Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1881-03-02
Washington City.

II has not grown as other American
cities grow; its progress has been tardy.
This yeanling of towns, so carefully fos-
tered on the banks of the Potomac, has not
availed itself to any great extent of that
popular method of improvement so sue
cessfully adopted by Chicago and Boston
the method of burning; and its increase
has been more reflection of the extend
ing magnitude of other centres than
spontaneous movement. More and more
the custom has grown among the rich or
energetic and inquiring inhabitants of
other places, Of going to the capital to see
what it is like; manv of them have been so
fascinated that they have staid; and now
Washington may fairly be called the winter
end of New York as Newport is the sum-
mer extension of the metropolis. Add to
the exotic population the enlarged ranks of
public officials and clerks, the growingcircle
of scientific and Ii terary people, who from
choice or gov ernment connection have
been led to make their homes there, to.
gether with the needful contingent of
small traders who supply the daily wants
of these elements and you have a general
cas sitication of the hundred and sixty
thous and heads counted by the new census.
A city without u commerce and without
subj rbs-drive mile in any direction and
you fnd yourself in the midst of woods set
but sparsely with houses or cabins, and
with only the great pillared dome, like n
shining cloud in the air, o remind you of
tL1 human mass so near-Washingto
nevertheless wears distinctly the appear
ance of capital which has risen to the
emergency.
1t has this special charm to commend it
above other places tina. while Boston and
San Francisco and Cincinnati and New
York, despite their numerous points of
other than commercial interest, are work
a-day towns, the "maiden capital" shows
gayer disposition, and devotes itself large
" to social pleasures. 70 the outsider the
difference is that between friendship and
Irritation. You like. you may love, the
particular big local capital where you live
and do business, but you approach Wash
ington with sense of its being a some
thing piquant and novel, with which you
may trihe and entangle yourself in make
believe attachment having all the stimulus
and none of the drawbacks of steady devo-
ton Besides, it is city provided with
.'sights" There are congress and the
capital; there are Mount Vernon and
Kalorama, where dwelt the author of the
Columbia in profound conviction of his
errand as the American epic poet; and
Cabin-J Bridge, the longest single
arch in the world; Arlington, with its
Q arlier historic and later war memories;
Georgetown, with its observatory, its
college, and It's convent; besides all these,
the Corcoran art gallery, the Smithsonian
institution. the curiosities of the patent
ice, the treasury with its hundreds of
rooms and thousands of employees, where
you peer into the busy brain-cells of the
government while they are full of activity.
You arrive by an early morning train,
and are greeted by gong beating for
breakfast at the station, which makes you
feel like IN impossible Chinese embassy.
But, armed with pocket copy OF the con
stitution, you re. assert your blrthright,
and after going to the hotel, where you
wal some hours for room. you step
forth into the broad airy streets. They
have continental width and extent.
making it impossible to crowd them eX-
cept on rare occasions, and in the more
retired ones children glide peacefully
along the asphalt on roller skates. Walk
luS IliCSO 1ou hhOW hhbe
the trail of the Boss Is over them all, but
it is picturesque trail, excellent in It's re-
suits, whatever it may have been NOR
ally. Many of the houses in the new
northwest end are well sci of by trees and
lawns; some stand on terraces decked
with vines and shrubbery; and the avenues
are lined with more than II hundred thon-
sand trees judiciously planted-elm and
tulip, buttonwood and cottonwood, the
ash, the negundo, the maple, The quality
of the houses is still unequal. Here and
there YOU see a relic of the village era
some little whtewashed hut sticking
pertinaciously to the side of a fine modern
brick structure of comfortable and tasteful
style, like wasps' nest attached to real
human habtation; and it is amusing 10
come upon building-in what is known,
according to the barbarous nomenclature
of the place, as Il street-which bears on
one side the legend, Law College of the
University of Georgetown" and on the
other. Capitol Laundry" Such con-
juntion is only to be explained by the
tendency of people nowadays to wash
their dirty linen in court Black men and
women are numerous. and laugh very loud
on the streets with refreshing freedom.
There is everywhere about the city slight
but racy touch of southern characteristics,
interfused with the vigor of other por-
tions of the union; and for the sake OF
this you are willing to forgive the copious
tobacco stains-those blots on the national
scutcheon-whch disfgnre sidewalks,
and around which you see an English
tourist and his wife making their way
with pardonably imperial disdain.-
George p. Lathrop, in Harper'S Magaziae.