“They don’t propose! They won’t propose!For fear perhaps I’d say yes!Just let ’em try it, for heaven knowsI’m tired of single blessedness!”
“They don’t propose! They won’t propose!For fear perhaps I’d say yes!Just let ’em try it, for heaven knowsI’m tired of single blessedness!”
“They don’t propose! They won’t propose!
For fear perhaps I’d say yes!
Just let ’em try it, for heaven knows
I’m tired of single blessedness!”
At the moment of writing the waters of social life are becalmed in Washington. Very little is doing in matrimonial business and mothers with marriageable daughters are advised to hold on to the stock in hand (unless there is danger of spoiling), as an advance is expected as soon as a batch of single Congressmen arrive, and this interesting event will probably happen soon after the holidays. General Ben Butler is already here, and though he has shed his late Congressional skin and is no longer interesting on this account, he still has the chance to be governor of Massachusetts; but aside from this honor, any respectable matrimonial agency would give him a clean bill of sale the moment the right kind of a purchaser can be found. It is said the gallant General has a “blind eye,” but even with this fact in a woman’s favor it will be necessary to approach him as carefully as though he were gunpowder or an “infernal machine,” and be well prepared for the explosion which would be sure to follow. But it must be remembered that all the valuable things of the earth are obtained at great personal sacrifice and often with loss of life. Just as the biggest pearls are fished from the deepest waters, the greatest men are brought to the right point with a corresponding loss of female vitality.
Senator Sharon! “Lo! the conquering hero comes”on the breath of the wind, at the same time hitched behind a fiery locomotive. He is already done up in broad-cloth and fine linen, and is probably at this hour sleeping in his own “special car” as he rushes over the steel roadway with which dear old Oakes Ames spanned the continent. What a picture of Oriental magnificence, with his almond-eyed, dark-haired daughter at his side! What a flutter among the dames of the grand West End! In his presence a small bore of the Army and Navy, a “swell” of an upper clerk, or even an obscure Congressman pales as the stars are wiped out by the effulgence of a full-blown sun! “But he ain’t handsome!” Shut up, you ill-bred child! Handsome is that handsome does! Didn’t Senator Sharon spend $40,000 on the Grant reception, and owns a house so large that people get lost in it? It takes as long to explore it as it does the Mammoth Cave! “What does he come here for, mamma?” “Why, to show his heathen Chinee, and see if his glass shoe will fit any Cinderella at the capital.” “They pared their heels and they pared their toes,” but the special car goes back to the Pacific slope empty and tenantless, in one sense, as it came. The ripple subsides, to rise at each approach of the “special car,” and so the play goes on.
Senator Booth, of California, is another matrimonial venture worth looking after, but he has already been toughened by several winter campaigns in Washington, until it is declared by those that ought to know that a sigh drawn fresh and pure from the deepest and most capacious female bosom and applied to the right place will have no more effect than a Holman liver pad administered for lockjaw, whilst a glance from the most brilliant eye falls like a sunbeam on an alligator’s back. Managing mammas have given up whist parties on his account, because he is far more “whist” than the count. But the Senator is in a tolerable state of preservation, considering the number of sieges he has endured, and bids fair to return to the sand lots of California no worse for thetender wear and tear to which he has been so cruelly subjected.
If there are any tears to shed, prepare to shed them now! Step softly! blind your eyes! This is Senator Ferry, of Michigan, he who has convulsed the heart of woman, lo! these many years. Mothers have plotted, widows intrigued, girls have cried for him, all to no purpose. It has taken subtle cunning to elude the snares spread for his gentle, trusting being, but Senator Ferry has been equal to the trial and has come out of the fiery flames handsome and jubilant as ever. Whilst the years come and go and at the same time snatch the hairs from his brother Senators’ heads, leaving crowsfeet all along the track, Senator Ferry defies the “Old Man of the Sickle,” and is just as capable of cracking a young girl’s heart to-day as when in the morning of his manly strength, before the stars sang together. As soon as Congress assembles a committee will be appointed to investigate the source of his mighty power, as it is not intended that one red-bearded Senator shall get more than his share. As Senator Ferry usually buys up all newspapers which print advertisements of him, this is intended as a cheap way to get rid of a solid edition ofThe Times, but the article will only call for the usual liberal rate which it pays to its most valued correspondents.
