied up in immense bags. As they are tossed out on the floor, one would suppose that they contained coffee for merchandise, rather than heart-messages and treasures gone astray. The bags are immediately opened and the letters transferred to the assorting table, where they are classified by clerks. The foreign letters are separated from the domestic, and any irregularity in their trans- mission is noted. They are then counted, numbered and tied up into packages of one hundred each, and thrown into bins, whence they are withdrawn in the order of the date of their reception, and transferred to the open- ing table to be hari-karied by our clergymen. Letters containing nothing, if possible, are returned to their writers. If they cannot be, they are thrown into the waste-basket. This waste-paper is not burned but sold — and averages to the Government a revenue of about $4,000 per year. With all his extravagances, this is but one of numerous ways by which Uncle Sam manages to turn an economical penny out of the carelessness and misfortunes of nephews and nieces. 400 TEN" TEARS IN WASHINGTON. Letters containing anything, of the smallest value, are saved and registered under their different heads. Money, jewels, drafts, money-orders, receipts, hair, seeds, deeds, military-papers, pension-papers, etc., are all recorded and returned, if possible. A " money letter " has five different records before it leaves the Dead-Letter Office, and is so checked and counter-checked as to make collusion or abstraction almost impossible, in case any soul who sur- veyed it were fatally tempted. When the opener of a letter finds money, he immedi- ately makes a record of it. The next morning, the head of " the Opening Table " records in a book each letter found and recorded by each opener the day before. The letters are then taken from a safe, in which they were locked the night previous, and their contents recounted, to make sure of absolute correctness, before leaving the Opening Table. The money-letters, with the record of that day, are then handed over to the head of the Money Branch, where the letters recorded by the head of the Opening Table are certified and receipted. They are next in- dexed and delivered to the several clerks of the Money Branch, each receipting every letter he has recorded on the Index Book. He then records the letter and sends it to the writer, through the postmaster of the place where the party lives. The owner, on receiving the money, receipts for the same on a blank accompanying the letter, which he sends back to the Dead-Letter Office. The letters are again re-examined by two clerks, to see if the amounts are correct, who conjointly scrutinize and seal the letters. They are then registered to the different distributing offices, with all the precautionary checks of a registered letter. In time, the letter or a receipt from SECRETS OF THE DEAD-LETTEKS. 401 the owner, through the postmaster, is returned. If a receipt is received, it is recorded, with date, as a final disposition of the letter. If the money is returned, it is so noted and recorded on a separate record kept for the purpose, that record showing, perpetually, how much money is on hand. If not claimed at the end of three months, the money is deposited in the Treasury of the United States, subject to the application of the owner. By this minute and exhaustive routine, every money- letter, and every cent which they contain, is absolutely accounted for — traced, refunded, and held. Drafts, deeds, checks, power-of-attorney and wills are recorded, and sent through postmasters to their owners, they returning receipts for the same. Foreign letters are assorted, the amounts due this and other countries recorded, and a system of accounts kept, showing, by a list returned with the letters, a correct state- ment. Foreign letters are returned weekly, to England, Germany and the Netherlands. The liberal postage recently adopted by these countries has opened so large a correspondence, it involves more frequent returns. The Property-Branch is of a most miscellaneous char- acter. It involves the recording and returning of jew- ellery, and of almost every other article under the sun. Many of these it is impossible to return. These accu- mulate in such vast piles, it is necessary to dispose of them at auction, at least, as often as once in four years. At each sale, a complete catalogue of the articles is presented, and the proceeds are deposited in the United States Treasury. A room, leading from the Dead-Letter Office, lined with closed closets to its lofty ceiling, is the receptacle of 26 402 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. all these stranded treasures. When the custodian unlocks their doors and you behold what is shut within, you are lost in wonder as to what must be the conceived capacity of the Post-Office in the minds of your compatriots. Before your eyes, crammed into shelves, you see patch- work quilts, under garments, and outer garments; hats, caps, and bonnets ; shoes and stockings ; with no end of nicknacks and keepsakes ; " sets " of embroidery, baby- wardrobes, watches, and jewels of every description — though the greater proportion is of the " fire-gilt," " dollar- store " description. Many really beautiful pictures are retained, because not sufficiently prepaid. Some of these, sent as gifts, are left by the chosen recipients to be sold at auction — the postage often amounting to far more than the value of the picture. Many motley articles peer forth from their hiding-places ignominiously " franked," yet retained, the frank not being sufficient legal-tender to insure their triumphal passage to the place of final destination. Among these is an iron apple-parer. Many of these cheap treasures were precious keepsakes from the hearts which fondly sent them — under very un- intelligible superscriptions — to sweethearts whom they never reached. Some are tokens from beyond the seas, which came from a far-off land only to find the one sought — dead or living — gone, without a clue. During the war, tens of thousands of photographs were thus sent astray. The husband, the father, the brother, the son, under whose name they came — alas ! when they reached his regiment, he was not — the heaped-up trench, the unknown grave, the unburied dead — somewhere amid them all — he slept, and the memento of the love that lived for him, came back to this receptacle of the nation, WHERE THE DEAD-LETTERS GO. 403 and here it is ! On a stand near the window, is an immense open book lined with photographs, all the photo- graphs of soldiers. With a tender hand, the Government gathered these pictures of its lost and unknown sons and garnered them here, for the sake of the living, who might seek their lost. Turning over the pages, we see many empty spaces, and find that friends coming here and turning over the pages tff this book have identified the faces of loved ones who perished in the war. Many of these are photographs of a poor character, (whose transient chemicals are already fading out,) which were taken on the field, and sent, by soldiers, home to mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts. The chances of war are sufficient to account for their going astray of their objects and for their return here — where more than one tear-blinded wo- man has sought and found them, at last. To return to the dryer details of the Dead-Letter Of- fice, we find that all letters held for postage, all blank, unmailable, and hotel letters pass through a like process with the dead-letter, with the exception of the unmail- able letters, which come directly from the office with writ- ten lists, which are checked to see if the letters are all with the lists. These the opener counter-checks, marking the contents both on letter and list, to show that it was received and doubly opened. These lists, with their let- ters, are sent to the Return Branch. Here they are re- turned to their writers, and their lists are made to show the disposition of every letter. These lists are carefully filed and subject to re-perusal. The Return Branch, which is composed entirely of ladies, sends average dead-letters back to their writers at the rate of seven thousand a day. In this branch we find the application-clerk whose duty 404 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. it is to trace letters, and to send such information to per- sons applying for letters as the records may show. In case of the loss of a valuable letter, the Department srjares no pains in its efforts to trace and find it. The Postmaster-General, in one of his recent reports, says of this branch of the Postal Service : "In the examination of domestic dead-letters, for disposition, 1,736,867 were found to be either not susceptible of being re- turned, or of no importance, circulars, etc., and were destroyed after an effort to return them — making about 51 per cent, de- stroyed. The remainder were classified and returned to the owners as far as practicable. The whole number sent from the office was 2,258,199, of which about 84 per cent, were delivered to owners, and 16 per cent, were returned to the Department ; 18,340 letters, containing $95,169.52, in sums of $1 and upward, of which 16,061 letters, containing $86,638.66, were delivered to owners, and 2,124, containing $7,862.36, were filed or held for disposition ; 14,082 contained $3,436.08, in sums of less than $1, of which 12,513, containing $3,120.70, were delivered to owners; 17,750 contained drafts, deeds, and other papers of value, repre- senting the value of $3,609,271.80— of these 16,809 were restored to the owners, and 821 were returned and filed ; 13,964 con- tained books, jewellery, and other articles of property, of the es- timated value of $8,500 — of these 11,489 were forwarded for de- livery and 9,911 were delivered to their owners ; 125,221 con- tained photographs, postage-stamps, and articles of small value, of which 114,666 were delivered to owners ; 2,068,842 without inclosures. Thus of the ordinary dead-letters forwarded from this office, about 84 per cent, were delivered, and of the valuable dead-letters (classed as money and minor) about 89 per cent, were delivered. The decrease of money-letters received (about 3,000) is probably owing to the growing use of money-orders for the transmission of small sums." In August, 1864, Hon. Montgomery Blair appointed THE MONEY-ORDER SYSTEM. 405 Dr. C. F. Macdonald, now the Superintendent of the Money-Order Department, and J. M. McGrew, now Chief Clerk of the Sixth Auditor's office, commissioners to visit Quebec and examine the workings of the Money-Order System which has been in operation in Great Britain and Canada for several years. The system, as used by the British Government, was modified and simplified by the commissioners, and on the 8th of November, 1864, the Money-Order System of the United States was inaugurated, with 138 offices authorized to issue and pay. During the part of the fiscal year commencing Novem- ber 8, 1864, and ending June 30, 1865, there were 74,277 money-orders issued, amounting to $1,360,122.52 ; dur- ing next fiscal year ending June 30, 1866 — 138,297, amounting to $3,977,259.28 ; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1867—474,496, amounting to $9,229,- 327.72 ; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1868 — 831,937, amounting to $16,197,858.47; during next fis- cal year ending June 30, 1869 — 1,264,143, amounting to $24,848,058.93; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1870—1,675,228, amounting to $33,658,740,27; during the next fiscal year ending June 30, 1871 — 2,151,794, amounting to $42,164,118.03 ; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1872—2,573,349, amounting to $48,515,- 532.72. During the present fiscal year, which expired June 30, 1873, the number of orders issued will reach 3,000,000, and the amount will be over $50,000,000. The above figures, in themselves, contain the history of the money-order system from its beginning to the pres- ent time. During the war one letter was received at the 406 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. Dead-Letter Office which contained $12,000. Rarely now does any sum inside of an envelope amount to $50. As a rule, any sum over $5 is sent by money order — at least by all persons who have any reasonable idea of what is absolutely safe. Charles Lyman, the Chief of the Dead-Letter Office, was born at White River Junction, Vermont, and moved to Montpelier, the capital of the State, in early life. He commenced business as a merchant, and continued in trade till April, 1847. In May, 1849, he was appointed Postmaster at Mont- pelier, by General Taylor, and was relieved from the office, at the close of the administration of President Fill- more. In March, 1861, he was appointed to a position in the Dead-Letter Office, and has continued his connection with the office, until the present time. During his administra- tion it has grown to be one of the most important branches of the postal service. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR — UNCLE SAM'S DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS. Inadequate Accommodation in Heaven — Defects of our Great Public Build- ings — The Public Archives — Valuable Documents in Jeopardy — Talk of Moving the Capital — A Dissension of a Hundred Years — Concerning Certain Idiots — A Day in the Patent Office — The Inventive Genius of the Country — Aggressions of the Home Department — A Comprehensive Act of Congress — Seven Divisions of the Department of the Interior — The Disbursing Division — Division of Indian Affairs — Lands and Rail- roads — Pensions and Patents — Public Documents — Division of Appoint- ments — The Superintendent of the Building — The Secretary of the In- terior and his Subordinates — Pensions and their Recipients — Indian Affairs — How the Savages are Treated — Over Twenty-one Million of Dollars Credited to their Little Account — The Census Bureau — A Rather Big Work — The Bureau of Patents — What is a Patent? — A Self-support- ing Institution — A Few Dollars Over — The Use Made of a Certain Brick Building — Secretary Delano — An Objection Against Him — How Wick- edly he Acted to the Women Clerks — " The Accustomed Tyranny of Men" — Cutting Down the Ladies' Salaries — Making Places for Useful Voters — A Sweet Prayer for Delano's Welfare — Something about Del- ano's Face. IT has always been a mystery to me how Heaven could continue large enough for all the people who are try- ing to get into it, that is, if the human race is to keep on being born. I am equally puzzled about the internal spaces of our great public buildings. When designed, they were sup- posed to be ample for centuries to come ; but with the constant creation of new bureaus, and even of depart- 408 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON. ments, with the fast and never-ceasing accumulations of records in every branch of the Government service, not a public building in Washington is now large enough to hold the archives, or even the employes belonging to its own department. Already the city is filled with temporary buildings, in which the overflow of the various depart- ments have taken refuge. Even now, every public build- ing needs a duplicate as large as itself to hold its treas- ures, and to carry on fitly the intricate machinery of its routine service. The constant cry of " Capital moving " has not only prevented this, but has caused the precious records of the departments to be packed into precarious and insufficient store-houses. The public archives should all be stored in fire-proof buildings. The destruction of the titles to all the lands in the country sold by the Government would involve a loss greater than the cost of all Washington city. And yet, as they are stored at present, any morning you may hear that there is nothing left of them but ashes. What madness to talk of moving the Capital ! What idiots to breed another dissension of a hundred years as to where another Capital shall be, instead of making the most and best of the majestic one, bought at such cost, that already is ! Well, a day in the Patent-Office has caused this out- burst. This building was built for the protection and display of the inventive genius of the country. But that genius finds itself fearfully " cabined and confined," and almost crowded out by the elephantine proportions of the Home Department, which needs, almost beyond any other, a vast building of its own, all to itself. At first a single room was demanded for the Secretary of the Inte- INVENTIVE GENIUS " CORNERED." 409 rior. The needs of his department were such, he has gone on annexing room after room of the noble Patent- Office, till its '/ inventive genius " finds itself crowded into a very small corner of the majestic building built with the proceeds of its own industry. March 3, 1849, Congress passed an act to establish the Home Department, and enacted that said new executive branch of the Government of the United States should be called the Department of the Interior, and that the head of said Department should be called Secretary of the Interior, and that the Secretary should be placed upon the same plane with other Cabinet officers. This act transferred to the Secretary of the Interior the supervisory power over the office of the Commissioner of Patents, exercised before by the Secretary of State ; the same power, over the Commissioner of the General Land-Office, held previously by the Secretary of the Treasury ; the same over the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which had been under the supervision of the Secretary of War ; the same over the acts of the Commissioner of Pensions, who had previously reported to the Secretary of the Navy ; also over the marshals and orders of taking and returning the census, previously managed by the Secretary of State; the same over accounts of marshals, clerks and officers of courts of the United States, previ- ously exercised by the Secretary of the Treasury. The same act relieved the President of the duty of supervising the acts of the Commissioner of Public Buildings, placing that gentleman under the directions of the Interior De- partment ; giving the Secretary control over the Board of Inspectors and the Warden of the Penitentiary of the District of Columbia. 410 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. Thus, you see, the Department of the Interior was made up, at the beginning, of slices cut from each one of the other departments of the Government. Subsequent acts of legislation have added new duties to the Home Department. The Department of Justice ; the Depart- ment of Metropolitan Police; the accounts of marshals and clerks of the United States Courts, and of matters pertaining to the judiciary ; the discontinuance of the office of Commissioner of Public Buildings, and the assignment of his duties to the Chief Engineer of the Army, with the duties and powers heretofore exercised by the Secretary of State over the Governors and Secre- taries of the various territories. All have been trans- ferred to the Department of the Interior. Admission of indigent insane persons, resident in the District of Co- lumbia, to the Insane Asylum, also to the Columbia In- stitution for the deaf and dumb, and to the National Deaf-mute College, and of blind children to the Colum- bia Institution, all are only obtained through the Secre- tary of the Interior. The office of the Secretary of the Interior is divided into seven divisions, as follows : The " Disbursing Division," through which all moneys, appropriated for the entire service of the department, pass. The Division of the Indian Affairs ; having charge of matters pertaining to the Indian office, and the various Indian tribes. The Division of Lands and Railroads ; having charge of matters pertaining to the General Land-Office, and the construction, &c, of land-grant railroads. The Division of Pensions and Patents ; having charge of matters pertaining to those offices. THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. 