The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1879-11-19
WASHINGTON LETTER.
[Fsox ouE RserbAE OoRnEsroSDEsr.l ]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 90, 1879.
Washington is beginning to reas
sumo its society smile and politica
manners. Congress with its numer
GUS nondescript train is beginning tC
arrive. The Executive and his cab
met have at length settled down 10
their homes. Foreign ministers, at
taches of legation, military and navsI
officers may again be seen driving OF
promenading on the great boulevard
that stretches from the Treasury de-
partment to the Capitol Dashin g
government clerks, aristocratic daugh.
ters of q bankrupt old regime, and
stylish parvenudom, opulent in gov
ernment contracts, vie in the display
of Partisan fashions and American
manners on Pennsylvania avenue. In
short the political mill, Msmmons
court, and Vanity Fair, have been
again brought in proximity at the
only place where they can be seen in
such development, on this side Of the
globe. What are these to Us or we
to them? Has not every American
citizen political sphere in bis mu-
nicipality, county or State And as
for the sphereless six. or, at least,
those whose sphere is in dispute,
have they not social realms Of their
own--little pent up Uticas of fashion,
narrow and provincial, they may call
them, but they contain the germ and
the elements of all that we see in
Washington, Boston, or the proudest
court of Europe. Bot it is well for
one, both bodily and mentally, TO get
out Of his accustomed environment
for little while and, as the most
eminent investigators have not yet
thought it beneath them TO study the
lowliest forms of life and the mos.
primitive systems of polity, the Amer
icsn citizen and citogenne will find
their horizon brosdeped and their
usefulness encbsnced by studying
political movements and social ten
denotes, at the only seat Of National
Government tina. is accessible to
them. Those who imagine there is
nothing worth knowing outside their
own village in Virginia, will make a
greater mistake than the greatest
mistake of DR.. johnson, for the vii
lage which he mistook for the world
was London
The habitue of Washington who
has been away during the summer
will observe bat few changes The
city has grown to such grand proper
tions that the addition of hundred
or more houses make no perceptsble
addition TO the mass. Ii is only
when some nav and imposing build
ing ia added, like the annex to the
Smithsonian Institution. or the new
Government printing Office in South
Washington, which are about half
completed, that the architectural
growth eau be seen becomes conspie-
gous. Few capitals have go many
and such splendid public Offices as
our own, and on none is so much
money lavished for interior adorn-
ment and luxury. In this respect
the contrast between the U. S. Treas
ury Offices and the Bank Of England
is striking and suggestive. In the
Treasury department Offices are rich,
ly carpeted, supplied with mirrors,
easy chairs and lounges, in the other
only coarse mating covers the stone
floor, and it is in other respects fur
nisbed with little less severity than a
prison. The appearance of the com.
mittee rooms of the Houses of Parlia.
ment contrast with the chambers oi
our congressional committees as does
the cell Of q recIuse with ladies'
boudoir
/ ~