The Progress., 1892-12-17


Some of the women in the gallery have
familiar faces. They have been seen here
at every opening or other gala day for ter
or a dozen years. They are not all young
and charming, though they try to appear
so. Some of them seem to have discovered
the secret of perpetual youth, for they have
not changed a particle in half a dozen
years. If they have, they manage not tc
let any one see it. Who they are or what
they are is not known to the smartest man
about the Capitol They are not the wives
of members. or they would be sitting in
the reserved gallery. They are not the rep
resentatives of the half world, else they
would be known to most of the habitues OF
the Capitol. They are neither wholly re
spectacle, one might say, nor yet wholly
bad. If there is any mean for a woman
these women probably have found it. They
are typical specimens of that class of women
which is lamentably large in the Ameri
can capital-women who live in peculiar
ways; dress well when fortune smiles
keep some sort of a hold on the outskirts
of society; are viewed with suspicion and
yet not cast out; adventuresses of a mild
and somewhat harmless type; homeless
women who "know how to take care OF
themselves" and yet are not invited to
enter the houses of careful people. There
are hundreds of such women in this city,
and the Capitol is their favorite rendezr
vous. Some of them are deserving of pity
-luckless girls who have lost their places
under the government; unfortunate young
women whose families have met with bus
mess reverses; ambitious creatures whc
have not found the path of lone woman
an easy one to travel in this world-ths
fotsam and jetsam of respectable WON
anhood in the Capital City.
On the floor below the members are set
tling down to business. A few of them
are actually paying attention to the pro
ceedings of the moment. The majority
however, are sitting in the corners of the
cloakroom talking over the recent battle
on the political field. The stories they
have to tell, the incidents to relate, tbs
boasts to deliver, the condolences to i'm
part, are seemingly legion. One congress
man tells how he beat his opponent by
paying the Prohibition party leaders in his
district s4C0 to nominate that rival on their
ticket. Inasmuch as it was city district
containing sC0 saloons. and every saloon
keeper more less politician and bitterly
opposed to the Prohibition party and all its
candidates, the Endorsement of that party
proved fatal.
Another congressman from the south
tells how he hired circus TO travel through
his district just before election and take
poll tax receipts in lien of cash for tickets.
All the colored men wanted to go to the
circus, and as cash was scarce they put in
the poll tax receipts which the Republican
nominee for congress had paid for, so that
they might be able to vote for him. With
out these receipts they could not vote, and
the district went Democratic by large
majority.
Over in the senate the usual dignity and
hcaviness prevail. The session lasts but a
few moments scarcely long enoug to give
the visitors an opportunity to scan the
faces Of the senators who have lost their
seats to zee II disappointment has deepened
the lines Of care RopErT GRAVES.