411 The Division of Public Documents ; having charge of the distribution of the public documents and the De- partment Library. The Division of Appointments ; having charge of all matters pertaining to the force of the department, the preparing, recording, etc., of Presidential appointments under the Interior Department. The Superintendent of the building ; having charge of all repairs, the oversight of the laboring force, heating apparatus, etc. The head of the Department is the Secretary of the Interior. His subordinates are the Commissioners of the Public Lands, Patents, Indian Affairs, and Pensions, and the Superintendent of the Census. The Secretary is charged with the general supervision of matters relating to the public lands, the pensions granted by the Govern- ment, the management of the Indian tribes, the granting patents, the management of the Agricultural Bureau, of the lead and other mines of the United States, the affairs of the Penitentiary of the District of Columbia, the overland -row tes to the Pacific, including the great Pacific Railways, the taking of the Census, and the direc- tion of the acts of the Commissioner of Public Buildings, the Insane Hospital for the District of Columbia, and the Army and Navy, is also under his control. The first Secretary of the Interior was Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, appointed by President Taylor ; and Columbus Delano, of Ohio, is the present Secretary. The General Land-Office was established as a branch of the Treasury Department by act of Congress, approved April 25, 1812, which authorized the appointment of a Commissioner, at a salary of $3,000 per annum, and the 412 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. employment of a Chief Clerk, and such other clerks as might be necessary to perform the work, at an annual compensation not to exceed, in the whole, $7,000. By the act of July 4, 1836, the office was reorganized and the force increased. The number of clerks now em- ployed is one hundred and fifty-four ; and even this force is not sufficient to meet the requirements of a constantly growing business. Upon the creation of the Interior De- partment, in 1849, the Land-Office was placed under its jurisdiction. The Commissioner of the General Land-Office is charged with the duty of supervising the surveys of # private land claims, and also the survey and sale of the public lands of the United States. At present this supervision extends to seventeen surveying districts and ninety-two local land-offices. The following table exhibits the progress of surveys and the disposal of public lands since the fiscal year, end- ing June 30, 1861: Fiscal Year ending June 30. 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 2 2 ^ 9 58 11 54 10 53 10 53 10 61 12 62 13 68 12 66 17 81 17 83 17 92 Cost of Survey. $219,000 00 151,840 00 172,906 00 170,721 00 186,389 88 423,416 22 325,779 50 497,471 00 560,210 00 683,910 00 1,019,378 66 Number of Acres Surveyed, 2,673,132 2,147,981 4,315,954 4,161,778 4,267,037 10,808,314 10,170,656 10,822,812 18,165,278 22,016,607 29,450,939 Number of Acres Disposed of. 1,337,922.00 2,966,698.00 3,238,865.00 4,513,738.00 4,629,312.00 7,041,114.00 6,665,742.00 7,666,151.00 8,095,413.00 10,765,705.00 11,864,975.64 THE PENSION LIST. 413 This shows an increase of the number of surveyors' general from nine to seventeen, and land-offices from fifty-eight to ninety-two, and an increase in the annual survey from 2,673,132 acres to 29,458,939 acres, and an increase in the number of acres disposed of from 1,337,- 932 to 11,864,975.64, for the year ending June 30, 1872. The Land-Office audits its own accounts. It is also charged with laying off land-grants made to the various railroad schemes by Congress. The mines belonging to the Government are also in charge of this office. The Commissioner of Pensions examines and adjudi- cates all claims arising under the various and numerous laws passed by Congress, granting bounty-lands or pen- sions for military and naval services rendered the United States at various times. The Rebellion greatly increased the pension list. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs has charge of all the matters relating to the Indian tribes of the frontier. The Government has at sundry times purchased the lands of various tribes residing east of the Mississippi River, and has settled the Indians upon reservations in the ex- treme West. For some of these lands a perpetual annu- ity was granted the tribes ; for others, an annuity for a certain specified time ; and for others still, a temporary annuity, payable during the pleasure of the President or Congress. The total sum thus pledged to these tribes amounts to nearly twenty-one and a half millions. It is funded at five per cent., the interest alone being paid to the tribes ; this interest amounts to over two hundred thousand dollars. It is paid in various ways — in money, in provisions, and in clothing. The Commissioner has charge of all these dealings with the savages. 414 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. Prior to Act of Congress of June 30, 1834, organizing the " Department of Indian Affairs," Indian matters were managed by a Bureau, with a superintendent in charge, under the direction and control of the War Department, and under the organization, the department or office continued with the War Department, until March 3, 1849, when Congress created the Department of the In- terior, and gave the supervisory and appellate power, ex- ercised by the Secretary of War in relation to the acts of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, to the Secretary of the new department. A "Commissioner of Indian Affairs" was first author- ized by Act of Congress, dated July 9, 1832, and the same law required the Secretary of War to prescribe a new set of regulations as to the mode in which the business of the Commissioner should be performed. E. Herring was the first Commissioner, and his success- ors have been as follows : C. A. Harris, appointed in 1836 ; T. H. Crawford, 1838 ; Wm. Medell, 1845 ; 0. Brown, 1849; L.Lee, 1850; G. W. Monypenny, 1853; J. W. Denver, 1857 ; C. E. Mix, 1858 ; A. B. Greenwood, 1859 ; W. P. Dole, 1861 ; D. N. Cooley, 1865 ; L. V. Bogy, 1866; N. G. Taylor, 1867; ,E. S. Parker, 1869; F. E. Walker, 1871 ; and E. P. Smith, 1873. The Indian Department comprehended, under the new regulations provided for by the law of July 9, 1832, four superintendencies, thirteen agencies, and thirteen sub-agencies, having charge of about two hundred and fifty thousand Indians, inhabiting some of the States west of the Mississippi, and also what was then held to be " Indian Country," defined by the first section of the law of June 30, 1834, regulating trade and intercourse with THE INDIAN DEPAKTMENT. 415 Indian tribes, to be " all that part of the United States west of the Mississippi and not within the State of Mis- souri and Louisiana, or the Territory of Arkansas, and, also, that part of the United States east of the Mississippi River and not within any State to which the Indian title has not been extinguished." By subsequent acquisition of territory from Mexico, the area of Indian country became greatly extended, with a consequent large addition to the Indian population within the jurisdiction of the Indian Department. In the beginning of the current year, the Department con- sisted of eight superintendencies, seventy agencies and special agencies, and three sub-agencies. At present there are four superintendencies, four having been abol- ished by act of Congress, February 14, 1873, providing in lieu thereof five Indian Inspectors, whose duty it is to visit every superintendency and agency, and examine into the affairs of the same, as often as once or twice a year, and to report their proceedings; sixty-eight agencies, nine special agencies and three sub-agencies, with an Indian population, approximately, of 300,000, exclusive of those in Alaska, estimated at between 50,000 and 75,000. In the Indian service there is also a Board of " Indian Commissioners," nine in number, authorized by act of Congress, approved April 10, 1869, men eminent for their intelligence and philanthropy, who serve without compensation, the object of the Commission being to co- operate with the President in efforts to maintain peace among the Indians, bring them upon reservations, relieve their necessities, and to encourage them in attempts at self-support. The Census Bureau is now a permanent branch of the 416 TEN YEARS IN "WASHINGTON. Department of the Interior. It is in charge of a super- intendent, and is assigned the duty of compiling the statis- tics which constitute the Census of the Republic. This enumeration is made every ten years. Some idea of the magnitude of the task may be gained from the fact that the tabulation and publication of the census of 1870 were not completed in January, 1873. The Bureau of Patents is a part of the Department of the Interior, but is in all its proportions and features so vast and imposing, that it is almost a separate depart- ment, as, indeed, it must become erelong. It is in charge of a Commissioner of Patents, who is appointed by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. It is intrusted with the duty of granting letters patent, securing to the in- ventor the control of and the reward from articles bene- ficial to civilization. It was formerly a part of the Treas- ury Department, and is one of the best known branches of the Government. Patents are not, as some persons suppose, monopolies, but are protections granted to individuals as rewards for, and incentives to discoveries and inventions of all kinds pertaining to the useful arts. This Bureau is allowed to charge for these letters of protection only the cost of in- vestigating and registering the invention. It is a self-sup- porting institution, its receipts being largely in excess of its expenditures. If you have traced the many Bureaus of the Interior Department thus far, you have come to the conclusion that it needs a public building all to itself, and that it should be an immense one. A large brick building op- posite the Patent-Office, on G street, is already exclu- sively occupied by the Bureau of Education. THE SUPREME VILTUE OF A PUBLIC SERVANT. 417 The present Secretary of the Interior is Hon. Columbus Delano, of Ohio, a man who has been long in public life, first as Member of Congress from Ohio, then as Commis- sioner of Internal Revenue, now as Secretary of the Inte- rior. I have but one objection to make to Mr. Delano in the position which he now holds. He found twelve-hundred- dollar-positions in his department filled, as they had been from the beginning, by women. He degrades them to nine- hundred-dollar-clerkships, to make place for his voters. Judging by the course he pursues, we may believe that he is of the same opinion as the Secretary of the Treasury, that " four hundred dollars per year are enough for any woman to earn," unless she should be a Delano ! I hope that Ohio will reward him by not giving him the desire of his heart and making him Senator, till he practices justice as the supreme virtue of a public servant. Columbus Delano has a face which nature never weak- ened by cutting it down to absolute fineness, but added to its power by leaving it a little in the rough. Iron- gray hair, shaggy eyebrows beetling over a pair of straight-forward, out-looking gray eyes, make the more prominent features of a face which you willingly believe in as that of a strong and honorable man. 27 CHAPTER XXXIX. THE PENSION BUREAU— HOW GOVERNMENT PAYS ITS SERVANTS. The Generosity of Congress to Itself — How Four Hundred Acts of Con- gress were Passed — How Pensions have Increased and Multiplied — Sneer- ing at Red- Tape — The Division of Labor — Scrutinizing Petitions — A Heavy Paper Jacket — The Judicial Division — Invalids, Widows, and Mi- nors — The Examiner of Pensions — The Difficulties of his Position — Un- satisfactory Work — How Claims are Entertained and Tested — What is Recorded in the Thirty Enormous Volumes — How many Genuine Cases are Refused — One of the Inconveniences of Ignorance — The Claim-Agent ' Gobbles up the Lion's Share — An Extensive Correspondence — How Claims are Mystified, and Money is Wasted — The " Reviewer's " Work — The " Rejected Files "—The "Admitted Files "—Seventy-Five Thou- sand Claims Pending — Very Ancient Claimants — The Bounty Land Di- vision — The Reward of Fourteen Days' Service — The Sum Total of what the Government has Paid in Pensions — How the Pensions are Paid — The Finance Division — The Largest and the Smallest Pension Office — The Miscellaneous Branch — Investigating Frauds — A Poor " Dependent " Woman with Forty Thousand Dollars — How " Honest and Respectable " People Defraud the Government — The Medical Division — Examining In- valids — The Restoration-Desk — The Appeal- Desk — The Final-Desk — The Work that Has Been Done — One Hundred and Fifty Thousand People Grumbling — Letter of an Ancient Claimant — The Wrath of a Pugna- cious Captain. COMPARED to the generosity with which it rewards itself, Congress doles out most scanty recompense even to the Government's most faithful and long-suffering servants. Nevertheless, that it does not neglect or ignore them altogether, the annals of the Pension Bureau accu- rately attest. HOW PENSIONS ARE GRANTED. 419 The first Act promising pensions to those disabled by war, was passed in the next month after the Declaration of Independence, August 26, 1776. On September 16, 1776, specified grants of land were promised to those who should enter the service, and continue to its close ; and in case of their death, to their heirs. Under these early enactments, the mode prescribed by law, to decide who were entitled to pensions, was to leave the State Legislatures to decide who should justly receive pensions. Having decided, the State Legislatures paid the pensioners, and were reimbursed by the general Gov- ernment. Afterward, this method gave way to another, requiring the Judges of district, and circuit-courts, to decide the equity of the demand, and to pay it, as had formerly been done, by the Legislatures of the several States. These payments were not made, however, until after the lists re- ported by the Judges had been verified by comparison with the rolls on file in the War Department, when they were reported by the Secretary of War to Congress, and placed on the pension-lists, by a resolution of that body. This mode was found to be too slow in detecting frauds, and Feb- ruary 25, 1793, an Act was passed, prescribing rules to be observed by the courts in the investigation of claims, and providing that the evidence upon which the decision was based should accompany the report. This Act prevailed, with slight modifications, until March 3, 1819, when an Act was passed, authorizing the Secretary of War to place on the pension-rolls, without reporting the lists to Congress. This authority was exercised by the Secretary of War, until March 2, 1833, when a distinct Bureau of the Gov- ernment was established for the adjustment of pension 420 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. claims. It was provided for in the section of a bill, which made an appropriation for the civil and diplomatic ex- pense of the Government, for the year. This section said : "A Commissioner of Pensions shall be appointed by the President and the Senate, who shall receive a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars, which is hereby appropri- ated." This office was perpetuated for many years by biennial enactments, the last providing that it should con- tinue until further legislation on the subject. Since the passage of the first Act, by the old Congress in 1776, there have been over four hundred distinct Acts re- lating to pensions for military and naval services, and for bounty-land rewarding such services, enacted by Congress. Instead of the small pension-lists transmitted by the courts of the country, through the Secretary of War to Congress, the tens of thousands of pension-claims, pre- sented to the Government, under the various laws which relate to them, now require the constant services of more than three hundred clerks in the Pension Bureau, super- vised by the Commissioner of Pensions. It is the dual duty of this Bureau, to protect private interests, and to secure the enforcement of the law. The claims are infinite and often conflicting; the provisions of law manifold ; and people unfamiliar with the immense demand upon such an office, sneer or smile, or weep over the length of the "red-tape" routine, through which its cases are so often "long drawn out." Persons waiting outside the Bureau, can not comprehend the requirements or exigencies of a business demanding the employment of so large a force of actors, or touching the springs of so many public and private interests. Says one who knows : " Far better the delays of red tape, than the inex- "HINTS to cokkespondents." 421 tricable confusion, and total inability to transact business, which would be the inevitable result of a business system less minute and stringent." The Pension Bureau is divided into four divisions, viz : the Mail Division, the Judicial, the Financial, and the Miscellaneous. The Mail Division is charged with the receiving, read- ing, distributing to the proper desks, all the mail. Every original application, every piece of additional evidence, every communication, of whatever nature, is stamped with the date of receipt, and, with the exception of let- ters of inquiry, they are entered on the records, which show from whom received, when received, and to whom delivered. "It requires careful examination of the papers, a thor- ough knowledge of the office, and the closest analysis, to determine the proper destination of each communication. Many writers are obscure, many misstate their business, through ignorance or carelessness, and to quickly compre- hend the import of all papers, requires a keen eye and a ready mind. "Persons communicating with the Office, should re- member this, and to insure a correct distribution of their mail, should, in all cases, indorse upon the outside of the envelope, the number of the claim referred to, the name of the claimant, and the nature of the claim. "In this Division, claims are also prepared for the files, by having a heavy paper jacket placed round them, upon which is indorsed the Act under which it is filed, the de- scription of the party claiming, their address, also the ad- dress of the attorney, if one appears in the claim." The Judicial Division is charged with an application of 422 TEN TEAES IN" WASHINGTON. the law to the evidence, and the determining of the right of the applicant to the pension. This office is divided into three grand divisions — invalid, widows, and minors. The first embraces all claims preferred by surviving sol- diers ; the second, all claims based upon the service and death of soldiers and sailors ; the third, those of minors. An Examiner of Pensions does not sit upon ' a bed of roses — or, if he does, it is full of thorns. So various and minute are the provisions of law, applicable to the cases under his consideration, so numerous are the rulings of the office, and the decisions of the Heads of Depart- ments, and of the Bureau, with the opinion of the At- torney-General added, all bearing upon this claim, it demands the most exhaustive examination, the keenest discrimination, and the most wise judgment, to reach a final just conclusion. And when his conclusion is reached, it is not final. In the Judicial Division, are filed all pending claims. These files are arranged with reference to the initial let- ter of the soldier's surname, and are divided into sections proportioned to the magnitude of the letter of the al- phabet. Upon the receipt of jacketed claims from the mail division, the first step is to see if the party, making application, ever filed a claim before, and this is ascer- tained by examining the " original records." These records fill thirty enormous volumes, and contain three hundred and eighty-three thousand applications that have been filed under the act of July 14, 1862. All entries are made therein with reference to the first three letters of the soldier' s surname, and only by this subdi- vision of names, affording two thousand eight hundred combinations, can convenient reference to any given claim INVESTIGATING CLAIMS. 