The Washington union., 1857-09-24
WASHINGTON AND IT'S PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

An occasional correspondent of the New York Journal
of Commerce furnishes the following interesting gossip
about the federal capital and its public buildings:
The vicinity of the Capitol is still ruin though
is the ruin of preparation-not of destruction What
of marble blocks This country at least affords
nothing be compared with the Capitol in the sub
Unity of extent and majesty of proportions. 1t oppress-
the mind with its grandeur. In the interior, utility
has been consulted For forty years the representatives
have been hooang to each other in that great forest
their hall-whch echoed and redupcated their voices,
until it annihilated them means of communicating
knowledge But very different chamber has been
constructed less mysterious dark and inaccessible by the
people, the galleries of which patterns for sight and
hearing 1t is TO be regretted that the superintendent
has been SO slow about the Senate chamber not to
have ready for the approaching long session OF Con-
gress. The old gallery has for years been nuisance
With miserable stairway and contracted gal
lery sde the best part of which appropriated
to ladies' to the exclusion of the other SEX whenever
the crnone began to rustic with another poor gallery
opposite the entire front of which is occupied by that
useful but hardworked and ever-wearied set OF opera
tors the reporters gentlemen of the press the
ereign people have been welnigh excluded When Clay
Calhoun Webster spoke, hundreds upon hundreds
could not get near the door. But even now the whole
arrangement is uncomfortable for the daily ordinary
semblage of the place The Senate gallery could
have been finished without difficulty but all public works
slow of construction, except in time of when the
timber that stood in the forests of Champan in August
foated upon the lake and went into the fight in Sep
tember.
Through the whole of the summer there have been
stream of visitors to the Capitol to the beautiful stat
uary wrought by the genius of Powers, Crawford, and
Greenough. While turbulent politicians clamoring
about the dissolution of the Union the real patriots and
sovereigns proceeding the assumption that all
well, and that all will be permanent Plans set forth
for additional edfces of various sorts Every comey
emnence throughout the spacious plot of this city,
veyed by Washington is to be appropriated to pub
lie building. The presidential mansion, towards which
many ambitious eyes have been stretched will be
verted into bureau appendage to the Treasury
Department marble palace for the future Presidents
of the republic will be built lofty eminence west OF
the city proper and not long since its suburbs healthy
breezy place. untouched by the malaria and chlls that
might weaken the resolution impair the Judgment Of
President Then the old District Jail, which has held
many scamps, occupies too respectable and slightly
locality for the public eye for its own penal purposes
and the site will probably be devoted to ece for the
Department of the Interior becoming important
Territory and institutions expand towards the Pacific
The does its work here we'll that all these
buildings will not only be solid in their structure, but
highly ornamental Even the arnory, recently erected
not far from the Smithsonian institution is finished
edifce that it might be mistaken for Philadelphia
church But the weapons of warfare therein deposited
of different kind from those welded by the church
militant Among the noteworthy ordnance in the Uni
ted States arsenal here specimens of the cannon cap
tured at the surrender of Yorktown On the old brass
pieces especially If Spanish French may be seen the
potentous motto, Ultima ratio regum Indeed, force has
been the first and last argument of Kings from Nmrod
down to Bomba But cannon with that motto in the
hands of set of valiant republicans is indeed curl
osity."