The Portland daily press., 1877-02-20
[From Our Regular Correspondent
Our Washington Letter.
The Inaugural Ball Architectural I'm
provements-The Corcoran Art Collec-
tiOm.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16, 1877.
Social gayety has been suspended with the
commencement of the lenten season, and it
will not be resumed to any great extent. Until
after the inauguration, and then, only tenn
porarily, in the Inauguration ball, which. it is
thought, will be held at the Northern Liberty
market By removing the stalls which are
portable, and laying temporary floor, a room
larger and handsomer than any heretofore
erected, can be made in less than week, and
it will accommodate 5000 persons This ball
has become an institution through immemorial
custom, though 1t were more honored in the
breach than in the observance 1t is difficult
to see how anyone can enjoy paying twenty
dollars, the usual price for admission to these
balls, for the privilege of being with 5000 per-
sons only few of whom he can know or even
desire to know.
The city is at present quite full of strangers.
They are always here in greater or less num-
ber during the winter, but, at present many
distinguished persons from different parts of
the United States are attracted to the court
where the presidential case is to be decided,
while the lobbyists that clamor at the doors of
both houses and the applicants for Office
of the presidential issue, are almost innumera-
ole.
In spite of the hard times, Washington has,
during the last three years constantly advanc-
ed in architectural improvements The streets
have to be taken up and repaved oftener than
is consistent with economy, or with any theory
of honesty in contractors and municipal au-
thorties, but the public and private buildings
IN process of erection, are, some OF them, both
Imposing and substantial 1t is proposed to
| build national library east of the Capitol,
| the present room in the Capitol being altogeth-
| or inadequate to the shelving and arrangement
| OF the many books. 1t is also proposed TO
build new Interior Department, and Judicial
| ry Square is the locality that has been suggest
| ed. Nearly all the space OF the building now
used, is required by the Patent Bureau for
| the storage of models of inventions. Then
there is third improvement much talked
aoout at present, namely the removal of the
unfinished Washington monument from its
position on the banks of the Potomac, to the
most elevated locality of the city, the circle at
the intersection of 14th street and Massachu-
sets avenue.
1 have intended for some time to write
about the very valuable additions in paintings,
statuary, bronzss and vases, that have been
recently made to the Gorcoran art collection.
L have not space to write about them fully, but
some of them such as Church's Niagara"
"rhe Last Days of Napoleon, by Vela,
bronze groups from tho Prussian collection at
the Centennial, and mammoth Japanese
vases, are of themselves, an exhibition well
worth seeing. Ths Last Days of Napoleon is,
1 think, the most impressive piece that I ever
saw. The sick ex-Emperor is propped with
pillows in heavy antique arm chair which
looks not unlike throne; on his left knee is
spread map of France and the rest of Europe,
| or, as Napoleon thought, France and her Eu-
ropean appendage. His almost abnormally
large head is bent forward in thought and re-
Election, while in his compressed bitter lips,
gloomy. brow, and retrospective eyes. may al
| most be read his history at Austerlitz and
| Waterloo at Moscow and st. Helena G.