Read Ebook: Ten Years in Washington or Inside Life and Scenes in Our National Capital as a Woman Sees Them ... to Which Is Added a Full Account of the Life and Death of President James A. Garfield by Clemmer Mary Shipley J L Contributor

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The Dollar with the Counters--In the Tubs--Getting a Wetting--Servants of Necessity--That Scorching Roof--Brown Paper Bonnets--A State of Dampness--Squaring Accounts--Superintending the Work--The Face-printing Division--The United States "Sealer"--Printing Cigar-Stamps and Gold-Notes of Many Colors--With a Begrimed Face--The Fiery Little Brazier--What the Man Does--The Woman's Work--The Automatic Register--An Observer Without a Soul--Our Damp Little Dollar--The Drying Room--The First Wrinkles--Looking Wizened and Old--Rejuvenating a Dollar--Underneath Two Hundred and Forty Tons--Smooth and Polished--Precious to the Touch--A Virgin Dollar--The "Sealer" at Work--Mutilated Paper--What the Women are paid--The Surface-Sealing Division--Seal Printing--The Aristocratic Green Seal--The Numbering Division--Dividing the Dollars--Snowy Aprons and Delicate Ribbons--Needling the Sheet--A Blade that Does not Fail--Sorting the Notes--The Manipulation of the Ladies--The Dollar "In its Little Bed"--Dollar on Dollar--"Awaiting the Final Call," 317

THE LAST DAYS OF A DOLLAR.

THE GREAT CASH-ROOM--THE WATCH-DOG OF THE TREASURY.

No Need for Dirty Money--The Flowers of July--Money Affairs--The Great Cash-Room--Its Marble Glories--A Glance Inside--The Beautiful Walls--A Good Deal of Very Bad Taste--Only Made of Plaster--"The Watch Dog" of the Treasury--The Custodian of the Cash--A Broken-nosed Pitcher--Ink for the Autographs--His Ancient Chair--"The General"--"Crooked, Crotchety, and Great-hearted"--"Principles" and Pantaloons--Below the Surface--An Unpaintable Face--An Object of Personal Curiosity--Dick and Dolly pay the General a Visit--How the Thing is Done--Getting his Autograph--A Specimen for the Folks at Home--Where the Treasurer Sleeps--Going the Round at Night--Making Assurance Sure--Awakened by a Strong Impression--Sleepless--In the "Small Hours"--Finding the Door Open--A Careless Clerk--The Care of Eight Hundred Millions--On the Alert--The Auditors--The Solicitor's Office--The Light-House Board--The Coast Survey--Internal Revenue Department, 339

WOMAN'S WORK IN THE DEPARTMENTS--WHAT THEY DO AND HOW THEY DO IT.

Women Experts in the Treasury--Their Superiority to Men--Money Burnt in the Chicago Fire--Cases of Valuable Rubbish--Identifying Burnt Greenbacks--The Ashes of the Boston Fire--From the Bottom of the Mississippi--Mrs. Patterson Saves a "Pile" of Money--Money in the Toes of Stockings--In the Stomachs of Men and Beasts--From the Bodies of the Murdered and Drowned--One Hundred and Eighty Women at Work--"The Broom Brigade"--Scrubbing the Floors--Stories which Might be Told--Meditating Suicide--The Struggle of Life--How a Thousand Women are Employed--Speaking of Their Characters--Miss Grundy of New York--Women of Business Capacity--A Lady as Big as Two Books!--A Disgrace to the Nation--Working for Two, Paid for One--Beaten by a Woman--The Post-Office Department--Folding "Dead Letters"--A Woman Who has Worked Well--"Sorrow Does Not Kill"--The Patent Office--Changes Which Should be Made, 350

WOMEN'S WORK IN THE TREASURY--HOW APPOINTMENTS ARE MADE.

GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL LIFE--HOW PLACE AND POWER ARE WON.

THE DEAD-LETTER OFFICE--ITS MARVELS AND MYSTERIES.

