McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1885-02-19
WASHINGTON LETTER.
Washington, D. c., Feb. II, 'S5

The dedication of the big monument
the ceremonies of which will take plac.
IN the Hall of the House of Represent
atlves on the 21st instant, is exciting {
good deal of severe comment because OF
the exclusiveness of the thing. The
House with its galleries will accommo-
date about sixteen hundred people, and
these seats have all been placed at the
disposal of members of Congress, who
assume that the memory of Washington
IS their own private property. BY the
present arrangement, therefore, only
members of Congress and their invited
guests will be able to take in the intel
leetual part of the ceremonies. Here
again the Washingtonian proclivity to
rake in the spare dimes protrudes itself,
Tor every conceivable device upon which
a figure Of the monument can figure, will
be peddled upon the street, from the can
dy lozenge to the card of gingerbread
with the shape of an elephant bearing
the monument on his back. A sad feat
ure of this celebration will be the i'm
possibility of the usual pilgrimage to
Mount Vernon, unless the weather clerk
should change his tactics for the coca
sion. The river for some time has been
frozen over so that the boat has been
compelled to suspend her daily trips to
the American Mecca. As Washington
was a Mason in pretty good standing
during the last years of his life, the Ma
sonic Fraternity Of Washington City in
conjunction with the lodge at Alexan-
dria to which he belonged, are to partici-
pate in the dedication ceremonies with
the corn, oil and wine emblems that
Gen. Washington was so often called
upon to administer on like occasions as
the Grand Master Of the United States.
The devices of Washington people for
turning an honest penny are both num-
erous and ingenious. All along the line
Of Pennsylvania Avenue, through which
Mr. Cleveland's inaugural procession
viii pass, the windows have been adver-
tised for rent at prices ranging from ten
to sixty dollars each for the day, while
the interchangeable Yankee has leased
lineal frontage the whole distance from
Capitol to the White House, projecting
from four to ten feet from the building
line, upon which stages and platforms
are to be erected and seats thereon uti-
lized at rates of one to ten dollars for
each seat, with brilliant prospect of a
tremendous raise on the price by the 4th
of March. All the best rooms at the
best hotels were long since snapped up
at prices that only Washington hotel
keeper knows how to exact, while all the
halls and billiard rooms and restaurants
(and possibly the churches) will be the
temporary abiding place Of many of the
military organizations that will be I'M
able to secure other quarters. a regi-
ment from Philadelphia has already been
given leave to bivouac in the corridors
Of the new State Department, while the
famous Seventh Regiment would not
come at all because of the want Of sufi-
cient room for its $50 scions of New
York's best aristocracy. About twenty |
thousand dollars have thus far been con-
tributed by the people Of Washington |
to give Mr.. Cleveland an unusually good |
4th of March send-off, and the Inaugu-
raj Ball, for which about twelve thou
sand tickets have already been sold, will |
be just little superior to anything of
that particular character yet produced
on this continent. The ball room for
this OCCASION is the spacious court of the |
new Pension Office, and is of sufficient
to allow four thousand peo
pie to dance to the music of four bands !
which will be so placed as to be out OF
hearing of each other Mr.. Cleveland |
will open the ball by joining in the open |
ing quadrille, the music for which has
been written expressly for the occasion
by Washington admirer.
Dow PEDRO.