Evening star., 1936-09-06
Fifty Years Ago
In The Star

Fifty years ago the custom prevailed in
Washington Of roping of portions of the
po~ city's streets in blocks where
1opeu-oH persons lay seriously Ill to
Streets. prevent disturbing noises,
this the request of attend
ing physicians. Though the traffic was
not in any degree as heavy then as now,
with motor cars far around the corner,
this practice evoked public protest. In
The Star of September II, 1886, is the
following interview with one of the
practicing physicians of Washington:
THE closing of streets by ropes
stretched from side to side because there
Is a case Of sickness in one of the
houses fronting on the space so shut in
is becoming serious nuisance. In many
cases there seems to be no necessity for
it. Some doctors who have a case of
infantile bellyache, before they COM
mence to treat the case seriously, hasten
to Capt. Griffin at the Office of the Com
miSsionerS and get the authority for
stretching ropes across the street. There
may be some instances where such pre-
cautions are necessary, but I have so
frequently met with these distractions
that am beginning to suspect that in
some cases the physician is looking to
his own advantage. Not long ago one
of the avenues on which the street cars
run was blockaded by ropes and boys
were employed to let the cars pass
through. In this case the carriage way
was paved with asphalt. which makes
an almost noiseless roadway, while be-
tween the rails the car horses travelled
on the cobblestcnes naturally making
considerable racket. The explanation Of
this circumstance seems to me to be that
the physician hoped to have attention
brought to the fact that he was attend
ing a very serious case, or perhaps It
was the undue anxiety Of the family"
X X
Every observant stranger who visits
Washington and explores the beautiful
c, northwest quarter" says
oapItais The Star of September H.,
Statues. 1886, must be struck with
the fact that all the new
statues in that part Of the city face
toward the south, and wonder whether
it is a simple coincidence or the result
of design. The greatest work of Nc
Pherson, Thomas. Dupont, Farragut and
Scott was done in the South, it is true,
but why should they. on that account.
be immortalized in bronze as always
going to their work and never coming
home. The older statues in the same
quarter and elsewhere do not face in
the direction of the chief fields of labor
or the most notable conquests Of the
heroes they represent. Mills Washing
ton faces the rising sun; Green and
jackson the setting. Greenough'S naked
eff1gy of the Father of His Country faces
the east doors of the Capitol. The eman-
cipation group in Lincoln Park face
westward also. It would be easy to
understand the theory upon which the
two Washingtons, Green and the Lin
coin of the emancipation group. face
as they do, as they are consistent with
the original plan on which the city was
laid out, the Capitol Building being the
center and everything else tributary to
it; but that this idea even was lost
sight Of more than a generation ago is
evident from the position of Mills
jackson, which turns its back fairly on
the Capitol and extends to the White
House only a passing salute. There is
no objection, from an artistic point of
view, to the position in which the newer
statues stand, and perhaps indeed there
is just little of the principle of COM
penSation involved in having the tide
of migration among ordinary humanity
all in one direction, and these monu-
ments of extraordinary patriotism and
genius all pointing in the opposite one."