St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1880-04-10

ISL DIS plaSter statue. Inc IreSlQent
never WINGED nor uttered a groan during
this martyrdom, although the boys in
the gallery grinned and punched each
other; girls took refuge in their hymn
or Sunday school books; other and old
er girls semi-firted OFFICIALLY, and one
old gentleman snored. One good fea-
ture of the official church is the absence
OF a professional choir. A precentor
or leader, mounting the platform ulpit
after the hymn is read, gives it out,
strikes the tune and keeps the congre-
cation from straying off. They sing the
good old-fashioned Methodist airs and
introduce no operate frills or trim
mings, nor new tunes patched up out of
old ones. When the final amen of
the benediction was pronounced we
grabbed our hats and rushed for the
door within one and half seconds of
the final benedictory syllable, as is
the custom in many Protestant church.
es. On the sidewalk we formed a line
four or five deep to see the President
come out. This, with some, lam grieved
to say, was the sole object in going to
church. The President was accompa-
MED by two young ladies Zone in blue
walking-dress with black velvet trim
ming, very plain, neat and tastefuD.
Mr.. Hayes looks well, walks erect with
a vigorous stride, is broad as to should
der, and wore coat cut by tailor who
knew he wasn't making a shirt. He
owns an exuberant growth of iron-gray
hair, growing full behind, and not
sheared and filed down to rudimentary
bristles after the fashion of the day.
The President walked home. There
was no carriage, with champing steeds,
brass harness, iveried coachman and
footman, after the hobby, snobby, shod-
dy style of Fifth Avenue, which keeps
two men shivering and cursing at the
cold without while the button and
broom-dealing apists of European aris-
'tocracy say their prayers within.
NOW FOR THE CAPITOL.
Go up the back steps of the rear front,
and behold the small negro boys wear
ing out the seats of their already worm
out breeches, sliding down the hand-rail
Go up to the top of successive stairways
and behold the beautiful view of the Pc
tomac and the Vinginian hills. Go in.
Miles of national legislative halls
Senate at one end of the grand build
ing, lower and less reputable House of
Representatives at the other. Between,
rotunda under the dome; around, his
torical pictures which every body knows
by heart; overhead, Brumidi, the dead
artists unfinished frescoes, his platform
perched way up aloft, his working coat
and tools lying where he so recently left
them. Then, the hall of statuary, broad
passages and narrow ones, dimly lit To-
calities, neither hall nor passages, but
waste portions of the old or middle
Capitol, with the ends of pillars rising
through more recently built floor, a
dark, caverous and useless space; now
you emerge into a modern passageway.
Here is the Capitolian Fair, the fancy
oazar-stand after stand of cigars, of
Notable photos, of cakes and pies, of
coffee and crullers, of shells, fancy work,
pictures, wood carvings, and you bring
Up at the north door of the house, the
loor mainly besieged by constituents
sending in their cards to Congressman.
Here are all sorts of people. Here are
people out Of office, button-holing men,
'ers; boyish Congressional clerks, full
# eyeglasses and the Importance of
heir position; Capitol policemen, in
emi-military uniform; tramp, with
hub, contemplating the statuary and {
,icking from the floor cigar-stumps
brown down as votive offerings i
0 the great men of the past; cigar,
lie, cake, cruller and photograph stands
in every corner; negroes in
ig boots, and white men with no boots /
t all; rooms full of ladies waiting, ever I
yaiting, to see "the MEMBER (for in
Washington people learn to labor and a
, wait, and waiting is the hardest of all
'bor); expensive restaurants down c
airs, where lunches the Senator with u
is male or female colleague, off the fat a
the land; and more cake and cruller
lands, where the economical, or others O
apidly nearing impecuniosity, lunch off n
le lean of the land. Negroes, negroes, c
egroes = the representative gentle il
ANS gallery full of them. Smartly t.
tired mulatto girls, negro girls in n
leap and faded tinery, girls who ought a
know better, girls who don't know p
etter, girls who do know better but Ia
ersist in doing no better, palatial COM a
lttee-rooms, scores of door-keepers n
cary with guarding doors, negro en- W
oyees all cigar and shirt-sleeves, n
'ung ladies all new clothes, new shoes h
I'd new "fronts," old bucolic ladies, 81
d husbands to match, full of the
nsciousness of being in Washington g
tn struggling retinues of sons and in
lighters. B
ALL THESE AND MORE, III
.mping the long passage from House bt
Senate, or back from Senate to House, pr
d getting lost in the intricacies of the to
ational Legislature labyrinth, wander pr
into committee-rooms and turned al
t, into the office of "Indian Affairs,'' n,
"Naval Affairs" or "MiIitary At II
rs,' or emerging on the front of the
eat edifice and wondering where is
, rear and the road to their hotel, and l.
IN going in again, and out of sheer La Ia
igue and mental imbecility buying 20
otographs of Congressional and Sem w. ~
rial Somebodies, SO soon to be No sa
lies. Wandering about, also, much n a1'
Hooking female. Strong minded CO. g.,
elessness of attire. Hat awry. Hair e oa
lily done up. Skirts unevenly bal , u~
led. Thin in person, weird in face. W., ms
'man thrown out the social orbit by -"
ce OF inherent eccentricity, Fostering NO
m hoyac ,,cr;t;r,, . wa