Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-06-03
The New Washingt6nH =

W0ShgT0EO7a Cor. fT0Ua0egce JOUTNGs
The protracted session of the Senate
has given the Senators an opportunity
TO see this metropolis in its beautiful
vernal attire, with its green lawns, its
many thousand shade trees in leaf, and
the numerous exhibitions of flowers in
the front yards of residences. Really
our Solons can regard Washington as
city in which the whole people take an
interest, and in whose establishment and
improvement every State can take GER
tain degree of delight and pride.
The view from the balcony of the Con-
gressional Library just now cannot be
surpassed in any city on this continent.
The city lies at the spectators feet, and
Pennsylvania avenue stretches out be-
fore him, even Its mean looking houses
acquiring sort of beauty as being COM
ponent parts of a vista. Vistas are al
ways beautiful, and this one, terminating
with the Presidents house and the
Treasury in the distance, will, at some
future day, be one Of the most beautiful
in the world. Looking directly west
ward, the mall spreads out before him,
with the quaint but picturesque build
ings of the Smithsonian Institute, the
National Museum and the Department
of Agriculture relieving the monotony
of its once desert waste Afar off the
huge white obelisk of the Washington
monument rises, its top swarming with
workmen, and designed to become a
noble and commanding structure When
the monument is finished, and the
grounds of the mall are laid out as
public park, there will be no more beau
tlful view than this anywhere.
The grounds of the capitol are already
extremely beautiful, and those surrounds
ing the Presidents house, which have
always been admired, are now more
worthy of it than ever. Lafayette square
is an attractive appendage to these, and
open spaces at the intersections of the
various avenues and streets will
at some future day be planted and
embellished, so as to make an abundance
of gardens and shady promenades all
over the city. There are no grand palaces,
such as make splendid attraction in for
eign capitals, but the Presidents house is
elegant and appropriate, and fully salts
fies all our republican ideas on this point.
But the capitol is as grand a government
building as can be found in the world,
and, besides its vastness and elegance, il
has advantages of situation above those
of all the European palaces. The In
terror Department is noble structure,
and the post office is scarcely inferior to
1t. The colonnade of the Treasury is
deseIvedly admired. and the new build
ing for the State, War and Navy Depart
ments is a magnificent and stately pile.
The plan of Washington has been ridi-
culed for its vastness, and it may have
seemed ridiculous to have few thousand
people scattered over place that would
lodge million and call it city. But
the designers of Washington had calcu-
lated for futurity, and already it is be-
ginning to show that it will be large
enough for its plan. Within the
past twenty years its population
has more than doubled, and many
of the present generation will live to
see it compact as well as an elegant
city of several hundred thousand inhabi-
tants. The plan, besides being vast, is
perhaps the finest ever conceived for a
great metropolis. Paris, in spite of its
boulevards, its Rue de Rivoli, and its
Champs Eysees. can never be made as
superb city as Washington must be-
come in the course of centuries. The
universally wide, straight streets and the :
grand avenues radiatiDg from the capitol
and the Presidents house gives it an adj +
vantage in variety and circulation that
no European capital possesses.