The National tribune., 1900-02-01
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BY MARY S. LOCKWOOD.
Growth Of the Capital City from Provincial Town
Copyrighted, 1sss by The NATIONAL TRIBUNE

where the houses are smallest, preserving
all their oddities, but especially the small
shops and dwellings occupied in Penton-
vile (but not in Washington by furniture
brokers, keepers of poor eating houses
and fanciers of birds. Burn the whole
down, build it up again in wood and plas-
ter. widen it little throw in a part of St
Johns wood, put green blinds outside all
the private houses, with a red curtain and
white one in every window, plow up all
the roads, plant plat of great coarse turf
in every place where it ought not to
be- erect three handsome buildings in
stone and marble anywhere, but the
more entirely out of everybody's way the
better; call one the Postoffice, one the
Patent Office and one the Treasury; make
it scorching hot in the morning and
freezing cold in the afternoon, with an
occasional tornado of wind and DUST leave
brick fields without the bricks in all central
places where street may naturally be ex-
pected, and that's Washington.
81 walk to the front window and look
across the road upon long, struggling row
of houses one story high terminating
nearly opposite, but a little to the left, in
a melancholy piece of waste ground with
| frowzy grass, which looks like n small
piece of country that has taken to drinking
and has quite lost ITSELF standing anyhow
and all wrong ugon this open space. like
something meteoric that has fallen down
from the moon, is an odd, lopsided one
eyed kind of wooden building that looks
like church, with a flagstaff as long as
itself sticking out of a steeple something
larger than a tea-chest. Under the win
dow is small stand of coaches, whose
slave drivers are summing themselves and
talking idly"
If he knew, Mr.. Dickens does not say
whether these slaves We're any of the i'm
portation sent over by Mother England.
The three most obtrusive houses near
at hand" he continues, "are the three
meanest On one-a shop which never
has anything in the window. and never has
the door open-is painted in large letters
The City Lunch At another, which looks
like back way to somewhere else, but is
an Independent building in itself, oysters
can beprocured in every style At the third,
which is very, very little tailOr's shop,
pants are fixed to order; or, in other words,
pantaloons are made to measure. And
that is our street in Washington! 8
There are spacious avenues that begin
in nothing and lead nowhere; streets mile
long that only want houses, roads and in
habitants; public buildings that need but
public to complete, and ornaments of great
thoroughfares which only need great
thoroughfares to ornament-these are its
leading features. To an admirer Of cities
it is Barmecide feast. Such as it is, it is
likely to remain"
Shade of the mighty Dickens! ready
writer but no prophet. We wish that you
could stand on the terrace of the grand old
Capitol to-day and see the naturalization
of the hopes and ambitions of Washington,
Adams and Jefferson, and be witness to
the fading out of your prophesy. In place
of it is the Capitol, crowned with its per-
feet and far-seen dome, and Columbia at
the apex welcoming the nations of the
earth; its grand terraces, beautiful plaza,
magnificent vistas, the Library east Of it,
the Botanical Gardens at the west, the
White House in the distance and the resi-
Dental portion in stately structures stretch
ing over the beautiful valley, the imposing