Daily Kennebec journal., 1881-12-28
Washington Correspondence.
CHRISTMAS AT THE NATIONAL CAPITAL

WASHINGTON ID. c., Dec. oath, 1881.
As Congress has adjourned for the holi-
days. and all Washington is given over to
Christmas festivities. your correspondent
will fall in with the general disposition, and.
forgetting the sterner matters of life (in-
cluding perhaps, politics. and the things
which make men grave and older, join in the
hereabouts universal cheerfulness and jolity
which pertains to the day of all days with
Christians.
And why not? How appropriate that dur
ing the darkest and shortest days of .he year,
when the SHOWS beat around the house and
the wind whistles mournfuiy around the cor
ners, when the sleet drives ptilessly against
your face, or the rain pelts merclessly
through your finest umbrella, you should HE
to your cosey cottage or pressed brick front,
and there. by the cheerful hearthstone,
(''Latrobe" it is now with presents and
feasts, with mirth and song, while away the
many hours which go to make up this festive
season.
We Yankees. who have drifted away from
New England hills, can kindly relish the
words of Whittier when he says:
.'Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean winged hearth about,
Content 10 let the norihwind roar
In bafiied rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frostne back with tropic heat
| And again
| "Between the andiron's straddng feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
| The apples sputtered In q row,
| And close at hand the basket stood
| With nuts from brown Octobers wood"
| These memories of early days are among
the sweetest which cling to us as we move
along in the great city's busiest throngs. and
perhaps in sunniest climes. And many do,
and many more would, if financially or other
wise able, betake themselves back to the old
hills and wales of early childhood and live
over. if but for few hours, the happy times
Whittier has described quantity.
| l am glad that the Christmas days are
being more generally and particularly
celebrated in New England. For even
in my boyhood there were restrictions.
But now the Christmas tree, the holly. and
the cedar seen in almost every house and
| in every church. The straight old Orthodox
who saw in these and other emblems ten
dency to idolatry or Romansm, has disap-
peared and the liberal, humanizing Christian
takes pride in remembering the birth of
Christ, As evidently Christ would wish it to
remembered, as a joyous and emblematical
| season.
| Here every evidence of joy is manifested,
even to the grotesque and absurd. For
week previous, every small boy and even
large one, has his tin horn, and makes the
day bideous and, toward Christmas, the night
also. On all sdes--front and rear-is young
| America with his everlasting ''toot," ''toot, "
/ -h.,
of Jericho the Government walls don't come
down. Masks and grotesque figures. also.
go about the streets with the inevitable horn
accompaniment. All the churches are
elaborately trimmed and the finest music
rendered.
| 1t seems as if present making was univer-
sal. For weeks before Christmas. the gift
stores are thronged. and during the few pre-
ceding DAYS there is scarcely standing room
in any kind of store which has anything pre-
sentable to sell. 1t is rare sight to see the
streets of Washington on such an occasion.
Mixed up as we are here-people from every
State in the Union and representatives from
almost every ration, the crowd is wonder
| End a study. Grave Senators and digniied
Representatives (tbere are some). foreign
| legations. Indian chiefs, Chinese, Japanese
Western boosters and hoodlums, old fashion
ed Yankees--in fact little of everything and
all falling into the same habit of purchasing
presents and promenading home with them in
| carriages or on foot
Such IS Washington as / write. Many of
our legislators betake themselves to their
own homes and f1resides. Others prefer to
| find cheeriness at the Capital with their fam
| lilies with them, or else to dangle their feet
under somebody elses well loaded table.
The Department employe is also happy
man. The Offices are closed wholly on
| Christmas and New Years, and half the day
during the intervening days, and he has
opportunity to rest. recuperate. visit and
| ''fix up if he has any little work to do.
The colored citizen, too, is happy. He, too,
blows horn. gets more boots to black. re-
ceives his christmas gift and gets a
chance in ..de band which fiddles out mu-
sic for the dance. In fact, amidst the horns
and the fireworks, and the church-music and
the presents. and the dancing and the feast
ing-every body and his wife and bis children
is happy. We hope you are happy too, dear
journal" away down in Maine, and we
wish you Merry Christmas and Happy
New Year. Let not forget the terrible
ordeal through which she nation has passed
during the year the bitter trials and disap-
poinimeno which 6ave followed the assassin.
alton Of its chief; but let US at the same
time feel thankful and happy that it has been
able to pass serenely and safely through all
this and preserve all its prerogatives and
principles unharmed. Neither let us forget