, 1877-09-08


plicants than there can be vacancies in
"A years time.
1t is not strange that the places are so
eagerly and persistently sought, particu-
lnrly by women, to whom SO few chances
OF seItsupport are open, for Uncle Sam
is good paymastcr, and the work is not
generally over buldGnsome; but the
chances are slender, and if success be at.
tained, the sword ofdismissal soon hangs
above the head. The pressure is so great
that, with the best of intentions, the ap-
pointing officers find themselves compel.
ed to make new reductions. 1t is a
difficult question, who shall be let in,
when so many are knocking at the door,
and how long tIey shall stay when
Others are crowding in. Nor do sup
pose, say what you will of civil service
reform, that matters will be greatly
mended, as long as all men are human,
and therefore tallible. Our Democratic
friends appear to think that everything
would be lovely If they could once get
at the helm (what n crowding III, and
scattering out there would be, to be surc),
but they are human, and fallible too,
though they may suppose themselves by
their long exclusion from public affairs,
purified as by fire; ana there would be
the same difficulties, the same complaint,
the same injustice, if there can be injus-
tice, when no one persons claim, unless
it be crippled soldier, ora soldiers
widow, is superior to another's. Their
accession to power would certainly not
hasten the millennium, and until the mil
lennium, we cannot hope that everybody
will have exactly what he wants, or want
only that which he ought to have.
So the scramble must go on; but we,
who are fortunate enough to be able to
turn our hands to something else, and
whom sense Of duty has admonished
so to do, Withdraw, and advise Others
not to engage, as long as there is posi-
bility Of any degree Of success through
industry and perseverance in other fields
Of labor. Life in these times seems to be
pretty much of scramble at the best,
but we may perhaps employ some weap-
on mghtier than the copying pen
towards the preservation ofindepcndence
and peace of mind
intended during the last days in
Washington to make short of farewell
tour among the places of interest, partly
for my own qualification, and partly that
/ might give you some of the results of
my observations But the self appointed
task which holds me here so long, and
the weather combined, have prevented
the carrying out of my intention any
farther than visit to the Smithsonian.
Here found many OF the articles
brought from the Centennial pottery
japanese and other vases, the huge terra
Gotta group from the vestibule of Memo.
rial Hail. etc. These thing brought
anew to mind many memories of that
wonderful summer, when the nations Of
the earth met in Philadelphia, and the
uprising Of the people OF the country.
(How different the uprising this sum-
NERD
wandered for an hour or two among
the cases containing plaster casts Of the
food fishes Of the United States the
chronological collections relating to the
native tribes of North America, and the
Islands of the sea; the birds nests and
eggs, among which IS a cast of the egg
of the giant fossil bird of Madagascar 4;
the skeletons of birds, fishes and reptiles,
very wonderful and interesting; chin
panzees and gorillas, looking horribly
human; an alcoholic specimen of the
decI fish, which makes Victor Hugo's
"Toilers of the Sea" seems almost prob
able story; Clipped and polished impe-
ments illustrating the Swiss lakc-dwell-
ers, and other prehistoric people; relics
of the different Polar expeditions; Mex
lean hieroglyyhics one OF the bolts to
which Columbus was chained part Of
machinery OF the first steamboat; old
arms from Malaysia and China; ores,
stalacitites, meteors, tossils-curious
things innumerable.
In chronological Hall is a cast of the
happily extinct megatherium, of the