The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-11-23
THE SWEET GAME PIFF-PuFF.

THE SWEET GAME fIFE-PUEE.
 It is very much as if the President had return-play the Ambassador had ponged the Presidents ping, the which brings about condition of international amity altogether too utter: serving the purpose the perfectly charming new game of <"Pif- Puff," now taking the place Of the discarded ping-pong.
 The new pastime is a table game played with two miniature bellows (no reference to President ard Ambassador) and an air. ball tho reference to ''puffs') which Is of extremely Lightweight. At each end of the table are two upright goals. and lows the ball through the opponents goal. If you are very lucky, this may be done within few minutes, otherwise the bail may fly around all evening. One weary the ball fin no way, confines itself to the table, as too vigorous pun from the bellows may send 1t all about the room. when the player, wrathful in his to gently puff 1t back into place" There you are--nothng sillier. or rath- CT, simpler. The thing has struck Wash ington and presumably will soon be on its way Southward to take the place or the piano and the girl who can't-play-but- | will-try as refuge from ennui. CLEANSING THE MONEY PALACE
 All visitors to Washington are more or less familiar with the appearance or the thirty noble Corinthian columns Of stone that stand in the immense .portico of the great Treasury Building in that stretch of Fifteenth Street miscalled Penrsylvania Avenue. and doubtless ev- cry visitor of the past forty years car ried away recollections of the very dirty appearance of those columns in partic- uiar, and of the outside of the building in general.
 Well, you may proclaim n Gath and shout it in Askalon-the. noble columns and the majestic tuilding are being washed! Altogether there are about a hundred of the columns, some of which are solid shafts of stone, while others were erected in sections. In the South ern portico, for example, which Is the noblest architectural approach to a building in America. if not in the world, a number of hatf-columns guarding vari- o1s angles of the building.
 The device for cleansing the exterior of the greatest. and dirtfest, of all of our national palaces is very novel. The work, which was begun yesterday after weeks spent In structural repairs of the building, attracts the attention of every passerby. In the street, by the curb toned a large wagon, covered much like a farm wagon on a rainy day. On this wagon is an engine and boiler of appar- an air pump. from which leads a two- inch hosepipe connecting with an iron vessel in the hands of a workman sus- pended from the edge of the roof in a canvas cage that has a wide plank for floor. This vessel looks precisely like the oldtime chemical tanks used by fire departments for fighting fire. being strapped to the shoulders of fremen, and it is filled with some chemical prepara- tion that is driven against the stone sur face by the air from the pump, through nozzle guided by the workman. The effect is almost magical, the stone being instantly cleansed of dirt and restored to it's natural color, which is found to be lght-brown, of almost a creamy shade.
 Possibly no man lives who remembers what was the natural shade of those columns when they were placed in posi- ton. The work of cleansing, which is being carried out by Chicago contractors, will cost many thousands of dollars but all Americans who visit Washington be- fore dirt again defiles the noblest of buildings, will rejoice that Secretary Shaw undertook what a generation of his predecessors neglected, or were afraid to undertake. It is astonishing that building in the cleanest. least dusty least smoky city in the world should accumu- late so much dirt upon its exterior. This afternoon thousands of people watched the proces of cleansing, which may re- Quire months to complete