Owyhee semi-weekly tidal wave. [volume] (Silver City, Owyhee County, Idaho Territory) 1868-1869, 1869-05-11
Letter from Joe.
APRIL 10th 1869.

moih, uou hnoW ol anything ID /
Washington so well done as the Pat |
ent Office. 1t is located just north of |
the Post Office, and both are far |
enough from any place else to be a
nuisance. The great glaring curse |
of Washington, is what | want to
impress upon your unsophisticated
minds. 1t is, that you have got to
60 at least mile and half in Wash
ington to get anywhere, and to find
that you amt any place then. Now,
please bear that in mind but if |
repeat it half a dozen times more,
keep your temper. I'm the only
party in the premises that should
monopolize all the ill-temper and
profanity. You are not supposed to
have been in Washington. and have
no cause to swear at anything for
certain.
Well, the Patent Office is really an
interesting pile of stone-work. It
occupies about the usual amount of
territory-say four or five acres
But there is a simplicity Of style
about this concern that most any one
will recognize, and a pleasing as
well as impressive style about it that
most any one will acknowledge at
first sight. | have been at some
pains to find anything at Washington
worth complimenting, and if | have
a good word for anything, guess it
must be the Patent Office building.
As to the contents, | will not be so
explicit. If possible, there are more
human fossils therein, in proper
ton, than in any other department !;
for this reason, / suppose, it requires
sometime to get initiated into the
dry details of that institution, and
hence Government is rather COM
PEELED to retain clerks and persons
versed in the pigeon-holery of this
old curiosity-shop, curious, for the
White House itself doesn't draw
better in respect to numbers. The
jug only has one object of interest,
and that is the President. There is
a good variety in the Patent Office
"a person could busy oneself a year
Just looking at the different models
of invention issuing from the human
brain from day to day /; that is, if
one had any taste for that sort OF
thing. 1t is the biggest display OF
human thought that | can think Of
regular wooden, iron, leather, earth
en-. and chemical ideas no goose
Quill effusions are these. Many a
little Joker slowed away there is
the type of bigger and better idea
than ever book or parchment, or all
together contained or suggested
Then. what toll, sorrow, anxiety,
disappointment, and perhaps JOY, is
associated with the million and one
evidences of human ingenuity spread
out in the great cabinet upstairs in
the Patent Office at Washington
There. now, came within one OF
getting sentimental. The word
Washington closes the strain.
There are two objects of interest
10 me, not properly belonging to the
Patent Office. The printing-presS
at which old Ben Franklin worked
in England, stands at the head OF the
stairs. in the curiosity-shop. l lnfel
that Ben was harder up than l evel
was, when he worked such dc
r old machine as that The first thing
I'd do with it, would be to cut i
into kindling wood-there isn't iroI
enough about it to make hair-pln
Yet the old bodkin marks are q
suggestive-I can just see Ben "cor
= recting in the form" and hear hin
swearl just opposite, on the othe