423 be had ; and even when so divided, the examination of the greater combination requires considerable labor. For in- stance, in two hundred thousand entries under W. I. L., there will be three thousand two hundred and fifty en- tries; and under S. M. I. you will find two thousand seven hundred and fifty Smiths. If the result of this exam- ination affords no evidence of a prior application by the same person, after noting all other applications based upon the service of the same soldier, the claims are numbered in numerical order and placed upon the record, which in- cludes a full description thereof, and the recorded claims are then placed in the files, to await examination in the order of their receipt. When they are reached, the examiner's duties begin. He first searches for such recorded evidence as can be found in any of the Departments of the Government. From these he notes all omissions, and points unsupported, and calls upon the claimant, or his attorney, for corrobo- rative evidence of the statements made in the declaration. He is guided in his requirements by the hundreds of rul- ings applicable to the smallest details of the various kinds of claims. All the evidence furnished in response must comply with the minutest demand of the law ; the law of evidence as applied in courts, and the express require- ments of the law under which the pension is claimed, are both brought to bear in the consideration of the points to be met, and the testimony offered in proof. You will not be astonished to be told that very often they are not met, or that in thousands of just cases the testimony is unequal to the gradgrind requirements of the law. A want of a knowledge of the provisions of the law — more than of willful knavery — is the great 424 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. acknowledged difficulty with which the Office has to con- tend. Many a poor sinner, who lost his leg or arm, or carries a bullet in him, received in his country's battles, knows all about the minus members, the battles, and the bullet, and not an atom about " the provisions of the law," or the inextricable windings of official red-tape. Because his knowledge is of so one-sided a character, he finds it no easy matter to get the governmental reward for that buried leg or arm ; and by the time all " the re- quirements of the law" have been slowly beaten into his brains, the greater portion of his pension is pocketed by the claim-agent who showed him how to get it. All these provisions and safeguards of the law are said to be necessary, to protect the Government against fraud- ulent claims. Perhaps they are ; but that makes them no less hard, or ofttimes unjust "to the soldier and widow" who, in writing a letter, are as ignorant as babies of " the requirements of the law." Under these requirements, and with the utter ignorance of common people of tech- nical terms, and judicial statements, it is not strange that " a large percentage of the evidence offered, is imper- fectly prepared." A great deal more is deficient in sub- stance, or suspected of fraud. The correspondence from this Division, stating objec- tions, requiring further proof, and elucidating doubtful points, amounts to hundreds of letters a day. The long delay inevitable, is said to be the fault of the system. " Ex-parie evidence is the criminal." "Were means af- forded for a cross-examination of all applicants and wit- nesses, these difficulties and delays would disappear. One- half of the amount now taken from the pockets of pensioners, to compensate agents for procuring their pen- "accepted" and "kejected." 425 sions, would pay the entire cost of such a system, to say nothing of the thousands of dollars paid from the Treas- ury upon fraudulent claims, that would be saved." When the examiner has ended his researches, he pre- pares a brief of the evidence, on which he bases his ad- mission, or rejection, of the claim. He closes it with a statement of his decision, showing from what date, and at what rate admitted, or, if rejected, the cause therefor, and signs his name, as examiner. This action is entered in a record. The case is taken from out the file of pending claims, and is placed in the hands of a clerk, who is called the "Reviewer." He is se- lected for this task, for his superior judgment, and for his familiarity with the law, and the rules of office. He "begins again," goes over the entire action of the exam- iner, goes through the entire evidence, in order to be able to approve, or disprove, the examiner's decision. If he approves, the case passes on to the Chief of the Di- vision, for his approval, which, except in unusual cases, is pro forma. From his desk the case goes to the Cer- tificate Section, for issue. There it receives its certificate and approved brief, decorated with which it departs to the Commissioner's desk, there to receive his final and crowning signature, and the grand seal of the Depart- ment. If the claim is a rejected one, and its rejection receives the approval of the receiver, it is cast into the outer darkness of the "rejected files." Here it is subject to an appeal to the Secretary, and may be borne forth again to the light, upon the presentation of new and ma- terial evidence. After the triumphant claim has received its certificate, it is treated to a new coat of a wrapper, upon whose 426 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. back a certificate-number, and its history, is endorsed. It is then entered upon the admitted records. After it has been reported to the Pension Agent, Finance Division, to the Third Auditor of the Treasury, and to the Second Comptroller, it is placed on the "admitted files." Seventy-five thousand pending claims are now on file in these two divisions. They are slowly reduced in num- ber, and the receipt of new claims equals the disposal of the old ones. This statement does not include the adjust- ment of claims filed under the act of February 14, 1871, granting pensions to survivors of the war of 1812, who served sixty days, and to their widows. Their claims have been organized into a separate division, in which a force of fifty clerks has been constantly employed since its organization, May, 1871. This division is known as the " 1812 Division," and strenuous efforts are made to reach very early decisions in all its cases, the extreme age of the applicants making it necessary-: — if their pen- sion is to reach them "this side of Jordan." In this division, the claims are carried through their entire process, from the application to the placing of the pensioner's name on the rolls. The Bounty-Land Division forms a part of the Judicial branch. Herein all claims for bounty-land, filed under the act of March 3, 1855, which is the latest general provision, are adjusted. The modus operandi of obtaining land-grants is nearly identical with the process of obtaining a pension. Under the act of 1855, all persons who served fourteen days, either in the army or navy, are entitled to one hun- dred and sixty acres, and those who were actually en- gaged in battle, though their services were less than four- teen days, are entitled to the same. THE PEtfSIONEKS OP GOVEKNMENT. 427 Under the various laws governing these land grants, warrants representing 73,932,451 acres have been issued, which, estimated at $1.25 per acre, amounts to $92,415,- 563.75, which, added to $313,170,412.77 that has been paid since the beginning of the Government, as pension, makes a total expenditure of $405,585,976.52, which has been paid in gratuities to the defenders of the Republic. Where the Judicial Branch ends in the certificate of a pension, the Financial Branch begins. The rolls reported by those divisions are entered in the agency registers, which are arranged to show payments for several years, and the agents' quarterly accounts of disbursements are compared with these registers, and errors noted. There are now upon the United States pension rolls the names of 232,229 pensioners, who are paid quarterly through fifty-seven pension agents. When we remember that the accounts of all these agents, for these tens of thousands of names, are adjusted and reported within the short space of three months, it is not difficult to realize the amount of labor involved. The Finance Division is charged with all correspondence with the pension agents, to suspend and resume payments, to drop from the rolls (in which case the auditor and con- troller must also be notified), the payment of accrued pensions to heirs and legal representatives ; restorations, under the act of July 27, 1868, where a pension has been unclaimed for three years ; the transfer of payments from one agency to another ; the issue of duplicate certificates in lieu of those lost or destroyed. All these, and many, many other things are required at the hands of the gen- tlemen employed therein. The act of June 8, 1872, granted increase to pensioners of the first, second and 428 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. third grades ; and this Division, after the passage of the Act and before the quarterly payment of September 4, following, received, examined and issued 9,237 certifi- cates granting the increase. Of the agencies disbursing pension-money, there are ten whose payments exceed $100,000,000 per annum. Of these, Boston is the largest, paying out more than $1,800,000. The smallest amount paid by any agency is that at Vancouver, Washington Territory, which disburses less than $2,500 per annum. The Miscellaneous Branch covers many features too minute to be brought into this sketch. Among the more important is its Special Service Division. This is occupied with the investigation of all claims in which fraud is sus- pected. It prosecutes and convicts all persons whose guilt is proved. Congress annually appropriates a con- siderable sum to pay the expenses of such investigations, which tends largely to lessen fraudulent practices against the Government. By means of this fund the Office is enabled to keep a large number of special agents em- ployed, who are charged with the investigation of all sus- pected frauds perpetrated within their respective districts. This division requires clerks who are thoroughly familiar with all laws which the Office is called upon to execute, as well as a general knowledge of the criminal laws of each State. Its efforts are : first, to secure the pensioner in all his rights ; second, to prosecute all persons where it is thought a conviction can be had ; and third, to secure a return to the Government of all money unlawfully ob- tained. The amount saved in reducing pensions illegally rated, in dropping from the rolls those found not to be entitled, and in sums refunded, largely exceed the cost of the work, while the effect upon the public is beneficial in THE MEDICAL DIVISION. 429 deterring others from criminal practices. Cases have been found which were allowed on the clearest proof of de- pendence upon the part of mothers of soldiers, where an investigation proved that that same dependent mother owned property in her own right to the amount of forty thousand dollars ! Such cases are not confined to the classes usually en- gaged in unlawful acts. Nothing is more remarkable than the number of persons — in the average transactions of life deemed honest and honorable — who are ready and eager, under one pretext or another, to " gouge " and de- fraud the revenues of the Government; and these per- sons are by no means confined to the seekers of pensions, but may be found every day in the highest class that can reach the hard-earned treasure of the National Treasury. The Medical Division of the Pension Bureau acts con- jointly with the Invalid Division in deciding the degree of disability of claimants for original, and the increase of invalid pensions. This division is supervised by medical gentlemen thoroughly trained in their profession. All invalid claims, after having been briefed by the examiner, and before passing into the reviewer's hands, are referred to this division. The Examining Surgeon makes a personal ex- amination of the applicant, and from his medical testimony, endorsed by the Chief of the Medical Division, the Chief of the Invalid Division bases his final opinion and action. The Restoration Desk is devoted to all claims, which are to be restored to the rolls, of parties who have been dropped for cause — principally those who were residents of the States in rebellion at the beginning of the late war. These are only placed upon the rolls upon incontestible proof of loyalty. » 430 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. The Appeal Desk is the recipient of all cases in prepa- ration for reference to the Secretary, where an appeal from the action of the Office is taken. The Final Desk is the extensive one of the Commissioner of Pensions. From the beginning to the end of this busy Bureau, charged with the comfort, the very subsistence of so many bereaved and disabled fellow-creatures, the Commissioner must see all things, anticipate all wants, supply all needs; upon him rests the entire administration of this vast and potent Bureau. His position is not easy or his burden light. To fill so important a trust with honor, a Commissioner needs not only clear judgment and business training, but should also be a man of positive administrative talents, large information, thorough education, and broad, com- prehensive mind. These qualities are all possessed in a pre-eminent de- gree by the present Commissioner of Pensions. General J. H. Baker was born in Lebanon, Ohio, 1829. He is the son of a Methodist clergyman, and was gradu- ated from the Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, taking the Latin honors of a large class in 1852. He was Secre- tary of the State of Ohio during Chief-Justice Chase's term as Governor of that State. He moved to Minnesota, and was Secretary of the State when he resigned to take command of the Tenth Minnesota Volunteers. He served with distinction in the Indian expedition under General Sibley, and, on his return, was ordered South. At St. Louis he was placed in command of the post, and soon after was made Provost-Marshal General of the Depart- ment of Missouri. At the close of the war he became THE COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS. 431 Register of Public Lands in Missouri, and, resigning this position, in 1868 he returned to Minnesota, was candidate for the United States Senate, and defeated by a very small majority. In 1871, he was appointed Commissioner of Pensions. General Baker is a tall, commanding looking gentle- man, with dark hair, complexion and eyes. He is of nervo-motive temperament, quick, prompt, energetic in action, yet courteous and genial in his bearing to a very marked degree. Since the passage of the Act of July 4, 1862, nearly 400,000 claims for pensions have been filed in and con- sidered by the Pension Office. Of course, in the exami- nation of so vast a number of cases, errors have been committed, matters of fact misinterpreted, and in many instances, through carelessness, ignorance and neglect, injustice has been done. The clerks of this office have always compared favor- ably, both in industry and capacity, with those of other Bureaus ; but, among so large a number, worthless and inefficient ones will be found, and the still greater evil of employing men who, though capable, take no interest in their official duties, and, through the want of that spur to well-doing, fail to make themselves of value to the Gov- ernment, and render aid to those whom the Office was or- ganized to protect and assist. The percentage of claims affected by these causes, small though it may have been, would amount to thousands in the aggregate, and these, distributed throughout the country, would give an en- larged color to their complaints, and lead the people to believe that the evil was general and unusual in its ex- tent. When we add to this class of complainants the 432 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 150,000 who, in some shape, have had claims before the office for increase, arrears, etc., and which, not coming within the law under which they filed, were rejected, and who, not understanding what the law did provide, but deriving their information from unscrupulous agents who would not or could not instruct them in the matter, they feel seriously aggrieved, and loudly complain. Two de- pendent mothers, equally poor, and who were alike aided by their respective sons, reside in the same village. They apply for a pension for the services and deaths of their sons. The records of the War Department show that one of the soldiers died of a disease contracted in the service and in the line of duty, and that the other soldier died of a disease, though contracted in the service, yet it did not originate while he was in the line of duty. These are distinctions which neither this poor woman nor the com- munity can understand. Yet the claim last described must be rejected, as it is barred by the law. The whole community cries out about the great injustice practiced by the Pension Office, while, in fact, the law is responsible, and not the office. Again, invalid pensioners, suffering from a partial or total disability, are strongly urged, by their pecuniary in- terests, to believe that they are entitled to a total or spe- cial rating. They apply for increase, and are referred to an examining surgeon for a personal examination, and a report as to nature and degree of disability. The surgeon fails to conform to the applicant's estimate as to the ex- tent of his disability, and the claim for increase is rejected, and here is another case of " great injustice." Biennial examinations of all invalid pensioners are re- quired, except in cases of permanent disability. At such THE SORROWS OF THE " REJECTED. " 433 times the surgeon finds they are partially or entirely re- covered from the disability that existed at the date of last examination, and notwithstanding the firm conviction of the pensioner that he is just as much disabled as ever, he is reduced or dropped. He at once joins the army of grumblers, and complains of injustice. The office acknowledges its imperfections, but respect- fully declines to admit the correctness of a tithe of the grievances reported. There is some show of injustice in the delay frequently experienced in the settlement of claims, and yet the Office is responsible to a slight degree only. As heretofore intimated, the system is largely ac- countable for this. The suspicion, warranted by expe- rience, attaching to every piece of testimony received, and necessitating a close scrutiny and reconciliation of the slightest discrepancies before final action can be had. The hundreds of points going to make up a case must be found in proofs, and the affidavits offered, three times out of five, fail to cover the point. Here is another cause for complaint. "The Pension Office called three times for the same evidence." It must be admitted that, some years ago, there was an entire neglect of correspondence. " Letters of inquiry," asking condition of claim and countless questions, arrived by thousands. Examiners were ambitious to pass (admit or reject) a large number of claims, during the month, and these letters proved nothing, and required time and labor to answer them, and were cast aside. This has all been changed by the present Commissioner, and these letters are confided to clerks who engage in nothing but correspon- dence, and who are required to keep their desks up to date ; and in this connection it is proper to add that a mag- 28 434 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. ical change has been made in the style and completeness of the letters. Some years ago, a fac-simile of the Commis- sioner's signature was stamped upon the out-going mail. Now, each letter is subjected to a careful review by the Chiefs of Divisions, and goes thence to the Commissioner's room for his signature and a frequent review by him; and the occasional return of a letter, with a sharp reminder, suffices to keep the letter writers on the alert. And this idea of a careful surveillance is not confined to correspond- ents, but it has been carefully impressed upon the whole force by frequent illustrations. By judicious, yet not burdensome reports, and by frequent reference thereto by the Commissioner, which is forcibly brought to the knowledge of a careless clerk, the employes have been taught that no trifling will be allowed. It has also been realized by the employes of this Bu- reau that merit is noted, and demerit will insure dis- missal. It is the policy of General Baker to hold his subordinates strictly responsible for the proper perform- ance of their individual duties, and to look to those hav- ing charge of others to secure the desired results, or to report the delinquent. The result of two years' growth in this direction has been gratifying. The increased in- dustry of the Office, the improvement resulting from a thoughtful and careful performance of its duties, and the elevation of the standard which all seeking appointments must come up to, and a careful weeding-out of the ineffi- cient ones, are rapidly tending to secure commendation from those having business with the Bureau, rather than censure. An aged claimant for a pension, who served in the war of 1812, residing in Elinois in December, 1871, wrote to A PUGNACIOUS PETITIONEE. 