The next names registered on the books of the matrimonial register come under the head of “twins,” and such a pair of twins have never been seen since Gemini and Pollux took their places in the heavens in order to chase the “big bear” around the polar star. Possibly Senators Burnside and Anthony have been condensed into twins, because Rhode Island is too small a State to hold them singly and apart. At one time Senator Burnside came very near scaring off all the girls by wearing a gray night-cap in the daytime, but he immediately rallied and gave a lunch party and explained to the “wee darlin’s” there wasn’t the slightest danger in it. The girls remonstrated,but without avail, until Senator Anthony declared that he wouldn’t be twin to a night-cap, even though it was the color of the side-whiskers, unless the gender could be changed. There is always an incipient battle going on between the two, similar in object and manner as those in which the late Siamese twins indulged, but this is done simply to amuse each other and at the same time keep the thoughts of the female sirens out of their united minds; besides it takes Senator Anthony all his spare time to keep Senator Burnside out of mischief. Since the Senatorial night-cap has been laid aside all sorts of mental eggs have been hatching in his brain, and some time ago one of these eggs turned into an immense black horse and two-wheeled vehicle, adorned by a real tiger skin. This chariot was driven by a Jehu black as the wings of night, and had not Senator Burnside sat by the sable driver the people of the capital would have believed that the whole contrivance was a phantom, such as Washington Irving used to paint with his magic pen. “I told him,” said Charlie Foster, “that he must not drive so fast. That his black beast was a dray horse and not a ‘roadster.’” But the immense black animal, the two black wheels, the sable driver, with the tiger skin flying, thundered up and down the Avenue, a target for the witty Stilson Hutchins, whose paragraphs on the subject were looked for in thePostwith keener relish than the most aromatic coffee. Thin-skinned Anthony could stand it no longer and the black horse disappeared from Congressional history. It has never been ascertained whether it was a real horse or one of those uncanny creations “conjured” by means of the “black art,” but as everything about it was black and all in the highest style of art, it is safe to pronounce it black art until a better word can be invented. Just as long as Senator Burnside is in the Senate Senator Anthony will have his hands full. In the meantime matrimonial schemes will be laid over as unfinished business, and this is peculiarly trying, for theloss to some fair woman in not being allowed to cling to Senator Anthony is more painful than pen can describe.
As altogether too much space of this valuable paper has been given to the irreclaimable old single-tops of the Senate, it is high time the gay and festive “House” should be reached; but, alas! if this is done, the “catchables” of the Cabinet will be overlooked, and what will Mrs. Hayes say? The writer knows very little about General Devens, but it has been ascertained that he was not imported from England, but belongs to an entirely different breed, whilst President Hayes claims all the honor of original discovery. At any rate, it is well known that he was picked up on the codfish shores of Massachusetts in a remarkable state of preservation. General Devens is blue-blooded to the last degree, and it is claimed that a large portion of the fluid that runs in his veins was imported in theMayflower, and this accounts for the small quantity of it. Whilst there is enough for all Cabinet purposes and to occasionally amuse Mrs. Hayes, the illuminating power seems to require some such tinker as the hero of Menlo Park to bring it to the required point of perfection. Like Edison’s electric light, though it “shines,” there is very little heat, and a girl complains that in his presence she always has a cold nose, but it is declared that he shall not go out of the Cabinet on this account, and the probabilities are that he has come to stay.
