Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-06-11
WASHINGTON LIFE.
THE COMFORTS AND DIscoMFoRTs OF
TIE NATIONAL CAPITAL.
The Diplomatic Corps = Changes = The
President = Senator Miller
Personal Notes.
WASHINGTON. June . 1881.

WASHINGTON, June 2, 1881.
There are two Washingtons, and the life
in each is SUI generis. There is the
Washington Of Congressional months "A
high pressure life, full of eventful Incl
dents; and there is the Washington al
interim, semi-torpid to any one outside of
the Departments, and full of dolce. farnisnte.
The capital is lovely Southern city, dec
GRATED by art and nature with lavish
hand and if it were not for its fiery, trop.
zeal heat, and the malaria of the Potomac
flats, it would be paradisaical. Novalis
says, Life is disease incident to the
spirit-rest is peculiar to the spirit. Sim
ilarly, Congress is a disease incident to
Washington, and the months when Con-
gress is away are healing and rational in
their quiet round. But just as you enter
into their full enjoyment
THE ToRRID HEAT BEGINS
This year it encroached upon the almanac
of the early May, and you pass into state
of limp, uncrimped fuidity then malaria,
malignant, viewless, odorless, steals upon
the air from which the kindly frost had
barred it out during the winter months,
and appetite and strength vanish. A
misery" comes into every separate bone
of your body, Your eye-balls ache in their
sockets, and your head weighs a ton.
Quinine, or podophyllum, or calomel, &C.
cording to your choice, is your immediate
resource; then, if you are wise, you leave
your household gods precipitately, and go
where God has given pure air for an inner
itance, and His fresh, cool breeze from
hilltop or sea. No one who desires that
his days may be long in the land should
absent himself less than three months in the
year from Washington. This season, owing
to the reaction of nature from the unusually
cold winter, the need bids fair to be for a
longer period. Since beginning this letter
Mrs. Sherman, wife of the ex.Secretary
and Senator, has been in for P. ?. c.
call, as she and her husband and young
daughter leave for Mansfield, o., to NOR
row. She was just from call at the
White House, and mentions that the Pres
ident said in conversation that he would
not live there all summer if the only
alternative were to hire house outside.
Added to the malarial atmosphere to which
its location peculiarly exposes it on its
southern front, the plumbing and sewer.
age, he said, were bad. Early next week
he hopes to remove, with his family, to the
Soldiers Home Cottage, the same occu.
pied by President Hayes. The grounds of
the Soldiers Home are our Central Park,
our Rotten Row, our Bots de Boulogne.
They are extensive and diversified with
hill and dale. The old boys in blue do
some very pretty landscape gardening
there.
THIS MAGNIFICENT ESTATE
Belongs to the private soldiers Of the regu-
lar army. Six thousand of these are buried
there-heroes of three wars-the Seminole,
the war with Mexico, and the civil war.
A fine statue of General Scott, its founder,
adorns slightly knoll. Fashionable WASH
ington goes out there i'll carriages during
all the driving hours of the day but on
a Sunday Congressman's written order
is necessary to the enclosing OF the gates.
The central edifce and also the hospital
are superb buildings, but the life Of an
inmate there has degree of pathos in it.
No soldier can have his wife or family with
him. On Decoration Day the Soldiers
Home Cemetery ranks next in Importance
here to Arlington. At the former General
Sherman is always master of ceremonies.
He makes a point of being present. The
exercises there occur from 10 o'clock till
y those at Arlington begin at II. This
is so arranged in order that the high digni-
NV, 80 l. hA+h al
terry has l6, 600 soldiers graves. The
President and Secretaries Hunt and Win
dom and Postmaster General James were
very late in getting to the Soldiers Home
Monday, which gave them but few min
utes to spend before repairing to Arlington.
Secretary Lincoln was in Illinois with his
sick mother. At Arlington the Presi-
dent made the first Decoration-Day
speech eyermade there, on May 30, 1868. The
orator of Monday made a somewhat full
some allusion to it. Everyone is obseqli.
Gus, you know. to new President. HUI
man nature is like flock of hens that run
after the hand which has the grains of corn
to scatter. This is two. thirds OF the true
inwardness" OF the situation at Albany.
Should our robust and vigorous President
by any chance succumb to the common lot
and Chester A. Arthur succeed to his hon
ors, and should he call Roscoe Conkling to
the chair of State, as he would be morally
certain to do, you would see, my country
men, such Topping back of New York
ers into the line of their old fealty as would
darken the very air with acrobatic feats.
There is no little disquiet felt here in
thoughtful breasts over the New York sit
uation, turn which way it may, and it
makes an interesting state of things for a
correspondent. Men may come and men
may go, but our vocation is perennial, and
the
wRANGLINGs OF PUIssAST STATESMEN
Are by blessed alchemy Transmitted into
bread and meat and pie for the reportorial
stomach. II there has been any fun in the
late situation the photographers have had it
ALL What bright, pungent, merciless
squibs have been perpetrated at the ex-
pense Of the retiring statesmen. 1t would
almost be worth while to make scrap
book Of them and OF the few really strong
editorials which the occasion has evoked.
II the allusion is not too personal | would
like to express my appreciation OF the edi-
torials Of the RECoRD-UNIoN on this mat.
ter. After each significant move in the
game, l have talked it over as opportunity
afforded with our best aud most prominent
thinkers, untrammeled men, with the
courage of their convictions. When just
week had passed, have opened my
RECORD UNION, and seen the gist of the
hes. views.they had given me, expressed in
advance on your editorial page, together
with new and original differences and de-
auctions. Far removed from the scene of
conflict, your eyes have not been blinded by
the smoke of battle, nor your pens stultified
by anxiety for postoffice or a foreign mis-
sion and your readers are the gamers
by it.
1t seems pleasant to have Carl Schurz
again in New York journalism. 1t recalls
the days when as correspondent from
Washington his initials, &C. s., were
power in the columns OF the Tribune. At
the diplomatic party at the Executive
Mansion late in February, conversing q
moment with Mr.. Schurz, who is gallant to
all ladies, / said. "They do say, Mr.. Sec.
rotary, that you are going back to your
editorial desk at st. Louis" Yes, he
answered brightly, like good citizen /
am going back to my plow." lie then ex.
pected to return to the Wesfiicle Post, but
it Is something to congratulate ourselves
upon that he has not gone back to blowing
in German, where we would lose all that