The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1858-05-15
-- H"ta From the New York Tribune.
KSTHETICS IN CONGA ESS-A RICH AR
TiCLE.


used to be considered anti-soap, nnti- water.
anti- towel; and pro-grease, pro-rum and
pro-rags. But, as the French dramatist
boldly expresses it, eve have changed all
that" Democracy now smells sweetly to
Hea ven, when the people pay for it. That
is to say, tho representative men of the De-
mocracy are putting ON these cleanly and
polite airs and graces-the multitudes who
hew, dig, plow and fabricate Handsomely
footing the bill. In exempliication of this
marvellous change, let US look at the Soon
tingent Expenses'' of the National House
of Representatives during the year ls57.-
These be verities-hard money paid OUT
And do not let it be understood that we are
acrid on the subject; on the contrary, we
merely record the facts in the simplest Lam
guage, so that the constituents of members
may learn what finishing school the House
has become; how rough -and- d-tumble fellows
from the back-woods and shoulder-hitting
subterraneans from the city's core, are sud-
denly metamorphosed into men Of taste
exquisites, who not only require the doco-
rations due fine gentlemen, but also need
the sweet little ct ceteras Of feminine bour-
doirism. Coleridge happily says that the
artist must be half woman rightly to appre-
hend and express those innumerable little
thoughts which belong to the sex, and form
so large portion of artistic achievement.
We should opine that Congress must, ac-
cording to this saying of the poet. have
among its members a great many artists,
judging the things which they buy, (the peo-
pie aforesaid paying therefore) belonging to
the uses and adOrnments of the falrer por-
ton of humanity. ....... -.
We shall not quarrel with six hundred
dollars worth of scissors, set down in the
Contingents, because scissors are dual in
| their masculine and femme employment
them, and why not members of Congress?
Some people may say that all these sc ssors
were not used by the HOnOrables, but the
the wives and daughters of the members;
and this opinion may be fortified by the
fact that other things not dual but single in
their womanly applications are charged upon
the unterri6ed Democracy by these repre-
like the judiciary, give the accused the bene
ft of every doubt. "
But the next article which meets our eye
is purely womanly. One hundred and one
dollars are charged for s'Ladies' Compan-
panion Of lady may be sweetheart,
poodle, a parrot, feminine "propriety
player" or multitude Of things. This
mystic disbursement of money may not sat
isfy the unterrifed. We look for some tre-
mendous queries, and an amount of investi-
CATION equal to that bestowed on the Ro-
setta stone, before these hieroglyphics are
solved.
Next we have three hundred and forty
seven dollars expended for 'slddies' porte
monnaies." Nothing can be said against
this. The members have their per diem.-
What is not actually disbursed by them
selves ought to be shopped away by their
wives and daughters, and hence the necessi-
ty of such porte-monnaies. In addition to
this chivalrous appropriation, it may be
mentioned that seventy dollars wereexpend-
ed for buck purses, and eighty dollars
for pocket-books.
30 woman, in our hours Of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please
So think the Ladies' Companionish repre-.
sentatives at Washington, for by way of
overcoming the natural coyness of the sex,
they charged our National Uncle with two
hundred and forty-two dollars worth of reti-
cules, and two hundred and forty-seye en-
dollars worth of pearl shopping tablets,
which were doubtless, judiciously distribu-
ted; for we cannot believe that the brave
instead of the fair make use of such lady
like appendices, unless they be artists after
the Coleridgian plan above mentioned.
Two thousand dollars are set down as
paid for portfolios, and as these come along
with two hundred and thirty-two dollars for
albums, some of them illuminated, it is
reasonable to suppose that many a cousin
Kate everybody has cousin Kate) or love-
ly Julia without the cousin, shares in the
delightful courtesy of receivinga a portfolio
as well as an album. And parenthetically,
we may remark that some one has, or ought
to have, sand that one of the supremest
pleasures in this world is making gift to a
pretty woman. Congressman, like Beadles,
are but human, and if they confound the
public purse with the reticule or the album
given fair charmer, We must be to their
faults little blind.
In order that our readers may fully ap-
preciate the nature of these contingent ex-
penses, we give resume of few Of the ar
ticles in tabular form: .-
A &c m 4 rr,,;.h p;.~...k