The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-07-05
WHAT Do.
Public Buildings in Washington Are
Hacked by Souvenir Hunters.
Washington Evening Star.

Washington Evening Star.
Nearly every tourist who visits Washing
ton wants TO take away a souvenir. Souve-
mir stores in the national capital are as
plenty as saloons, but your rue souvenir
hunter wants something that he has culled
himself. By preference he will hammer.
hew or slice 1T of from some monument or
landmark. That is why il costs Uncle Sam
a young fortune TO guard his treasures of
history, wonder and beauty. Whatever
public building you enter, your cane, UNI
brella or whatever you may have that
would make a good hammer is taken from
you and checked; and at the Congressional
watched very closely. lest you might get an
opportunity to use your heels. These two
places are particularly enticing TO the van
DIAL. with all their statuary and carved
marble.
Unfortunately. the Washington moru-
ment has not been so we'll guarded, conse-
quently IL is badly SCARED by the depre-
dations of the souvenir fiends. Inside it
is very dim in spots, the light being sup
piled by an occasional ~incandescent lamp
along the stairway. II is in this atmos-
squares amid the blacks of a huge checker
board stand the memorial slabs presented
by the States in the Union at the time OF
the monuments erection, and by the So
cieties and organizations OF the country
wishing their names to be immortalized at
the national capital. There are more than
$50 of these. and many OF them are in a
distressful condition of mutilation. Miss
ing hands, arms. legs and drapery from
the StatUary bear eloquent witness TO the
appreciation of visitors who were so ia
vorably impressed with the monument that
they couldn't tear themselves away with
out taking something with them TO remem-
Der il by. Just exactly what value, real
or sentimental, the left ear lobe OF the
Goddess of Prosperity, for instance, can
have for any person is hard for a sane man
to understand. Somebody got it,, however.
When most CT the vandalism in the mon
ument occurred no one knows, but Ii prob
ably took place before the checking system
,r-ae +AArn- oarann1lfno 1 ~ 20 Va II
potential implements of destruction before
going up the monument. Great protest
against this order is made by the camera
fend, who generally wants TO take a bird =
eyeview of the city from the top of the
monument. But he has to do his best with
out his tripod, for that triple crowbar stays
below with the umbrellas and canes.
AT Mount Vernon there is a small army
of spoilers on the lookout for the worker
of souvenir iniquity. A quarter admission
is charged. and the money goes 10 eefray
the expense of guarding the place. In
WaShlngtcns old home there is one thing
that strikes the notice by its contrast to
the prevailing simplicity. 1t is the carved
mantelpiece or Carrara marble IN the din
ing room. One who is not a vandsl cannot
gaze upon it without matchmaking the
whole race OF relic seekers. Even with
watchers in every room some individual
managed 10 get in his work and knock
off the head of a galloping deer in the CEN
ter of the group. The animal remained
hcadless for months. Then one day back
came the head in a little box. posrnarked
Paris. The culprit had realized the evil OF
his ways. the villiany OF his vandalism.
said the accompanying note; 1T did not
occur to me in my own country, where
everything is so perfectly preserved, the
outrage that IL is to mutilate historic places
for relics. Here nothing is preserved. ev-
erything is Clipped and marred and broken
by travellers like myself. j return here
with, etc" S~igned-not at all.
The head was stuck on, the glue stained
the.marble, and the milk-white deer has a
yellow streak around his neck.