435 the Office as follows : " Oh ! can it be true that I am going to get $100 ? That news is too good ! I'm so hungry, and I love coffee so, but I can't get any ! All I have to eat is corn-bread and sour milk. I can't believe that I am to get so much money, but I pray God it may be true." It is needless to say that this claim was made " special," and the octogenarian had " coffee " for his Christmas breakfast. A Captain B., of Havre-de-Grace, Maryland, a claimant for pension under Act of 1871, for services in the "War of 1812, had his claim rejected, it appearing that he served less than sixty days, as required by that Act ; whereupon the Captain grew wrathy, and wrote as follows : " N. B. — Any man that will say that I was not a Private sol- dier in Capt. Paca Smith's company before the attack of the British on the City of Baltimore, and during the attack on said City in Sept., 1814, and after the British dropped down to Cape Henry, I say he is a dastard, a liar, and a coward, and no gen- tleman, or any man that will say that I got my Land-warrant from the Hon. Geo. C. Whiting, for 160 acres of Land, for 14 days' services in Capt. Paca Smith's company, is the same, as stated above, and I hold myself responsible for the contents of this letter ; and if their dignity should be touched, a note of honor directed to Capt. Wm. B , Havre-de-Grace, Harford Co., Md., shall be punctually attended to. « Wm. B ." CHAPTER XL. TREASURES AND CURIOSITIES OF THE PATENT OFFICE —THE MODEL ROOM— ITS RELICS AND INVENTIONS. The Patent Office Building — Grace and Beauty of its Architecture — Four "Sublime" Porticoes — A Pretty Large Passage — The Model Room — " The Exhibition of the Nation " — A Room two hundred and seventy Feet in Length — The Models — Recording our Name— Wonders and Treasures of the Room — Benjamin Franklin's Press — Model Fire-Escapes — Wonder- ful Fire-Extinguishers — The Efforts of Genius— Sheep-Stalls, Rat-Traps, and Gutta Percha — An Ancient Mariner's Compass — Captain Cook's Razor — The Atlantic Cable — Original Treaties — The Signatures of Em- perors — An Extraordinary Turkish Treaty — Treasures of the Orient — Rare Medals — The Reward of Major Andre's Captors — The Washington Relics — His Old Tent — His Blankets and Bed-Curtain — His Chairs and Looking-Glass — His Primitive Mess-Chess and old Tin Plates — The Old Clothes of the " Father of His Country " — Military Relics of Well-known Men — Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence — Washington's Commission — Model of an Extraordinary Boat — Abraham Lincoln as an Inventor— The Hat Worn on the Fatal Night— The Gift of the Tycoon— The Efforts of Genius — A Machine to Force Hens to Lay Eggs — A Hook for Fishing Worms out of the Human Stomach — The Library of the Patent Office. THE lawful fees for issuing patents having accumu- lated into a considerable fund, Congress added an appropriation, and directed that the whole amount should be invested in a new building to be called the Patent Office. From that double fund has arisen the majestic struc- ture which, next to the Capitol, is the most august building in Washington. The southern front of the Treasury is of superlative beauty, and from several other points its THE PATENT-OFFICE BUILDING. 437 architectural grace cannot be surpassed; but its whole effect is marred by the dingy, unbroken outline of its Fifteenth-street side. The advantage of the Patent- Office is, that from any point which you choose to survey it, it impresses you as supremely grand. Occupying two blocks, or an entire public square, standing upon a promi- nence, it spreads and towers into space incomparable in mass and majesty. You may approach it from four oppo- site directions, and on each side you lift your eyes M g .5 a ™ -^ s £ c a ^ '5 -S M A •& $24,106 40 322 861 50 225,798 00 142,406 09 88,001 40 42.473 41 167,366 35 21,790 45 1,503 42 Tens of thousands of public documents are published here whose intrinsic value is not worth the paper they are printed on. After witnessing the manual labor ex- pended on them, it is melancholy to reflect that, with it all, they are often less valuable than the unsullied paper would be. While this is true of an immense number of "bills" and documents, and reports of contested election cases printed in this building, it is equally true that thousands of others are published here which are of extreme value not only to the Government but the world. COST OF THE NATIONAL PRINTING. 523 It is through the presses of the Government Printing- House that the- public is informed what the Government is doing for science and for philanthropy. It prints all the reports of the Smithsonian Institution ; Professor Hayden's reports of yearly United States Geological Sur- veys, including his very interesting and valuable reports on Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, and the famous Yel- lowstone Valley. The Medical Reports of the War ; Sur- geon-General Barnes' Medical and Surgical History of the War; and Chief-Medical-Purveyor Baxter's Report of the Medical Statistics of the Provost-Marshal-General's Bureau ; Reports on the Diseases of Cattle in the United States ; on Mines and Mining ; Postal Code and Coast- Survey Reports ; Reports of Commission of Education ; of the Commissioner of the United States to the Interna- tional Penitentiary Congress at London ; Reports of the Government Institution for Deaf and Dumb and the In- sane, etc. These make a very small proportion of the really in- teresting and valuable reports issued yearly by the Gov- ernment. When we remember that many of these works are accompanied by copious maps and illustrations, and that the processes of photolithographing, lithographing and engraving are all executed within these walls, you can form some estimate of the value of its services to the country. The demands made upon it by each single department of the Government is immense. The Post-Office will send in a single order for the printing of one million money-orders ; and the other departments cry out to have their wants supplied in the same proportion. 524 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. The Stereotype Foundry, under the same roof, long ago vindicated itself in the facts of convenience and econ- omy. The following is a correct exhibit of the product of its labor for the year ending September 30, 1872 : Value of plates, &c., manufactured, at trade-prices, $35,371 08 Amount expended for labor and material consumed, 16,516 80 Net saving to the Government, . . . 118,854 28 The Government Prin ting-Office, from an external view, is a large, long, plain brick building of four stories, with a cupola in the centre, and flag-staffs at either end, from which the National banner floats on gala days. If we enter from H street, a large open door on the side re- veals to us at once the power-press room, with its wheels and belts ; its women-workers and its mighty engine. This engine of eighty-horse power, swings its giant lever to and fro, with the accuracy of a chronometer. The boiler which supplies its steam-power is placed in a separate building, so that in case of explosion the danger to human life would be lessened. This boiler also supplies steam for heating the entire main building, and for propelling a " donkey engine," which performs the more menial labor of pumping water. This is not only the largest, but is one of the model printing-houses of the world. Its typographical arrange- ments are perfect, and in each department it is supplied with every appliance of ingenious and exquisite mechan- ism to save human muscle and to aid human labor. In the press-room, stretching before and on either side of the majestic engine, we see scores of ponderous presses, their swiftly-flying rollers moving with the perfect time of a THE GOVEKNMENT PKINTING-OFFICE. 525 watch — at each revolution clinching the unsullied sheet of paper which, in an instant more, it tosses forth a printed page. When Benjamin Franklin tugged away at the little printing-press now exhibited at the Patent-Office, an enormous amount of human muscle was needed to per- form press-work; but now, without effort and without fatigue, the tireless engine supplies the material power, while women do the work. On the lower floor of the main building we find the wetting room, filled with troughs and all the liquids for dampening the immense supply of paper, beside the hydraulic presses for smooth- ing it. On this floor also is the " ink room," with its vast supplies of " lamp-black and oil " always ready for the rollers. Ascending to the second story we come to the business and private offices of the Government Printer — his clerks, telegraph-operators, copy-holders, and proof-readers. Mr. A. M. Clapp, a man of clear intellectual out-look, of be- nign expression and venerable years, occupies a pleasant parlor for an office, furnished with plain desk, chairs, a mirror, engravings and a Brussels' carpet ; it opens into a suite of rooms occupied by the Chief-Clerk, the Pay- master and the Telegraph-Operator. On the other side of the hall, we pass the open door of the proof-reading room. This is comfortably filled with men, young and old. The copy-holder and the proof- reader sit side by side, before a table or desk. The copy- holder has in his hands the original manuscript, from which he slowly reads, while the proof-reader listens, proof-sheets and pencil in hand, erasing each error in print as he detects it, from the lips of the copy-holder. 526 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. The proof-reader is paid $26, the copy-holder $24 per week. Ascending a few steps, we come into the composition room, occupying the central and larger portion of the second story. It contains sixty or more windows, is spa- cious and well-lighted, and yet, especially in the winter, when the windows are closed and the heat necessarily in- tense, the fumes from the chemicals render the work very unhealthy, especially to some constitutions. Long rows of double stands reach the entire length of the apartment. At every one of these stands a patient worker — he must be patient if he is a faithful type-setter. Here are men past their prime, young men, boys and one woman. There have been three. One left her stand for a husband, another — Miss Mary Green — left hers to become the edi- tor of a real-estate journal in Indianapolis, Indiana. The third, in neat calico dress and apron, stands beside a win- dow, " setting up " her daily task. The pay of women in this room is the same as that of the men, viz., $24 per week. A portion of this floor is shut in for the executive printing. This was made necessary by the fact that be- fore it was done, the country found out what was in the president's message before it was published. Such tricks and stratagems were used by "correspondents" to dis- cover in advance what was in the president's message, that one president had a press, types and workmen brought into the White House, that he might have his message confidentially printed, and "keep it to himself" till he was ready to give it to the world. The supreme pride of these congressional printers is their " rule-and-figure work." Confused tables of Com- INSIDE THE PRINTING-OFFICE. 527 mercial statistics, astronomical calculations, and abstracts of Government estimates, are marshalled into columns with the precision of a well-trained brigade. The executive binding-room is fitted up with powerful machines for trimming the edges of books, shears for cutting pasteboard, etc. Here stands a man who does nothing, from the beginning to the end of the year, but cut book-covers. In another room are " ruling machines," exquisite pieces of mechanism, which trace, in a year, acres of paper with the delicate red, blue or black lines which rule with mathematical accuracy the blank-books of the Government. The third floor is almost exclusively devoted to bind- ing. Some of the most beautifully bound books in the world here issue from the hands of the Government bindery. There are always specimen-copies of scientific and other important reports, which are bound in Turkey morocco, finely marbled and exquisitely gilded. The first volume of the Surgeon-General's* Medical and Surgical History of the War, on the day of our visit, was receiv- ing this artistic finish, of delicate gold leaf, stamped upon the rich, dark-green morocco. The furnaces for heating the stamps, for gilding, are heated by gas, which is considered safer, cleaner and healthier than charcoal. Still the ladies employed in this gold-leaf work suffer for want of air. The hottest summer day the windows have to remain closed, as the lightest zephyr may ruffle fatally the mimosa edges of the tremulous foil. In the folding-room, on this floor, we find an army of maidens, whose deft and flying fingers fold the sheets, and make them ready for the binder. In the new wing 528 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. beyond we come into the " stitching-room." Here also the busy fingers and needles of women fly. Long rows of women, chiefly young girls, sit at tables beside wire frames, which hold down and mark the piled-up folios. Standing beside a young slender girl, she seemed to have the St. Vitus' dance. Every muscle and nerve in her body flew. The very nerves in her face twitched with the quick intensity of her movement ; while her fingers stuck the needle and drew the thread with the persistency of a perpetual motion. " You should be paid good wages to work like this," I said. " It is because I am paid so little that I have to. work like this," she answered, not relaxing an atom. " How much ? " "Thirty cents a-piece." " How many can you stitch a day ? " • " Well, if I work like this all day, nine." " But I should think it would kill you to work like this all the time." "I've been doing it for four years, and I'm not dead yet."_ I did not inform her that she looked as if she soon would be, but asked, " Doesn't such constant, quick ac- tion give you pain ? " "Yes, in my shoulders, but I've got used to it." "Does any one else in this room stitch as fast as you do ? " " Only one," said a smiling girl who rested with her needle in her mouth to admire her dextrous companion. " There is only one other who can work as fast as she ; it is that girl, over yonder." THE STORY OF A " PUB DOC.-' 529 There are no drones in this busy hive. The whole routine is based upon the manual labor system. The Government employe, man or woman, in the Government Printing-Office, instead of from 9 A. M to 3 P. M., as in all other departments, works from 8 A. M. to 5 P. M., and for smaller pay, proportionally, than is received in any other public Bureau. Having told you the ' story of a Dollar, I will now tell that of a " Pub. Doc." — hoping that the next time you feel inclined to kick it for the dust it gathers, and the room it takes up, you will forgive it these misfortunes, for the sake of the many busy and patient human hands which fashioned it. First, it appears in the room of the Government Printer in the shape of a huge pile of manuscript. Perhaps it is in copper-plate hand, "plain as print;" perhaps, as is more likely, it is a bundle of unsightly hieroglyphics writ- ten on " rags and tags " of paper of all sorts and sizes. However it looks, in due time it appears in the composing- room, accompanied with the directions of the Government Printer. It is received by the foreman, who divides it into portions, or " takes," and it is now " copy." This copy is put in the hands of compositors, who place it, every word and figure, into what is called a " composing stick." When these are filled with the set-up type, they are emptied on wooden boards called " galleys." Here the type is divided into pages, each one of which is tied round with twine so that it can be carried away by a practiced hand. These pages are now arranged on the imposing-stones, either by fours or by eights, or by twelves, as the work is to be printed in quarto, in octavo, or in duo- decimo form. The pages are so regulated that when the 34: 530 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON". printed sheet is folded, they will read consecutively, and they are then wedged tightly in a "chase," or frame of iron. These pages of type thus placed are called " forms." A rough impression of a form having been printed, it is given to the proof-reader, who, with the copy-holder, notes all errors with printers' marks. The compositor next receives these corrected pages ; re-sets all wrong let- ters with the right ones. When he has finished, he takes a second proof impression, called a revise, which the proof-reader compares with the first one, to see if all the errors have been accurately corrected. This process of revising is* repeated four times, when the form is at last ready for the press. It is then lowered by steam-power into the press-room. The form is laid upon a smooth iron table, called " the bed of the press," where it is treated to a good beating. It is levelled by a block of wood called a planer, and pounded with a mallet, that no aspiring type may stick its nose above its fellows, and mar the perfect level of the printed page. Meanwhile, a sufficient quantity of paper has been taken from the public store-house to the wetting-room. There it has been dampened, quire by quire, turned and laid in piles under the crushing pressure of an hydraulic- pump, worked by steam-power. When taken out the paper is ready* for the press. The rollers are brought from the room in which they are cleaned and kept, and set in the press. The ink fountain is filled. Sheet on sheet of spotless paper is placed aloft. The young woman who is to " tend " mounts to her perch. The steam-power is applied, and the print- ing begins. "in press." 