Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-30
Fifty Years Ago
In The Star

Washington today may look back to
the Washington of IS years ago and
| As Charles Dickens t tos Of T g S.ar.
Saw Washington. ago for com,
the present state OF the Capital by
means of the following. printed in
me star OF January %. 1877. under
the title, Washington Now and.
Thsn": alsHS aisRngsFsaa
I'm Charles Dickens American
Notes published just after a tour of
1.-THE United States in 1912, he devotes
considerable space TO a description Of
| w ashington as 1t appeared nearly 40
years ago. The author has been &C.
iverely censured in America for the url-
fairness Of his criticism In many In.
stances, and perhaps not unjustly So
Those who remember the Washington
of 40 wears ago will recognize much
truth in the following. which appears
in his Notes:
Take the worst parts Of the city
road and Pentonville or the struggling
outskirts of Paris, where the houses
are smallest. preserving all their oddl-
ties, but especially the small shops and
dwellings, occupied In Pentonville Gbut
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
plaster; widen it a little; throw in
part of st. Johns wood put green
blinds outside all the private houses,
with red curtain and white one in
every window; pillow up all the roads
plant great deal Of coarse turf in
every place where 1t 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 Post Office,
one the Patent ONCE and one
the Treasury; make 1t scorching hot
in the morning and freezing cold In
the afternoon. with an occasional tor
nado of wind and dust: leave a brick
field without the bricks in all central
places where a street may naturally
be expected-and that's Washington.
Spacious avenues that begin
in nothing and end nowhere; streets q
mile long, that only want houses,
roads and inhabitants: public buildings
that need but apublic to be complete.
and ornaments of great thoroughfares
which only lack great thoroughfares
to ornament--are it's leading features.
One might fancy the season over and
most of the houses gone out Of town
forever with their masters To the
admirers, of cities It is a Barmecide
feast, a pleasant field for the imagins-
ton to roam in; a monument raised to-
deceased project. without even a
legible inscription to record It's de-
parted greatness. It is very
unhealthy. Few people would live In
Washington. I take II, who were not
obliged to reside there, and the tides
OF emigration and speculation, those
rapid and regardless currents, are IT..
tie likely to flow at any time toward
such DUH and sluggish water
When Dickens returned to this
country seven or eight years aeo he
FOUND in most instances a complete
metamorphosis. not only In the social
but In the physical condition Of the
country--a metamorphosis which he
publicly and generously said he should
thereafter recognize by an appropriate
appendix to every copy OF his 'Aineri
can Notes But in no city which he
visited could he have been more sur
time he visited 1t. II was a struggling
town OF. but few inhabitants. the pcpu,
iation OF the entire District. then 10
miles square and including Alexandra.
being but about $4,000. He returned
after lapse of three decades to find
marvellous increase In the number
OF public and private buildings; to nnd
Well paved streets and avenues; 10
find stately structures usurping the
place of one-story tenements; to find
what he styled that most hideous blot
and foul disgrace. slavery no longer
In existence; to find the Capitol. which
when he first saw it was scarcely
superior to an ordinary statehouse.
completed and confessedly the finest
structure Of its kind in the world; and.
finally. to find a rambling village
grown into q. city Of over 100000 in
habitants. He also found that the I'M
healthy conditions existing, on his first
visit. no longer existed, and that sta
tistics proved. beyond cavii that the
Capital was one of. the healthiest
cities in the Union. It Is no wonder
that on his second visit. he saw
through different spectacles and was i
forced to recognize the vast irnprove. |
ment n .svcry phase Of our national |
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