Listen to the mocking-bird! Trills, quavers, semi-quavers, demi-semi-quavers, a flute, a flageolet, a dulcimer! It is only the voice of Carl Schurz, but it is a whole opera concealed in his throat. Creation has contrived a few voices whose intonation in speech is the highest and most triumphant music. Such sounds come out of the mouth of a shell. It is heard in the patter of a fairy cascade. It is the hissing ring of the rain as it kisses the bosom of the dimpled deep. Nature’s pure, sweet, unadulterated chimes—not spoiled by “foreign master” or any other training. Born in a castle, the son of a gamekeeper;half aristocrat, half peasant; haughty as a king; humble as the lowliest who seek his favor; least understood because his intellect includes both large and small gifts culled from the whole vast domain which governs the law of humanity—daughters admire him, mothers fear him, fathers hate him. Why? Because he is not only a man, but somewhat more! During office hours he attends to business precisely like other Cabinet officers, with even more accuracy and attention, but, his work done, the uncanny orgie begins. He has the power to draw the most weird and unearthly music out of his piano. The yells of the cats before they were made into “strings” are revived with added ferocity. All the sounds of nature are imitated. He is never weary and never lies down, but he has been seen to uncoil, throw his head back, open his lips and show his white, glistening fangs. Then somebody is sure to get hurt. When Mother Nature begins to pull the string to let down the curtain of night, a dark, slender horse, bearing upon its back a tall, sinuous form, may be seen flying in a northeasterly direction. Nothing more solemn and ghoul-like can be imagined. To the awful northeast lies “Edgewood,” most sentimental of earthly pilgrimages. Cemeteries here and there blot the highway. The lonely road stretches on, unlit by flash except a “Jack o’ lantern,” which leads the way for the dark horse of the smoking flank. Once Senator Conkling was taking an airing in this direction for his poor health’s sake and met the “horseman.” It was more than his nerves could bear. Edgewood is now deserted, the cemeteries are all quiet, and the “vision” is left to its own mad career. Any woman who meditates “designs” on Carl Schurz should first cultivate a love for sulphur and practice with an electric battery every day.
The House may safely be called an ocean of matrimonial possibilities. When mothers say “there are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught,” they have directreference to the House, the lurking-place of so much that is sweet, shy and forbidding. Here, at almost any hour of the Congressional day, may be seen “sporting” a whole shoal of bachelor Greenbackers; but their backs are no more green than their fellow members, unless the verdant tint may be noticed with which all Congressmen are more or less afflicted. Here bachelor Le Fevre spouts like a great sperm whale; and one speculates on the quantity of oil he would “turn out,” and feels sad to think he was not discovered before the coal oil regions, for in that case he would have proved of vast service to the world. At present he is ostensibly engaged in storming the departments to find places for his constituents, but the real truth shows that he is only exhibiting his handsome person to the Treasury girls as a target, and each one is allowed a given number of shots at the mark. As the space allotted byThe Timesto its most valued correspondents has been filled to the brim and just a little slopped over, it is announced that the next article will take up dear, precious Charley O’Neill. It will treat of the sentimental damage wrought at the capital by this “broth of a boy,” for if all his “doin’s” could be made visible to mortal eye, the old Keystone State would blot out the memory of its late Centennial glory and at the same time give General Grant a rest.
Olivia.
Congressmen Speer, Clymer, Ackley and O’Neill.
Washington,January 15, 1880.
“Birdie, oh, come and live with me;You shall be happy—you shall be free.”
“Birdie, oh, come and live with me;You shall be happy—you shall be free.”
“Birdie, oh, come and live with me;
You shall be happy—you shall be free.”
Contrary to all precedents of the past, the coming of Congress has had little or no effect on the matrimonial market, although it is confidently believed that Charley O’Neill is holding a vast amount of “stock.” Notwithstanding the danger and difficulties of carrying this weight, he has decided to enact the role of the immortal Don Quixote, and has already planted the banner of his famous predecessor on the soil of the capital of the New World. But lest Philadelphia take umbrage at this unnatural exploit, as it looks like spurning the city of his beloved soul, he wishes it understood that had he fixed Philadelphia as a starting-point he would have been confined by the meshes of the Camerons, whereas Washington, being the centre of civilization, offers facilities that cannot be breached until the farthest limit of the whole country is reached. As matters now stand, there isn’t a maid or widow at the capital whose heart is not pit-a-pat, and even married women are providing against a morning of storm which might close in perpetual sunshine. Already the first celebrated battle has been fought, and contrary to the usage of ancient chivalry. But as this is a different age, and bottom side the globe as to Spain, it must not be expected that ancient rules will be followed. When Charley O’Neill attacked the windmills the other day in the House it was found that he had hit Sam Randall in disguise. When he learned that he had gotthe wrong pig by the ear, he soon scattered his forces and comforted himself by thinking, if he had not destroyed a windmill of which Philadelphia would be well glad to be rid, the skirmish at least had been fought in the “Cave of the Winds,” and if not up to the standard of “knight errantry,” had sufficient of the Quixotic flavor to answer every modern purpose. For the present he has decided to save the expense of a “Squire,” unless Congress will make an appropriation. Besides, Sancho Panza would be in the way if he were the true metal of the Spanish sort. But to remove this difficulty a private secretary has been found who will open his tender missives; escort distressed damsels to the theatre; gorge himself at “society lunches,” and sigh like a “lying trooper” when the proper parties are around. Charley O’Neill wants Philadelphia to know that most of his mischief is performed by proxy, and when he returns he will be none the worse for wear. On account of the slippery pavements he will not be provided with a “Rosinante,” but not to disappoint his constituents he has determined to get upon his “high horse” on the floor of Congress whenever a pestiferous Democrat shows his hand. A magnificent belle of the “West End” has offered him a plume for his hat, but he disdains such marks of frivolity and declares that he will appear only in the simple armor of an American citizen. This consists of a clean white shirt, a neat broad-cloth coat—which under no circumstances can be “swallow-tail”—Wanamaker pantaloons and patent-leathers. The hat—a soft felt hat—capable of almost any expression. When he enters the Capitol in this harmless disguise the sensation would be indescribable if the attention was not divided by the roar of Kelley, he who has played the role of lion ever since his celebrated interview with Bismarck, which settled the bi-metallic squabble in both hemispheres.
