The Republican journal., 1881-02-24
Our George on His Travels.
LETTER NUMBER NINE.


treat as it were, and have seen roosters who
mean enough to pick up small pebble, and try
and play it off on an old near sighted hen for a
grain of barley. Well, all this goes to show that
the first thing any rooster wants, whether he
wears feathers or not, when he is in a strange
place, is friend and l naturally thought of Ned.
Cunningham, my old sehoolmate. You remember
Ned! He was out in the old 4th Maine, and he
accidentally leaned up against mimic ball. that
was going on an errand, and it broke the hinge of
one of his shoulders. He has for many years been
illustrating that sage remark of the late red headed
Mr.. Richeheu, cardinal is red isn't it p that the
| ''pen is mightier than the sword" Ned is clerk
in the ID Auditors Office and is regarded as an eff
tcent and capable employe. He is pretty well
| up" in the Department guess, some four or five
flights. When he saw me, | thought l discerned
look OF pain cross his brow, and divlnlng what
was in his mind said, It's all right Ned I've got
money enough to get me home" Friendship, by
the way, is al article that prize higher when
we don't have to advance any money on it, and
take it sort of collateral After giving me
hearty welcome he got his coat and hat excused
himself for the day, and if he had owned the city
| he could not have given me better chance to see
it, and am under great obligations to him for his
kindness and attention tome while in Washington
| The first point of interest Of course, the
| Capitol. | was unfortunate in my time of visiting
1t, as it was during the holidays and Congress
not in session. | was rather surprised however to
see the building standing, as had been led to be-
| lieve from what had read and heard that each
successive Congress had met there simply to steal
all 1t could, and was rather expecting to find the
| Capitol consisting of some upright posts, covered
with bit OF leaky canvas the original building
having been voted to, aud carried away by the
J successive members, who for the last hundred
wears have met here and kept running country
until it has shrUnk from little three cent one
borse power nation, to the graniest Republic he
world ever saw
We talk about ourselves just as man gets up in
| meeting, and tells what sinner he is and how
| wicked he is and runs himself down until he is
not worth two cents on dollar but if any one
else present should get up and say the same things
about him, he would rise in his christian iudigna
tion, and knock that man clean through the parti
| ton, even were it made of three quarter inch
! boiler iron And talk of Congress in the same
way, when we all know that taken as a whole it
is as clean, honest, and intelligent a body of men
as rule any nation on the globe | will shut off
| this burst of eoquence and proceed with my de
scription of the Capitol, and yet | scarcely know
what to say for after having lived nearly three
! quarters of a century in this fair land and having
seen pictures of the building and heard it descrb
ed time and again, had no more real idea of it
than had the morning after was born, what
| should have for my dinner. | had lot of archi
| tectura terms written down on bit of paper, and
intended to pour them on the unsuspectlng reader,
and so astOnish him that he would labor under
the deluson that l had described the Capitol to
him, but have lost the slip and so will give you
only few chunks of pure fact out of which you
can build your own building
The grounds about the Capitol contain little
over 30 acres, fair sized farm you see, all hand
somey laid out with trees shrubbery, &c. The
building itself covers over 3! acres. In order to
better comprehend this, you men mean who own
buildings just think of 81 Of roof, and all of
IT liable to leak. Imagine your wife, prodding
your RIBS with her elbow some night, and saying
in that sweet pleasant way that woman always
of the night John! JohA | say there is leak
in the roof somewhere There is foot of snow
on it, and it is raining like the Emperor of Russia,
and you must get up and shovel Oft the roof"
Now you try and comprehend going up there with
barn shovel, and cleaning off that roof; every
| shovel full Of snow sticking to the shovel only
snow can stick when you don't want it to. and you
| will get vague idea of what size a building must
be- to cover 3! acres of land. 1t is 15l feet long
and 3lS feet wide, and to the top of the dome Is
about 2.'0 feet, Think of sleeping up in the roof
of that dome, and coming home tight and mean
dering to your room which would be like sleeping
on the 29th floor of common residence. Or, to
! make it palmer imagine yourself coming out of
your room III the morning and stepping on cake
of soap that the hired girl had left on the top stair
| and having your heels fly out from under you and
you come humping, humping, humping, down
| those thirty flight of uncarpeted marble stairs.
each step loosenlng different tooth and you will
get vivid idea of how high that dome is without
studying work on civil engineering
The floors are all made of tile remember re,
marking that 1t the most ulsh place | had
ever been in The walls and ceilings were frescoed
in allegorcal pictures but alegory and bologna
sausages a couple of the arts and sciences with
which | am not much acquainted. There are
some elegant bronze doors representing scenes in
the discovery and early history of our country
which were very fine, but when remembered that
but for Columbus discovering America we never
should have had church levees grab bags. and
guess cake, | sometimes wish that the attack of
Group he had in his infancy had been more severe.
There is also a bronze stair rail which attracts the
visitors attention 1t attracted mine. Do you
| know why You don't, and so I'll tell you. 1t
was because every figure that had an arm or leg
or finger; every gun, sword spar, any part OF
vessel that could be broken Oft with knife ehisel
or trip hammer, should think had been hacked
off and stolen by that iend incaruate of modern
times the relic hunter. All the fine beauty of
those bronzes narred by such vandalism Il hope
that's the word, it carries a sort of feeling of
mash with it, 1t detracts considerable from
the poetry of the thing, to see Columbus standing
on one leg, the other amputated at the knee, and
one arm gone at the elbow And then to see
platoon of soldiers, charging bayonetS and notice
that the bayonet on every gun is broken oft, leads
one to surmise that they better have made their
charge day book Its too bad It's not only
too bad, but It's disgraeeful and the best thing
that President Garfield can do, is to buy him
good revolver and just seat himself on the Capitol
steps, and the first person he catches mutilating
those bronzes, just fill him 50 full of holes that his
skin Will make good sieve to screen coal through
When there are so many hundred men i'll this
country who would gladly kill person for fifty
cents. think the Government better hire couple
| of them. to watch those doors and stair rail, and
see if it cannot rid the L S Of this class of citi
zens, who would steal the Sacrament if the minister
was not looking and carry it away relic
/ The House of Representatives and Senate cham
Der seemed small, but when | learned that the
galleries would seat 200 people. two hundred
more than can be accommodated in Hayford Hall
and gallery, | concluded that it would hold US
while longer, unless we elected such men to rep.
| represent us as Nj - but come to think of il