The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1874-01-07
rHE cAprroz AT ,rAsHINoT0N.

The Capitol with all its defects, is Tho
greatest architectural triumph this countr,
has Produced and which can lack world
wide reputation only because American.
themselves have not known enough to give
such to it, Like all the most famous struc
lures, it was not built in day, but has growi
gradually into its present Development and
even unfinished as it is, hugely defective as ii
is, and with unlimited capacity for additions
and improvements, it crowns the city and the
landscape with glory unsurpassed by any
secular building i'll existence. It is not all Of
white marble, dear reader, but at first you
take it to be; and its extent, its strenth, its
evident costliness, together with its singular
external beauty, quite initiate one with joyous
patriotism and PRIDE, and in looking at it one
feels that our money-loving and money getting
| Brother Jonathan has the divine spark of
genius hidden somewhere within him, after
1 all.
The first surprise and exultation over,
however, succession of notifying dis
coveries dawns upon the visitor, of which the
most crushing to me was that, though
splcndidly situated upon the ridge command
ing the city, the Capitol .faces the orong soay Z
/ The front is to the EAST, and those magnf-
cent porticos with their crowds of Corinthian
pillars, their sculptured pediments, bronze
doors, and countless sweeping marble steps,
the bronze Goddess of Liberty herself
everything, turns its back upon the city, the
river, and the West, and the whole facade ex-
lists for the benefit of the trees that were
idiotically planted in the East Capitol grounds
just across the street from it, and which have
now grown SO great that they make full OF
three quarter view of the building impossible,
and so beautiful that the Threatened cutting
of them down is ''enougli to kill one.'
! Washington expected and intended that his
namesake city should grow up in state and
splendor on the hill, instead of down in the
marshy, malaral plain. But unfortunately
he placed the Presidents house down there,
and of course all society inevitably clustered
about it beside which, the original property
owners held the land about the Capitol at
such exorbitant rates that for years people were
/
So for long time the hin was compare
lively abandoned while the plain was peopled
But the marvel of marvels is, why, when the
Capitol Extension was planned twenty-five
years ago. and men had seen plainly where
contrary to the original expectation, the cit,
had built itself, that occasion was not seize,
for making the grand facade on the west in
stead of ON the east front, and of placing til
statute on the dome facing in the same dire,
ton for now the Goddess of Liberty look
as If, Struggling her shoulders at the hay
hazard city behind her,--ray, at the "gre
sloven continent itself,--she were gazii
regretfully toward the ocean across which 81
had floated hither and were vainly wishi
herself safe back in the tight little island
of responsibilities and prophecies that gay
her birth.--Atgantic Monthly
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THE DEvIL-FIsH.-A subscriber asks tn
Saturday Eoening Post if there is really
fish called the devi-tish and receives the TO
lowing reply
"There is such a fish as the devil-fish an
powerful and hideous creatures they are
though at the same time, strange to say, tint
and harmless avoiding rather than attackin
man. 1t is cartilaginous fish of the IA
family, sometimes of enormous size. j
specimen taken in the Atlantic, near the Ell
trance Of the Delaware bay, in 1928. was
heavy as to require three pairs of oxen,
horse and several men to drag it on shore
It's weight was five tons, and it measured II
feet long, and 10 feet wide. The skin on til
back was blackish-brown, and on the bell
black and white, and very Shiny. The mout
was p feet wide, the greatest breadth Q
skull 8 feet, and the distance between til
eyes is feet. This specimen is describe'
by Mitchell in "Annals of the Lyceum 0
Natural History of New York; and also il
the journal of the Academy of Natural Sci
| ences so its existence is well authenticated
The devil-fish is occasionally seen by fisher
men on the coast of the Southern States il
Summer and Autumn. Many wonderful
stories have been told of its strength ant
ferocity and it's extraordinary shape and size
thus transforming powerful but inoffensiv'
animal into terrible monster in the eyes o
the credulous and ignorant. When attacked
it is true, in defending itself, this creature
could inflict, with the serrated spine OF it'
tail, deep, lacerating and fatal wounds to mar
or fish within it's range. Its tenacity OF hold
df it once gets hold, must be great. !"
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GETTING READY TO BE HApPY.-That il
exactly what most of us are doing. We arc
not ready to be happy to-day, this week, this
year; tomorrow, next month, another year
our cup of Joy will be full. When the pro
missed time comes, and the acme of our hope,
in certain direction is reached, health may
be wanting, friends dead, and life, however
full of all we thought would make it rich ant
worth the having, be empty and dreary. Bu
he who "takes the best now and herr" ell
joys it, puts himself into possession OF tina
which cannot be taken away Certainly it Il
+. right to provide for the rainy day--in healtl