531 The maiden takes in her hand a single snowy sheet, and spreads it on the inclined plane before her. It is caught by steel fingers and clutched into the abyss be- neath. There it passes swiftly over the pages of type just moistened with ink from the rollers, which were pre- viously coated by revolving cylinders. When the sheet is directly above the type, its flight is for an instant staj^ed, and by a potent mechanical movement the im- pression is given, and the sheet is printed. Onward it moves transfigured, till, by the puff of a pair of bellows, it is thrown upon a frame-work which throws it, smooth and fresh, upon a table on the opposite side of the table, and by this time another is on its way. Swiftly almost as thought it is tossed above it. In a briefer time than the process is traced, the unsullied sheets above have been transmuted into printed pages piled upon the table below. Only one side of a sheet is printed at a time ; thus each one goes through the press twice before it leaves the press-room. Each sheet has its own special care. It is carried into the drying-room with a pile. Each one takes its place on a large frame which is pulled out on hanging rollers. When one of these frames is covered with damp sheets it is pushed into the drying-machine, which is made of ranges of steam tubes, which keep a high temperature, while the vapor is carried off by a system of ventilation. When the sheets are dried, the frames are pulled out, and the printed sheets are taken from them to be pressed. Each printed sheet is put between two sheets of hard, smooth pasteboard, and its high piles of alternate layers are subjected again to the intense power of the hydraulic- press. It comes forth from that embrace smooth, clear, complete. 532 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. From the pressing-room the sheets are taken to the folding-room in the third story, conveyed thither by an elevator lifted by steam. Here it is folded by the swift hands of girls. Hundreds are busy at it. Looking down the long room and seeing them work is a sight worth quite a journey to see. The folded pages then pass to the fingers of the eager stitchers. These pages are now a book in need of a binding. Thus it comes into the bindery for its black cotton cloak, or its coat of cloth of gold, according to its station and lot in life. This, good friends, is the story of a Pub. Doc. from its birth to the hour when it starts on its first journey out into " the wide, wide world." CHAPTER XLVn. THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION— THE AGRICULTURAL BUREAU. A Singular Bequest — Strange Story of James Smithson — A Good Use of Money — Seeking the Diffusion of Knowledge — Catching a Tear from a Lady's Cheek — Analysis of the Same Tear — The Attainments of a Phi- losopher — A brief Tract on Coffee-Making — James Smithson's Will — A Genealogical Declaration — Announcing a Bequest to Congress — Dis- cussions and Reports — Praiseworthy Efforts of Robert Dale Owen — The Bequest Accepted — The Board of Regents — The Plan of the Institu- tion — Rs Intent and Object — Changes Made by the Regents — Ex-Officio Members of the Institution — " The Power Behind the Throne " — The Secretary — The Smithsonian Reservation — The Smithsonian Building — Its Style of Architecture — Inside the Building — Injuries Received by Fire — Loss of Works of Art — The Museum — Treasures of Art and Sci- ence — The Results of Thirty Government Expeditions — The Largest Collection in the World — Valuable Mineral Specimens — All the Verte- brated Animals of North America — Classified Curiosities — The Smithso- nian Contributions — Comprehensive Character of the Institution — Its Advantages and Operations — Results — The Agricultural Bureau — Its Plan and Object — Collecting Valuable Agricultural Facts — Helping the Purchaser of a Farm — The Expenses of the Bureau — The Library — Na- ture-Printing— In .the Museum — The Great California Plank — Vegetable Specimens — International Exchanges. AN Englishman, of the name of James -Smithson, gave all his property to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, " an establishment for the in- crease and diffusion of knowledge among men." But few are aware of the singularity of the bequest. Such a donation, from a citizen of Europe, would be re- 534 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. markable under any circumstances ; but it was much more singular coming from an Englishman, endued with no small degree of pride of country and lineage, if we may judge from the pains he takes, in the caption of his will, to detail his descent from the nobility. He is not known to have ever visited the United States, or to have had any friends residing here. Mr. Rush informs us that he was a natural son of the Duke of Northumberland, his mother being Mrs. Macie, of an ancient family in Wiltshire, of the name of Hungerford ; he was educated at Oxford, where he took an honorary degree. In 1786, he took the name of James Lewis Macie, until a few .years after he left the University, when he changed it to Smithson. He does not appear to have had any fixed home, living in lodgings when in London, and occasion- ally, a year or two at a time, in the cities on the conti- nent, as Paris, Berlin, Florence, and Genoa ; at which last place he died. The ample provision made for him by the Duke of Northumberland, with retired and sim- ple habits, enabled him to accumulate the fortune which passed to the United States. He interested himself little in questions of government, being devoted to science, and chiefly to chemistry. This had introduced him to the society of Cavendish, Wollaston, . and others, advanta- geously known .to the Eoyal Society in London, of which he was a member. In a paper relative to one of the publications of the Smithsonian Institution, read before a scientific society at Dublin, it is stated, on the authority of Chambers' Jour- nal, that he had gained a name by the analysis of minute quantities, and that " it was he who caught a tear as it fell from a lady's cheek, and detected the salts and other substances which it held in solution." THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 535 In a notice of his scientific pursuits, by Professor John- son, of Philadelphia, there are enumerated twenty-four papers, or treatises by Smithson, published in the Trans- actions of the Royal Society, and other scientific jour- nals of the day, containing articles on mineralogy, geol- ogy, and more especially mineral chemistry. In the Annals of Philosophy (Vol. 22, page 30) he has a brief tract on the method of making coffee. The small case of his personal effects, which is to be preserved in a sep- arate apartment of the Institution, consists chiefly of minerals and chemical apparatus. The will indicates a degree of sensitiveness on the sub- ject of his illegitimacy. He starts with a declaration of pedigree : I, James Smithson, son of Hough, first Duke of Northumber- land, and Elizabeth, heiress of the Hungerfords of Audley, and niece of Charles the Proud, Duke of Somerset, now residing in Bentinck street, Cavendish Square, do make this my last will . and testament, ...... " To found at Washington, under the name of the Smithso- nian Institution, an establishment For the Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge among Men." The bequest was first announced to Congress by Pres- ident Jackson, in 1835. Long discussions and reports followed ; first, upon the propriety of accepting the trust; and next, upon the kind of institution to be established ; in the course of which the ablest minds in the country, in and out of Congress, gave expression to their views. The report of Mr. Adams was particularly eloquent. The objection to receiving the bequest was based mainly upon the alleged absence of constitutional power, but partly upon policy. 536 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON. The discussion as to the kind of institution which would best fulfil the testator's intention, extended through a series of years, and led to almost every possible proposi- tion. I shall not attempt to give even an outline of these debates, which finally culminated in the adoption of a somewhat mixed scheme, allowing of almost anything. To Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana, is mainly due the credit of finally pressing the bill to a vote. The Act re- quired that there be provided a hall qr halls for a library, a museum, a chemical laboratory, necessary lecture- rooms, and a gallery of art. The Board of Regents, in whose hands the control of the institution is vested, drew up the following general plan, upon which the operations of the institution have been conducted, this plan being, in their judgment, best calculated to carry into effect the wishes of the founder : To Increase Knowledge : It is proposed — first, to stimulate men of talent to make original researches, by offering suitable rewards for memoirs containing new truths ; and, second, to appropriate annually a portion of the income for particular re- searches, under the direction of suitable persons. To Diffuse Knowledge : It is proposed — first, to publish a series of periodical reports on the progress of the different branches of knowledge; and, second, to publish occasionally separate treatises on subjects of general interest. ' Details of Plan to Increase Knowledge by Stimulating Re- searches : First, facilities to be afforded for the production of original memoirs on all branches of knowledge. Second,, the memoirs thus obtained to be published in a series of volumes, in a quarto form, and entitled Smithsonian Contributions to Knowl- edge. Third, no memoir, on subjects of physical science, to be accepted for publication, which does not furnish a positive addi- tion to human knowledge, resting on original research ; and all GENERAL PLAN OF THE INSTITUTION. 537 unverified speculations to be rejected. Fourth, each memoir presented to the institution to be submitted for examination to a commission of persons of reputation for learning in the branch to which the memoir pertains, and to be accepted for publica- tion only in case the report of this commission is favorable. Fifth, the Commission to be chosen by officers of the Institution, and the name of the author, as far as practicable, concealed, unless a favorable decision be made. Sixth, the volumes of the memoirs to be changed for the transactions of literary and sci- entific societies, and copies to be given to all the colleges and principal libraries in this country. One part of the remaining copies may be offered for sale, and the other carefully preserved, to form complete sets of the work to supply the demand for new institutions. Seventh, an abstract, or popular account, of the contents of these memoirs, to be given to the public through the annual reports of the Regents to Congress. By Appropriating a Part of the Income, Annually, to Special Objects of Research, under the Direction of Suitable Persons: First, the objects, and the amount appropriated, to be recom- mended by Councillors of the Institution. Second, appropria- tions in different years to different objects ; so that, in course of time, each branch of knowledge may receive a share. Third, the results obtained from these appropriations to be published, with the memoirs before mentioned, in the volumes of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Fourth, examples of objects for which appropriations may be made : 1. System of extended meteorological observations for solving the problem of American storms ; 2. Explorations in descriptive natural history, and geological, magnetical, and topographical surveys, to collect materials for the formation of a physical atlas of the United States ; 3. Solution of experimental problems, such as a new determination of the weight of the earth, of the velocity of electricity and of light ; chemical analyses of soils and plants ; collection and publication of scientific facts accumulated in the offices of Government ; 4. Institution of statistical inquiries with reference to physical, moral, and political subjects ; 5. His- 538 TEN" TEARS IN WASHINGTON. torical researches, and accurate surveys of places celebrated in American history ; 6. Ethnological researches, particularly with reference to the different races of men in North America ; also, explorations and accurate surveys of the mounds and other re- mains of the ancient people of our country. Details of the Plan for Diffusing Knowledge : First, by the publication of a series of reports, giving an account of the new discoveries in science, and of the changes made from year to year in all branches of knowledge, not strictly professional. These reports will diffuse a kind of knowledge generally inter- esting, but which, at present, is inaccessible to the public. Some reports may be published annually, others at longer intervals, as the income of the Institution or the changes in the branches of knowledge may indicate. Second, the reports are to be pre- pared by collaborators eminent in the different branches of knowledge. Third, each collaborator to be furnished with the journals and publications, domestic and foreign, necessary to the compilation of his report ; to be paid a certain sum for his la- bors, and to be named on the title-page of the report. Fourth, the reports to be published in separate parts, so that persons interested in a particular branch can procure the parts relating to it without purchasing the whole. Fifth, these reports may be presented to Congress for partial distribution, the remaining copies to be given to literary and scientific institutions, and sold to individuals for a moderate price. By the Publication of Separate Treatises on Subjects of Gen- eral Interest : First, these treatises may occasionally consist of valuable memoirs translated from foreign languages, or of arti- cles prepared under the direction of the Institution, or procured by offering premiums for the best exposition of a given subject. Second, the treatises should, in all cases, be submitted to a com- mission of competent judges, previous to their publication. " The only changes made in the policy above indicated have been the passage of resolutions, by the Regents, re- pealing the equal divison of the income between the act- HOW THE INSTITUTION IS GOVERNED. 539 ive operations and the museum and library, and further j)roviding that the annual appropriations are to be appor- tioned specifically among the different objects and opera- tions of the Institution, in such manner as may, in the judgment of the Regents, be necessary and proper for each, according to its intrinsic importance, and a compli- ance in good faith with the law." The Act of Congress, organizing the Institution, makes the President and Vice-President of the United States, the Cabinet Ministers, the Chief-Justice of the United States, the Cabinet Ministers and the Mayor of Washing- ton, members ex officio of the Institution. The Board of Re- gents charged with the control of the Institution, consists of the President of the United States, the Mayor of Wash- ington, three Senators of the United States, three mem- bers of the House of Representatives, who are ex officio Regents, six persons, not members of Congress, two of whom must be citizens of Washington, and members of the National Institute of that city, and the other four citizens of any of the states of the Union, no two of whom are to be chosen from the same state. The Board of Regents make annual reports of their conduct of the Institution to Congress. The real " power behind the throne " is the Secretary of the Institution, who is executive officer. He has charge of the edifice, its contents, and the grounds, and is given as many assistants, as are necessary to enable him to conduct the varied operations of the Institution. The property of the Institution is placed under the pro- tection of the laws for the preservation and safe keeping of the public buildings and grounds of the City of Wash- ington. 540 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON". Upon the organization of the Institution, Congress set apart for its use a portion of the public ground lying westward of the Capitol, and between it and the Poto- mac River. Fifty-two acres comprised the grant, which was known as the "Smithsonian Reservation." They were laid out under the supervision of Andrew Jackson Downing. He died while engaged in this work, and his memory is perpetuated by a memorial erected in the grounds in 1852, by the American Pomological Society, and consisting of a massive vase resting on a handsome pedestal, with appropriate inscriptions, the whole being of the finest Italian marble. The building is situated near the centre of the grounds as they originally existed, the centre of the edifice b em g immediately opposite Tenth Street west. It is construc- ted of a fine quality of lilac-gray freestone, found in the new red sandstone formation, where it crosses the Poto- mac, near the mouth of Seneca Creek, one of the tribu- taries of that river, and about twenty-three miles above Washington. The stone is very soft at first, and is quarried with comparative ease. In its fresh state, it may be worked with the chisel and hammer ; but it hardens rap- idly upon exposure to the air and weather, and will with- stand, after a time, the severest usage. The structure is in the style of architecture belonging to the last half of the twelfth century, the latest variety of rounded style, as it is found immediately anterior to its merging into the early Gothic, and is known as the Norman, the Lombard, or Romanesque. The semi-circu- lar arch, stilted, is employed throughout, in door, windows, and other openings. The main building is 205 feet long by 57 feet wide, THE RAVAGES OF FIRE. 541 and to the top of the corbel course, 58 feet high. The east wing is 82 by 52 feet, and to the top of its battle- ment, 42| feet high. The west wing, including its pro- jecting apsis, is 84 by 40 feet, and 38 feet high. Each of the wings is connected with the main building by a range which, including its cloisters, is 60 feet long by 49 feet wide. This makes the length of the entire building, from east to west, 447 feet. Its greatest breadth is 160 feet. The north front of the main building has two central towers, the loftiest of which is 150 feet high. It has also a broad, covered carriage-way, upon which opens the main entrance to the building. The south central tower is 37 feet square, 91 feet high, and massively constructed. A double campanile tower, 17 feet square, 117 feet high, rises from the north-east corner of the main building ; and the south-west corner has an imposing octagonal tower, in which is a spiral stair-way, leading to the sum- mit. There are four other smaller towers of lesser hights, making nine in all, the effect of which is very beautiful, and which once caused a wit to remark that it seemed to him as if a " collection of church steeples had gotten lost, and were consulting together as to the best means of getting home to their respective churches." The building was much injured by fire in January, 1865. The flames destroyed the upper part of the main buildings, and the towers. Although the lower story was saved, the valuable official, scientific, and miscella- neous correspondence, record-books, and manuscripts in the Secretary's office, the large collection of scientific apparatus, the personal effects of James Smithson, Stan- ley's Collection of Indian Portraits, and much other val- 542 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. uable property were destroyed. Fortunately, the Li- brary, Museum, and Laboratory were uninjured. The fire made no interruption in the practical workings of the Institution, and in a comparatively short space of time the burned portions were restored. The museum occupies the ground-floor, and is the prin- cipal attraction to a large portion of the visitors. It is a spacious hall, containing two tiers of cases, in which are placed the specimens on exhibition. Access to the upper tier of cases is had by means of a light iron gallery, which is reached by stair-ways of the same material. The Official* Guide to the Institution, thus describes the Museum : Under these provisions, the Institution has received and taken charge of such Government collections in min- eralogy, geology and natural history, as have been made since its organization. The amount of these has been very great, as all the United States geological, boundary, and railroad surveys, with the various topographical, military, and naval explorations, have been, to a greater or less extent, ordered to make such collections as would illustrate the physical and natural history features of the regions traversed. Of the collections made by thirty Government expedi- tions, those of twenty-five are now deposited with the Smithsonian Institution, embracing more than five-sixths of the whole amount of materials collected. The princi- ple expeditions thus furnishing collections are the United States Geological Surveys of Doctors Owen, Jackson, and Evans, and Messrs Foster and Whitney ; the United States and Mexican boundary survey ; the Pacific Railroad sur- vey ; the exploration of the Yellowstone, by Lieutenant THE TREASURES OF THE INSTITUTION". 