Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1861-07-19
FROM WASHINGTON.
Correspondence of the Muscatine Journal.


would look well in print, has been attributed
% John Randolph, who was the reputed father
If half the bastard wit in the country. 1t is
also, for its "vidders," who,
as it may seem at first, generally
nave good stout husbands, after all, when you
come to be initiated. This is the way that
fact comes about Washington
City is one vast boarding house. By board
ing the strangers who flock to the National
Capital, should think, fully one-haf the fam
lilies are supported. Newcastle is not more
certainly the great English coal market; Co
logne is not more certainly the city of virgins
and of stinks New York is not more GER
tainly the commercial emporium, than Wash
ington is the city of "vidders" as is not "vid
ders" The half of the remaining half of the
families Though that is bunglingly expressed)
are supported by the renting of Furnished
rooms" to such strangers as choose to eat
where they please. Now, then, you may
travel over the city in search of a furnished
room to suit your taste and your purse, and
you will discover that widow in mourning
waits upon you in every instance. 1t is upon
the door-"Mrs. JONES'" in one instance,
'Mrs. Smith in another, and Mrs Perkins"
in still another, but ne'er plain John Jones,
John Smith, or Jedediah Perkins, from one
end of the city to the other, where furnished
rooms are to let. Your room rented, however,
however, at round price, you will soon dis
cover an elderly gentlemen, of quiet manners
and rather seedy appearance-the husband of
your landlady! You find out that your SYM
pathy for the poor woman's widowed condition
was a good joke on your "pheelnks." She
was in weeds, not for Jedediah Perkins, de
ceased, but-for customers. The advice OF
Weller, the elder, to his immortal son, Samuel
"bevare of vidders," is a good rule to adopt
when you are on the lookout for furnished
rooms in Washington. Let not your sympa-
thies cheat you out of several dollars month
in your rent bills. This popularity of our
National Capital have never seen in print,
and send it to you now in full faith that your
readers will render due credit to my genius
of discovery.
The readers of the Journal have all noticed
the appointment of c. E. Moss, of Keokuk
in our State, as Consul to Genoa l see thai
the last State Reporter bears down on it :
little That is all wrong-very reprehensible
indeed. Mr. Moss is, in the first place, an ole
soldier of the cavalry corps. He is gentle
man six feet or more in rather crooked per
pendicular, and has every appearance of hav
ing grown to seed dozen years or more ago
He is, | take it, rather better looking than Mr.
Uriah lIeep, and rather worse looking thar
good Dominic Sampson-so that, unquestion
ably, he is admirably calculated to captivat,
the fashionable ladies of Geno, where do con-
gregate, l have somewhere heard, at certain
seasons of the year, the elite of the world whe
can afford to travel Mr. Moss is much of :
gentleman, however, and the impressivencs>
of his most wonderful countenance is greatly
softencd down by the fact that his voice is fine
as that of any peacock In manners, | should
think, he is cross between Miss 'Tild;
Squeers and Mr.. Ralph Nickleby And sucl
is the United States Consul extraordinary tC
Genoa. The very day heard of it, in walk
ing up street, l met Senator Grimes. "Well,'
said l, show is it about this appointment o
Moss?" How did he get it ~ the Governor
asked Very soon meeting Col. Curtis, l pro
pounded to him the same question. 80, that:
Grimes work." said he. As for Vandeve,
and Harlan, they knew nothing about it
Here is the plain truth about the matter
Col Curtis, in his usual Strong language
wrote a recommendation in favor of Mr.. Mos:
for the Consulship at Vera Cruz, and it was
signed by every member of the delegation, all
supposing that would be the last of it. Vera
Cruz didn't happen to turn up right, and the
State Department wishing to accede to SC
earnest a request from our unanimous delega
ton, FASTENED to forward Mr.. Moss commits
sion as Consul to Genoa. From which vol
can account for the astonishmcnt with which
the appointment was received by all Iowans
here acquainted with Mr.. Moss, against whom
| will say nothing serious, except that he viii
make little the queerest consul that evel
landed on the shores of classical Italy. Some
men, having the elements which make up botl
nincompoops and blackguards have been ap
pointed to Office, and Charles E. Moss is
neither the one nor the other.
We sra ant to think that orr low. eto,,,s
beat the world for severity, and certainly that
terrible Camanche tornado makes ones hair
stand on end, even yet but our storms, in
general, are perfectly cclipsed by those which
come up so suddenly here. One of them Wis
the wind blew perfect gale, lifting up the
dust from the streets, and driving it along in
great black clouds, sc that it was impossible
to be out. Even the omnibuses had to stop
and site up" Then came down the rain in
torrents for about an hour flooding the streets,
the young streams carrying off wooden cross
ings, and bearing them onward to the Poto-
mac at railroad speed. Below the National
Hotel the Avenue was a wide stream, from
sidewalk to sidewalk l saw couple of
women trying to cross. With great courage,
they succeeded well enough till about reaching
the curb stone, when both tell, and were I'M
mersed in the muddy water, at which the
crowd in the hotel set up roar of laughter
the savages
The rain Stacking, along came a regiment of
troops, singing gaily, as they stepped to the
music of their own voices They were Ger
mans, and were marching on their way to the
sacred soil of Virginia. How glad the fine
fellows were that they were going nearer to
Jeff. Davis! How different do the chlvalric
ragamuffins Of the rebel army feel Even the
hot-headed South Carolinians are going home .
Tonight, there is a levee at the White
House, but your correspondent has none of
that amiable feeling which would impel him to
go one step out of his way to shake hands
even with the President of the United States.
good and great as the present incumbent is.
Should l die without it, guess could, for
all that, do the job up like one who wraps the
drapery of his couch around him, and lies