The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1890-03-21
washington Letter.
(From ourregular correspondent

WASHINGTON. ID. c., Mar. II, 1890.
The death of William Preston Taulbee,
the Representative shot by Charles E.
Kincaid, correspondent of the Louisville
| Times, makes one of the most distressing
murders that Washington has known in
many years. The murderer is Frustrated
by the result of his act, and in his frail
health and excitable temperament his
physicians fear that he will die before the
case can be tried. The feeling of Ken
tuckians here is much divided. One would
suppose at first from the newspaper ac-
counts that sympathy was all with Kin
caid, but now that it is established that
he pursued his man and shot him before
he could turn, sympathy is going the other
way.
Representative Henry Cabot Lodge in.
troduced his long-talkcd-o Federal Flee
ton bill in the House Saturday. The bill
has the essential features of the Australian
ballot system, and provides for the Federal
supervision of elect ons. The system now
in force in Massachusetts, is made applica-
BILE to the entire country in Congressional
and Presidential elections. Each polling
place is put in charge Of six judges or
supervisors, three representing each politi-
cal party. Voters who cannot read or
write may have tickets marked by one
supervisor in the presence of another of
the opposite party. Primarily the cleo
lions are in the control of the States, but
upon the petition of five hundred voters in
any district the Federal Government will
take absolute control. On this clause the
fight will be long and hot.
From the day the last excursion boat on
the Potomac ties up late in the fall until
the spring morning when the Whistles
sound again the average Washingtonian,
he of limited rocourses and b0undless de-
sires, on Sundays stays late in bed. The
Sabbath sun has looked sc0rnfully down
the deserted streets for good three hours
catching only Glimpscs of an occasional
policeman or a belated rounder, an early
milk man or al enterprising newsboy, be-
fore the tow gets up. And whether he
look out through cracked window panes
or through lace curtained French plate,
the citizen votes that it will be, like all
Sundays at the Capital, a dull day, that Is,
he so votes il he be a worldly citizen.
1t has come to be locally a proverb that
Washington is a dull town on Sunday.
The stray visitor from New Orleans tells
you so with many signs for the matinee,
and the Lake, and the shell road. The st.
Louis man, bitter from the loss Of the fair,
endorses him. The Cincinnati tourist
longs for lis native hilltops. The New
Yorker is lost in astonishment. Washing
ton is voted a dull town on the Sabbath.
To him who is not lost to the beauties
of a May morning graciously given to
windy March, the suburbs and the road
houses beyond offer some compensation.
The wheelmen know this, and while the
majority of mankind stop at home and
grumble, they are away over the hills, over
roads full of historic "reminiscences, to
Tenalytown, B~ladensburg, or ancient
Alexandra, fast asleep between the slug
gish Potomac and the Virginia hills. 1t is
nightfall before these silent wheels again
strike the magnificent city streets, bring
ing a thousand glimmering rows of Ian
terms, like meteors, flashing through the
shadows.
The citizen who goes abroad on horse
back, and he is generally accompanied by
the citizeness, enjoys the day and has the
additional advantage of knowing that this
fad is in full fashion. There are few cities
in this country that contain more good
riders, perhaps no city Of the same popu-
lation. The members Of the foreign lega-
tions set the style, and the riding acadia
mics have done yeoman service in develop
ing the riding talent that slumbesed I'M
developed in society.
What OF the rest of mankind and wo-
mankind who are not devoted to an ortho-