The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-08-20
WASHINGTON LETTER.
From our Regular Correspondent.

From our Regular Correspondent
WASHINGTON. D. c., Aug Is, 1888.
The millions of people who have for
some half a century been delighted with
the sight of the identical buff coat and
doeskin breeches that the father of his
country wore whendhe resigned his com
mission at Annapolis, will learn with pro
foundest regret that they, with the other
Washington relics, have been transferred
from the patent office, where they
were accessible to everybody, over to the
practically forbidden precincts OF the
National Museum The removal of these
sacred members to the place named is one
of those official and officious blunders
that our public custodians are continually
making. While everybody who visits
Washington never thinks of leaving ii
withou: going through the model room
of the patent office, nobody compare
lively, has regard enough for the smith
sonian Institution to either walk over
there or invest a nickel with the car con-
dnctor Besides, any one who has visited
this ornithological aud piscatorial irsu,
tuition cannot but remember how impossi-
BILE it is for the stranger to withstand the
cajoling of the urbane gentleman at the
door, whose every smile is a magnet that
draws your last buZzard dollar from
its resting place in exchange for an exc
crably written book upon birds and how
TO stuff them, which suggests no improve
meat upon the way our mothers performed
the operation at the. Christmastides of
forty years ago.
BY the way, the Apterest in these relics
should be enhanced. owing to the discovery
in some forgotten corner of the capitol of
another lot which were unearthed and
added to the patent office array. These
last, and they promise to be rs endless as
Mr. Washlngton's body servants, include
the identical easy chair in which the
general reclined only few minutes
before his demise. Then there is
the field-9lAss, and the candlesticks,
and the cake-baskets, and the box.
made from a solid block of mahogany
in which the General kept his silveIware,
which, judging from the size of the box,
could not have afforded very strong
temptation, even TO the burglars of that
period, when silver was silver and worth
appropriating where there was enough OF
it. A marble top table which marble
tops over anything that we have now, and
the identical guitar with the Z string
broken Just exactly as Nellie GUSTS b-oEc
it with her dainty but Gnlearncd fingers,
form brace of quantity curious memo
rails of the revered family. The famous
Ratchet, however, has not yet turned up,
nor have all the crypts and vestibules and
coal-holes in the capitol been thoroughly
searched We will not despair. That
Ratchet will be here in due course of time,
with &c. W" engraved on the handle,
Just as nobody but e. W. could have done
1t, and that, too, with borrowed jack
knife. The possession of this instrument
by right of natural heredity will lie be-
tween Tom 0chiltree, Of Texas, and Eli
Perkins, the champion cherry tree hackers
of the universe. If the official gentlemen
who have these sacred relics in charge
will take it kindly, We would suggest that
the rotunda of the capitol is by all odds
the best, the most appropriate, and the
most accessible of all other places in
Washington for the display of these
articles. if room in the patent office is no
to be obtained. The place is as proc
against fire as any other, and is guarded
by salaried watchmen by Gay and By
night.
Something like five months since, o
Immediately upon the adjournment o
the last congress, somebody with an eye
for esthetics, and seconded by another
for the main chance, caused three of tht
massive historical paintings that have
hung in the rotunda longer by severa
Gears than they ought to, and now thi'
man, mythical and misanthropic, keep
himself in Closest communication will
magnificent artistic achievements for thu
purpose of retouching the work of tn
masters of that bygore age. Surrounded
by huge fence on the floor of the 70
tunda, this artist has full swing to chrom
yellow, venetian red. Albany. lainpblacl
and vandyke brown, and the lavisnnes
displayed in responding to the footprint
on the canvas, shows that time, whicl
ought to heal all things, Is no good whel
confronted with such critical dcmonstra
tons as are constantly leveled agains
that 16x12 illustration of the signing 0
the declaration 1t will be ready to re
sumo IFS place in September amid tn
huzzas of the small boys and the plaudit
of the retouchers