Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1889-09-09
WASHINGTON LETTER
ESPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS OF THE MONITOR.
Washington. Sept. 2.

paign. Washington faShlOnables
have not learned to stay in the noun
tains during late September and Oc-
tober to feel the sensitive dying of
the summer and hear the fire crack
ling in the back log when nights grow
cool. That is a fad they have yet to
acquire.
The Chinese minister will return,
with his suite, next week, and imme-
diately thereafter will start for the
Orient. The successor to the present
minister has been named but the date
of his departure for America is not
stated. The new minister will be ac-
companied here by his wife, the first
instance on record where Chinese
woman of high caste has been per-
mitted to leave the Celestial King
dom. Prior to this time such per-
mission has never been granted and
even the permission is very great
surprise to all persons acquainted
with Chinese customs and govern
ment.
The strict surveillance which is ex-
ercised over wives in the Celestial
Kingdom will be carefully preserved
here. The new envoy will be driven
in closed carriage, with his wife, to
the legation house, where madame
will at once be installed in her apart
ments. She will not receive visitors
nor go into society. Occasionally
the minister, when madame's health
absolutely demands it, will take his
wife driving, but these drives will be
few and far between, as long indoor
life has accustomed these women to
90 without exercise or outdoor airing.
The oyster season is always inaug-
urated in Washington with a tremen-
dous eating of fried, stewed, steam
ed and raw oysters. The belated
husband on his way home on the
night of August 81, cunning ly car
ries box of fried oysters and fears
not the wife's wrath. He even
wakes her, if she has been asleep, to
explain to her that he has not been
at the club this evening, but has
merely been inaugurating the oyster
season.
What tons of oysters are eaten in
Washington in year! Everybody
eats them, from the dushy street
Arab sitting on the oyster wharf with
a dozen stolen blvaIves ana an ola
pocket knife, to the aristocrat taking
ga dozen and small bottle" at
Chamberlain's. The fleet employed
to bring oysters to Washington alone
wonld make fair-sized navy. The
average Washingtonian can eat oys-
ters with relish every day as long as
the season lasts. Heaven be merci-
full to the man who don't like oysters
and is out late at night and hungry.
In nine tenths of the restaurants he
will be told that they are ''just OUT
of this and that and the other, but
they have "oysters, sah." And he
must eat oysters or starve.
So many years have passed since
brave, dashing Fernando Wood went
home to the still country that it is al
most necessary to tell any one except
a New Yorker what the great mayor
was. No man ever had better con-
troll of New York City politics. He
was almost without academic educa-
ton, but he was one of the finest
natural orators that ever charmed an
audience. When he first came to
congress, his tall, handsome figure,
his dash and his impetuous eloquence
attracted the attention of both
houses.
In resource he was inexhaustible.
One day he stepped into cigar
store on Pennsylvania avenue with
Henry Clay, who prided himself on
his knowledge of tobacco. Clay was
watching the deft workmen making
cigars.
s'These men are very skillful at
that work." remarked Clay. eyes,
very," replied Wood, "but it doesn't
look very difficult to do
''Sir, think that to be one of the
most cunning of trades retorted the
senator in his positive manner. "Oh,
no." responded Wood, 81 believe |
could make cigar equally WE'LL" 81
doubt it, SIR said Clay. "I'll bet
you box of cigars [ cam replied
Wood. Clay accepted the wager and
in a minute had cigar wrapped and
finished and held up before the great
Kentuckian's eyes.
Henry Clay's wonderment at the
ease with which a naturally expert
man had learned skilled trade in
moment never ceased to be expressed,
and to his philosophic mind it seemed
like the discovery of a new principle.
And Henry Clay died without ever
knowing that Fernando Wood had
learned the cigar makers trade and
spent several years at the bench,
where, as everywhere else, he had ex-
celled.
The men who lived such lives as
Clay and Wood, and nearly all of the
public men of that day, are gone, as
a class. 1t appears to me that | do
not hear s'the future of the republic"