Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-04-26
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.
Correspondence Of the Bulletin.
WASHINGTON. D. c.. Arr. ~. Y


WASHINGTON. D. c., Apr. 10, '78.
The National Academy Of Science is
in session at the Smithsonian Institute,
with nearly a full attendance of it's
members. By the Act of Congress, the
membership is fixed at 100, of this num-
Der several have died since last year and
the Academy held requiem services one
evening since converting, at which eulo-
CYSTIC essays were read. The regular
proceedings of the Academy are rather
uninteresting to the unlearned, for they
consist Of the reading Of papers on vari-
GUS scientific subjects, as foreign and
incomprehensible to the ordinary intel
lect as so many metaphysical theses.
1t is a pleasure, however, to drop into
the lecture room and note the appear
ance Of our savans, even if their words
are beyond our ken. The venerable
President of the Smithsonian, Prof.
Henry, presides. Prof. Agassiz is one
of the most entertaining lecturers of the
body, for he has his fathers peculiar
fascinating manner of illustrating a dry,
abstruse point, such as the period of an
tiquity to which a fish-bone should be
assigned, with a common, easy, graceful
language, that a listener feels himself
at home with the speaker. Others of
these philosophers are not so entertain
ing, and the visitor soon ceases to care
whether the scientific hair is split or
not by the speaker.
The wife of Maj. Behle, editor of one
of Il city papers, died recently under
most painful circumstances. About a
year ago she buried her youngest boy,
to whom she was ~passionately attached,
and since then has been gradually de-
clining in health, hoping for death to
come that through 1t she might 60 to
meet her ~favOrite. Nothing could be
done by her friends to relieve her mel
ancholy.
We notice that Princess Salm Salm
has again appeared on the surface, and
in a French Court figures as having
duped some verdant fellow into matri-
mony under the specious plea that she
was the recipient of $1,000 pension from
Austria. In 1862 and 1868 we frequent
ly saw her with Prince Salm Salm in
the 18th Corps, as she was with him in
the field whenever his division was not
on the march. She invariably rode a
spirited black horse, and on review days,
when dashing over the field, attired in
handsome dark riding suit, with set lips,
her handsome brunette c%ountenance
lighted up with smiles, and black eyes
flashing under her jaunty cap and red
feather, she attracted no little attention
from the soldiers, and many of them
doubtless have as vivid recollection of
her as Of the hardships and sufferings of
that winter and spring.
The number Of outrages committed
upon children within a few weeks past
is fearful. Five men and boys are now
in Jail awaiting trial for attempted rape
on small girls. Two of the criminals are
married men, and their victims not over
eight years old. So closely have these
brutal outrages followed each other that
our citizens are getting aroused, and
certainly uphold the Courts for making
short work of trials and convictions.
Mrs. Hooker, tho great female suf-
frage advocate, at a social gathering re-
Gently held at the home Of Col. Scott,
the Deputy Commissioner of Internal
Revenue. startled the guests with the
statement that pistols shocld be carried
by young women, as essential to their
protection, and that her own daughters
were experts in the use Of all kinds of
firearms. Mrs. Hooker is perhaps more
than half right.
One of the most interesting rooms for
the Treasury visitor to enter is that Of
Mr.. Brooks, the chief detective. Here
is the rogues' gallery, in which are pho
tographs Of al persons arrested for
counterfeiting, and a more motley crew,
judging by appearances, cannot be found
children, and among these are negroes,
Chinese, Jews, and faces indicating all
nationalities. We should like to hear
the criticisms of a physiognomist upon
the collection, for there is every shade
and shape Of features, from the lowest
type of humanity up to that which bears
every evidence Of talent and culture.
Here also are many of the appliances by
which counterfeiting is done, costly en-
craving machines, dies for metallic mo-
ney, etc. In large albums are specimens
of all the counterfeit money that has
been captured, from postage currency
up to the thousand dollar greenback.
Some of these counterfeits are very ex-
%cellent limitations Of the genuine, but
the greater portion display little artistic
merit, and could deceive only the ignor-
ant end the poor. Another curiosity in
the room is the Liberty Bell" 1t is a
small figure in the form of a bell, about
3 inches high, and made out of residium
obtained by the burning of greenbacks.
The colored inks used in printing green
backs and currency have metallic bases,
hence when immense quantities of mo-
ney are burned the metallic residium is
considerable. Out of one batch came
this Liberty Bell" Like its namesake
in independence Hall, it cannot utter a
sound, but stands as a monument mere
ly Of the good accomplished through it
in the past:
Our plucky little Or. Mary Walker
has been dangerously i'll for some weeks
past, but is now convalescent and prom
Uses to reappear upon the streets as an
unquenchable representative of free
thought and reform. She was sent to
the Providence Hospital, into one of
the free" wards, upon the order of the
governmental Official controlling, but the
Sisters" placed her in one of their best
apartment, ard gave her their most
careful attention. Much as we have rid
iculed DR.. Mary for her cxcentricities
in the past, we are glad she has pulled
thro' the attack, as she did through the
hardships of the war as nurse, and trust
that she may survive the attacks of
newspapers for many a year hence.
One of the most persistent claimants
before Congress is a Miss Carroll, of
Maryland, who claims $1,000 from the
government for originating "Sherman's
march to the sea-" She informs us she
first suggested the idea, that Gen. Sher-
man carried it out as she indicated. 1t
is difficult for us to understand why she
should be paid. FELIX,