Year: 1870

TtpdSt Vi bcd UeTThpIH anu


champagne my very bowels yearn for him


Laughter. And when l see him performing


perhaps the only duty for whictrhe is fully


competent-signing the receipt for his


monthly pay-I am so overwhelmed with


pity for his miserable condition that | wish


[ were in his place. GGreat laughter


When such considerations as these, sir, have


come crowding upon my mind, appealing to


every generous sentiment of my better ma


ture when have thought how the official


nerves of our poor neglected public servants


are racked by q" the car rattling DER the


stony street." have felt, under the sudden


impulse of the moment, that we ought to


tear up the old cobble-s stone pavement on the


avenue and supply its place with one of the


new-fashioned patent wooden ones, over


which the splendid carriages of our Govern


ment officials with their coats of arms and


liveried outriders might glide as smoothly


and noiselessly as the erial car of the fairy
queen through the rose-tinted clouds of the


upper ether. Applause and laughter.


But, alas, the House is estopped, Mr..
Chairman. bE its own action to entsEtain. any
friend from Ohio Mr.. MUNGENl some time
ago offered a resolution inquiring how many
carriages, horses, harness, and other trap
pings of nobility the Government furnished
it's officials at i is own expense, it was prompt
ly rejected, on the ground, as | supposed =,


that it was a great State secret, and that it
should not even be hinted to the plebian tax


payers in the country that our Government
officials here ever rode in carriages at all g,


but that they should be left to indulge the


innocent illusion that their selEsacriicing


servants here at - the capital of the nation, !"
bowed down by the cares of State or the


painful burdens Of their own ponderous in
tellects, plod slowly along, with eyes bent
upon the ground, while their hearts are with
the loved ones far away. Laughter.


Sir, | would like to meet one of your con-
stituents (Mr. PAINE in the chair) in his suit
of homespun butternut-pardon me, L be-
lieve some wear butternut in YOUR State
I Laughter. | say l would like to meet one
of your honest hearted. patriotic old constit-
uents, who feels an honest pride in the fan
cied simplicity and purity of our republican
form of government, down here at the junction
of Pennsylvania avenue and Seventh street,
where the one-legged veteran with his hand
organ grinds out his wailiDg appeal to the
charity of his patriotic countrymen as they
pass, when some gentleman high in authority
sweeps by in his splendid ph9tOn behind a
spanking span of thOrough-breds, driven by
a funky dressed in a drab overcoat and
stove pipe hat, with a silver buckle in front
of it almost as big as a garden gate. Laugh
ter. l would like to see him open his eyes
and stare at the passing pageant. l think |
can see him now watching the glitteriDg
equipage. AS it fades away in the dim per-
spectlve the old man turns slowly away,
muttering - SIC transit gloria muHdi, and
the MANNED soldier strikes up, " That's the
way the money goes pop goes the weasel -


Yes, sir | would like to accommodate
our ofice-h holders with smooth and COM
modious pavement; but as | honestly think
we cannot the best advice | can give them
is, if they cannot stand it to resign. The
whole country will approve their indignant
resolution. Laughter


But, Mr.. Chairman, in my judgment there
is more in this measure than seems to b9
visible on the surface. | think, sir, it con-
tains the materials for another of those never
ending repasts for the hungry flock of small
Retains rS> no hover like Vultures about ta-s
capital to prey on governmental garbage, and
for which there must be paid out of the pub
lie Trea an unlimited amount of money.
Lay not, | beseech you, the hattering JUNCTION
to your soul that because the amount to be
in this project appears to be limited
to $50 ,OUO, that it will stop there. | tell
you there is no power short of an Omniscient
Providence that can foretell what the Gov
will eventually have to pay for the (
Improvement of this avenue if it undertakes
it at all. 1t is true, that assisted by the
wonderful powers of science, the astronomer
can sit in his closet and tell precisely at what
and at what particular part of the
sidereal heavens comet will reappear, who
has been absent a thousand years on his
pathless pilgrimage through the wilderness
Of space, and true to the very letter of the
prophecy his fiery train flashes upon our Vi
sion. He tells us there hangs upon the con-
fines of our system a nameless planet, so far
away in the dim regions of the outer universe
that mortal eye hath never seen it. We turn
the telescope upon the point he indicates,
and there is the stranger world, which has
swept on in silent grandeur unseen by man
since creations morning dawn. He predicts
a total eclipse of the sun a hundred years in
the future, and names the exact time and
place upon the earth at which the sublime
phenomenon will first be seen, and, whether
it be upon the costly icebergs of Alaska or
the blood stained soil of suffering Cuba,
punctual to the second the gigantic shadow
falls upon the precise spot he indicates. But,
sir, to foretell what any public improvement
about this city will cost or when it will be
finished not only defes the highest powers
of mathematics. but is beyond the utmost
range of human conjecture itself. [Great
Laughter.


Sc When the stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years."


then, and not till then, may you expect to
see one of these Government Jobs completed
and the last deficiency bill passed to pay for
it. Laughter. To some gentlemen this
language may sound like byperbole, but |
would ask them to show me one single Gov
ernment job around this city that has yet
been finished. There is the Washington
aqueduct, to which | alluded while ago.
That work was commenced under an appro-
priatiOn made eighteen years ago, and nearly
every Congress since that time has made ap-
preparations, every one of which was consid


fe sei4ifffat ten ea%Pps5fhtinnn PISA aaRil
or quite three millions and a quarter of
money. Yet, notwithstanding the work has,
since Ihave known anything about it, been
under the supervision of the most skillful
and faithful engineers, who, am glad to
say, L believe have performed their duty
and well, it is to-day unfinished.


But If this will not satisfy the most incred-
ulous that speak within the bounds of sober
reason, | would ask how much has been ex-
pended and still remains to be expended in
the improvement of this building and the
grounds Immediately around it, and when
they will likely be completed? Sir, when |
look out upon these Capitol grounds, and see
one-half of the year occupied in wheeling
back upon these terraces the dirt which has
washed down during the other half, some
times think that when Virgil wrote his de-
scription of the punishment of Sisyphus in
hell he must have had sort of prophetic
eye upon the superintendent of this Capitol
extension. tGreat laughter


The fact is, when 1 came here three years
ago, and saw the scorpion scourge of Tisiphone
applied without mercy to every one even
suspected of rebel sympathies when saw
the pale images of Washington, Hancock.
Jefferson, Hamilton, and other dead heroes
and sages looking out upon me with their
dull cold eyes from every niche of this Capt.
tol, while fancied that the ghosts of MUIR
dered States were fitting through every