543 Warren ; the survey of Lieutenant Bryant ; The United States naval astronomical expedition ; the North Pacific Behring's Strait expedition; * the Japan expedition, and Paraguay expedition. The Institution has also received, from other sources, collections of greater or less extent, from various por- tions of North America, tending to complete the Govern- ment series. The collections thus made, taken as a whole, consti- tute the largest and best series of the minerals, fossils, rocks, animals, and plants of the entire continent of North America, in the world. Many tons of geological and mineralogical specimens, illustrating the surveys throughout the West, are embraced therein. There is also a very large collection of minerals of the mining regions of Northern Mexico, and of New Mexico, made by a practical Mexican geologist, during a period of twenty-five years, and furnishing indications of many rich mining localities within our own borders, yet un- known to the American people, It includes also, with scarcely an exception, all the vertebrate animals of North America. The greater part of the mammalia have been arranged in walnut drawers, made proof against dust and insects. The birds have been similarly treated, while the reptiles and fish have been classified, as, to some extent, have also been the shells; minerals, fossils, and plants. The Museum hall is quite large enough to contain all the collections hitherto made, as well as such others as may be assigned to it. No single room in the country is, perhaps, equal to it in capacity or adaptation to its purposes, as, by the arrangements now being perfected 3 544 TEN TEAKS IN" WASHINGTON. and denoted in the illustration, it is capable of receiving twice as large a surface of cases as the old Patent-Office hall, and three times that of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia. The Smithsonian Contributions are the work of men residing in every part of the United States. Does an individual think he has the data upon which to base an important discovery, he communicates his plans to the Institution. His suggestions are referred to men in other places, who have made that branch an especial subject of study, and who are not advised of the author's name. If they report favorably upon it, the author is furnished with facilities for pursuing and describing his investiga- tions. Does he want some book not to be found in the library nearest his home ? The Institution purchases it and loans it to him, to be returned to the library. His work, when finished, may be invaluable to a scientific man, but is not in sufficient demand to warrant any pub- lisher in issuing it. The Institution prints it, with the proper illustrations, and gives the author the privilege of using the plates in order to print a copyright for sale. Those published by the Institution are sent to every great library and to every scientific body in the world ; and those bodies^ in return, send back all their publica- tions. Thus, already, a most valuable library has been collected, containing books hardly to be found collected together anywhere else in the United States. Thirty years ago, the merely nominal sum of $1,000 was, at the instance of -the Commissioner of Patents, Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, devoted by Congress for the pur- poses of Agriculture. For two years before, this patri- THE INSTITUTION GAKDENS. 545 otic gentleman had been distributing seeds and plants gratuitously, and for nine years, during his entire term of office, he continued his good work. His successors in the Patent-Office kept up the practice ; but it was not until 1862 that the Department of Agriculture was for- mally organized. ' It now nominally belongs to the Department of the Interior, but in every essential is a distinct department in itself. The beautiful building built expressly for it, and dedi- cated exclusively to its uses, terminates one of the finest vistas running out from Pennsylvania avenue. It stands within the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution, sur- rounded by spacious conservatories and wide blooming gardens — every plant and tree indigenous to our coun- try — from the luxuriant tropical vegetation of the South- ern States, to the dwarfed and hardy foliage of our north- ern borders, may be found in its grounds. A division is devoted to horticulture, and the propagation and accli- matization of new and foreign species. Studies in orna- mentation, in the best means of hybridizing, budding, pruning and grafting, in treating diseases of plants and trees, are thoroughly pursued in the experimental gar- dens. Seeds of new varieties and of superior quality, as soon as they are obtained, are freely distributed through- out the country, on application to the Commissioner of Agriculture. The Department maintains, at least, one correspondent in every county of the United States, through whom statistics of quality and quantity of crops, and other facts, are forwarded to Washington, to be there distrib- uted by means of the monthly and yearly reports. Spe- 35 546 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. cialists are also employed to prepare for these reports instructive articles on suitable topics. Questions from agriculturalists are freely answered and the fullest possi- ble information afforded. The purchaser of a farm situ- ated in a region with which he is unacquainted, has only to inquire, and the department will tell him the crops likely to prove remunerative in the special locality, ad- vise him regarding cultivation, and warn him of obstacles to be surmounted, and the best means of overcoming them. A chemist will analyze the soil, report as to its properties and the value of fertilizers to be used thereon ; a botanist will give every particular regarding the na- tures and diseases of plants, and will point out in what families to seek needed products, and what effect a change of soil will have upon them. An entomologist will give advice regarding the insects which destroy vegetation, and as to the best mode for their extermination. As compared with the other national bureaux, the ex- pense of this department is remarkably small. The cost of the library and museum was $140,000, and the con- servatories were built at an expense of but $52,000 more. The library contains a valuable collection of ag- ricultural literature in several languages. Volumes of rare pictures are arranged on long tables ; one work, a present from Francis Joseph I., Emperor of Austria, en- titled "Nature-Printing," containing representations of ferns so exquisitely printed that it is difficult to believe them unreal. In the museum are specimens of fibrous products, cereals of this and other countries, stuffed birds and plaster-casts of fruits from all the different sections of the United States, arranged so as to show at a glance the products THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM. 547 of each region and the specific changes caused by trans- portation. On the walls of the fruit-cabinet are hung diagrams showing the character and habits of the different insects that prey upon fruit and fruit trees ; and in glass cases are preserved the native birds that feed upon de- structive insects, and should be protected by the kind treatment of the agriculturalist. The halls of this beautiful building are laid with im- ported tiles, its ceilings are exquisitely frescoed, and many of its walls hung with wood-paper in rich blending tints. The museum filling the main hall of the second floor is furnished with lofty, air-tight walnut cases. The great California plank which once stood in one of the underground halls of the Patent-Office, has been wrought into a massive table which stands in the Mu- seum. It is seven feet by twelve, and looks like a bill- iard-table without the cloth, and is finely polished. The legs and frame are made of Florida cedar. The top of the table is composed of the plank ; it looks like solid mahogany without knot or blemish. Much attention has been given to the cultivation of the fibrous grasses which, in China, are woven into fine and durable cloth. Specimens of these grasses, and of the cloth which they make, in its various stages of manufacture, are on exhi- bition in the cases of the museum. A number of acres have been set apart in the grounds for the cultivation of these grasses. The shade- trees of our entire country are to be represented in these grounds. Already over one thousand four hundred native varieties have been planted. Through the Smithsonian Institute the Department has been put into communication with leading foreign agri- cultural societies, and the result has been, not only an 548 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. exchange of reports, but of almost every known specimen of flower-seeds, seeds of shrubs, vegetables and fruits. The display of flowers in the agricultural grounds is already something wonderful, and soon will equal any like display in the world. CHAPTER XLVni. OLD HOMES AND HAUNTS OF WASHINGTON. The Oldest Home in Washington — The Cottage of David Burns — David Burns's Daughter — Singing a Lady's Praises — The Attractions of a Cot- tage — " Tom Moore " the Poet Pays Homage to Fair Marcia — The Fa- vored Suitor — How the Lady was Wooed and Won — Mother and Daugh- ter—The Offering to God— The City Orphan Asylum— A Costly Mauso- leum — The Assassination Conspiracy — Persecuting the Innocent — A Sug- gestion for the Board of Works — The Octagon House — A Comfortable Income — The Pleasures of Property — A Haunted House — Apple -Stealing — " Departed Joys and Stomach- Aches " — The Jackson Monument — The Tragedy of the Decatur House — A Fatal Duel — The Stockton- Sickles House — A Spot of Frightful Interest — The Club-House — Assassination of Mr. Seward — Scenes of Festivity — The Madison House — Mrs. Madi- son's Popularity — Her Turbans and Her Snuff— The Exploit of Commo- dore Welkes — Arlington Hotel — The House of Charles Sumner — Corco- ran Castle — The Finest Picture- Gallery in America — Powers' Greek Slave — "Maggie Beck" — Kalaroma — During the War — Bock Creek — The Romantic Story of Mr. Barlow's Niece — Francis P. Blair — Doddington House — The Brother of Lord Ellenborough — Forgetting His Own Name — Locking Up a Wife — The " Ten Buildings " — The Retreat of Louis Phillippe — Old Capitol Prison — The Temporary Capitol — The Deeds of Ann Royal and Sally Brass — " Paul Pry " — Blackmailing — Feared by all Mankind — An Unpleasant Sort of Woman — Arrested on Suspicion — A Small American Bastile — Where Wirz was Hung. THE oldest home in "Washington is the cottage of Da- vid Burns. You remember him, he was Washington's " obstinate Mr. Burns." Well, he owned nearly the entire site of the future Federal city, an estate which had descended 550 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. to him, through several generations of Scottish ancestors. It was perfectly human and right that he should make the most and best of his precious paternal acres. Long before quarrelling Congresses had even thought of the District of Columbia as a site to contend over as the fu- ture Capitol, the cottage of David Burns had gathered on its lowly roof the moss of time. After the lapse of nearly a century it stands to-day as it stood then, only the moss on its roof is deeper, and the trees which arch above it, cast a longer and deeper shadow. It was a mansion in that day of small begin- nings. Yet it is but a low, sharp-roofed cottage, one story high, with a garret; its doors facing north and south, one opening upon the river, with no steps, but one broad flag-stone, now settled deep within its grassy bor- ders. Besides the garret, there cannot be more than four rooms in the house; a dining-room, sitting-room, and two sleeping-rooms ; the kitchen, after the Maryland and Vir- ginia fashion of the present day, was probably a detached building. The farm-house no doubt equalled its average neighbors, scattered miles apart across the wide domain of open country. Before Washing-ton came to negotiate for the future site of the Federal city, the society of Davy Burns was probably composed of plain farmer folk like himself. It was at a later time, when the farmer was transformed into a millionaire, and his only daughter had grown into the fairest belle and richest heiress in all the country round, that the long, low rooms of the one-story farm- house were filled with the most illustrious men of their generation. At the time of the sale of his estate to President Wash- OLD HOMES AND HAUNTS. 551 ington, David Burns' only daughter was not more than twelve or thirteen years of age. With a prescience of her future lot, he proceeded to give her every advantage of education and society at that period accessible to a gentlewoman of fortune. The Hector of St. John's Church, who preached her funeral sermon in 1832, said: "She was placed by her parents in the family of Luther Martin, Esq., of Baltimore, who was then at the height of his fame as the most distin- guished jurist and advocate in the State of Maryland, and with his daughters and family she had the best op- portunity of education and society." At eighteen, Marcia Burns returned to the home of her parents — the lowly farm-house on the banks of the Potomac. Then, and at a later day, when the flush and enchantment of youth had fled, the vision of Marcia Burns is altogether lovely. Beside the attractions of fortune, she seemed to possess in an eminent degree the highest qualities of the feminine nature. It was of Marcia Burns that Horatio Greenough wrote : " ' Mid rank and wealth and worldly pride, From every snare she turned aside. She sought the low, the humble shed, Where gaunt disease and famine tread ; And from that time, in youthful pride, She stood Van Ness's blooming bride, No day her blameless head o'erpast, But saw her dearer than the last." The return of the only child and heiress of David Burns, in the first beauty of young womanhood, soon 552 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. filled the paternal cottage with illustrious society, and with many suitors for her hand and heart. The Keys, the Lloyds, the Peters, the Lows, the Tayloes, the Calverts, the Carrols, all visited here. Washington, Jefferson, Hamil- ton, Burr, with many other famous then, not forgotten now, were guests at the Burns cottage. Thomas Moore was entertained beneath its roof, and slept in one of the little rooms " off" the large one on the ground floor. The favored suitor was John P. Van Ness, the son of Judge Peter Van Ness of New York, celebrated as an anti-Federalist, a Revolutionary officer, and a supporter of Aaron Burr against the Clinton and Livingston feud. When John Van Ness wooed and won Marcia Burns, he was thirty years of age, a Member of Congress from New York, "well-fed, well-bred, well-read," elegant, pop- ular and handsome enough to win his way to any maid- en's heart, unassisted by the accessories of fortune, which, in addition, were bountifully his. In Gilbert Stuart's pic- ture we see him with powdered wig and toupee, light-brown hair and side whiskers, perceptive forehead, aquiline nose, finely-curved lips and chin, a small mouth, with clear, hazel eyes, which could look their way straight^ to many hearts. The portrait of the heiress of ^^^£- Burns may be seen to-day in Washington, not in any hall of wealth or fashion, but in the Orphan Asylum, which she founded and endowed, to whose children she was a mother. It looks down upon us, a Madonna face, with intellectual, spiritual brow, dewy eyes, and a tender mouth. Marcia Burns married John P. Van Ness at the age of twenty. Her only brother dying in early youth, she in- herited the whole of her father's vast estate. For a few years after her marriage she lived at the old cottage. THE HOUSE OF MARCIA BURKS. 553 Her husband then built a two-story house on the corner of Twelfth and D streets. Later, he began the house, which, still standing in the centre of Mansion Square, is one of the most unique of all the historic houses of Washing- ton. It was designed, as were so many famous Wash- ington houses, by Latrobe, and cost between $50,000 and $60,000 more than half a century ago. Its marble man- tel-pieces, wrought in Italy, with their sculptured Loves and Vestas, still remain, models of exquisite art. It is finished with costly woods, and about its door-knobs are set tiles inlaid with Mosaics. Its great portico, facing north, is modelled after that of the President's house. This stately brick mansion, amid the trees, standing a few rods back from the Burns' cottage, presents to it an absolute contrast. This costly home was ready for the family when the only daughter and child of General and Mrs. Van Ness returned, in 1820, from school in Philadelphia. Thither Marcia Burns brought her daughter. The bond between the two is said to have been more intimate and profound than that of simply mother and daughter. The daugh- ter was the cherished companion of the mother, who cultivated an intelligent interest in public affairs, who loved poetry, and wrote it, and who, amid all the pomp of wealth and state, never forgot, or allowed her child to forget, that the fashion of this world passeth away. Ann Elbertina Van Ness married Arthur Middleton of South Carolina, son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. But, in November, 1822, in less than two years from her return from school, this only child, this youthful bride, this heiress of untold wealth, with her babe in her arms, was carried to the grave. 