Wilmington journal., 1876-10-06
2aahInRtOn Letter.
[From our regular Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Sept. 90, 1876.

w AOPos Ao1 4OdO
AS winter approaches the National
Capital awakes from her summer
siesta, arranges her toilet. and assumes
her society smile, i'll readiness for the
poll -ical, diplomatic and fashionable
throng that worships at her shrine.
Every season brings her new votaries,
and every season knelis the political,
diplomatic or social death of those on
whom was once bestowe her brassy
approval. Where now are the majes
tic Belknap, the glittering Jewell, the
Gorgon Williams and their paragon
spouses and families. upon whom the
sycophantish correspondents lavished
aduIatory vocabularies, as the q,tid
pro quo for an occasional seat at their
tables, and standing room at their en-
tcrtainments =? They have gone to
meet Colfax, Thebes and Palmyra,
and, if the shadows of coming events
are not misinterpreted, the entire
gang that has for years wasted rare
opportunities, abused high trusts and
turned the temple of nation into a
den of thieves. will soon swell the
procession. Meanwhile, is Washing
ton in mourning for her ruined favor
ties ? No; she will laugh and toy
with every newcomer. Not a tear
more for winter, a smile less for sum-
mer." She has too long played the
part of Sphynx in poll yical aLd fash
lonable dramas to be raptured or
alarmed at anything that can happen.
But it is different with that organism
known as the party. The possibility,
not to say the pro liability, of change
in the admin istr alton, has caused great
pertur baton in the Republican dove
like, and the change would, without
doubt, create great revolution in the
official life of Washington. The
strenuous efforts made by the thou
sands of Government clerks hen e, their
docility under illegal taxation, and
their patience in labor, not at their
legitimate work, but in the Republican
campaign organizations, all show how
painfully anxious they are about the
result. They are to be pitied, for
many of them have bought houses
and social relations that depend upon
fimsy tenure of Office. Then there
are contractors, who have waxed fat
by furnishing the Departments sta
tionery, furniture, wagons, ships
thousand and one articles, from q pin
to steam engine, that government,
spending or wasting hundreds of mil.
lions annually, will buy. There are
also horde of landlords, headed by
Boss Shepard, who build cheap houses
and rent them to the Departments for
at least double the rent that they
could secure from any other source.
| All these are perturbed, for the con-
tractor or landlord has his paid agents
| as clerks. chiefs of bureaux, or, as has
been proved in more than one in
| stance, in the Cabinet, and a change
| will be disastrous to them. Heaven
send us a Hercules to cleanse these
| stables ! No one can know their
stencil until he has lived in Wash.
ington.
Perhaps the meanest campaign
trickery to which an administration
ever stopped is to retard business il
the government offices and attribute
the delay, in their printed officla
| documents, to the reduction of the
clerical force by the last Congress. II
la fact patent to any one who viii
| take the trouble to examine, and known
| to thousands who are acquainted with
official life and routine in Washington
that the clerical force, notwithstand-
ing the Incompetence and ineficiency
| of the political beats and lubbers OF
which it is largely composed, is still
quite sufficient to execute promptly al
official business, and have abundant
time to spare for Republican campaign
work beside. In all the letters nov
sent from the patent Office is printed
conspicuously in red ink, words to thiI
effect: "Owing to the reduction in the
force ordered by Congress, at it's las
session, applications for patents can
not now be acted upon with the usua
promptness. This is nothing mor'
nor less than falsehood in statemen
and campaign document in design