The Post-Office--The Postal Service In Early Times--The First Postmaster General--The Present Chief--A Cabinet Minister--The Subordinate Officers--Their Positions and Duties--The Ocean Mail Postal Service--The Contract Office--The Finance Office--The Inspection Office--Complaints and Misdoings--One Hundred and Twenty Years Ago--Franklin Performs Wonderful Works--His Ideas of Speed--Between Boston and Philadelphia in Six Weeks--Dismissed from Office--A New Post-Office System--The Inspector of Dead Letters--Only Seventy-five Offices in the States--Only One Clerk--Government Stages--The Office at Washington--Franklin's Old Ledger--The Present Number of Post-Offices--The Dead Letter Office--The Ladies Too Much Squeezed--Opening the Dead Letters--Why Certain Persons are Trusted--Three Thousand Thoughtless People--Valuable Letters--Ensuring Correctness--The Property Branch--The Touching Story of the Photographs--The Return Branch--What the Postmaster Says, 388

THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR--UNCLE SAM'S DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS.

Inadequate Accommodation in Heaven--Valuable Documents--In Jeopardy--Talk of Moving the Capital--Concerning Certain Idiots--A Day in the Patent Office--The Inventive Genius of the Country--Division of Indian Affairs--Lands and Railroads--Pensions and Patents--The Superintendent of the Building--The Secretary of the Interior and his Subordinates--Pensions and Their Recipients--Indian Affairs--How the Savages are Treated--Over Twenty--One Million of Dollars Credited to their Little Account--The Census Bureau--A Rather Big Work--The Bureau of Patents--What is a Patent?--A Few Dollars Over--The Use Made of a Certain Brick Building--Cutting Down the Ladies' Salaries--Making Places for Useful Voters--A Sweet Prayer for Delano's Welfare, 407

THE PENSION BUREAU--HOW GOVERNMENT PAYS ITS SERVANTS.

Sneering at Red Tape--The Division of Labor--Scrutinizing Petitions--A Heavy Paper Jacket--Invalids, Widows, and Minors--The Examiner of Pensions--How Claims are Entertained and Tested--What is Recorded in the Thirty Enormous Volumes--How Many Genuine Cases are Refused--One of the Inconveniences of Ignorance--The Claim Agent Gobbles up the Lion's Share--An Extensive Correspondence--How Claims are Mystified, and Money is Wasted--Seventy-five Thousand Claims Pending--The Reward of Fourteen Days' Service--The Sum Total of What the Government has Paid in Pensions--The Largest and the Smallest Pension Office--The Miscellaneous Branch--Investigating Frauds--A Poor "Dependent" Woman with Forty Thousand Dollars--How "Honest and Respectable" People Defraud the Government--The Medical Division--Examining Invalids--The Restoration-Desk--The Appeal-Desk--The Final-Desk--The Work that Has Been Done--One Hundred and Fifty Thousand People Grumbling--The Wrath of a Pugnacious Captain, 418

TREASURES AND CURIOSITIES OF THE PATENT OFFICE--THE MODEL ROOM--ITS RELICS AND INVENTIONS.

The Patent Office Building--The Model Room--"The Exhibition of the Nation"--A Room Two Hundred and Seventy Feet in Length--The Models--Wonders and Treasures of the Room--Benjamin Franklin's Press--Model Fire-Escapes--Wonderful Fire-Extinguishers--The Efforts of Genius--Sheep-Stalls, Rat-Traps, and Gutta Percha--An Ancient Mariner's Compass--Captain Cook's Razor--The Atlantic Cable--The Signatures of Emperors--An Extraordinary Turkish Treaty--Treasures of the Orient--Rare Medals--The Reward of Major Andre's Captors--The Washington Relics--His Old Tent--His Blankets and Bed-Curtains--His Chairs and Looking-Glass--His Primitive Mess-Chest and old Tin Plates--Model of an Extraordinary Boat--Abraham Lincoln as an Inventor--The Hat Worn on the Fatal Night--The Gift of the Tycoon--The Efforts of Genius--A Machine to Force Hens to Lay Eggs--A Hook for Fishing Worms out of the Human Stomach, 436

THE BUREAU OF PATENTS--CRAZY INVENTORS AND WONDERFUL INVENTIONS

THE WAR DEPARTMENT.

The Secretary-of-War--His Duties--The Department of the Navy--The Custody of the Flags--Patriotic Trophies--The War of the Rebellion--Captured Flags--An Ugly Flag and a Strange Motto--The Stars and Stripes--The Black Flag--No Quarter--The Washington Aqueduct--Topographical Engineers--The Ordnance Bureau--The War Department Building--During the War--Lincoln's Solitary Walk--Secretary Stanton--The Exigencies of War--The Medical History of the War--Dr. Hammond--Dr. J. H. Baxter--The Inspection of over Half a Million Persons--Who is Unfit for Military Service--Curious Calculations Respecting Height, Health, and Color, 460

THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM--ITS CURIOSITIES AND WONDERS.