554 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. From that hour, her mother, Marcia Burns, who, in the world, had never been of it, renounced its vanities en- tirely. The cottage in which she was born, in which her parents lived and died, nestling under the patriarchal trees, just outside the windows of her stately home, had ever remained the object of her veneration and affection. In this humble dwelling, over whose venerable roof waved the branches of trees planted by her dear parents, she selected a secluded apartment, with appropriate ar- rangements for solemn meditation, to which she often retired, and spent hours in quiet solitude and holy communion. The offering to God which she made beside the grave of her daughter, was the City Orphan Asylum of Wash- ington. She became a mother to the children, saved, sheltered, and trained for heaven beneath its roof. She did not wait for these orphans to come to her door. Night and day she sought them out. In her portrait, still hanging in this asylum, she is sitting with three little girls, clinging to her for protection, one with its head in her lap. Her last sickness was long and painful. A few days before her death, with a few Christian friends gathered about her bed, she celebrated the holy Sacrament ; then, with perfect serenity, awaited the final call. Her last words to her husband, placing her hand upon his head, were : " Heaven bless and protect you. Never mind me." She died September 9, 1832, aged fifty years. She was the first American woman buried with public honors. At the time of her death, General Van Ness was Mayor of Washington. Meetings of condolence were held by' citizens in different places. As the funeral procession A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM. 555 began to move, a committee of citizens placed a second silver plate upon her coffin, inscribed : — " The Citizens of Washington, in testimony of their veneration for departed worth, dedicate this plate to the memory of Marcia Van Ness, the excellent consort of D. P. Van Ness. If piety, charity, high principle and exalted worth could have averted the shafts of fate, she would still have remained among us, a bright example of every virtue. The hand of death has removed her to a purer and happier state of existence ; and, while we lament her loss, let us endeavor to emulate her virtues." The procession passed between the little girls of the Orphan Asylum, who stood in lines, till the coffin was placed at the door of the vault, when they came forward, strewing the bier with branches of weeping-willows, and singing a farewell hymn. The last earthly house which received the- body of Marcia Burns was more magnificent than any she had ever inhabited. Years before, General Van Ness had reared a Mausoleum, which still remains, one of the pur- est examples of monumental art on this continent. It is a copy of the Temple of Vesta, and could not be built at the present time for a sum less than thirty-four or thirty- five thousand dollars. In the vault, beneath its open dome, Marcia Burns was laid beside her child. This mag- nificent temple of the dead was recently removed and rebuilt, precisely as it was in the Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown. The cells of its deep vault now hold nearly all of the dust left of the Burns and Van Ness alliance. General Van Ness lived to the period of the Mexican war, passing away at the age of seventy-six, after having enjoyed every honor which the citizens of Washington 556 TEN" TEARS IN" WASHINGTON. could bestow upon him. He sued the Government of the United States for violating its contract with the original proprietors of Washington in selling to private purchasers lots near the Mall. Robert B. Taney was his lawyer, and yet he lost his suit. He gave an entertainment to Con- gress every year up to the time of his death, and wonder- heads declare that his six horses, headless, still gallop around the Van Ness Mansion, in Mansion square, annu- ally, on the anniversary of that event. Some twenty-five years ago, this old mansion and estate was bought by its present proprietor, Thomas Green, Esq., a Virginia gentleman. The last time that it came prom- inently before the public, was during the assassination con- spiracy, when an irresponsible newspaper sent the report flying, that its great wine-vault was to have been used as a place of incarceration for Mr. Lincoln, before he was conveyed across the river. In those mad days no mag- nate waited for proof, and the result was that Mr. Green and his gentle wife, who, — as her husband remarked — " was as innocent as an angel," were shut up in our small bastile, the old Capital prison. Here both were held for more than thirty days, when after having vindicated their honor beyond the possibility of reproach, the Govern- ment somewhat ashamed of itself, let them depart to the shelter of their patriarchal home. On buying the estate, Mr. Green with that veneration for old, sacred associations which pre-eminently marks the Virginian, — instead of tearing down the old Burns' cottage as " nothing to him " or as a blot upon his fair estate, went immediately to work to preserve it. With- out changing it in any way, he re-roofed it, made it rain- proof, whitewashed it, and left it with its trees and mem- THE OLD COTTAGE OF DAVID BURNS. 557 ories. What Mr. Green has preserved, let not the Board of Public Works destroy! In this case, gentlemen, let your "grade" go — and the cottage of "the obstinate Mr. Burns," the first owner of this great Capital, and the old- est house in it — remain. It was a June evening that we last passed the gate and the lodge of the old Van Ness estate, at the foot of Sev- enteenth street. The high brick-wall which shut in this historic garden, is mantled with ivy and honeysuckle. Old fruit trees, apple, pear, peach, apricot, plum, cherry, nectarine, and fig trees, all in their season, lift their crowns of fruitage to the sun within these old walls. Following a winding avenue, we pass through grounds above which gigantic aspen, maple, walnut, holly, and yew trees cast deep, cool shadows in the hottest summer days. As we approach the house we see that the drive be- fore the northern portico is encircled with an immense growth of box. Before the low windows of the eastern drawing-room, stretch wide parterres of roses of every known variety. In June it is literally a garden of roses — and the early snow falls upon them, budding and blooming still in the delicious air. Oranges ripen on the sunshiny lawn which surrounds the house, and masses of honey- suckle which climb the balustrades of the southern portico pervade the air with sweetness, acres away. This southern portico used as a conservatory in the winter, is a counterpart, on a smaller plan, of the south veranda of the President's house. It has the same out- look only nearer the river. To the right, the dome of the observatory swells into the blue air, and, before it, the Potomac runs up and kisses the grasses at its feet. Lov- ers' walk, shaded by murmuring pines, as such a walk 558 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. should be, runs on through the grove down to a mimic lake, there, in mid-water, is a tiny island with shadowy trees and restful seats. I stray down this walk with Alice, — golden-haired and poet-eyed. We wander across under the patriarchal trees and come out on the river-side of the old Burns' cottage. Its sunken door-stone, its antique door-latch, its minute window-panes, all are just the same as when Marcia Burns, beautiful and young, received within its walls her courtly worshippers; just the same as when Marcia Burns, smitten and childless, knelt alone by its desolate hearth, to commune with the God and Father of her spirit, and to dedicate herself to His service for ever. Beside us, eight lofty Kentucky coffee-trees soar palm- like towards the sky. Through their clustering crowns the full moon peers down upon us ; upon the cottage, so fraught with the memories of buried generations ; upon the white walls of the mansion, so rich in recollections of the illustrious dead of a later past, — and she transfig- ures both cottage and hall in her hallowing radiance, as, with lingering steps, I say to gentle host and hostess, and to Alice, — golden-haired and poet-eyed, — " Farewell." The Octagon House, now used as an office by the Navy Department, stands on the corner of Eighteenth street and New York avenue. It was built near the close of the last century by Colonel John Tayloe, one of the most famous men of his time, and is still owned by his descend- ents. Colonel Tayloe was a friend of Washington, who persuaded him to invest some of his immense fortune in the new Federal city. He was educated at Cambridge, A HAUNTED HOUSE. 559 England, and during his life in Washington, four of his former class-mates were sent as Ministers to the United States. Colonel Tayloe had an income of seventy-five thousand dollars a year. He had an immense country estate at Mount Airy, Virginia, and both there and in Octagon House, entertained his friends in princely state. He kept race-horses, and expended about thirty-three thousand dollars every year in new purchases. He owned five hundred slaves, built brigs and schooners, worked iron- mines, converted the iron into ploughshares, — and all was done by the hands of his own subjects. After the burning of the White House, Mr. and Mrs. Madison lived in the Octagon House for a year, and held these elegant draw- ing-rooms and gave costly dinners. The Octagon House has long had the reputation of being haunted. " It is an authenticated fact, that every night, at the same hour, all the bells would ring at once. One gentleman, dining with Colonel Tayloe, when this mysterious ringing began, being an unbeliever in mysteries, and a very powerful man, jumped up and caught the bell wires in his hand, but only to be lifted bodily from the floor, while he was unsuccessful in stopping the ringing. Some declare that it was discovered, after a time, that rats were the ghosts who rung the bells ; others, that the cause was never dis- covered, and that finally the family, to secure peace, were compelled to take the bells down and hang them in dif- ferent fashion. Among other remedies, had been previ- ously tried that of exorcism, but the prayers of the priest who was summoned availed nought." In 1805, Washington city was an old field, covered everywhere with green grass and many original trees of 560 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. the forest. There were no streets made. The President's house was unfinished, and Lafayette square, opposite, was still called the " Burns' Orchard." One corner of it was used as a burial-ground of St. John's Church. Where General Jackson's statue is now rearing in the air on a frantic horse, then stood a clump of cherry trees, under which John Gardner's school-boys used to make them- selves sick eating green cherries. As the boys of this school never allowed the green apples or any other fruit in this orchard to ripen, and for that reason were in a perpetually griped condition all summer, their school- master, much against their wishes, and that of the militia who paraded under the trees, obtained permission of Pres- ident Jefferson to cut the orchard down. As an open "reservation," the square was long a land- mark of the departed joys and stomachaches of the boys of a former generation. In course of time Dowing laid out the graceful walks and grassy plats which make it now a perfect bijou of beauty. He planted the trees which to-day arch high in mid-air, and spread so deep and grateful a shade above the weary multitudes who seek rest and a touch of nature's healing upon its way- side seats. It is altogether beautiful and soul and sense- reviving, in the spring, when its many-flowering shrubs pervade the air with fragrance, and no less delicious in the autumn, when it flames a mosaic of gorgeous landscape set in the dusty square, its many tinted leaves warm and red as gems raining about your feet. August 11, 1848, a resolution of Congress authorized the Jackson Monument Committee to receive the brass guns captured by Jackson at Pensacola, to be used as material for the construction of a monument to that dis- A school-boy's pakadise. 561 tinguished patriot. Clark Mills was appointed to execute the statue. President Fillmore chose its site in the centre of the square, opposite the President's House, where it was inaugurated January 8, 1853, the anniversary of Jackson's victory at New Orleans, in 1815. As I am inadequate to describe such a work of art, I give the guide-book de- scription : — " General Jackson is represented in the exact military costume worn by him, with cocked-hat in hand, saluting his troops. The charger, a noble specimen of the animal, with all the fire and spirit of a Bucephalus, is in a rearing posture, poised upon his hind feet, with no other stay than the balance of gravity, and the bolts pinning the feet to the pedestal. The work is colossal, the figure of Jackson being eight feet in height, and that of the horse in proportion. The whole stands upon a pj^ramidal pedes- tal of white marble, seven feet in height, at the base of which are planted four brass six-pound guns, taken by the hero at New Orleans. The cost of the statue to the Government, including the pedestal and iron railing, was 828,500." Around this peaceful spot, where the militia beat their reveille, and the school-boys munched green apples and cherries, and gathered nuts in days of yore, human life in all its passion of pleasure, tragedy and pain, now pressed close. One of the saddest tragedies of the square is associated with the Decatur House. It is said that three powers rule the world — Intellect, Wealth, and Fame. Wearing this triple crown, Stephen Decatur came home to the wife whom he worshipped, saying : " I have gained a small sprig of laurel, which I hasten to lay at your feet." He bought the lot on the corner of Six- teenth and H streets, and employed Latrobe to design a commodious and elegant mansion. In this house the 36 562 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. home-life of Decatur begun with the most dazzling aug- uries. Its walls were hung with the trophies of his glory : the sword presented by Congress for burning the Philadelphia ; another from Congress for the attack on Tripoli ; a medal from Congress for the capture of the Macedonian; a box containing the freedom of New York ; the medal of the Order of Cincinnati ; swords from the States of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the City of Philadelphia; and services of plate from the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia. All these were but leaves on the sprig of laurel which he laid at the feet of the beloved one. Mrs. Decatur was accomplished, intellectual, and pas- sionately devoted to her heroic husband. Not yet forty-two years of age, he had scaled the very summit of fame, and already rested after the toilsome ascent. His mornings were given to the fulfilment of his duties as Navy Com- missioner, and his leisure was spent with the best in the society of Washington, made up of the highest in the land for station, character, and intelligence. The salon of Mrs. Decatur, which, to-day, is larger than can be found in any other private house in Wash- ington, was a focal point for all that was dazzling in the social life of the capital. There are those still living who remember the brilliant assembly gathered here only the night before his death. Mrs. Decatur, who had no prescience of the anguish awaiting her, at the request of friends, played on the harp, on which she was a skilful performer. Commodore Decatur, conscious of the por- tentous appointment which awaited him the coming morn- ing, abated not one jot of the wonted charm of his manner, staying in the parlors till the last guest had gone. THE DECATUR TRAGEDY. 563 At dawn of the next day he arose, left the sleeping wife and household, crossed Lafayette Square, walked to Beale's Tavern, near the Capitol, breakfasted, proceeded to Bladensburg, where the duel was fought at nine o'clock. Mortally wounded, he was brought back to his happy home, where he died the night of the same day. He tried to avert the duel, saying to Commodore Barron : " I have not challenged you, nor do I intend to challenge you ; your life depends on yourself." He was followed to the grave by the President of the United States and the most illustrious men of his time. " The same cannon which had so often announced the splendid achievements of Decatur now marked the pe- riods in bearing him to the tomb. Their reverberating thunder mournfully echoed through the metropolis, and also vibrated through a heart tortured to agony." A vast concourse of citizens, marching to a funeral dirge, followed the dead hero to Kalorama. Mrs. Decatur, within the walls of her home, for three years shut herself away from all the world. Afterwards the Decatur house was rented to Edward Livingston, then Secretary-of-State. Here Cora Livingston was mar- ried to Dr. Barton, who is remembered not only as a diplomat, but as the editor of an extensive and valuable collection of Shakespeare's works. Here Sir Charles Vaughan, the British Ambassador, lived, and by his wit and affable manners and hospitality, made the house again a centre of elegant society. Martin Van Buren, while Secretary-of-State, occupied the Decatur House. The brothers King, both Members of Congress from New York, lived here. One was the father of the much-ad- mired Mrs. Bancroft Davis, a portion of whose girlhood 564 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON. was passed under its roof. Mr. Orr, while Speaker of the House, was its tenant, and dispensed hospitalities to thousands in its grand salon. From Madison to Grant, every President has been entertained within its walls. Madame de Stael says : " The homes and haunts of the great ever bear impress of their individuality." Jean Paul Eichter declares : " No thought is lost." If this be true, how affluent of eloquence, wit and mirth these historic halls must be ! They are ready to re- vive more than the splendor of past days. For a num- ber of years the house, rented to the Government, has been used for offices. But withjn twelve months it has been purchased by General Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who has rehabilitated it, without remodelling it, for his own family residence. The ample halls and grand sa- lon remain unchanged in proportions, while fresh frescoes, historic devices, French windows and marble vestibule, give to the antique mansion the aspect of modern ele- gance . General Beale is the grandson of Commodore Thomas TruxtOn, one of the first six captains appointed by Gen- eral Washington in the early navy to guard the com- merce of the United States. Commodore Decatur was a favorite midshipman and lieutenant under Trnxton ; and the grandson of his early commander, in this home of Decatur's heart, is now preserving every possible souve- nir of the sea. The Decatur mansion has passed into fitting hands. Its present owner made his gallant record under Commodore Stockton, and, in imperilling his life for others, has maintained the illustrious escutcheon transmitted him by his ancestors. When the gay season begins, light and music, warmth and cheer, wisdom, THE STOCKTON-SICKLES HOUSE. 565 beauty and grace will again make these old halls glad. " Memnon-like, the old walls will again give forth sweet sounds." A new generation will repeat the festivities of the generation gone to dust. A few rods further on we came to the famous Stockton- Sickles House. Just now it shrinks, shabby and small, be- low its lofty modern neighbors. It is a white stuccoed house, two stories, with basement and attic, with high steps and square central hall, after the fashion of old times. It was called the Stockton House because Purser Stockton, who married a relative of Commodore Decatur, owned and lived in it. Afterwards, it was occupied by Levi "Woodbury, the father of Mrs. Montgomery Blair, who lived here both while Secretary of the Treasury and of the Navy. It was also rented by Mr. Southard, of Georgia, the father of Mrs. Ogden Hoffman. When Mr. and Mrs. Sickles lived in it, it is said that the trees in Lafayette square were so small that the waving of a hand- kerchief from one of the windows could be distinctly seen at the club house opposite, on the other side of the square. This was the signal used between the first be- trayed, then tempted and ruined wife, and the man of the world, to whom seduction was at once a pastime and a profession. The trunk of the tree against which Key fell when shot by Sickles, may still be seen near the corner of Mad- ison place and Pennsylvania avenue. A few steps further on, in the middle of the block, stands the famous club-house which has witnessed more of the vicissitudes and tragedy of human life than any other house on the square, excepting, perhaps, the White House. The Club-House is a large, square, three-storied / 566 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. red brick house, built for his own use by Commodore Kogers, Of the Navy. After his death, it became a fash- ionable boarding-house, then a club-house. To one of its rooms Barton Key was borne after being wounded by Sickles. While Secretary-of-State, Mr. Seward occupied the house for eight years, and during that time it was the centre of most elegant hospitality. In the assassination of Mr. Seward, it witnessed its crowning tragedy. In its rooms Mr. Seward and his son languished for months, while slowly recovering from the almost death-blows dealt by Payne. After their recovery, the lovely and only daughter of Mr. Seward here slowly faded from earth. This young lady was, in a very remarkable degree, the chosen com- panion and confidante of her father. She not only sym- pathized profoundly in his pursuits, she shared them with him. I believe she witnessed, with unavailing cries, the attempted assassination of her father. At least, she never recovered from the shock received at that time. With her, passed from earth one of the loveliest spirits which ever shed its pure light upon the social life of the Capital. Her death left Mr. Seward wifeless and daugh- terless. With everything to live for, she met death with perfect faith and resignation. Her beautiful life, with her triumphant passage through death to a life still more perfect, remained with him to his last moment the most precious memory of her illustrious father. With all its burden of tragedy and pathetic death, with the departure of the Sewards, the old house did not take on the shadow of gloom. Its parlors never witnessed gayer or more crowded assemblies than thronged them the next winter, when occupied by General Belknap, the THE CLUB-HOUSE. 