The south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1879-1883, 1883-08-28
SOUTH KENTUCKIAN.
ADVERTISING RATE.
WASHINGTON LETTER.

The millions of people who have
for some half a century been delight
ed with the sight of the identical
buff coat and docskin breeches that
the father of his country wore when
he resigned his commission at An
napolis, will learn with profoundest
regret that they, with the other Wash
ington 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 mementos to the place
named is one of those official and Of
ticious blunders that our public Gus
todians are continually making.
While everybody who visits Wash
ington never thinks of leaving it
without going through the model
roomof the patent Office, nobody,
comparatively has regard enough for
the Smithsonian Institution to either
walk over there or invest a nickel
with the car conductor. Besides,
any one who has visited this ornitho-
logical and piscatorial institution
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 ex-
change for an execrably written book
upon birds and how to stuff them,
which suggests no improvement up
on the way our mothers performed
the operation at the Chrismastides of
forty years ago.
By the way, the interest in these
relics should be enhanced, owing to
the discovery in some forgotten cor
ncr of the Capitol of another lot
which were uncarthed and added to
The patent Office array. These last,
and they promise to be as endless as
Mr.. Washington's body servants, in
clude the identical easy chair in
which the General reclincd only
few minutes before his demise. Then
there is the fieldglass, and the candle
sticks, and the cake baskets, and the
box, made from solid block of ma
hogany, in which the general kept
his silverware, which, judging from
the size of tho box, could not have af-
forded a strong temptation, even to
the burglars of that period, when
silver was silver and worth appro-
priating where there was enough of
it. A marble-top table which mar
bletops over anything that we have
now, and the identical guitar with
the L string broken just exactly as
Nellie Gusts broke il with her dain-
ty but unlearned fingers, form a
brace of quantity curious memorials
of the rcvercd family. The famous
hatchet. has not, however, 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 G. w. engraved on the handle
, just as nobody but G. w. could have
done it, and that, too, with a bor-
, rowed jack-knife. The possession
of this instrument by right by way of
natural heredity will lie between
Tom Oehiltree, of Texas, and Ell
Perkins, the champion cherry-tree
hlckers of the universe. If the Off
cial gentlemen who have these sa-
| cred relics in charge will take it
y kindly, we would suggest that the
o rotunda of the capitol is by all odds
o the best, the most appropriate, and
Q the most accessible of all other pla-
s ces in Washington for the display of
these articles, if room in the patent
office is not to be obtained. The
y place is as oofagainst fire as any
d other, and is guarded by salaried
y watchmen both by day and by night,
t Something like five months since,
1t or Immediately upon the adjourn
It ment Of the last Congress, somebody
with an eye for aesthetics, and Sec
onded by another for the main
: chance, caused three of the massive
o historical paintings that have hung
/ in the rotunda longer by several
i wears than they ought to, and now
D, this man, mythical and misanthropic
i keeps himself in closest communion
st with these magnificent artistic
achievements for the purpose of re-
touching the work of the masters o
le t lat bygone age. Surrounded ty
rs huge fence on the floor of the rotun
it da, the artist has full swing to chrome
Of yellow, venetian red, Albany lamp
lt block and vandyke brown, and tn
le lavislniss displayed in respondin!
N to the bare footprints on the canvas
10 shows that time, which ought to hea
\. al things, is no good when confront
to cd with such critical demonstration
ut as are constantly leveled against tina
16xl2 feet illustration of the signin;
CT the declaration. 1t will be read,
to resume its place in Septembe
amid the huzzas of the small boy
hc and the plaudits OF the re-touchers.
A. PHoNo.
nd - -
Tic T morricd my wife for her Dcaut,