National Republican., 1883-03-10
FIFTY YEARS AGO.
Changes which have Occurred in the
Time Intervening Between Two Visits
10 the Capital.


Changes which have Occurred In the
Time Intervening Between Two Visits
TO the Capital.
Mr.. G. A. Weaver, of Ohio, is on visit 20
Washington. This is Mr.. Woaver's second
visit TO the national capital, his first taking
place fifty years ago. lie stopped at the tav.
ern then kept on the site of Wilard's, and
paid $1.25 per day for board, lodging, fuel,
lights, and attendance. lie came this time in
palace car on the railroad. He came then
on horseback by the great national pike,
which was opened rs far as Wheeling Wash
ington then contained 1900 people now 1t
has 100000. Pennsylvania avenue was then
partially paved with cobble stones; now
priscd patch of houses around the
navy yard, block on New Jersey
avenue and another on East Capitol street, q
few struggling houses in the west end"
and down by "Foggy bottom" and the
Round tops," and was partially built up on the
north side Of the avenue to f street as far cast
as Sixth street and between the avenue and
Indiana avenue. A few stray blocks were on
Seventh street above +. The greater part of
the rest of the present city was then occupied
by market gardens, brickkiln ponds, and
marshes. Young people held pcnics in sum-
mcr on the groves around the springs on X
street at Fifth and Tenth. Franklin row was
in the Wilderness. There were no public
schools, only free or pauper schools. The
jail reared its hidcous rectanglcs in the heart
of judiciary square, and the poor house had its
farm and buildings on Mstrcet
The capitol was % little irCcstOne building
with u wooden dOmc, outside of which o
wooden staircase ran to the top. "Gadsby's
row" and the seven buildings" were the
architectural palaces of the city and stray
pigs and cows the statuary that adorned the
parks and streets. Clay, Calhoun, and Web.
ster were invoking tho Goddess of Liberty il
the old senate, now the supreme court cham
| her, and slave auCtiOnccr was selling women
and children to the highest bidder at the
slave pen on Eighth and streets southwest.
Mr.. Weaver picked his way through the mud
of our streets by the light Of dingy oil lamps,
| which made the darkness visible. He probably
was entertained by free exhibition of a fight
between the "Gumbals" and the EnderS,"
or the "Blue Dicks" and the "Pcrscs," the
| rival fire companies of Washington, who
daily or weekly strove to inspire the citizens
with taste for the p. r. without its rules
| for fair play, or else was driven ont the fields
by the road now known us Fourteenth street
to Eslin's cockpit, where Pittchtistcr's
breed of game cocks upheld the glory of Vir-
| ginia against all possible rivals lie could
| have gone into more gambling dons on Penn
! sylvania avenue than he can now, but he
would have found il impossible to find a tcle-
graph post, q telephone station, a railroad
depot, or bulldog" revolver. Capt
McCarty might have sent him every
morning before he got up Il Capacious
and heavy iulep, but Mr.. Cook this
morning will furnish him with what
neither love nor money could have purchased
then u copy of The NATIONAL REPUBLICAN
Mr.. Weaver will find great change in the
city of Washington since his last visit fifty
| years ago
The difference between fifty years of Eu-
rope and cycle of Cathay will be intensified
to his gaze this morning when he looks upon
the most beautiful city of the American con-
tinent. Had he gone to sleep in the cave Of
| Ephesus, in the days of Pan and Sitenus, and
walked up in Cincinnati on the morning after
the floods, he would not have not have seen q
greater change than half Il century has mad,
| in Washington. 1t is a bet of fifty to one that
he does recognize anything that he ever saw
in Washington except the smoky old columns
of the treasury east portico and the CHEEKY
hospitality of Wllard's, which has grown in
as great degree as the hotel has surpassed
the tavern that on the self same site fifty years
ago was famous for the quality of its fare and
| the peniality of its host