Ford's Theatre--Its Interesting Memories--The Last Festivities--Assassination of President Lincoln--Two Years Later--Effects of "War, Disease, and Human Skill"--Collection of Pathological Specimens--The Army Medical Museum opened--Purchase of Ford's Theatre--Ghastly Specimens--A Book Four Centuries Old--Rare Old Volumes--The Most Interesting of the National Institutions--Various Opinions--Effects on Visitors--An Extraordinary Withered Arm--A Dried Sioux Baby!--Its Poor Little Nose--A Well-dressed Child--Its Buttons and Beads--Casts of Soldier-Martyrs--Making a New Nose--Vassear's Mounted Craniums--Model Skeletons--A Giant, Seven Feet High--Skeleton of a Child--All that remains of Wilkes Booth, the Assassin--Fractures by Shot and Shell--General Sickles Contributes His Quota--A Case of Skulls--Arrow-head Wounds--Nine Savage Sabre-Cuts--Seven Bullets in One Head--Phenomenal Skulls--A Powerful Nose--An Attempted Suicide--A Proverb Corrected--Specimen from the Paris Catacombs--Typical Heads of the Human Race--Remarkable Indian Relics--"Flatheads"--The Work of Indian Arrows--An Extraordinary Story--A "Pet" Curiosity--A Japanese Manikin--Tattooed Heads--Adventure of Captain John Smith--A "Stingaree"--The Microscopical Division--Preparing Specimens, 475

"OLD PROBABILITIES'" WORKSHOP--HOW WEATHER CALCULATIONS ARE MADE.

THE NAVY DEPARTMENT--THE UNITED STATES OBSERVATORY--THE STATE DEPARTMENT.

The Navy-Yards and Docks--Equipment of Vessels--Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography--The Naval Observatory--The Bureau of Medicine--Interesting Statistics--The Navy Seventy Years Ago--Instructions of the Great Napoleon--Keeping Pace with England--Scene from the Observatory--Peeping through the Telescope--The Mountains in the Moon--The Largest Telescope in the World--The Chronometers of the Government--The Test of Time--Chronometers on Trial--The Wind and Current Charts--The Good Deeds of Lieutenant Maury--"The Habits of the Whale"--The Equatorial--A Self-acting Telescope--The Transit Instrument--The Great Astronomical Clock--Telling Time by Telegraph--Hearing the Clock Tick Miles Away--The Transit of Venus--Great Preparations--A Trifle of Half-a-Million of Miles--A Little Secret Suggestion--Pardons and Passports, 507

INSIDE THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE--THE STORY OF A "PUB. DOC."--WOMEN WORKERS.

The Largest Printing Establishment in the World--The Celebrated "Pub. Doc."--A Personal Experience--What the Nation's Printing Costs--A Melancholy Fact--Two Sides of the Question--Printing a Million Money-Orders--The Stereotype Foundry--A Few Figures--The Government Printing-Office--A Model Office--Aiding Human Labor--Working by Machinery--The Ink-Room--The Private Offices--Mr. Clapp's Comfortable Office--The Proof-Reading Room--The Workers There--The Compositor's Room--The Women-Workers--Setting Up Her Daily Task--The Tricks and Stratagems of Correspondents--A Private Press in the White House--Acres of Paper--Specimens of Binding--Specimen Copies--Binding the Surgical History of the War--The Ladies Require a Little More Air--Delicate Gold-Leaf Work--The Folding-Room--An Army of Maidens--The Stitching-Room--The Needles of Women--A Busy Girl at Work--"Thirty Cents Apiece"--Getting Used to It--The Girl Over Yonder--The Manual Labor System--Preparing "Copy"--"Setting Up"--Making-Up "Forms"--Reading "Proof"--The Press-Room--Going to Press--Folding, Stitching, and Binding--Sent Out to "The Wide, Wide World." 520

INSIDE THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--ITS TREASURES OF ART AND SCIENCE--THE LARGEST COLLECTION IN THE WORLD.