The editor ofThe Timesis notified that a column could be furnished concerning Charley O’Neill, the QuakerCity’s favorite son, and the article would be as crisp and tender as young radishes in spring, but will it pay to build up a reputation that will last as long in the future as Don Quixote has in the past? WhilstThe Timesis solving the important problem, the dainty and delicate Acklen shall be served up. Congressman Acklen, of Louisiana, is one of the youngest and handsomest “bachelors” in the House, and whilst attending strictly to his Congressional duties he has been fortunate enough to get mixed up in more “scrapes” in which women have a part than any half dozen members put together. Last winter he figured at Welcker’s in what might be termed a “celebrated case,” or would be if the bottom facts could be found. His partner in the melee was a beautiful golden-haired widow from New York. Telegrams flew all over the country; there was a suspension of the rules of the House. The principal witness, an army officer, who appeared to have conscientious scruples, fearing an “investigation,” escaped to Canada. The widow published a card in the papers, announcing that Congressman Acklen had “offered” to marry her, but she refused to be comforted in that way. This performance healed the young widow’s reputation. Mrs. Welcker published a card also, saying nothing of the kind ever occurred at her house. This saved the honor of the hotel. At the same time a kind of Chinese din was kept up, which proved that the army officer left suddenly to avoid “a debt of honor,” whilst the widow ran away to California and set the whole Russian fleet on fire, which happened to be temporarily stopping in the San Francisco harbor. In the meantime Congressman Acklen occupied his seat in the House, “the observed of all observers,” looking as innocent as a Thomas cat whose whiskers are scarcely bereft of the cream. He had all the sympathy of his brother members, because they felt certain he would learn their caution in time; but, sad to relate, he had hardly set foot in his beloved New Orleans before he tripped and fellinto another “scandal.” It would consume too much of the valuable space ofThe Timesto record this part of his history, but it can all be found in any of the files of last year’s Louisiana papers. But he is here again, as clean and bright as ever, and to prove his restoration he has left the unhealthy moral atmosphere of the “West End” and rented a mansion on the pure heights of Capitol Hill, where every spot is hallowed by the virtuous Father of his Country. To be away from temptations of all kinds he has taken an aged widow for housekeeper, with her two beautiful grown daughters, just to keep the sex in mind. In this way he puts down scandal, and he is never seen going to his own house except at the proper hours of the day. Just as the banana and the orange, by their lusciousness, show their tropical origin, Congressman Acklen proves by his appearance that he is the “Son of the Sunny South.” Hardly beyond the middle size, beautifully moulded, with raven hair and scarlet lips, he impresses the beholder with his curious intensity and concentration, just as the diamond flashes out its liquid fire; but he is a real “lady-killer” in the longest, broadest, deepest sense of the word, and he is only 30 years old, and refuses to be sobered by the holy bands of wedlock; but the edge of his wickedness is being borne away by the attrition of national notoriety and the fast-increasing fastidiousness of his own taste, and yet his reputation rather endears him than otherwise to fashionable “society.”
