Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-12
BORED BY THE DOORS.
Indignities 10 Which the President
and Family Must Submit.
EX-GOVERNOR CURTIN ON RUSSIA.
How Louis Napoleon Tried to Get Some In
formation From Him.
FACTS ABOUT THE SEAL QUESTION
,coRnRspoNpEscr OF THE DISPATCH,

can boor is at large on our wide streets and
avenues. He has brought mis- wife and
children with him, and the famous courtesy
of the National Capital is tried to its ut
most. The American hog among tourists
is no respecter of persons. He has crowded
into the funeral assemblages of the noted
men who have died recently and has pressed
himself even up to the coffin of the de-
ceased. He goes to churches to see the great
nfen who attend them, and President Har-
rison's church has been thronged Sunday
after Sunday. with his kind, in droves.
These men and women come into the
church and at once begin to crane their
necks and ask questions as to where the
President sits, and whether he comes regu-
larly. They are anxious to get near him,
and after church is over they rush around
to the side door out of which he usually goes
when he returns to the White House, and
stare and criticise his personal appearance,
as though he were prize hog at county
fair.
Bound to See the President.
President Harrison is very fond of walk
ing. He generally comes to church on loot,
with springing step, and in goiQg home he
sometimes walks around in order to in
crease his constitution. Last Sunday he
walked home alone, and I saw him as he
was going at rapid pace up Massachusetts
avenue toward Thomas circle. About a
block in the rear of him 1 noticed party
whom at once sized up as fair specimens of
our tourist hog. There was a great, big,
long-whiskered jay at the head of them,
Lo MI
long strides to shorten the distance which
lay between him and the President Behind
him, and tagging onto his coat-tail. was a
very thin and a very fat and dumpy woman,
who evidently belonged to the very long
man. These two were also on Il fast walk,
but the President seemed to walk faster
than they did, and they gained but little.
As the President got to Thomas circle the
long man turned to the short woman, said
word. and then broke into run. He soon
got up to the President, and, putting his
hand on his shoulder, caused him to stop
and turn around. The President was sur
prised, and l was near enough to hear the
man say that he was from Illinois, and
had come to see Washington, and he wanted
to see the President.
Forced to Meet the Women.
President, with the nearest approach to a
scowl have yet seen on his face, reached
out his gloved hand and took it. The man
grasped it with the grip of John Sullivan.
The President attempted to release it but the
man stuck and said that he wanted the
President to see his wife and daughter, and
with the other hand he beckoned violently
to the fat, dumpy woman, calling her Mary
Jane and telling her to hurry. By this
time the women had gotten up, both pant
ing and out of breath, and the man from
Illinois presented them. The President
said few words which I could not hear,
aud then bowed and went on. AS he left,
the man and Mary Jane looked after him
with open mouths and delighted eyes, and
they Will, I've no doubt, tell howthe Presl-
dent stopped them on the street and spoke
to them.
This sort of boorishness seems to grow
worse and worse every year. II was such
that Arthur seldom went out except in a
carriage, and President Cleveland took most
of his walks back of the White House or in
the country about Oak View. Mrs. Cleye-
land was imposed upon wherever she went,
and both she and the President were looked
upon as free circus whenever they went to
church.
At one time party Of tourists sat near
them when the communion was admins
tered, and there was a disgraceful strife
among them as to who should get chance
at the communion cup after Mrs. Cleveland.
Mrs. Harrison, even now, has to do much
of her shopping away from Washington,
and she goes to Baltimore to get away from
the crowd. 1t is only upstairs in the White
House and at one end of the second floor
that she can have any seclusion whatever,
and ii is question as to whether we are not
entirely too democratic. The President and
his wife should certainly be treated with as
much common decency as other Americans.
The settlement of our troubles with the
English in regard to the seal question will
probably be accomplished by the visit of both
parties to Alaska this summer The chief
American, as far as knowledge goes, in this
expedition will be Mr.. Henry W. Elliott, of
the Smithsonian Institution. He knows
more about seals and Alaska than any man
in the world. He made his first trip to
Alaska in the employ of the Western Union
Telegraph Company, when he went north
with George KEENAN, and others to lay
line of telegraph wire across Bering Straits
and
Over Siberia to Europe.
The Atlantic cable defeated the project
and brought him back to this country, but
the exploring party was so far away at the
time the cable was completed that it
took three years before the news OF it reached
them. About 16 years ago Mr.. Elliott was
again in Alaska, this time the agent of the
Government, and he then made thorough
study of the seal trade, and gave very full
account of the number of seals, pictures OF
their breeding grounds, and upon returning
fo xrbio oh 10 ho
standing authority on Alaska. Mr.. Elliott
is an artist as well as an able writer and ex-
plorer, and the pictures which, he brought
back in 1872 gave an accurate idea of the
extent of the seal industry.
During the past summer he was again sent
to Alaska and he has just returned, bring
ing with him pictures of the breeding
grounds of the seals as they are to-day, and
these being compared with the pictures of
the same place in 1872, show that the seals
are on u fair way to determination, and that
if something is not at once done, the time
will soon come when they will be as extinct
as the buffalo is to-day. Mr.. Elliott has.un-
earthed the fraud which George r. Tingle
an agent of the Treasury Department, per-
petrated on the Government, and which
may result
In International Complications
between us and England. This man,
Tingle, has for years been sending in false
reports, and it is on these false reports that
the English base their claims that the seals
are not being destroyed, and thereby ap-
parentiy get the better of Mr.. Blaine in his
correspondence with the English. Govern
ment. Whether Tingle was in the pay of the
British Government, or whether he was in
the pay OF poachers or of the new seal COM
pany, of which he is now one of the chief
officers, it is impossible to know, but if Mr..
Elliott's report is correct, he has proven
false to the Government and the Treasury