Strange Story of James Smithson--A Good Use of Money--Seeking the Diffusion of Knowledge--Catching a Tear from a Lady's Cheek--Analysis of the Same Tear--A Brief Tract on Coffee-Making--James Smithson's Will--Praiseworthy Efforts of Robert Dale Owen--The Bequest Accepted--The Plan of the Institution--Its Intent and Object--The Smithsonian Reservation--The Smithsonian Building--The Museum--Treasures of Art and Science--The Results of Thirty Government Expeditions--The Largest Collection in the World--Valuable Mineral Specimens--All the Vertebrated Animals of North America--Classified Curiosities--The Smithsonian Contributions--Its Advantages and Operations--Results--The Agricultural Bureau--Its Plan and Object--Collecting Valuable Agricultural Facts--Helping the Purchaser of a Farm--The Expenses of the Bureau--The Library--Nature-Printing--In the Museum--The Great California Plank--Vegetable Specimens, 533

OLD HOMES AND HAUNTS OF WASHINGTON--MEMORIES OF OTHER DAYS.

MOUNT VERNON--MEMORIAL DAY--ARLINGTON.

THE LIFE AND CAREER OF JAMES A. GARFIELD, THE MARTYRED PRESIDENT.

The National Republican Convention of 1880--Nomination of James A. Garfield as President Hayes's successor--The History of His Life--His Humble Home--Death of His Father--Hardship and Privations of Pioneer Life--Struggles of His Mother to Support the Family--Splitting Fence Rails with her own Hands--The Future President's Early School Days--Working as a Carpenter--Chopping Wood for a Living--Leaving Home--Life as a Canal Boat Boy--Narrow Escapes--Beginning His Education in Earnest--School Life at Chester--How He Paid His Own Way--First Meeting with His Future Wife--Early Religious Experience--Enters Williams College--Professor and President--His First Appearance in Politics--His Brilliant Military Record--His Services at Shiloh, Corinth, and Chickamauga--His Congressional Career--Republican Leader of the House of Representatives--He is Elected to the United States Senate--His Appearance as the Leader of the Sherman Forces at the Chicago Convention--He is Himself Nominated amid the Wildest Enthusiasm--An Exciting Campaign--His Triumphant Election, 588

THE HISTORY OF THE ASSASSINATION AND DEATH OF PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD--THE GREAT TRAGEDY OF THE AGE.

Inauguration of President Garfield--Kissing His Venerable Mother--Chief Magistrate of Fifty Million People--Illness of Mrs. President Garfield--Tender Solicitude of the President for the Welfare of His Wife--She Goes to Long Branch--The President's Plans to Meet Her--His Arrival at the Depot of the Baltimore and Potomac R. R. at Washington--His Buoyant Spirits--Joyous Anticipation of Meeting His Wife--The Assassin Lying in Wait--The Fatal Shot--Tremendous Excitement--The Wounded President--His Assassin, Charles J. Guiteau--Who He is--His Infamous Appearance and Character--His Cool Deliberation--His Capture and Imprisonment--A Thrill of Horror Throughout the Country--Removal of the President to the White House--Arrival of Mrs. Garfield--Her Courage and Devotion--The Fight for Life--Anxious Days--Removal of the Wounded President to Long Branch--A Remarkable Ride--Great Anxiety Throughout the Country--Fighting Death--Slowly Sinking--After Eighty Days of Unparalleled Suffering the President Breathes His Last--Grief and Gloom throughout the Land--The Whole Civilized World in Tears--Unprecedented Funeral and Memorial Honors--His Burial at Cleveland--Attendance of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand People--His Life and Character Reviewed, 606

Ten Years in Washington.

The Young Surveyor's Dream--Humboldt's View of Washington--A Vision of the Future Capital--The United States Government on Wheels--Ambitious Offers--The Rival Rivers--Potomac Wins--Battles in Congress--Patriotic Offers of Territory--Temporary Lodgings for Eleven Years--Old-Fashioned Simplicity--He Couldn't Afford Furniture--A Great Man's Modesty--Conflicting Claims--Smith Backs Baltimore--A Convincing Fact--The Dreadful Quakers--A Condescending Party--A Slight Amendment--An Old Bill Brought to Light Again--The Indian Place with the Long Name--Secession Threatened--The Future Strangely Foreshadowed--A Dinner of Some Consequence--How it was Done--Really a Stranger--A Nice Proposal--Sweetening the Pill--A "Revulsion of Stomach"--Fixed on the Banks of the Potomac.