Pennsylvania has more bachelors in the House than its proper quota as compared to other States; but this may be the harmless way which the “Old Keystone” takes to get rid of her extra rubbish. Hiester Clymer is here, apparently cold, hard, and indestructible as Allegheny granite, and he strikes those with whom he is brought in contact by the same feeling awakened at the touch of rugged sublimity. The grandeur of the mountain! The solemnity of the sea! Who would dare to laugh and jest in his presence? The writer has been informed bysome of his brother members that he has a remarkably sweet and winning manner to the few privileged to occupy the chambers of his soul; and we should remember the rough, brown husk of the nut is no indication of the kernel. High-toned and kingly in manner on the floor, always the right word in the right place. For nearly if not quite a dozen years, for we write from memory only, his stalwart form has been a landmark in the Pennsylvania delegation, or a sort of Democratic wharf against which the spray and foam of the Republican ocean has madly dashed in vain. In reputation, so far as women are concerned, his character is the reverse of Congressman Acklen; but suppose he had been contrived on a sugar plantation, done up in a creole skin, forged, as it were, under the very eyelids of the tropics? What then? Shouldn’t Pennsylvania get down on her stony old knees and thank heaven that her Congressmen are not made like Southern men?
As if to correct the acidity of the delegation, Congressman Herr Smith is added on, just as the last lump of sugar is put in to perfect the coffee cup. Whilst having all the virtues, he is believed to have none of the vices, and his moral character at the capital is always quoted No. 1; risks few and readily taken. Society knows little or nothing about him, but the quantity, small as it is, may be set down to his decided advantage. He has the reputation of being rich, but there is little show or ostentation. He is always in his seat, always at work, apparently with nothing but his constituents’ interests at heart. It would be better for our sex if it were otherwise, but no delicate-minded woman would think of disturbing the serenity of his soul, and he keeps so far away from the other kind that an accident never can happen. No one doubts but at some period of his life the ocean of sentiment in his bosom has been traversed by gulf streams of romance, and he, too, like Whittier, can sing: “The saddest of all, it might have been.” Blessed be the spiritual hand that touches the human heart-strings only to awaken the divinestmelody, and thrice blessed is he who knows how to avoid those pits in the soul whose black depths reflect bitterness, satire, and irony. Side by side in every great mind the Creator has ranged the awful caldrons of good and evil. Congressman Smith knows how to thread the mazy way with pleasure to himself and honor to all concerned.
As it has been the intention to give the South the same fair showing, apples and oranges, hardy roses, and magnolias, Georgia comes in with a Congressman who, though never a “bachelor,” is a festive widower of five months’ duration. “Emory Speer, Athens, Georgia,” is engraved on his cards, and considering what should be termed his “recent grief” it would seem very wrong to embalm him in the papers. But he gives public parties at his hotel, leads off in the “german,” flirts with the girls, and is not that sufficient reason to believe that he is not the kind who enjoys the luxury of grief without some sort of mitigation? Possibly he may have taken this dashing way to cover his sorrow, but the young ladies believe that he is in dead earnest, and if it were not for his five children and lack of permanent fortune he would be considered already one of the “catches” of the season. He was a Confederate soldier when only 16 years of age, served all through the late war, studied law with Ben Hill and became his successor when he was promoted to the Senate. Singularly handsome in person and winning in manner, volatile and boyish to the last degree, he is not to be judged by the hard, stern law to which we cold-blooded Nor’westers bow the knee. At any rate, he is sincerity itself, and probably he may be a big child in disguise. Who knows when the threshold of manhood or womanhood has been passed? There is a character in Hawthorne’s “Marble Faun” always supposed to be romance. But here in Congress is the case that fits it. Who dare sit in judgment on a fellow-mortal? He that is wisest is the most humble, and those who are dearest will give us a rest.
Olivia.
Some Side Glances at the Expenditures for That Institution.
Washington,January 18, 1880.
