Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-11-05

WlUNLh gentleman has had I.
IT ra'eSmsa and ns.-s en-
gers, and he declares
that he never gets tired of studying them. Here
are few of the types he described:
The first is the messenger who is i'm :
pressed with sense Of the importance Of the
trust confided to him. He is elderly and will
not trifie or be triaed with. When official mail
| is given to him he bears it proudly along the
| corridor to the department post Office He reads
the addresses. The letters are TO high function
| aries. perhaps. II any thing should happen to
them what calamity might not occur? The
Understanding title, ''the honorable. the secre-
tary of =. sinks into the messengers soul
| and he looks like an honorable secretary HIM
self. Who wrote the letter? What does that
| matter? IL it were not for him the great man
| to whom 1t is addressed would not receive it.
| What would all the letters of Christendom
| amount to If there were messengers to carry
| them to the post Office? "The poor man goes to
the post Office and the whole world runs on his
| GRAND Is wise enough saving but the de-
partment official writes his letters and losses
them into basket, and they would never be-
| come part of the nations mail matter il il
| wasn't for the department messenger And
| when this messenger is given batch Of official
| documents to carry to some one whose business
| 1t is to sign them he walks with the air Of one
who has the weight of great affairs 10 bear He
rarely laughs. but sometimes in his lighter
moments he consents to smile at a good Joke
provided it is rendered respectable by age When
he sits at his post waiting to be rung for his coun
( tenance wears an expression of sober contem-
| platiOn. When the bell rings he does not Jump
up in Rpseemly haste. but he answers the sum-
mons With proper dignity. Who the man
before he took up the cares of official life?
| Where did he come from and what did he do2
| He either q small farmer a iva
| man, or. if he came from one of the large
| cities, he was one of the janitor class He was
| never day laborer. he always had a taste for
public life, and before he came to Washington
| he was a citizen of certain amount of in
| nuence. 10 be messenger in one of the de-
| partments at Washington was always the acme
! OF this good citizens ambition. and having
| finally attained it he never goes backward. but
dies department messenger He il nearly al
WAYS married and has a comfortable little home
| and is proud of his wife and children. He dresses
respectfully. and on Sundays he goes to church
| wearing black broadcloth frock coat He has
silk hat which he sports on occasions of I'M
usual ceremony. and he is apt to be the fortu-
| nate possessor of walking stick which some
| patron gave him. and. If YOU ask him where he
| got 1t, he will unfold the story with great
elaboration of detail. He may rave little out
| OF his small salary: at any rate he lives better
and owes less than the young clerks in his de-
| partment who have nobody to take care of in
! the world but themselves and twice as much
money to do it with.
ANOTHER TYPE.
But this is not the only type of department
messenger. and it will be interesting 10 examine
another. This one il the man whose life has
been a failure. He always reminds Won of the
venerable department joke about the man who
came to Washington to ask for a cabinet
position and ended by making a pitiful appeal
for suit of old clothes. This messenger has
Jared better than that. for he has been for
tunate enough to get place which enables him
to buy the suit of old clothes. But he is
messenger because he can't get anything else.
home and worked among the boys in his local
elections. He thinks he performed services to
his party that deserve recognition, and he
armed himself with a batch of letters of recon-
mendation from other local politicians and came
to Washington. But here he found among the
dispensers OF official patronage a strange degree
of ignorance. His Senators had actually never
heard of Jacob Cohen of the first ward, and
knew very little about Pat Mahony, the
distinguished alderman of the second
ward. OF the applicants own services.
of how he passed around the tickets al
the exciting election when Bob johnson carried
his assembly district of those two speeches he
made to fifty-three men, two women and four
boys: OF his pecuniary sacrifices when he set the
beer up for the doubtful voters-of all of these
important circumstances he finds IN ignorance
that is truly surprising. But he is persistent in
urging his claims, and finally being offered a
messengers place he Is compelled 10 take IL
He throws no enthusiasm into the perform
! ance of his duties, but he goes on his errands
and does what he is told to do. He is an ON
nlvorous newspaper reader and he likes to talk
politics. but his knowledge the subject be-
ing limited to an acquaintanceship with the
political conditions which prevail in the first
ward of his city he cannot be said to be an in
teresting man even when conversing upon his
favorite topic. Perhaps, in writing to '.the
boys, this messenger represents his official
functions as being little more important than
they really are. and when one of the bows comes
to Washington the messenger is decidedly
chagrined at being discovered sitting in the
hallway waiting for a summons to carry
message. He feels that his proper functions
should be the manipulation of great political
forces. However. he is a pretty good sort of
fellow if you take him in the right way and, as
he has very little to do, he does it fairly we'll
THE AVERAGE wArcHMAS
But. if he has very little to do. just consider
the position of a department Waterman. There
he sits and sits and sits. All that he has to do
is to watch, but hostile armies have never
but once invaded the government buildings. on
which occasion the watchmen found it convent
emit to be on leave, there is practically nothing
for the Waterman to do. OF course he in a
pening. but his existence cannot be q happy one.
for nothing ever does happen. Sometimes a
stranger asks him a question and then he takes
as long as possible to reply. He has also some
sort Of report to make to the captain of the
captain Of the watch, but that is all Under the
circumstances and considering the nature of
their duties it is surprising what an efficient
body OF men department watchmen are. They
might go to sleep on duty or they might get up
and walk out in search Of a variety to the mo-
notony Of life or they might arrest somebody
merely to illustrate their raison d'etre, but
they do none Of these things Theirs is a posi-
ton of mastery inactivity that deserves more
credit than it receives. OF course, the night
Waterman has a harder time than the day watch
man? He must make q very vigorous effort to
avoid falling asleep. Fancy how strange it must be
in one of the great government buildings at
night. All day long it teens with people and
work and hustle, and at night not a soul is there
but the few disconsolate watchmen. The
Offices are empty and black, the long corridors
are dimly lighted and strange echoes are borne
along them. There is absolute cessation Of
human toll and an imaginative Waterman
might fancy that the ghosts of generations of
clerks were at work in the familiar haunts.
Now, watchmen are not usually men Of imapi-
nation; they are prosaic and they are nearly
all Of one type-middle-aged men, or perhaps
rather elderly, quiet and unobtrusive. and
many Of them we're soldiers in the war.
THE TEMPORARY MESSENGER
To return to the messengers, type that must