More than a century ago a young surveyor, Captain of the Virginia troops, camped with Braddock's forces upon the hill now occupied by the Washington Observatory, looked down as Moses looked from Nebo upon the promised land, until he saw growing before his prophetic sight the city of the future, the Capital of a vast and free people then unborn. This youth was George Washington. The land upon which he gazed was the undreamed of site of the undreamed of city of the Republic, then to be. This youth, ordained of God to be the Father of the Republic, was the prophet of its Capital. He foresaw it, he chose it, he served it, he loved it; but as a Capital he never entered it.

Gazing from the green promontory of Camp Hill, what was the sight of land and water upon which the youthful surveyor looked down? It was fair to see, so fair that Humboldt declared after traveling around the earth, that for the site of a city the entire globe does not hold its equal. On his left rose the wooded hights of Georgetown. On his right, the hills of Virginia stretched outward toward the ocean. From the luxurious meadows which zoned these hills, the Potomac River--named by the Indians Cohonguroton, River of Swans--from its source in the Alleghany Mountains, flowing from north-west to south-west, here expanded more than the width of a mile, and then in concentrated majesty rolled on to meet Chesapeake Bay, the river James, and the ocean. South and east, flowing to meet it, came the beautiful Anacostin, now called Eastern Branch, and on the west, winding through its picturesque bluffs, ran the lovely Rock Creek, pouring its bright waters into the Potomac, under the Hights of Georgetown. At the confluence of these two rivers, girdled by this bright stream, and encompassed by hills, the young surveyor looked across a broad amphitheatre of rolling plain, still covered with native oaks and undergrowth. It was not these he saw. His prescient sight forecast the future. He saw the two majestic rivers bearing upon their waters ships bringing to these green shores the commerce of many nations. He saw the gently climbing hills crowned with villas, and in the stead of oaks and undergrowth, broad streets, a populous city, magnificent buildings, outrivaling the temples of antiquity--the Federal City, the Capital of the vast Republic yet to be! The dreary camp, the weary march, privation, cold, hunger, bloodshed, revolution, patient victory at last, all these were to be endured, outlived, before the beautiful Capital of his future was reached. Did the youth foresee these, also? Many toiling, struggling, suffering years bridged the dream of the young surveyor and the first faint dawn of its fulfillment.

After the Declaration of Independence, before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, its government moved slowly and painfully about on wheels. As the exigencies of war demanded, Congress met at Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton, and New York. During these troubled years it was the ambition of every infant State to claim the seat of government. For this purpose New York offered Kingston; Rhode Island, Newport; Maryland, Annapolis; Virginia, Williamsburg.

June 21, 1783, Congress was insulted at Philadelphia by a band of mutineers, which the State authorities could not subdue. The body adjourned to Princeton; and the troubles and trials of its itinerancy caused the subject of a permanent national seat of government to be taken up and discussed with great vehemence from that time till the formation of the Constitution. The resolutions offered, and the votes taken in these debates, indicate that the favored site for the future Capital lay somewhere between the banks of the Delaware and the Potomac--"near Georgetown," says the most oft-repeated sentence. October 30, 1784, the subject was discussed by Congress, at Trenton. A long debate resulted in the appointment of three commissioners, with full power to lay out a district not exceeding three, nor less than two miles square, on the banks of either side of the Delaware, for a Federal town, with power to buy soil and to enter into contracts for the building of a Federal House, President's house, house for Secretaries, etc.

Notwithstanding the adoption of this resolution, these Commissioners never entered upon their duties. Probably the lack of necessary appropriations did not hinder them more than the incessant attempts made to repeal the act appointing the Commissioners, and to substitute the Potomac for the Delaware, as the site of the anticipated Capital. Although the name of President Washington does not appear in these controversies, even then the dream of the young surveyor was taking on in the President's mind the tangible shape of reality. First, after the war for human freedom and the declaration of national independence, was the desire in the heart of George Washington that the Capital of the new Nation whose armies he had led to triumph, should rise above the soil of his native Dominion, upon the banks of the great river where he had foreseen it in his early dream. That he used undue influence with the successive Congresses which debated and voted on many sites, not the slightest evidence remains, and the nobility of his character forbids the supposition. But the final decision attests to the prevailing potency of his preferences and wishes, and the immense pile of correspondence which he has left behind on the subject, proves that next to the establishment of its independence, was the Capital of the Republic dear to the heart of George Washington. May 10, 1787, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Georgia voted for, and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland against the proposition of Mr. Lee of Virginia, that the Board of Treasury should take measures for erecting the necessary public buildings for the accommodation of Congress, at Georgetown, on the Potomac River, as soon as the soil and jurisdiction of said town could be obtained.

