Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-09-19

unconscious picnicking party may lunch with
merrymaking.
The city Itself then resounded with the tread
| of marching regiments the rumble of supply
wagons and of a.nbulances bearing the wounded
or collins wrapped in fags. the shrill sound Of
the fife, the roll Of the drum and the roar Of
| cannon at the navy yard artillery camp and the
arsenal. Its encircling hills were dotted with
white tents and floating hags. its public bIild-
ings were hospitals. soldiers quarters or army
provision depots. Mounted sentries were seen
mt TIE corners Of the streets with drawn sabers,
barracks appeared everywhere and military
huts and military tents were pitched in the dust
or mud OF the unbuilt area. From the city, as
well from the forts. bristlins with cannon,
that crowned every eminence, all notable signs
OF belligerency have disappeared.
As at the capital, which is the nation in min
iature, peace has conquered war, and the indi-
bloodshed have been obliterated. so from the
reunited nation itself, from the minds aud
hearts of men. may all traces OF the prejudices
and passions of the war be soon effaced.
1t is not in the disappearance of military
features alone that the veteran will note a
change in Washington. At the outbreak of the
war East Washington was in the main a broad
expanse of barren plain. South from the
Capitol were novels and brick kiln excavations.
South Washington in general was island cut
off from the main city by a fostering canal and
the mall, which was then the lurking place Of
criminals. In the northwest beyond 7th street
and between NJ and Boundary streets there were
swamps and commons and patches of meadow.
Cows, swine, goats and geese had the freedom
Of the city. Anthony Trollope, who visited
Washington in 1852, ike Tom Moore Mrs.
Trollope and Charles Dickens, who preceded
him, gives an unfriendly but not imaginative
description of the city. Washington" he
says, sis but a ragged, unfinished collection Of
unbuilt, broad streets, as to the completion of
which there can now, l imagine, be but little
hope. or ell places that know it is the most
ungainly and the most satisfactory" Trollope
seems to have conceived an especial spite
against Massachusetts, avenue, which is now one
OF the finest residence streets in the city. and
the vigor Of his assaults iustifes the suspicion
that he was sent on some wild goose
chase and found the mud OF that
street particularly disasreeable. "Massachu-
setts avenue runs the whole length
of the city and is inserted on the maps
as full blown street about four miles in length.
Go there and you will find yourself not only
out OF town, away among the fields, but you
will find yourself beyond the fields in an uncul-
tivated, undrained wilderness. Tucking your
trousers up to your knees you will wade through
| the bogs; you will lose yourself among wide hill
locks; you will be out Of the reach of humanity.
A stranger finds himself in the posi-
ton of being sent across the country knee
deep in mud, wading through snipe grounds,
looking for civilization where none exists
In place Of the struggling country village.
with zigzag grades, no sewerage. unimproved
reservations, second-rate dwellings,, streets OF
mud and mire and wretched sidewalks, which
the Union soldier and Anthony Trollope saw
when Washington was q camp and hospital,
there is now spread before our soldier visitors
the magnificent city of today.
The capital, more than trebling its population
since 1850, has not only built up its ragged col
lection Of unfinished streets and the bogs and
swamps and commons that dotted and sur
, rounded them, but has spread settlement over
the then encircling heights on the northwest
and northeast, and the duty and responsibility of
planning and developing new Washington,
more extensive in area than the original city,
which shall not be irharmonious and discredit-
able when compared with the work OF the fore
fathers. is imposed upon the Legislators Of to-
day. The streets of depthless mud and blind
ing dust are now in large measure concreted and
fringed with thousands of shade trees. In
the matter Of smooth streets the capital is fore
most among the cities Of the world. Broad
Pennsylvania avenue with its rough cobble-
stones of the war times. has been converted
through the skiIful Of asphalt into the finest
parade street that any capital can boast. the
veteran treads concrete instead Of cobble-
stones and when the work Of erecting public
buildings along il in accordance with the
original plan. already revived and initiated
shah be fully accomplished, and its surround
ings thus acquire suitable dignity and i'm
pressiveness. this historic avenue viii rival In
all respects the famous streets Of the capitals
Of the old world, whether the boulevards OF
Paris. Inter den Linden in Berlin, the Ring
Strasse of Vienna or Andrassy street in Buda-
Pesth. Massachusetts avenue, where Trollope
i foundered in the mud, displays today as
B specimen residence stree. of the modern Wash
ington buildings of the most varied and at
tractive architecture. Without. street car at
i the outbreak OF the war the District now ha4
OFtE Duntrcu lilllcs OI Street WHICH
! promise soon TO furnish throagh the general
adoption Of the best forms of improved motor
model local rapid transit system to the
capital. Then pumps and springs supplied the
city with water; now through the great aque.
duct, largely built while The war was in prog
ress. the waters OF the upper Potomac are Law
ished upon Washington. The then unfinished
public buildings have been completed. and, with
} additional structures which have been erected
adorn the city. The stub which represented
the Washington monument has become tho
towering. impressive shaft OF today. Intel
leetgal progress has been marked mate
rial development. and Washington. no longer
riere political camp ground, is becoming tbs
educational. literary and scientific center OF ths
republic. The reservations and parking, ther
neglected and unken,pt, the browsing place ot
the COW and the wallowing place OF tho hog
have been improved and adorned, and now in q
number Of them tbs statues Of men who were
then struggling TO save the Union and the cap.
ital, n: the head OF other mon who arc present
here today, stand out in marble or bronze in Z