Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1878-03-29
Washington RevIsited.
FRESH VIEWS or THE NATIONAL CAPITAL.
Correspondence Of the New York Timesl

hDsence OF nearly 10 years lnOSe VINO KNOW
the National Capital only as it was during
Lincoln's Administration have a faint idea Of
the Washington of to-day. And those whose
ideas. of the city, physically socially, and po-
litically are colored chiefly by their present
views Of Washington, cannot possibly COM
prehend the vast changes which have taken
place during the past decade. | came here
before the beginning of the last session of the
famous Thirty-seventh Congress, in the win
ter of SG2, and when / left in the summer Of
1869 Lincoln was dead, and Andrew John
son, his successor, was daily receiving delega-
tions from nearly every State in the Union,
and informing them vehemently that treason
was a crime and must be punished as such
Though the war was over, Washington was
still a camp Two great military reviews had
just taken place in the avenue in front Of the
White House, where President johnson had
stood on the platform, surrounded with his
Cabinet officers and Generals, and Gen. Sher-
man. putting his hands behind him, declined
to shake hands with Secretary Stanton. For
two days an enormous army, war-worn, but
flushed with victory, had marched past the
stands where some of the first statesmen. pol
iticians, and soldiers of the Republic were
grouped together And when this vast host
melted away and the miserable little railroad
which alone connected Washington with the
North and West had been taxed to its utmost
to convey the discharged veterans homeward
the streets were yet filled with the blue-coats;
the forts about the city were yet manned as
in wartime the morning and the evening
guns doomed from point to point about the
circle of fortifcations which still environed
the national capital the Old Capitol Prison
on the hill had not delivered up its prisoners,
and people had not become accustomed to
say ''the late civil war" wandering gray
backed rebel wasan object of sincere pity, and
the only really unpopular person was q Cop
perhead, and he was discreetly silent-not TO
say discreetly scared-when he heard of the
sulphurous utterances of the new President,
and remembered that Lincoln, whom he had
so often denounced as a tyrant and usurper,
had just been assassinated. People were not
yet able to realize that slavery was abolished.
From Washington one could almost look into
the plantations not yet brought under the OPP
Grafton of the laws of the United States. The
capital was n shabby. dingy waste Temporal
ry quarters for black fugtives disigured once
famous localities and the contrabands went
about the streets.
The city of Washington has been rebuilt.
It's own father would not know it now. New
streets have been opened. new vistas cleared,
and avenues extended in various directions
Somebody has contrived series of thorough
fares, the perspective of each of which leads
up to a noble public building, a monument. q
statue, an engaging landscape view. In
place Of the roads-call them not streets
which We're seas of mud half the year and
movable beds of dust half year. there are
better pavements than New York has ever
had. The original plan of the city was laid
out in lines which are like those of cart
wheel laid on a vast chess-board. The Capt.
oil is the hub, the avenues are the spokes of
the wheel. and the streets form the rectangu-
lar checks of the board. This elaborate in
vention necessitated n great number of irreg-
ular triangles, which are reserved as public
parks. big and little. All these are now beau
titled. They are turfy, leafy. ornamentally
fenced. and often decorated with statuary.
Washington is in fair way to become a city
of statues. Most of these monumental eff
gies are of military heroes and, naturally,
all Of the heroes are on horseback. To the
unaccustomed eye of the stranger, the city
seems invaded by cavalry regiment in bronze
and marble. The few homely Lincolns dot
ted in and around the city represent small
scouting party of civilians on foot. Amarillo pile
of statuary at the edge of the Capitol grounds,
gradually led up to by Pennsylvania avenue,
perpetuates the memory of the fallen heroes
(mounted or otherwise) of the late civil war,
and reminds the ex-rebels, who daily face it
as they come and go, that there was a rebel
lion once, though it has been legislated into
the limbo of myths and traditions But Wash
ington has fine houses. as well as noble streets.
avenues, and perspectives. Somebody, l
have not had time to ask who, has built great
numbers of elegant mansions substantial
blocks of houses and attractive business edi-
fees. As a rule, find Senators and Repre-
sentatives are richer than they were in 1862,
and along there. They have accumulated
money enough, by frugal living, to buy or
I'LL H.. T,, tI,a,.
Jared misernbly in the boarding houses which
infested the war-distracted city. But even
this pleasant prosperity does not account for
the architectural splendors Of the national
capital. When the wondering visitor COM
ments on the mighty transformation which
has taken place, he is told This is all Boss
Shepherds work. The citizens say this with
n certain air of triumph, as if they knew that,
outside of Washington, Boss SHepherd is
looked upon with a certain horror Of wicked
ness, and that in Washington they know him
better. Mr.. Shepherd did not build all the
fine houses but the citizens, with emphasis,
declare that he planned and executed the won
derful improvements which the honest visitor
must needs admire. With equal emphasis,
they say that Boss Shepherd has been shame
fully maligEed. that he has passed unscathed
through several investigating committees,
Zone of them Democratic), and that he has
made Washington what it is without so much
as wronging a fly. The visitor discreetly
holds his tonguge all Washington is in favor
of Boss Shepherd, without doubt, and it must
be confessed that somebody with genius has
done great work here. Just now, We need
not too curiously inquire into the methods
used by the master-builder.
The national capital is an attractive city,
There is no reason why it should not be the
most elegant city in the United States Wash
ingtonians say that it is so already. But,
whether it is or not, no city in this Republic
has such enormous capabilities for architect
ural adornment. Noamount of crowding can
confine its magnificent avenues. These all
lead outward to something worth looking at
their ample breadth invites the sky, and their
perfect drainage keeps the city clean. The
dingy medieval houses and equipages of
slave-hoding days, which survived the rebel
lion, have disappeared. There is an air of
thrift about the place which strikes the revis-
itor with novel surprise. Since people live
in handsome houses social entertainments are
not only more numerous than they used to be
but they are more refined and elegant. Here
and there, to be sure, one sees things to re-
mind him that all this splendor is new. There
are vast unbuilt spaces along the eXpensvely-
paved and curbed thorOughfares. Now and
again ones wary charioteer drives around
block in order to avoid an unsightly patch of
wooden pavement, the relic of great swim
die and now breaking up, like a hard winter
in rotten roughness.' Then, many of the
houses have shoddy look, The architects
have run to octagonals to such a degree that
one turns II weary eye out to the blue hills of
the Virginia shore to be rid of the everlasting
angles. Even the new State Department
building obtrudes its pert renaissance into the
face of the dignifed nobility with which the
older public buildings are adorned. But a
more chastened taste will prevail by and by.
The obsolete ideas of architects "born and
raised" in the Immediately adjacent States
will be enlarged
The alterations in the grounds about the
Capitol do not strike me as improvements.
The swelling dome and brilliant entablature
of the building used TO soar above q mass Of
foliage which screened its base. There was a
suggestivenessa about the fragmentary glimpses
of the walls and gables, which one caught in
approaching the Capitol, which added greatly