Many and futile were the battles fought by the old Congress, for the site of the future Capital. These battles doubtless had much to do with Section 8, Article 1, of the Constitution of the United States, which declares that Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district as may, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States. This article was assented to by the convention which framed the Constitution, without debate. The adoption of the Constitution was followed spontaneously by most munificent acts on the part of several States. New York appropriated its public buildings to the use of the new government, and Congress met in that city April 6, 1789. On May 15, following, Mr. White from Virginia, presented to the House of Representatives a resolve of the Legislature of that State, offering to the Federal government ten miles square of its territory, in any part of that State, which Congress might choose as the seat of the Federal government. The day following, Mr. Seney presented a similar act from the State of Maryland. Memorials and petitions followed in quick succession from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The resolution of the Virginia Legislature begged for the co-operation of Maryland, offering to advance the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to the use of the general government toward erecting public buildings, if the Assembly of Maryland would advance two-fifths of a like sum. Whereupon the Assembly of Virginia immediately voted to cede the necessary soil, and to provide seventy-two thousand dollars toward the erection of public buildings. "New York and Pennsylvania gratuitously furnished elegant and convenient accommodations for the government" during the eleven years which Congress passed in their midst, and offered to continue to do the same. The Legislature of Pennsylvania went further in lavish generosity, and voted a sum of money to build a house for the President. The house which it built was lately the University of Pennsylvania. The present White House is considered much too old-fashioned and shabby to be the suitable abode of the President of the United States. A love of ornate display has taken the place of early Republican simplicity. When George Washington saw the dimensions of the house which the Pennsylvanians were building for the President's Mansion, he informed them at once that he would never occupy it, much less incur the expense of buying suitable furniture for it. In those Spartan days it never entered into the head of the State to buy furniture for the "Executive Mansion." Thus the Chief Citizen, instead of going into a palace like a satrap, rented and furnished a modest house belonging to Mr. Robert Morris, in Market street. Meanwhile the great battle for the permanent seat of government went on unceasingly among the representatives of conflicting States. No modern debate, in length and bitterness, has equalled this of the first Congress under the Constitution. Nearly all agreed that New York was not sufficiently central. There was an intense conflict concerning the relative merits of Philadelphia and Germantown; Havre de Grace and a place called Wright's Ferry, on the Susquehanna; Baltimore on the Patapsco, and Connogocheague on the Potomac. Mr. Smith proclaimed Baltimore, and the fact that its citizens had subscribed forty thousand dollars for public buildings. The South Carolinians cried out against Philadelphia because of its majority of Quakers who, they said, were eternally dogging the Southern members with their schemes of emancipation. Many others ridiculed the project of building palaces in the woods. Mr. Gerry of Massachusetts declared that it was the hight of unreasonableness to establish the seat of government so far south that it would place nine States out of the thirteen so far north of the National Capital; while Mr. Page protested that New York was superior to any place that he knew for the orderly and decent behavior of its inhabitants, an assertion, sad to say, no longer applicable to the city of New York.

The bill passed the House by a vote of thirty-one to nineteen. The Senate amended it by striking out "Susquehanna," and inserting a clause making the permanent seat of government Germantown, Pennsylvania, provided the State of Pennsylvania should give security to pay one hundred thousand dollars for the erection of public buildings. The House agreed to these amendments. Both Houses of Congress agreed upon Germantown as the Capital of the Republic, and yet the final passage of the bill was hindered by a slight amendment.

June 28, another old bill was dragged forth and amended by inserting "on the River Potomac, at some place between the mouths of the Eastern Branch and the Connogocheague." This was finally passed, July 16, 1790, entitled "An Act establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the government of the United States." The word temporary applied to Philadelphia, whose disappointment in not becoming the final Capital was to be appeased by Congress holding their sessions there till 1800, when, as a member expressed it, "they were to go to the Indian place with the long name, on the Potomac."

