The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-02-05
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS oP THg BRADIEG JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT roPICs-CoMPLRD EVERY
DAY FOB THB KvENTEe TELBGRAPH
Cr,ptOlogI Of tne capitol.

ghosts of tbous ands Of politicians, and OF tens
of thou sands Of o fiji je-serkers who yet Wearlly
glide through hall and chan Der and vestibule,
presenting sightless petitions, aud inaudibly
appealing to invisible committees. IL has
not, however, been generally known that far
below the busy and busting scene was
teuantless tomb, with lonesome guardian,
who for forty years by the light of solitary
gas burner, has vigilsntly kept ward over
nothing at all, and saved from deseoratlon
the awful emptiness OF that eXpeotant vault
This receptacle was intended for the oonss
of the iliusLrious Washington, but as they
were never brought to it from the family
sepulcbre at Mount Vernon, we can easily
understand how immeasurable must have
been the national respect for that mighty
memory, since we have paid such honors
to a place in which the Father of his
Country, to speak with potential acou-
racy, might, could, would, or should have
been buried. Unfortunately, this method of
keeping up a posthumOus dignity never came
to the ears of our own City Fathers, for if it
had but done so, we should have had in this
metropolis at least six TOmbs Of Washington,
with the most ponderous and expensive mar
BILE laws, and with six faithful Democrats
maintaining a slumberless vigil over six
imaginary sets of bones. Every year the
salaries of these loyal saeristans might have
been raised. Every year there might have
been fresh appropriations for keeping in good
repair these mysterious shrines. Alas! it be-
comes more and more evident to US, great as
we think ourselves in that branch OF human
knowledge, that we have not yet mastered the
elements of ofioe-holding, and have but a
feeble conception of the incompatible re-
sources Of jobbery
If we assume thai the keeper of the Wash
ington crypt has but done his duty, how re-
markable his life His business could only
have been to keep some evil-disposed body
81 hY1ri cd
this privileged resting-place. lie may, at
stated hours, have emerged, de protimdtS, for
the purpose of getting his dinner or drawing
his salary; but after any prolonged abandon
ment of his post, he might have come back
to find an intrusive cadavre ensconced there
by forcible entry and detainer, and not to be
elected by act Of Congress. Then we should
have had the Hon. Mr.. Smith rising to privi-
legged question, and asking his friend,
the honorable Chairman Of the Committee on
Public Buildings, if he knew anything Of
the wretch who had got himself buried in
the crypt. Then a bill would have
been brought in for the immediate
exhumation Of the intruder. Upon
this there would, of course, have been
latitudinous and longitudinous debate.
Honorable gentlemen would have taken differ
ent views of the matter, some Of them think
ing all resurrectionizng to be unconstitutional,
some of them calling for the opinion of the
Supreme Court some Of them proposing a
board of commissioners to superintend the
removal, and some OF them embracing the op-
portunity to make speeches upon the tariff
and the currency. We are satisfied, If any
body had thus got into the crypt, that it would
have taken not less than FIVE years of legisla.
tion to get it out, to say nothing of the fact
that after such deseeration IL would have
been impossible, by the liveliest stretch O
fancy, to suppose the genuine and origina
% hna al,
pared for him. The charming fiction wOulC
have faded into prosaic commonplace. Tht
irreverent would have had their Jokes; tn,
Gradgrinds would have howled their economi
cal protests in either house; the crypt woulC
have been made a coal hole, or a store -roou
for public documents; and the venerable
keeper OF the crypt his occupation gone
might have orawled into his old quarters TO
the last time, and there have expired, with hi
head pillowed upon bundle of General But
ler's speeches.
Whether with or without foresight of thi
lamsntable consummation, the General W
observe, has moved to abolish the solitary i
the cellar. After his forty years of watching
after his waiting all that time for the arriya
of the remains, until his heart has grown sic
with hope deferred, we are to discard this eX
emplary officer, in whom
"--- appears
The constant service of the antique world"
This will never do. We must not thus COZ
firm the adage which declares that republic
are ungrateful. We propose the immediat
erection in Washington Of tombs for ever
President we have ever had, with a psrticr
larly large and handsome one for Mr.. Johnso
IA tomb in which he can stand erect (unde
ordinary circumstances) and make a spsec
whenever, as Mrs. Camp says, he is $50 di
pOged." And when all these places are read,
let them be confded to the keeping of the ol
gentleman in the basement, with the promii
OF beautiful mausoleum for himself, if
should ever need it
SsThe Cohesive Power OF Public Plunder.