Mohave County miner., 1889-08-03
WASHINGTON LETTER.
Correspondence Of the MINER.

|
this hot city out Of town, from the Presi.
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 Connecti-
cut avenue are closed for the summer,
and that thoroushfare, which il won't 10
be the afternoon parade ground Of fashion
on foot and in carriage, showed yesterday
only few solitary wayfarers. Pennsyl-
vania avenue, democratic as il is respect
ing its loitercrs, at 3 O'Clock on Sunday
afternoon in midsummer boasted only a
few apologetic passers by who are won.
dering why they didn't 90 out Of town
themselves. The sidewalks were as hot
rs frying pans, the asphalt pavements
seemed to sizzle under the July sun yes
terday.
AT the corner OF Pennsylvania avenue
and seventh street is a wide space, where
hacks stand on week days and which
boasts curiously shaped drinking loun-
tain which was erected five years ago by
some western man and which has never,
by any chance, contained water since its
first months existence. Ii there is any
breeze in the business portion Of the city
it is here.
Across this deserted space at 3 o'clock
comes a wiry, lame, little old colored
man, with 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 commences
! 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 Revelation.
He concludes by getting the Johnstown
horrors in some mysterious 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 begins his dis
course without prayer and for half hour
explains the pictures on the chart, the
whole thing appearing TO be an object
lesson, treating OF the deliverance OF the
children OF Israel ont of bondage. The
white man is not All exhorter, and, in
deed, he becomes 80 much interested in
his subject and wanders so far into spec
ulation that he has no time for exhorting
before he is interrupted.
A huge wagon is drawn up by six hors.
es 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 cornet is
heard striking the first notes OF Nearer
my God to thee" and the people in the
wagon begin to sing. By this time people
are just coming by from the postofficc
where the Sunday evening delivery hour
is on, and the crowd assumes respectable
proportions. Speech after speech il
made relative to personal experiences
the quality o. the speeches being perhaps
more OF a matter OF astonishment than
the experience. Some are really able
and some are really drivel. With part
ing song, in which many in the crowd
join, the wagon, with its great gilt letters
"GoSpe! Wagon" glistening in the set
ting sun, il whirled away.
For the last half hour, waiting patiently
on one side is little group Of four or five
women and ilaif da:en men. They are
cheaply and coarsely clad, and the wo-
mems faces bear the brand OF care and
worry. These people belong to the Sal
vation Army and are waiting their turn
to take possession of the square. They
stand there perfectly stolid. One young
Austrian among them, with the most in
tensely stupid iaca ! ever sew, tries to
sell few copies OF the "War Cry" the
official organ Of the Army, which he car
ries under his arm.
Whan the wagon has gone away, they
all kneel down and the Captain, who is a
young woman, prays in shrill, piping
treble. When she is through it is dark,
and the little group commences to sing
some sort OF religious verses to the air OF
"I'll meet her when the sun goes down."
So it goes on for an hour, the singing and
praying and exhorting, until the women's
voices are faint and the crowd gets tired
out and departs.
Then this miseaable remnant of a
shabby army sinks off to bed, up dirty
alleys and into poverty stricken houses,
and yet happy In enthusiastic and un-
wavering adherence to their "cause."
What few OF the churches that retain
tkcir Sunday night services, have dis
charged their congregations and no sound
breaks silence except an occasional street
car, until the belated excursion boats
come in at nearly midnight. A party Of
heavy drinking "sports," who have been
out among the road houses all day, cross
the deserted plaza and stop to whistle
and jeer at q wretched drunken woman
of the town, who finally sits down at the
foot OF the abandoned fountain 10 wait
for a policeman to arrest her. Surely the