Human bitterness and dissension were even then rife in both Houses of Congress. The bond which bound the new Union of States together was scarcely welded, and yet secession already was an openly uttered threat. An amendment had been offered to the funding act, providing for the assumption of the State debts to the amount of twenty-one millions, which was rejected by the House. The North favored assumption and the South opposed it. Just then reconciliation and amity were brought about between the combatants precisely as they often are in our own time, over a well-laid dinner table, and a bottle of rare old wine. Jefferson was then Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton thought that the North would yield and consent to the establishment of the Capital on the Potomac, if the South would agree to the amendment to assume the State debts. Jefferson and Hamilton met accidentally in the street, and the result of their half an hour's walk "backward and forward before the President's door" was the next day's dinner party, and the final, irrevocable fixing of the National Capital on the banks of the Potomac. How it was done, as an illustration of early legislation, which has its perfect parallel in the legislation of the present day, can best be told in Jefferson's own words, quoted from one of his letters. He says: "Hamilton was in despair. As I was going to the President's one day I met him in the street. He walked me backward and forward before the President's door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which the legislature had been wrought; the disgust of those who were called the creditor States; the danger of the secession of their members, and the separation of the States. He observed that the members of the administration ought to act in concert ... that the President was the centre on which all administrative questions finally rested; that all of us should rally around him and support by joint efforts measures approved by him, ... that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of some of my friends might effect a change in the vote, and the machine of government now suspended, might be again set in motion. I told him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject, not having yet informed myself of the system of finance adopted ... that if its rejection endangered a dissolution of our Union at this incipient stage, I should deem that the most unfortunate of all consequences, to avert which all partial and temporary evils should be yielded.

Born of Much Bother--Long Debates and Pamphlets--Undefined Apprehensions--Debates on the Coming City--Old World Examples--Sir James Expresses an Opinion--A Dream of the Distant West--An Old-time Want--A Curious Statement of Fact--"Going West"--Where is the Centre of Population--An Important Proclamation--Original Land Owners--Well-worn Patents--Getting on with Pugnacious Planters--Obstinate David Burns--A "Widow's Mite" of Some Magnitude--How the Scotchman was Subjugated--"If You Hadn't Married the Widow Custis"--A Rather "Forcible Argument"--His Excellency "Chooses"--The First Record in Washington--Old Homes and Haunts--Purchase of Land--Extent of the City.

Said Mr. Vining to the House, "I confess I am in favor of the Potomac. I wish the seat of government to be fixed there because I think the interest, the honor, and the greatness of the country require it. From thence, it appears to me, that the rays of government will naturally diverge to the extremities of the Union. I declare that I look upon the western territories from an awful and striking point of view. To that region the unpolished sons of the earth are flowing from all quarters--men to whom the protection of the laws and the controlling force of the government are equally necessary."

In the course of the debate Mr. Calhoun called attention to the fact that very few seats of government in the world occupied central positions in their respective countries. London was on a frontier, Paris far from central, the capital of Russia near its border. Even at that early date comparatively small importance was attached to a geographical centre of territory as indispensable to the location of its capital. The only possible objection to a capital near the sea-board was then noted by Mr. Madison who said, "If it were possible to promulgate our laws by some instantaneous operation, it would be of less consequence where the government might be placed," a possibility now fulfilled by the daily news from the Capital which speeds to the remotest corner of the great land not only with the swiftness of lightning but by lightning itself.

Although the States have more than doubled since the days of this first discussion on where the Capital of the United States should be, it is a curious fact that the centre of population has not traveled westward in any proportionate ratio. According to a table calculated by Dr. Patterson of the United States mint, in 1840 the centre of population was then in Harrison County, Virginia, one hundred and seventy-five miles west of the city of Washington. At that time the average progress westward since 1790 had been, each ten years, thirty-four miles. "This average has since increased, but if it be set down at fifty miles, it will require a century to carry this centre five hundred miles west of Washington, or as far as the city of Nashville, Tennessee." I state this fact for the benefit of crazy capital-movers who are in such haste to set the Capital of the Nation in the centre of the Continent.

I have given but a few of the questions which were discussed in the great debates which preceded the final locating of the Capital on the banks of the Potomac. They are a portion of its history, and deeply interesting in their bearing on the present and future of the Capital city.

After many interviews and arguments even the patience of Washington finally gave out and he said: "Mr. Burns, I have been authorized to select the location of the National Capital. I have selected your farm as a part of it, and the government will take it at all events. I trust you will, under these circumstances, enter into an amicable arrangement."

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