New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-02-04
ORTHODOXY or THE CAPITOL.

ORTHODOXY or THE CAPITOL.
The Congressional edifce, it is well known,
has been the grave Of many brilliant reputa-
| tions, and must be nightly haunted by the
| ghosts of thousands of politicians, and OF tens
| of thousands of office-seekers who yet YEARLY
| glide through hall and chamber and vestibule
| presenting sightless petitions, and inaudlbly
appealing to invisible committees. 1t has not,
however, been generally known that far be-
low the busy and bustling scene was tenant
| less tomb, with lonesome guardian, VINO Ior
| forty years, by the light of solitary gas
burner, has ygilantly kept ward over nothing
| at all. and saved from dissertation the awful
emptiness of that expectant vault. This re-
ceptacle was intended for the bones OF the
illustrious Washington, but as they.were never
| brought to it from the family sepulcher at
Mount Vernon, we can easily understand how
| unreasonable must have been the national
respect for that mighty memory, since we have
| paid such honors to place IN which the
Father of his Country, to speak with potential
accuracy, might, could, would, or should have
been buried Unfortunately, this method OF
keeping up pOsthumous dignity never came
to the ears of our own City Fathers, for II 1t
had but done so, we should have had in this
metropolis ut least six TOmbs of Washington,
with tho most ponderous and expensive mar
BILE laws, and with six faithful Demo-
Gratis maintaining slumberless vigil over
six imaginary sets of bones. Every year the
salaries of these loyal sacristans might have
been raised. Every year there might have
been fresh appropriations for keeping in good
repair these mysterious shrines. Alas 1t 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 oflice-holdng, and have but fee
bic conception of the incompatible resources of
jObbery!
IF we assume that 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
from getting itself surreptitiously buried In
this privileged resting place. He may, at stated
hours, have emerged, de profundis, for the pur-
pose of getting his dinner or drawing his sal
airy; but after any prolonged abandonment of
his post, he might have come back to find an
intrusive cadaver enscOnced there by forcible
entry and detainer, and not to be elected ex-
cept by act of Congress. Then we should have
had the Hon. Mr.. Smith rising to q privileged
question, and asking his friend, the honorable
Chairman of the Committee on Public Build
ings, 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 elimination of tho intruder.
Upon this, there would. of course. have been
n latitudinous and lOngitudinous debate.
Honorable gentlemen would have taken differ
cnt views of the matter, some of them think
ing all resurrectiOnizing 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 re-
moval, and some of them embracing the OPP
pOrtunity 10 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-
ton to get it out, to say nothing of the fact
that after such a Dissertation il would have
been impossible. by the liyeliest stretch of
fancy to suppose the genuine and original
Washington to be slUmbering in the place pre-
pared for him. The charming fiction would
have faded into prosaic commonplace The
irrevcrent would have had their jokes; the
Gradgrinds would have howled their ecOnomi
cal protests in either House the Crypt would
have been made a coal hole, or store-room for
Public Documents ;yand the venerable Keeper
of the Crypt, his occupation gone, might have
crawled into his old quarters for the last time,
and there have expired, with his head piowed
upon bundle of Gen. Buffers speeches.
Whether with or without foresight of this
amcntable contamination, the General, we OBJ
serve, has moved to abolish the solitary in the
cellar. After his forty years of watching, after
his waiting all that time for the arrival of the
remains, until his heart has grown sick with
hope deferred, we are to discard this exemplary
officer, in whom
"---a appears
The constant service OF The antique world"