Elizabeth daily monitor. [volume] (Elizabeth, N.J.) 1868-1880, 1869-07-26
elizabeth DAILY alaonitor,
PUBLISHED AT 155 BROAD STREET, BY
j. MADISON DRAKE.
CHARACTER OF THE LADY CLERKS
AT WASHINGTON.

In an article in the Atlantic Monthly
for August, Mr.. James Parton thus
nails an old calumny:
A stranger will not be long in WASH
ington before the rumor reaches him
that members have discovered way of
quartering gtheir mistresses upon the
Government. Some striker las con-
iecture) male OF female, who wanted
clerkship, availed himself OF herself of
this report, and endeavored by putting
it in print, to create vacancies in the
department which employs the greatest
number of women. 1t is common
trick with people who want places, to
get letters and paragraphs inserted in
newspapers, complaining that certain
department OF bureau is full Of fogies,
or fossils, or Andy Johnson men, or
ancient sires who have been in Office
since the time of jackson. "Hannah
Tyler" who wrote to the New York In
dependent remonstrance against the
employment of bad womenin the Treas.
ury Department, pretended to be her
self employed therein. "We," wrote
the virtuous Hannah, Fought not to be
insulted by having the paramours and
mistresses of members of Congress
forced upon us, and be obliged to tole-
rate their society day by day. Let
Mr.. Boutwell, clean out the riff-raff and
pollution of his department. Let him
appoint moral and competent women"
She said also that the departments were
"crowded with females" who were of
no use whatever, and yet could not be
got rid of by their official chiefs, be-
cause members of Congress kept them
in. She declared she could mention
"the names of scores and scores" of
such. This last assertion alone ought
to render the reader of the epistle in
credulous. for there are few persons in
the whole world who can call to mind
"scores and scores of names" There
are about three hundred members of
Congress in all, and very large num-
Der of them are elderly, married men,
fathers of families, known to be strict
ly moral in their lives. A person real
ly acquainted with Washington, and
not morbidly credulous of evil, could.
not easily be convinced that, from the
beginning of the government TO the
present day, there have ever .beeh, at
the same time, five members of Con-
gress who had mistresses. 1t is not an
American custom. We do our share of
the human races sum total of sin chief
ly in other ways. Mistresses are kept
in countries where there is large class
of rich young men, which is not yet the
case with us. We arc generally poor
from twenty to thirty five. and by the
time we are rich enough to indulge in
expensive vices, most OF us have learn
ed what disappointing, ridiculous,
low delusion vice is. We have grown
past it and above it. Some members of
Congress do worse things; but very few
keep mistrosses.
The treasury building, too, is open
to the public, and one can walk over it,
and enter all the rooms except those in
which the national money is made. A
few days after first hearing of the ter
rible state of morals in the department
1 visited the treasury, and was permit
ted to go even into the apartments con
secrated to the manufacture, redemp-
ton, and destruction of greenbacks and
stamps. I passed some hours there.
and kept looking out for the paramours
and mistresses. [ saw no woman that
was not earning her livelihood by hard,
steady, and not very agreeable work.
Is it like kept mistress to labor eight
hours day, in the building in the CON
struction of which everything was
thought of except the health and digni-
ty of those who were to work it t? There
are single stones in that enormous edi-
fee which, in cheap times, cost TWEEN
ty:seven thousand dollars in gold; and
a thousand human lives are daily short
ened there by bad air. Every face al
most in that endless basement is pale ;
and many are haggard and pallid with
disease. Is it the custom of mistresses
to go to such place, hang up their
hoop-skirts on the same peg with their
bonnets and shawls, cover their hair
with paper cap, and stand all day at
one of those presses performing an un.
changing movement Oar money is
counted thirty three times before it is
packed into boxes and handed over to
the treasurer. Perhaps those swift-fn-
gered ladies', so respectable in appea
rance, SO intent on their work, who do
this counting, are thus expiating an
improper way of life. Or, possibly,
members station their misses in the up.
per rooms, where they sit very close
together. copying and doing sums. If
these things are SO, then may America