The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-21
THE FEBRUARY MAGAZINES.
.,ruE ArLANTIC.o -

Joseph and his Friend" IL Rhyme
Slayeth Shame :" ''rhe Pressure upon Con-
gress !" "Quaff = winter Woods;" 'The
Value of Accidents Father Meriels Bell y
Risk; !" ''The Street Cries of New York I"
Among the Isles of Shoals, III 'The Way
to Sing;" Life in the Brick Moon !" ''Wo
Lee, and his Kinsfolk )" edwin NJ Stanton"
Reviews and Literary Notices"
From the paper entitled "The Pressure
upon Congress- we quote as follows
good deal of precious time is consumed
by Congress in misgoverning the District of
Columbia, or in doing just enough to prevent
the people of the District from governing
themselves. Who invented the District of
Columbia? Why District of Columbia?
II is o joke in Washington, that for sixty-ive
years. Congress voted fifteen hundred dollars
every session for the salary of the keeper of
the crypt" because no member had the moral
courage to confess hisig ignorance of the meaning
of the word. The jokers say that many mem
bers thought it was some mysterious object,
like the mace, without which Congress would
not be Congress. Certain it is that the money
was voted without question every year, until
in 1868 the item caught the eye of General
Butler, and he asked members of the Com
mittee on Appropriations what it meant.
No one being able to tell him, he went
down forthwith into the crypt of the Capitol
in search of its ''keeper." No such
officer was known in those subterranean
regions After prolonged inquiry, he dis
covered that soon after the death of General
Washington, when it was expected that his
remains would be deposited in the crypt
under the dome, Congress created the Office
in question, for the better protection of the
sacred vault. Mrs. Washington refusing her
consent the crypt remained vacant; but the
Office was not abolished, and the appropria-
ton passed unchallenged until General
Butler made his inquiry, when it was stricken
out. Is not our District of Columbia
similar case The district is instilled
into the tender mind of infancy, and we
have all taken it for granted. But what need
is there of depriving portion of the Ameri-
can people of part of their rights, or of COM
pelling them to travel across q continent to
vote Why use an apparatus so costly, COM
phcated, and cumbersome as the Congress of
the United States to get little paving done
In pennsylvania avenue, or some soup given
out to few hundred hungry negroes? Do
California and Oregon send members across
the continent to attend to the lamp-posts of
country town Are honorable gentlemen to
travel all the way from the extremity of
Florida or the farthest confines of Texas to
order some new boards to be nailed down on
the Long Bridge?
Unable to answer such questions as these,
or get them answered, thought that possi-
bly, there might be some military advantage
arising from the system, whichwould serve as
offset to its manifest inconvenience.
But the jurisdiction of Congress did not pre-
into the White House very warm day in
the summer of 1914, and eating Mrs Madi-
sons excellent dinner, while the soldiers
under their command were ravaging the
town and burning the Capitol. Nor was it
the authority of Congress that kept
the Confederate army the other side
of the Potomac after the battle of
Bull Run. No harm appears to have come
from giving back to Virginia the forty square
miles which she contributed to the original
hmm iply nf a,iI
any inconvenience that would result if Con-
= gress were to restore to Maryland her sixty
and pay taxes on the property of the
United States, like any other guardian or
trustee
This is o matter of much Importance be-
cause there seems to be some danger of the
Governments repeating the stupendous folly
of creating Federal city. No less distin-
guished person than General Sherman ap-
pears TO take it for granted that there is some
necessity for the Government to be sove-
reign in a little principality around the
public edifces. 'In my opinion, " he lately
wrote, ''if the capital is changed
from Washington to the West, a new place
will be chosen on the Mississippi river, seve-
raj hundred miles above st. Louis. y
1 have interests in st. Louis and if allowed
to vote on this question, would vote against
surrendering ST. Louis city and county, with
its vast commercial and manufacturing in
terests, to the exclusive jurisdiction of Con-
gress that would take these interests subordi-
nate to the mere political uses of Federal
capital Nor would any National Congress
make the capital where it had not exclusive
and absolute jurisdiction for its own protec-
tion and that of the employees of the Govern
ment. Therefore, if the capital be moved at
all, it must go to place willing to surrender
its former character and become q second
Washington City"
This is an appalling prospect for posterity
"a second Washington City! 1 could wish
that General Sherman had given some reasons
for his assumption; for while the good re.
sulting from the jurisdiction of Congress is
not apparent the evils manifest. The
arriving stranger, who usually has the pain oi
riding mile or two on Pennsylvania avenue
naturally asks why that celebrated street is SC
i'll paved, so dusty, so i'll lighted tits one OF
the widest streets in the world; and ai
it runs two miles without bend and without
hill, the winds rushing along it from tn,
distant gap in the mountains raise clouds OF
dust that are wonderful to behold and terrible
to encounter At other times the street is sc
muddy that people call a carriage to take
them across In the evening the whole city
is dim, dismal, and dangerous from the shor
supply of gas. Ladies who intend TO give
party endeavor to select evening wheI
there will be no evening session; because
when the Capitol is lighted the gasworks are
so overtasl1ed that every drawing room in the
city is dull. The dilapidation of the bridges
tha naolactAd aDnaaranca Of tha ruhli,