The herald., 1897-01-22

the limits of vision. Truly We are JUS
titled in the pride which all good Amer
leans feel in their stately capital. Evolv-
ed from the malarious bog that borders
the Potomac, as st. Petersburg, the I'M
perial residence of the autOcrat of all
the Russias, rose from the morasses of
the Neva, at the will of Peter the
Great-Washingto wears distinctly the
air of a capital which has risen to the
emergency and fulfilled the expectations
of those early dreamerS who century
before the first stone was laid, named
the little stream that has since been
diverted to the city's sewerage, the Tiber,
believing that greater city than Rome
would some day adorn it's banks. Wash
ington has this special charm above all
other places in the United States-that
while New York. Philadelphia, Chicago,
San Francisco, despite their numerous
points Of other than commercial inter-
est, are after all Work-aday cities the
Maiden Capital" as it has been called,
shows a gayer disposition and devotes
herself chiefly to social pleasure. 1t is
the difference between the Settled"
matron and the flrtatious maiden. To
again quote Lathrop: ITO the outsider
the difference is as between Irritation
and friendship. You may like, you may
love. the particular big, local capital
where you live and do business, but you
approach Washington with a sense of
its being something piquant and novel,
with which you may trifie and entangle
yourself in a make believe attachment,
having all the stimulus and none of the
drawbacks of a steady devotion
WITH THE THRONG.
Let us join the moving throng on
PENNSYLVANIA avenue this bright Win
ter afternoon. About 4 p M, the hour
when congress is supposed to 'let out,
everybody's face is turned eastward in
the promenade to meet the legislators
on their way down town. Though
stranger in the courts Of the nation,
you do not need to be told that the round
faced man sitting on the front of the
open cable car, though a cool, stiff
breeze is blowing, is Speaker Reed. HIS
caricatures in the daily papers have SO
hopelessly given him away that he who
runs may read him every time under
any disguise. And then, nobody but
man from the Arctic regions of Maine
would choose such a breezy perch on
a mid winter day. Speaker Reed and
Colonel Robert Ingersoll look enough
alike to be twin brothers-both of the
middle-aged- type, who would
make excellent models for cher
ubs, barring, the absence of wings
other night at a fashionable
theater Mr.. Reed occupied a prominent
place in a proscenium box, but for once
his cherubic countenance was overcast
with gloom. 1t was all on account of
too-zealous laundryman and low-cut
vest. Above the low-cut abomination
the shirt front, starched stiff as a shin
gle, bulged like a balloon, and rode high
err and higher until one momentarilv
expected to see the hem of the garment
in evidence. What reader of the mascu-
lire persuasion has not some time been
similarly afflicted, when there was no
chance for a single pull which would,
set matters straight? A greater con-
trast cannot we'll be imagined than in
those two southern congressman walk
ing side by side, Turner of Georgia ans
Wheeler of Alabama. The former is
slow, deliberate, sluggish and heavy,
surveying the world with owllike mien:
the latter a perfect Jack-in-the-box
worked on springs. Mr.. Wheeler is so
small in stature that he is almost lost
in the crowd, and one wonders how he
ever came to be famous as a great cav
airy leader, unless his very inability to
keep quiet forced him into action. He
rushes at conclusions, as at everything
else, with nervous, uncomfortable haste,
stroKing his unkempt beard while argu-
ing knotty point till all is blue. He
Is as ardent a silver Democrat as his
ohum, Mr.. Turner, is in favor of gold,
and the two are always quarreling
about 1t.
No. the gentleman ahead with the
smooth face and the Napoleonic cast of
countenance Is not the president elect,
az you mdght reasonably suppose, bur
Congressman Charles N. Flower from
New Jersey. That marked resemblance