The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-11-30


| throw up the window in the front and back, and
| look out Here is Washington, fresh In my
mind and under my eye.
Take the worst parts of the City road and
| Pentonville, or the struggling outskirts of Paris
| where the houses are smallest, preserving all
their oddities, but especially the small shops
and dwellings, occupied in Pentonville (but not
in WashiDgton) by furniture brokers, keepers OF
poor eating houses, and fancieIs of birds. Burn
the whole down; build 1t up again in wood
and plaster widen II little; throw in
part of 81. Johns Wood; put green blinds
outside all the private houses, with a red cur.
tain and white one in every window; pouch
up all the roads; plant great deal of coarse
turf in every place where IL ought not TO be;
erect three handsome buildings IN stone and
marble anywhere, but the more entirely out of
every bOdY's way the better; call one the Post
Otice, one the Pateut Office, and one the Trea.
sury; make II scoTchng hot In the morning, and
freezing cold in the afternoon, with an ocea.
sional tornado Of wind and dust: leave brick
field without the bricks in all central places
where street may naturally be expeced and
The hotel in which we live is a long row
OF small houses fronting on the street, and
opening at the back upon common yard
IN which hangs great triangle. When
ever servant is wanted, somebody beats on
this triangle from one stroke I'D to seven,
according TO the number of the house in which
his presence Is required; and as all the servants
are always being wanted, and none of them ever
come, this enlivenIng engine Is in full perform
ance the whole day through. Clothes are dry
ing in this same yard; female slaves, with cot
ton handkerchiefs twisted round their heads,
are running to and fro on the hotel business;
black waters cross and recross with dishes in
their hands; two great dogs are play ing upon
mound of loose bricks in the centre of the little
square; a pig is turning up his stomach to the
sun, and grunting, That's comfortableh and
neither the men nor the women nor the dogs
nor the'pig nor any created creature takes the
smallest notice OF the triangle, which is tingling
madly all the time.
walk to the front window, and look across
the road upon long, struggling row OF houses,
one story high terminating nearly opposite but
little TO the left, in a melancholy piece of
waste ground with froWZy grass, which looks
like small piece of country that has taken to
drinking, and has quite lost itself. Standing
anyhow and all wrong, upon this open space,
like something meteoric that has fallen down
from the moon, is ali odd, lop-sided, one.eyed
kind of wooden building, that looks like
church, with a flagstaff as long as itself,
sticking out of steeple something larger
than tea-chest. Under the window is a
small stand of coaches, whose save-drivers
are summing themselves on tue steps of our
uoor, and talking idly together. The three
most obtrusive houses near at hand are
the three meanest. On one--a shop, which
never has anything in the window, and never
has the door open-is painted in large charac-
tiers, "The City Lunch.n At another, which
looks like the back way to some where else but
is an independent building in ITSELF oysters are
procurable in every style. At the third, which
is very, very little taior's shop, pants are fixed
10 order; or, in other words, pantaloons are
made to measure. And that is our street in
Washington.
It is sometimes called the City OF Magnificent
Distances, but it might with greater propriety
oe termed the City of Magnificent Intentions:
for II Is only on taking a bIrds-eye view of il
from the top of the Capitol that one can al all
comprehend the vast designs of its protector, an
aspiring trenchman, Spacious avenues, that be-
GIN in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets mile
long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabi-
tants; public buildings that need but public
cOmDletps Of
thoroughtaTes, which only lack great thorough
fares to ornament, are its leading features One
might fancy the season over, and most of the
houses gone out of town forever with their mas
ters. To the admirers OF cities it is Barmecde
Feast; a pleasant field for the Imagination to
rove in; a monument raised to deceased pro-
ject, with not even a legiole inscription to
record its departed greatness.
Such as it is it is likely to remain. 1t was
a means of averting the conflicting jealousies
and interests of the different States; and
very probably too, as being remote
from mobs-a consideration not to
be sighted even in America. 1t
has no trade or commerce of its own, having
little or no population beyond the President and
his establishment, the members OF the legsla-
ture who reside there during the session, the
government clerks and officers employed in the
various departments. the keepers of the hotels
and boarding houses, and the tradesmen who
supply their tables. 1t is very unhealthy. Few
people would live in Washington, take it, who
are not obliged to reside there; and the tides of
emigration and speculation, those rapid and re-
gardless currents, are little likely to flow at any
time towards such dull and sluggish water.
The principal features of the Capitol are,
of course, the two Houses of Assembly.
But there is, besides, in the centre of the
building a fine rotdnda, nlnety-siX feet in
diameter, and nlnety-siX high, whose circular
wall is divided into compartments, orna-
mented by historical pictures. -Four of these
have for their subjects prominent events in the
Revolutionary struggle. They were painted by
Colonel Trumbull himself, member OF Wash
ington's staff at the time of their Occurrences:
from which circumst staAce they derive peculiar
interest of their own. In this same hall Mr..
Greenough's large statue OF Washington has
been lately placed. 1t has great merits, of
course, but 1t struck us as being rather strained
and violent for its subject. l could wish, how
ever, to have seen it in better light than it
can ever be viewed In where 1t stands.
There is a very pleasant and commodious
library in the Capitol and from a balcony in
front the birds-eye view of which | have just
spoken may be had, together with beautiful
prospect of the adjacent country. In one of
the ornamental portions OF the building there is
a figure of Justice, whereunto the guide-bOok
says, "The artist at first contemplated giving
more of nudity, but he was warned that the
public sentiment in this country would not
admit of 1t, and in his caution he has gone,
perhaps, into the opposite eXtreme.n Poor
Justice she has been made to wear much
stranger garments in America than those she
pines in in the Capitol. Let us hope that she has
changed her dressmaker since they were fash
ioned, aud that the public sentiment of the
country did not cut out the clothes she hides
her lovely figure in just now
The House of Representatives is beauti-
full and spacious hall of semicircular shape
supported by handsome pillars. One part
of the galleries is appropriated to the ladies,
and there they SIT in front rows, and come in
and 60 out as at play or concert. The chair