The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-07-31
 CRANkS IN W.ISHIyGTON.


 CRANKS IN BENNINGTON.
 This Class of Unfortunates Strangely At
 tracted to the Capitol.
 tFrom the Chicago Rccord.l
 The head of popular educational in- stitution in one of the smaller towns of Indiana voluntarily resigned his posi- ton about twelve years ago and spent ten years in Washington trying to have congress make an appropriation to pur- chase the exclusive use of a new mathe- matical rule which he had evolved Ito square a circle" Finally, after being rebuffed by Senator Voorhees,, "the Hoosier scholmaster" left Washington but not until he had squandered sev- eral thousand dollars trying to have congress adopt his mathematical sug- gestion. An unusually large number of eccentric individuals have been in Washington recently hanging about the corridors of the capitol. Senator Palmer is a shining mark for cranks. The venerable Illinois Solon is so good natured and forbearing with these un- fortunates that they follow him contin- ually. There are two peculiar visitors in his committee room daily, to say nothing of the hundreds of others who occasionally drop in and pay their res- poets.
 Nathaniel Johnson Coffin formed the acquaintance of Senator Palmer short ly after the latter arrived in Washing ton. Previous to that time he had been for eight years a regular visitor to the senate committee room on pensions. In an old army haversack which hangs over his shoulder 3he carried a bundle of papers stating that he was wounded in both the Mexican and civil wars, for which injury he wants an increase of pension. Every day he enters the room in most reverent manner, bows se- renely to the senator, goes over long oration about ex post facto laws and changing the constitution, and asks if he can see the president, He is just as regularly assured that he must "be pa tient" and wait until the president is in the city or has not "a busy day" Several bills have been brought to the senator by the man asking for the i'm peachment of the president, but the officials about the capitol are too hu- mane to eject the old fellow on account of his good nature.
 Every morning there may be seen another crank in the same room. He is an old sea captain who is asking for an appropriation of 0OO0O,0OO to con- meet the Mississippi river with the great lakes. This great contriver is al- so working at scheme to revise the money question by issuing certificates on all of the country's cereals, which are to be stored in great warehouses throughout the country. Until recent ly the pension committee was annoyed by another cratic claimant, who re- ceived an allowance of $3O a month, but asked for more on the grond that it was inhuman to make man live in Single blessedness' all his life for want of pension large enough to sup port wife. He visited the capitol regularly for twelve years, but at last became disorderly and fell into the in- evitable clutches of the capitol police. Another curious figure at "the big house on the hill' is a. swarthy foreign CT, who plods about with long staff, his hair streaming over his shoulders, wearing sort of bag for @ hat, in which he carries his lunch and creden- tials. This old fellow has ,been work ing for some years on scheme for re- claiming the Potomac flats for a dis trlct reservation. In South Washing ton there dwells poor fellow in an old tumble-down house who has a mo- tion every presidential election that he is a candidate for on all other topics. he be- gins once in four years, as soon as the campaign fairly opens, to canvass his neighborhood for votes. The poor fel- low gets so wild on the subject that he | imagines he reads accounts of his suc- cess in the newspapers.
 George Dunlap is the son of very wealthy and respectable citizen of | Georgetown. By reason of his eccen- l lAiSiIiSS uc leIS CduSGu l1iS OuAOEluudtc family great modification. He wears in all seasons straw hat, white pan taloons, and a gray coat, but the pecu- liarity about his appearance which marks him for the public eye is the apparent deformity In his build, which he effects by padding his shoulders out about a foot on each side, making him look like an immense wooden block His sleeves are out so long they hide his hands, and as an addition to these self-infiicted disfigurements his black hair is always cut square around the front of his face, and he has been shaved so that the hair grows in a straight. black streak all the way, down the back of his neck. There does moi seem to be curve in any part of this strange creatures body, and when his tall form glides up the street. with his large envelopeds arms plastered down to his sides, lie presents . most wierd appearance. He is very wealthy and quite sane on some subjeots. but he has always padded his shoulders '