The Monitor., 1889-07-26
Warrington Lerrer.

With everyone that can get away from
| this hot city out Of town, from the PFes.-
dent who has gone to Deer Park to the
Departmental messenger who has gone
down the river for days outing, Wash
ington has a nearly deserted appearance
on Sunday. The houses along Connecticut
avenue are closed for the summer, and
that thoroughfare. which is wont to be the
afternoon parade ground OF fashion on foot
and in carriage, showed yesterday only a
few solitary wayfarers. Pennsylvania
avenue, democratic as it is, respecting its
loiterers, at 8 o'clock on Sunday afternoon
in midsummer boasted only few apollo
getic passers by, who arc wondering Why
they didn't go out of town themselves.
The sidewalks were rs hot as frying pans
the asphalt payements seemed to sizzle
under the July sun yesterday.
At the corner OF Pennsylvania avenne
and Seventh street is wide space, where
hacks stand on weeks days and Which
boasts cuIiousiy shaped drinking foun-
ain which was erected five years ago by
some Western man and which has never
by any chance contained water since its
first month existence. If there is any
breeze in tie business part Of the city it is
here.
Across this deserted space at o'clock
comes a wiry lame little old colored man,
with Bible under his arm and without
any prelminarics he kneels down beside
the fountain and prays long and earnestly
A score of loiterers slowly gather around
him, and he commences to harangue them.
His sermon is rather long, and is like the
efforts of most old coiored preachers, ex-
| tremely doctrinal and the text is taken
from Revelations. He concludes by get
ting the Johnstown horrors in some mys-
erious jumble mixed with the use Of wine
among congressman.
The score of loiterers that have gathered
are now doubled and as the colored man
departs. a 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 begins lis 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 deliver
ance of the children of Israel ont of bond
age. The white man is not an exhorter,
and, Indeed, he becomes SO much interested
in his subject and wanders so far into
speculation that he has no time for exhort-
ing before he is interrupted
A huge wagon is drawn up by six horses
into the center Of the plaza. There are
fully twenty people, mcn and women
seated in the wagon, and there is also a
small organ. \ 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-officc
where the Sunday evening delivery hour is
on, aud the crowd assumes respectable
proportions. Speech after speech is made
relative to personal experiences, the quail
ity of the speeches being perhaps
more Of matter of astonishment
than the experience. Some are really
able and some are really drivel.
With parting song, in which many in the
crowd join, the wagon, with its great gilti-
ed letters Gospel Wagon glistening in
the setting sun is whred away.
For the last half hour, waiting patiently
Oh 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
| 81 1
These people belong to the Salvation Army
and are waiting their turn to take possess
ion of the square. They stand there per-
fectly stolid. One young Austrian
among them, with the most intensely stu
pid face | ever saw, tries to sell few cop
les of the s'War Cry" the official organ oi
the Army, which he carries under his arm
When the wagon has gone away, they
all kneel down and the Captain, who is a
young woman, prays in Il shrill, piping
treble. When she is through it is c ark,
and the little group commences to sing
some sort of religious verses to tho air OF
"Ill meet her when the sun goes down.
So it goes on for an hour, the singing and
praying and exhorting, until tlus women's
voices are faint and the crowd gets tired
out and departs.
Then this miserable remnant of shabby
army SINKS OH 10 Dcd up uIFty aiieys and
into poverty stricken houses, and YET
happy in enthusiastic and unwavering adj
herence to their "cause." What fev oi
the churches that retain their Sunday night
services, have discharged their congrega.
tions and no sound breaks silence except
an occasional street car, until the belatcd
excursion boats come in at nearly mid
night. a party of heavy drinking 'sports'
who have been out among the road houses
all day cross the deserted plaza and stop tc
whistle and jeer at a wretched drunken
woman of the town, who finally sits down
at the foot of the abandoned fountain, te
wait for policeman to arrest her. Surely
the various religions that have been offered
there to-day, have work to DO
WESTON.