The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1894-11-23

white, and some of them were negroes.
The most considerable persons in the set
tlement were Mr.. Law, an Englishman who
had gone there to speculate in land, and
Mr. Burns, upon whose farm the White
House and other public buildings were
erected 1t was as difficulty to procure
laborcrs or to find tradeSman as it was to
secure comfortable lodgings Both were
to be had no nearer than Georgetown, now
part of Washington, but then a distant
port, to be reached only after al a:duouS
journey over eXecrablc roads, muddy or
dusty, as the weather was wet or dry, and
through swamp which crossed what is
now one of the main avenues in the fash
iOnable part of the city. Gouveneur Nor
ris, writing to the Princess de la Tour ct
Taxis in 1900, said, We want nothing
here but houses. cellars, kitchens, well-in-
formed men, amiabie women, and other
trfles of this kind to make our city per-
feet Yrujo, the Spanish Minister, said
that it was impossible ito produce a de-
cent dinner at the new capital without
sending fifty to sixty miles for the mate
rial" There was social material, however,
within visiting distance of the capital, as
Sir Augustus Fisher, an attache of the
British Legation, discovered. The cOun-
try families of Pennsylvania, Virginia and
Maryland had preserved many of the Gus
toms of their English ancestry, and among
them the sport of foX-hunting. The
Gloucester Fox Hunting Club of Philadel-
phia and the South River Club of Anne
Arundel County in Maryland were form
ed early in the eighteenth century, that
their members might enjoy pcriodicallyin in
groups what was their almost daily pas
time on their lands. The early British
ministers and their secretaries and attaches
found much to amuse them and to remind
them of home on the large estates in the
immediate neighborhoOd of Washington.
Sir Augustus Fisher wrote admrngly of
the "rich Maryland population" especial
ly of the CAROLS, Llovds, and Taylers. He
was enthusiastic over the pretty girls of
Georgetown, where, he said, society was
centered. Indeed, society centered there
for many years. But if the men took pleas
ure in chasing the fox and in admiring the
Southern beauties, the women must have
found time hanging very heavy on their
hands; and the men themselves must have
longed for a little variety in their occupa-
tions, for an occasional new face or a fresh
subject for conversation. News was MAX
ing very fast in Europe in the days when
Napoleon was topping over thrones of
kings, and much of it was news in which
the government of the United States was
intensely interested, but it was Il month
old when it reached America, and it doubt
less seemed pure idlencss to discuss issues
that must have been settled before the
President and the members of the Diplo-
matte Corps had heard of them. Society
at the capital was good deal like life at
frontier post in the present day; and men
then, as now, found relief from ennui in
gaming-which is said to have been rife"
and in drinking, which is said to have
been the national curse; but whether eth
er gambling or drinking was more general
in this country than in England, especially
among fine gentlemen, we are at liberty to
doubt when we read of the exploits of
William Pitt, Lord Thurlow, and Mr. Dun
das; of the three bottle men; of the noble
gentlemen who went to sleep night after
night under the table; of the bets register
ed in that interesting old book at Brooks's,
in which Charles James Fox, Selwyn, the
Prince of Wales, the Duke of York and
other notable recorded their wagcrs on
politics, love, war, hunting, shooting, and
on the lives of their friends and parents.
The republic was founded at a time when
society in Europe was not over-nice.-
Harper's Magazine.