567 Secretary-of-War. This was but for a single season. Another winter dropped its earliest snows on the new- made grave of the young wife and mother, the memory of whose gentle face and graceful presence and tender spirit, will only fade from the Capital with the present generation. It was the last naming up of festivity in the old house. It has never been gay since Mrs. Belknap died. The next year it waned into a boarding-house. Even that was not successful. People of sensibility do not wish even to board in a house so haunted with tragic memories of human lives. The house is now used for Government purposes. Its site is so superlative ; central to the most interesting objects of Washington, and facing the waving sea of summer-green in Lafayette square. In the march of change its place will soon be filled by some soaring Mansard mansion of the future. But when every brick has vanished, the memories of the old club- house and Seward mansion will survive while any chron- icle of Washington endures. Next to it stands the house of Mr. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, a descendant of Mr. Tayloe, of Octagon House memory. Mr. and Mrs. Tayloe have occupied this stately house for many years. The reminiscences of Washington published by Mr. Tayloe for private circulation are among the most entertaining records ever written of the Capital. Next to the Tayloe House, on the corner of Fifteenth and H street, stands the Madison House, in which, as a widow, Mrs. Madison so long held her court. No eminent man retired from service of the state ever had more pub- lic recognition and honor bestowed upon him by the I 568 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. Government he had served than did this popular and ever-beloved woman. On New Year's day, after paying their respects to the President, all the high officers of the Government always adjourned to the house of Mrs. Mad- ison, to pay their respects to her. In her drawing-room political foes met on equal ground, and for the time, pub- lic and private animosities were forgotten or ignored. "Never" says "Uncle Paul" her colored servant, who had lived with her from boyhood, and who still lives, "never was a more gracefuller lady in a drawing-room. We always had our Wednesday-evening receptions in the old Madison House, and we had them in style." Mrs.. Madison's turbans are as famous in Washington to-day as her snuff box. It is said that she expended $1,000 a year in turbans. She wore one as long as she lived — long after it had ceased to be fashionable. " These turbans were made of the finest materials and trimmed to match her various dresses." Uncle Paul tells of one of her dresses of purple velvet with a long train trimmed with wide gold-lace with which she wore a turban trimmed with gold-lace and a pair of gold shoes. With a white satin dress, she wore a turban spangled with silver, and silver shoes." She sent to Paris for all her grand costumes. Her tea-parties and her "loo" parties are still dwelt upon with loving accents by her admiring contemporaries who still linger on the borders of a later generation. After the death of Mrs. Madison, her house was pur- chased and occupied for many years by Commodore Welkes, who captured Mason and Slid ell. It still stands in perfect preservation and is rented year by year to chance tenants. Two years ago, it was occupied by the Secretary-of-War and its drawing-rooms again thronged with brilliant crowds. CORCORAN CASTLE. 569 On an opposite corner facing Vermont avenue we see the brown walls, floating flag and gay equipages of Ar- lington Hotel. Beside it, on the corner, is the red-brick house with white shades, and Mansard roof, where, amid rare pictures, books, works of art, and choice friends, lives Charles Sumner. A few rods farther on, on the corner of H and Six- teenth streets, facing Lafayette square and peering out toward the old Decatur mansion, we came to " Corcoran Castle." It is an imposing house, built of red-brick with brown facings, divided from the street by an iron railing, painted green, tipped with gilt, with an immense garden at the back, covering an entire square. The house is now owned and has been greatly beautified by W. W. Corco- ran, the famous Washington banker, but has had many other occupants. It was once owned by Daniel Webster to whom it was presented by leaders of the party whom he had served. Great astonishment was expressed when he afterwards sold it. But as Daniel Webster was ever an impecunious man, he probably was compelled to part with his palace as Sheridan was so often compelled to part with his. Before and during the Mexican war, the British Minis- ter, Mr. Pa^kingham resided in it, kept open house and made his parlors the rendezvous of the young people. A lady tells "of the young officers she saw taking part in those brilliant life-pictures, who in a few short weeks were lying with rigid, upturned faces, on Mexican battle- fields." The house was at one time occupied by Gen- eral Gratios, whose daughter married Count Montholon. During the war, when Mr. Corcoran resided abroad, he gave his house in charge of the successive French Minis- 570 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. ters. During that time Madame de Montholon came back to the former home of her father. Within, the house is a delight to the eyes. Its picture-gallery is one of the finest in America, and holds amid many other treasures of art, Powers' Greek Slave. The whole house is a gal- lery of costly furniture and works of art. In this home of grace, " Maggie Beck " a Kentucky helle of three seasons ago, who married a nephew of Mr. Corcoran, "received" her friends for the last time. The bride of a month, she was already the bride of death, and in her marriage robe, and veil and gleaming jewels, white, cold, and silent, she received the tears and lamen- tations poured upon her by agonized hearts. After an absence of years, hither Mr. Corcoran bore the dead body of his only child, and here, widowed and child- less, shut himself in alone with his dead. The children of this daughter now make music in these stately halls. Age and childhood make the family life of Corcoran Castle. A high brick wall shuts in this garden from the city. Its inner side is completely hung with ivy. Immense par- terres of roses and flowers of every tint, conservatories, a croquet-ground, rustic summer-houses, fountains, a fish- pond, forest trees shading a closely-shorn lawn, all these make a garden perfect in seclusion and beauty in the very heart of the Capital. One of the most famous of suburban Washington haunts is Kalorama, literally like Bellevue — "beautiful view T ." The ruins of Kalorama stand on a forest-shaded slope, a little more than a mile, perhaps, from the Presi- dent's house. From Twenty-first street it is approached by an avenue planted closely on either side by locust THE RUINS OF KALOEAMA. 571 trees. Under their green arch the titled and famous of an earlier generation passed ; but in our own memory it is associated with the pestilence-laden ambulance, for during the war beautiful Kalorama was a small-pox hos- pital. Below Kalorama, Rock Creek winds its shining thread between the hills. Looking up the creek, we see grassy glades, along which cattle feed, and a picturesque valley walled by embowering woods. Climbing a green, tree- shaded slope, we reach a plateau from which we look down upon two cities, Rock Creek still winding its silvery thread between. Opposite is Analoston Island, beyond the Virginia shore, and Arlington House peering through the trees of its crowning hill. To the left lies Washington, guarded by the Capitol ; before us, crumbling amid its guardian oaks, the ruins of Kalorama. It was built by Joel Barlow, once of " Co- lumbiad" fame, in 1805. After spending several years abroad, where he espoused the cause of the French Re- public, he returned to his own country and built a castle for himself overlooking its Capital. Before this, his " Co- lumbiad " had been published with fine engravings, whose execution was superintended by Robert Fulton. On this poem he had spent the labor of the best years of his life. He believed without a doubt that it would be the national poem of the future. A copy of it graced every drawing- room. In what drawing-room is it visible now ! Alas ! for "Fame!" Joel Barlow and Robert Fulton were intimate friends. In 1810 Fulton visited Kalorama, and it is declared that some of his first ventures in navigation were launched upon Rock Creek. History records that Fulton tested his 572 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. torpedoes during this visit to Washington, and persuaded Congress to consider his navigation schemes. Mr. Bar- low went to France as American Minister in 1812. He was taken ill while on his way to meet Napoleon, who had invited the American Minister to an interview with him at Wilna. Mr. Barlow died at Cracow, in Poland, where he solaced his death-bed by dictating a poem full of withering expression of resentment toward Napoleon for the hopes he had disappointed. Mr. Barlow bequeathed Kalorama to his niece Mrs. Bomford. A romantic story is told of this lady. While with her first husband (whose name has deservedly per- ished) on the frontier, he being an officer in the United States Army, she was captured by Indians. For some reason known only to himself, her husband did not take the trouble to pursue her ; but Lieutenant Bomford did. He organized a force of citizens and soldiers, and sallied forth in quest of the lady. He found her, and she re- warded him by marrying him after she had obtained a divorce from her indifferent lord. Colonel and Mrs. Bomford resided at Kalorama for many years. During their residence here the Decatur- Barron duel took place, and the body of Decatur found a temporary resting-place in the tomb of the Bar- lows. This vault is still visible at the top of a small hill near the main entrance to the Kalorama grounds. With its low sharp roof and its plastered walls, it looks like an old spring-house. It bears an inscription to the memory of Joel Barlow, " poet, patriot, and philosopher," although he was buried, when he died, at Cracow, Poland. When Mrs. Decatur left the Decatur mansion, she re- tired to Kalorama. And years after her husband's death THE MOTHER OF THE BLAIRS. 573 she made it famous by the elegant entertainments which she gave there. There are gentlemen still in public life in Washington, who recall the elegant and costly dinners given by this lady at Kalorama. This beautiful historic spot is now owned by a family named Lovett, who, it is said, intend in time to rebuild it. Following Seventh street a mile or two beyond the city limits, we come to an unpretending country house, at some distance back from the road, surrounded by lawns, gardens and groves. It is a long, low house, be- fore which runs a piazza, and behind which bubbles a famous spring. If it is morning, a pair of saddle-horses stand waiting their riders before the door. Presently they come out together, an ancient knight and lady, ready for a ten-mile ride on horseback. Eighty years and more have set their seal on the brows of each. The gentleman's frame bears the marks of extreme age ; it is attenuated, yet shows few signs of decrepitude. His skin may look like parchment, but the eyes burn with unabated fires. The lady is tall, straight, and stately, with dark, keen eyes, and head erect, as befits the mother of the Blairs. She has a son more than sixty years of age, and yet she seems not to have lived so many years herself. More than fifty years ago, this couple, by wagons and on horseback, came through the woods from far Ken- tucky to seek their fortune in the new capital city. The struggling village has grown into a metropolis • sons and daughters to the fourth generation have blessed them ; they have done their share in the making and unmaking of presidents and men in power; they have received their full meed of honor as well as of blame ; their name has grown to fame; they have long outstripped the 574 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. allotted years of man, and here they are, ready for their eight or ten miles' horseback ride this morning. This is Francis P. Blair, Senior, and his wife, and this their country home. Honored among suburban Washington haunts is " Silver Spring." Almost any sunny day this ancient knight and lady, mounted on their two solid steeds, with a green bough in their hands in lieu of riding whips, she with a stately ca- lash upon her head, maybe seen jogging along Pennsyl- vania avenue toward the stately home of Montgomery Blair, which faces the War-Department. For more than two generations Mr. Blair has been a power in the land. He has had more or less to do with the making and un- making of every president since the days of Jackson. The Nestor of the Washington Press, he was a powerful sup- porter of "old Hickory," and to-day retains, undiminished, the living love now bestowed upon the friend so long buried in the past. Mr. Blair, leaning on his long staff, may often be seen wandering through the -unbowered ways of Lafayette square, which he so well remembers as the Burns' orchard. Here he never fails to gaze upon the bronze equestrian statue of his friend. Others may laugh at the pivoted horse, but " old Frank Blair " pro- nounces the statue to be the best likeness of Jackson now extant. With the exception of the Burns' house, the oldest houses in the city are found on Capitol Hill. Here are houses whose antiquity alone make them remarkable amid the houses of America. For example, here is the old Duddington house, built by Daniel Carroll, who you may remember was so angry with Major L'Enfant for tearing down his first abode, in the way of a beloved street. The OLD HOUSES OF THE CAPITAL. 575 present house, built at that time, stands jus in front of the old site. Going south-east from the Capitol, the tall forest trees of Duddington are soon visible. So com- pletely do they screen the house, nothing is seen of it until the visitor comes to the large entrance gate, directly in front of the dwelling. It is a double house, built of red brick, with wings stretching out on either side. The grounds are beautiful in their very wildness, presenting all the attributes of a primitive forest. Outside is a spring with an ancient covering of brick. " This spring was once a well-known resort, on the Duddington farm, for the school-boys of the neighborhood, one of whom, an aged man now, told me how pleasantly he used to pass his noon recess there." Nearly all the buildings in this part of the city can lay. claim to antiquity. Many of them were built by Thomas Low, of brick brought from England. Thomas Low is an historic name in Washington. " The brother of Lord Ellenborough, he belonged to one of the most distin- guished families in England. He amassed a large fortune in India, at the time that Warren Hastings was Governor- General. He was a friend of Hastings, and warmly de- fended him. Low brought with him to this country five hundred thousand dollars in gold. Soon after his arrival he became acquainted with General Washington, who in- duced him to invest largely in the wilderness which was to be transformed into the capital of the nation. The investment was not profitable to Mr. Lf>w. The high price set upon property caused the city to go up far in the rear of his many new buildings. He married Miss Custis, the granddaughter of Mrs. Washington, and sister of George W. Parke Custis. His matrimonial venture 576 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. was not more satisfactory than his landed one. He parted from his wife, and at his death his five hundred thousand dollars had dwindled down to one hundred thousand. Mr. Low was so absent-minded, it is said he would forget his name when inquiring for letters at the post-office, and once locked his wife in a room, and not knowing what he had done, half a day passed before she obtained her liberty. There is a row of two-story brick dwellings near Dud- dington which were built by Mr. Low, in one of which he lived. These houses bear the name of the " Ten Build- ings." During Mr. Low's residence there, Louis Phillippe, then an exile, was his guest. In one of these the first copy of' the National Intelligencer was printed, October 31, 1800. Another row of houses on New Jersey avenue, one block south of the Capitol, was also built by Thomas Low. Originally they were fashionable boarding-houses, and such men as Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Dallas and Louis Phillippe were entertained beneath their roof. They are now occupied by the Coast Survey. In this house the bill was drawn up and prepared for presentation to Congress, authorizing the establishment of a United States Bank. A house a little nearer to the Capitol, long occu- pied by John W . Forney, was built for the Bank of "Washington, but never occupied for that purpose. In- stead, the United States Supreme Court held its sessions in it for several years, and a house opposite was used as the Bank of Washington. Opposite the eastern front of the Capitol may be seen a block of three houses, which for modern elegance will bear comparison with any in Washington. Any one who recalls the forbidding-looking edifice which used to occupy REMINISCENCES OF SIXTY YEARS AGO. 577 this site will find it difficult to identify this elegant block of private dwelling-houses with the Old Capitol Prison. Nevertheless the walls which once enclosed Wirz, Belle Royd, "rebels" and sinners of every phase and degree be- side no inconsiderable number of perfectly innocent prison- ers, now surround the luxurious drawing-rooms of a su- preme judge, a senator, and an advocate-general. This building which will ever remain most memorable as the Old Capitol Prison, was built for the temporary accommoda- tion of Congress in 1815. Niles* Register of November 4, 1815 in an article entitled : — " The Capitol Rising from Its Ashes" thus speaks of this building: "The new building on Capitol Hill preparing for the ac- commodation of Congress, is in such a state of forwardness, that it is expected to be finished early in November. The spa- cious room for the House of Representatives has been finished for several weeks. The Senate-room has been plaistered for some time." Congress took possession of the new house, December 4, 1815. The first day a communication was received from the citizens who voluntarily erected the building for the temporary accommodation of Congress. The build- ing cost $30,000; $5,000 of which had been expended ea& on objects necessary for the accommodation of Congress, which would be useless when they vacated the house. Therefore the proprietors declared they would be satis- fied with $5,000 in money, and a rent of $1,650 per an- num with cost of insurance. Niles' Register went on to say: "The spot where this large and commodious building was erected was a garden on the fourth of July last