Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1883-11-15
FROM WASHINGTON.


WASHINGTON, D. c., Nov. l2, 1858.
With the renewed life which comes
to the capital as the assembling Of
Congress draws near, comes greater
industry among the newsgatherers and
the political gossips. All the rumors
of coming cabinet changes which have
been flying about during the last week
are pronounced false; yet it is an old
tolerably philosophical. saying that
where so much smoke is seen there
must be some fire. There is certainly
some ground for saying that both At
torney General Brewster and Secreta-
ry Folger are not unlikely to retire
from the cabinet after the elections are
all over. The Postmaster General
has been mentioned as the coming
head of the Treasury department,
These changes may for various reasons
never occur, but there is no doubt that
the desires to have some skilled politi-
cal hand at the rudder of the Treasury
during the coming year, that depart
ment being ''power in politics. It's
to be the work of the administration to
capture Indiana next year if possible.
Mr.. Arthur, it is said, has confidence
in the political talents of Mr.. New,
who refuses to pull in yoke with Fol-
ger; but if it is proposed to utilize
New, it would hardly be accomplished
by putting Gresham over him, as the
two are unfriendly.
Whatever may be the record of this
administration in history it has GER
tainly achieved distinction in the pecu-
liarlty of its headgear. So striking
and original in shape and style are the
hats worn by Arthur and some of his
advisers that il would seem as though
some principle were involved in the
eccentricity. The President, in the
first place, has a hat made on a block
of his own fashioning. The crown Is
about four inches higher than the pre-
vailing styles in silk hats, while the
brim is flat and very wide. He has
white cashmere felt made on his block
for summer wear and silk one for
winter wear. The President is so tall
that this hat elongates him in most
distressing way. He loves an old hat.
He is still wearing his old summer
hat, although its ghostly whiteness
these void fall days gives one chill
He and Fred Douglass are the last
men in Washington who still wear a
white hat. Even Brews ster has given
up the piratical yellow fur hat and its
mourning band with which he enter
tanned the people at the eastern water
ing-places this summer. Secretary
Folger has worn little straw hat all
summer and occasionally wears it yet,
varying it with an old soft black hat
ten years old or hard Derby hat of
the style of the last century. Mr.. FIRE.
linghuysen, great in his department,
wears a black silk the year through.
He keeps up to within three years of
the style War Secretary Lincoln
wears new and fashionable hats. Bill
Chandler wears hats no respectable
junk-dealer would buy. Postmaster
General Gresham wears silk hat with
the nap carefully brushed granger
all the wrong way-while Mr.. Tel
ler smashers a soft, seedy black hat
down over his sharp hawks face.
The fight being made against the
swindling pensions agents Of this city
and elsewhere has created almost a
panic among them. There is no doubt
of the dishonest practices of many of
these scamps, and it is the meanest
kind of swindling, for while they have
not robbed the government of large
sums, like the Star-route thives, they
through misrepresentation and false
pretences extorted sums of five and
ten dollars from hundreds of poor
soldiers, for many of whom the pay
rnents were an actual hardship. There
are firms here who have accumulated
enormous fortunes by this means, but
there are also honest attorneys in the
business here who must suffer more or
less because of the practices and ex-
posure of the dishonest ones 1t is a
fact that the fee allowed in pension
cases is entirely inadequate compensa.
tion for the work to be performed by
an upright practitioner, and that this,
combined with the policy of che pen
sion bureau as inaugurated by the
late Commissioner Dudley, has had a
tendency to throw the business into the
hands of sharks and rascals who nave
neither knowledge of its requirements
nor fitness for the practice. In a fu-