The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-04-10

Correspondence The ST. Paul Globe.
NEW YORK, April S.-Pictures of
political life in Washington during the
administration of Jefferson are common
IN our own literature, but it is rare to
find them in the writings of English
men, No little interest, therefore, be
longs to the letters written from that
capital in 1904 by Augustus Foster, who
was attached to the British legation.
His letters appear in a new volume en-
titled The Two Duchesses," these
women being the beautiful duchesses
Of Devonshire, Georgiana and Eliza
beth, of whom writer's have often writ
ten and whose faces adorned more than
one canvas.
Mr.. Foster Is never complimentary
towards America. He is not even hope
full of our future, nor do good wishes
towards the republic shine out in his
correspondence. Washington he called
"a soi-disant city" You can have no
imagination of it," he adds, " it is so
unlike every other sort or description of
q heap of human abodes calling Itself
a city. This place looks like-what, in
fact, 1t is-an infant colony. Every
man has built his house of wood or
brick just where his fancy chose, so
that there are hardly six buildings to-
gether in the whole of this immense
space"
Introduced to Jefferson, he found him
very civil but he was told that others
who had been introduced to the presi-
dent received from him not a word. Mr..
Foster had no liking for what he saw
Of Jefferson's simplicity. His dress
and looks" says one of the letters, "are
extremely like a very plain farmer, and
he wears his slippers down at his heels.
Only think what must have been poor
n locI.
rassment when at his first audience he
went all bespeckled with the spangles
of our gaudish court dress. The door
opened suddenly, too; he thrust out his
hand to me as he does to everybody,
and desired me to sit down. Luckily
for me, 1 have been in Turkey, and
am quite at home in this primeVal
simplicity of manners"
Foster saw the second inauguration
of Jefferson and calls it "the installa-
ton of the successor Of Montezuma."
And he describes as follows the con-
illusions of the ceremony: His speech
was too low spoken to be heard we'll:
he then kissed the book and swore be-
fore the chief justice to be faithful to
the Constitution. then bowed and re-
tired. Then he received q levee, at
which all who chose attended. and even
toward the close blacks and dirty boys,
who drank his wine and lolled upon
his touches, before US all; the jingling
of a few pipes and drums finished the
day. There was nothing dignified in
the whole affair He is about sixty
five years old, and affects great plain
ness of dress and manners Unbounded
freedom reigns in this unbounded land,
and the shameless abuse in their pa
pers is not at all creditable to the coun-
try"
Elsewhere in the country Mr.. Foster
found nothing that was better to his
liking. In q letter to his mother, whom
he addresses as My dearest ma'-a
suggestion of adolescence which I be-
lieve is not borne out by the facts as to
our critics age-Mr. Foster writes: 81
do believe from my soul that from the
province of Maine to the boarders of
Florida you could not find thirty men
of truth, honor and integrity. Corrup-
ton, immortality, irreligion and above
all, self-interest, have corroded the
very pillars on which their liberty rests
Nothing is wanting but numbers and
q Caesar to change the boasting re-
public into a despotlsm of the worst
description. They have inherited our
faults without any Of our virtues that
I know of. They are free more from
the nature of their land than from their
laws, which are not enforced
Criticism Of this sort we now know
was. not uncommon in 1904 and even
later; for those were times when all
thought was changing. We had not
Yet passed out of the era in our his
tory which was most critical-more
critical politically than was the period
of the War Of the Revolution. Men
commonly do not understand this. They
remember only the critical times in
volved in the mention of Valley Forge,
the Jersey campaigns, the campaign
in the South. the treason of Arnold
But there was. perhaps, more uncer-