Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-08

| large that you could turn wagon-load o
| hay around in them without touching tn
walls. 1t has picture gallery as big as
barn, and this is now filed with some of tn
precious art works owned by the Postmaste
| General. He has little pieces of canva
here which have cost 5000 an inch, and an
told by an art friend of his that there are a
least 5000, 900 worth OF pictures in this room
Still these paintings comprise only part o
his collection, and he is, you know, the pos
SCISSOR of Munkacsy's "After the Wedding, ,
which hangs on the left wall of the gallery
There are more than 30 pictures on the
walls of this ballroom, and though they art
all very valuable, I do not think that some
of them are as beautiful as those which
hung in it in the days of the Whitney own.
ership. Secretary Whitney had remarka.
BILE taste in art, and in his collection are
many masterpieces. He had Millet which
Vanderbilt considered finer than any paint.
ing he owned, and some of his pictures oil
the French school were wonderfully beauti-
full. The Postmaster General is good
judge of fine paintings. He has made a
study of art and can tell good painting
without asking the advice of a picture
buyer. He knows most of the great artists
of Paris personally, and he is haunter OF
studios when he is in Europe.
SPLENDID ENTERTAINERS.
The Postmaster General and his wife have
entertained more lavishly than any other
family connected with the administration
with perhaps the exception of the Mortons.
They have kept open house, have given
many dinners and receptions and at the
close Of not few of their parties this pict-
ure gallery ball room has been thrown open
for dancing.
The Postmaster General is noted as Sun
day school mal. He is, L believe, gen.
uine Christian, and his cloak of religion
has not been donned with his official ap-
pointment nor his business success. He is
not SO straightlaced, however, as were our
Puritan fathers, aud he does not consider
dancing sinful. He Will not use wines,
fines his own drinks to apollinaris, haw-
thorn water and the succulent soda. He
believes in the observance of the Sabbath,
and he will not allow letter or telegram
to be delivered at his house on Sunday, nor
will he talk business on Sunday. He runs
his Christianity, too, on business principles,
and he says that ministers would get along
better if they had more business tact
ONCE PELrED WITH MUD.
Few people have any idea of the Christian
work which he is doing in his Sunday school
at Philadelphia which he started in the
''Five Points" of that city when he was
working on a salary of less than that re-
ceived by the average Government clerk.
His first Sunday school was held in a tent,
and he was successful Sunday school
teacher when he was 30 years OF age, 20
years before anyone imagined that he would
be rich man, and when the widest dreamer
tv0rln not hova tad art a Co hi NJ
I am told that Wanamaker risked
his life In starting this Sunday school, and
that the toughs of the Quaker City used to
pelt him with mud when he began with the
ragged children and tried to influence the
drunkards to build up Sunday school.
1t was perhaps this pelting that made him
work the harder, for Wanamaker is fighter
from the word go, and opposition only made
him the more anxious to succeed. He has
two granite tabernacles, one of which is the
Bethany Church and the other the Sunday
school. There are about 5000 pupils in the
Sunday school and there are something like
300 teachers. Mr., Wanamaker opens il
every Sunday and then swings across to the
Bethany Church, where he has q Bible class
If 1000 men and women.
HIS PERSONAL HABITS.
Postmaster General Wanamaker spends as
many hours at his desk as any Postmaster
General we have had for years. He rises at
about $50 o'clock, shaves himself and takes
good. plain breakfast. He rides down to
he department in the department coupe,
Ind he is ready for work at $3.50, 80 minutes
before his force of clerks have begun to ar
i've. He has private secretary, Mr.. Mar
hall Cushing, whom be pays himself to at
end to his personal matters. The Postmas-
er General gets about cartload of marked
every day. The Postmaster Gen.
ral writes some letters himself, and is we'll
.dvanced with his mail by the time $50 has
.rrived.
He has had perhaps a counsel with his
,ureau chiefs and at this time is ready to re-
eive the stream of Senators and represent
tives of ofice-seekers and others who then
'egin to come. From 9 until IL he is ac-
essible to everyone. His talks are not
lways polite, for Mr.. Wanamaker is more
f a business man than a politician He
as the faculty of deciding thing right off.
lie is too much of civil service man to
nit many of the politicians, though he does
ot believe in the civil service as at present
onstituted. He thinks that every Cabinet
Minister should have the right to look
IAN in the eye before he appoints him, and
hat clerks should be examined by men in
be departments in which they are to work |
ather than by one board which examines
Or the whole country.
ALWAYS HUNTING NEW IDEAS.
The Senators and Representatives keep |
he Postmaster General busy until noon, |
nd it is 1 o'clock before he gets home to his |
inch. He comes back at and works avay |
teadily until Z or 1880 in the evening, doing |
he best part OF his work after the rest of the |
Jerks have gone. He is always after new
leas. A man who tried to get work of
i'm the other day was asked by him
neither he had any new ideas and what he |
ould do for him. and when the man really
nowed that he had some originality he was
once given a job. Postmaster General
Vanamaker was surprised to find when he
rst came into Office that a number of the
leas that he supposed were his had been
,rmulated and discussed by other POST
aster Generals. This was so with the
ostal Telegraph and Postal Savings Bank.
he idea in his Postal Telegraph scheme of
aving the competing telegraph lines do the
usiness and having the postofices merely
oliver the messages is his own, and his
theme for appointing general manager for
lie Postoffice Department, who shall have
rm of office for ten years at SIC, 900 year,
also his
Socially he is jolly good fellow, and he
ives away great deal of money in charity
L