Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1889-07-25
Washington Letter
FROM OUR REGULAR CORRESPONDENT.
WASHINGTON, July .22d 1880.

WARRINGTON, JULY ,1>u 1901.
With everyone that can get AWAY
from this hot city out of town, from
the President who has gone down to
Deer Park to the Departmental mes
sengers who has gone down thariver
for days outing, Washington has a
nearly deserted appearance on Sunday.
The houses along Connecticut avenue
are closed for the summer, and that
thoroughfare, on foot and in carriage,
showed yesterday only few solitary
wayfarers. Pennsylvania avenue, dem
ocratic as it IS respecting its loiterers
at 3 o'clock on Sunday afternoon in
mid summer boasted only few apollo
getic passers-by, who are wondering
why they didn't go out Of town them
selves. The sidewalks were as hot as
frying pans the asphalt pavements
seemed to sizzle under the July sun
yesterday.
At the corner of Pennsylvania avenue
and seventh street is wide space,
where hacks stand on week days and
which boasts curiously shaped drink
ing fountain which was erected five
years ago by some Western man and
which has never by any chance contain
ed water since its first month sexistence.
If there is any breeze in the business
part of the city it is here.
Across this deserted space at 3 o'clock
comes wiry lame little old colored
man, with a Bible under his arm and
without any preliminaries he kneels
down beside the fountain and prays
long and earnestly. A score Of loiterers
slowly gather around him. and he com.
mences to harangue them. His sermon
is rather long, and is like the efforts Of
most old colored preachers, extremely
doctrinal and the text is taken from
Revelations. He concludes by getting
the JohnstowA horrors in some mysteri.
GUS tumble mixed with the use Of wine
among Congressman.
The score of loiterers that have gath
cred are now doubled and as the colored
man departs, long haired white man
with a lot of mammoth black charts
comes into view. These charts have
ships drawn on them and mountains
and pyramids with novel lettering
scattered about. The white man be-
gins his discourse without prayer and
for half hour explains the pictures on
the chart, the whole thing appearing to
be an object lesson, treating of the
deiverance of the children Of Israel out
of bondage. The white man is not an
exhorter, and, indeed, he becomes so
much interested il his subject and
wanders so far into speculation that he
has no time for exhorting before he is
interrupted.
A huge wagon is drawn up by six
horses into the center of the plaza
There are fully twenty people, men and
women seated in the wagon, and there
is also small organ. A sound of a
cornet is heard striking the first notes
of "Nearer my God to Thee and the
people in the wagon commence to sing.
By this time, people are Just coming by
from the post Office where the Sunday
evening delivery hour is on, and the
crowd assumes respectable proportions.
Speech after speech is made relative to
personal experiences, the quality of the
speeches being perhaps more of mat
ter of establishment than the expert
ence. Some are really able and some
are really drivel. With parting song
in which many in the crowd join, the
wagon, with its great gilt letters "Gos-
pei Wagon glistenng in the setting
sun is whirlsd away.
For the last half hour, waiting pa.
tiently on one side is a little group of
four or five women and a half dozen
men. They are cheaply and coarsely
clad, and the women's faces bear the
brand of care and worry. These PEG
pie belong to the Salvation army and
are waiting their turn to take possession
of the square. They stand there per.
fectly stolid. One young Austrian
among them, with the most intensely
stupid face I ever saw, tries to sell a
few copies Of the "War Cry the offic-
ial organ of the Army, which he car
ries under his arm.
When the wagon has gone away, they
all kneel down and the Captain, who is
young woman, prays in shrill, pip
ing treble. When she is through it is
dark, and the little group commences
to sing some sort of religious verses to
the air of "Ill meet her when the sun
|