Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1858-12-23
A Tennessean's View of WASH
ingtOn.

s.r q.
A Tennessean,s View of Wash.
ingtOn.
A correspondent writing 10 the Nash
vile Patriot thus wades into the preten-
sions Of our national capital: - {
Washington city, the capital of the ma
tion the homo, during term time, of the
President (also the residence of five hun
dred and ten men who confidently expect
to be President, and the the seat of the
United States Gas Works, technically
called Congress,) is situated in the District
Of Columbia, territory covering the hor-
izontal surface of ten miles. square and per
pendicularly all the way through. As
every place in the city is from three-quart-
ers Of mile TO mile and three-quarters
from everywhere else, Washington is call
ed, in Forth of July orations and that style
Of literature generally, "the city of magnifi-
cent distances" 1t derives its name of
Washington from celebrated continental
officer who built the pine huts, and forged
his way throught very hard winter at
Valley Forge, and made CORVALLIS ac-
knowledge the corn at Yorktown. The
principal public buildings of the city are
the Patent Office, where the Yankees are
granted the exclusive right to manufacture
and sell Indi-rubber baby jumpers, double
geared rat traps, Railways Ready Relief,
Which is warranted to relieve you of your
money, if nothing else, and other valua-
bic inventions of the age; the General
Post Office, where they superintend the
management of the different mail routes of
country; the National Treasury, an insti-
tntion of learning which has graduated
more men in the art of swindling the gov
ernment than any ten similar or dissimilar
institution in The world; and the city Jail,
which is the only public building in Wash
ington which.is really devoted to honest
purposes, and that is devoted to no pur-
pose at all, both the permanent and tempo
rary residents of the city being too deeply
engaged in their own rascalities to think
of furnishing other people for theirs.
There are two monuments in Washing
ton, one of red granite, erected toIhe memo
ry of Mr.. Smithson, at his own expense; !;
and monument to the folly, penurious-
ness and ingratitude If the American peo-
pie. The latter is about sixty feet high,
with upward Though hopeless) expecta-
tions Of five or six hundred feet. til
commonly called the Washington or Ma
tional Monument. General Taylor caught
his death in 1850 at the laying of the cor
ner stone of this structure. 1t is hardly
probably that any of his successors will
perish at the laying of the capstone. Its
much more probable that Presidents will
he done with at least six weeks before that
even arrives.
The imports of Washington consist prin-
cipally of ofiice-seekers and pickpockets
(both of which are frequently combined in
one, and fast women make the laws that
are put through Congress. Its exports are
disappointed politicians and whisky. The
latter is generally bottled, or rather un-
bottled, in members of Congress for trans
portation.
Taking it all together, Washington is an
exceedingly hard place. The public men
there are always very honest and upright,
however, that is, until they go home and
turn against the administration, when of,
course. they become, like Stephen A. Doug
las and John w. Forney, the most consum-
mate scoundrels unhung. We have the
authority of a number of administration
papers for saying SO.
During the sitting of Congress though,
murders and robberies are
in the city; but as everybody
there is above suspicion, and wouldn't hurt
a hair of your head, nor take the smallest
coin from the treasury. the perpetrators in
variably escape detection. Under these
benign auspices, it is no wonder that it can
not, or has not, been said of Washington
as was recently said of one-horse town in
Kentucky, that if, at the last day, Gabriel
should happen to light there first, the res
direction would be indefinitely postponed,
for some of the inhabitants would swindle
him out of his horn before he could make
a single toot.