Although a fraction only of the single men in Congress have cut a figure in these papers, a little deviation takes place this week to show the people what it costs to keep Congressmen armed with bouquets, for these are the weapons in modern use which bring down the game which is best worth bagging. But it must not be thought by the reader that the vast greenhouses at the capital, kept in being at government expense, are appropriated entirely by the bachelor Congressmen. On the contrary, married Senators and members leave their orders through a page. This has been proved time after time by a Congressman’s wife receiving a bouquet with a card attached bearing another woman’s name; but as her husband’s, in fact no male signature of any kind appears she immediately seeks her mirror in proof of another conquest. True, she realizes that her youthful hey-day is over; that mutton has taken the place of lamb-chop (Ben: Perley Poore is the authority for declaring that “all men prefer it”), but she knows that some mutton always stays tender, and when this kind can be found even Ben: Perley Poore or Senator Conkling will not disdain it. But coming back to the national greenhouses, which are as distinct from the Agricultural Department as the different Cabinet portfolios; in other words, the Botanic Garden sustains the same relation to Congress as the conservatory of any mansion to its solitary owner. The Republic furnishes another garden and immense conservatory for the exclusive use of the White House; and when it is seenhow hundreds of thousands of dollars of the public funds go for the luxury of flowers alone, it will not be wondered that the growth of “imperialism” is going ahead with breakneck speed, for it is very sweet and lovely when all jobs and bills can be squared by an “appropriation.”
A spectator standing on the western terrace of the Capitol sees an innocent tract of land enclosed by a most costly fence. Broad avenues and romantic walks disturb the monotony of the closely-shaven velvet sward; while trees rare as oriental sandal wood have been brought from every portion of the earth’s surface to adorn this domain of republican royalty. Almost hidden by the fence and far removed from the vulgar eyes of the common herd outside, the magnificent Bartholdi fountain spurts its fair life away. Instead of putting this exquisite fountain at the intersection of Pennsylvania avenue and Seventh street, or even at the foot of the Capitol, now turned into a graveyard by the mouldy genius of Admiral Porter, it has been smuggled into the low grounds of the Botanic Gardens for the exclusive use of romantic Congressmen who, when wandering slowly with women who incline to be fast, turn their modest faces toward the genius of Bartholdi in the hope that the soothing play of the immortal fountain will at once arrest any demonstration not of the straight-laced kind. To the rear the greenhouses assert themselves with a grandeur of architectural beauty which the Government funds alone can bestow. To get a foretaste of Paradise, or to recall the glory of the Garden of Eden, it is only necessary to wander through the mazes of lovers’ paths with which the Congressional greenhouses are profusely intersected. From the foot of the most northern crag kissed by the fiery aurora borealis to the molten girdle that clasps Africa’s burning waist the vegetable glory of the earth has been wrested to minister to Congressional comfort. In the pursuit the trackless sea has been plowed alike by warvessels and merchantmen. The most interesting spot connected with the greenhouses is the “propagating garden,” where all sorts of curious experiments are tried. Not content to let each flower produce after its own kind, all sorts of horticultural black art is invoked to produce mongrel types, which come from a curious propagating performance, which even a Congressman cannot understand. Sometimes the gardener succeeds in doubling the leaves of a single flower, to the loss of all sweetness and perfume, just as we have seen the thing happen when the flowers were human instead of vegetable. Striped roses and lilies are obtained in place of the good, old-fashioned solid colors. To produce these freaks, or to make old Mother Nature change her every-day program, appropriations are made that would astonish the people, considering the surroundings of most of the Congressmen before they are born into official life.
In 1836, or nearly half a century ago, the beaux in Congress concluded it would be a good thing to have bouquets fashioned for their buttonholes at the public expense. Flowers in those primitive days were obtained with much trouble and expense, so the initiatory steps to free flowers was taken by an appropriation of $5,000 to be used in this way: “For conveying the surplus water of the Capitol to the Botanic Garden, making a basin, and purchasing a fountain from Hiram Powers.” Before the year was ended it was found that $5,000 would not relieve the Capitol of its surplus water, and an additional appropriation was made the same year of $3,614.04. From 1836 to May, 1850, nothing was taken from the public funds for flowers. In place of nosegaysto titillate theCongressional nostrils these rough old forefathers used snuff, but this was also provided at Government expense and the modest snuff-boxes on either side of the Vice-President’s chair, and those to be found in the House, will remain for all time as simple reminders of the habits of our modest ancestors in comparison tothe ravages of the Congressional greenhouses as they stand in the pillory of public opinion to-day. With the departure of dear old Thurman the last of the old-time snuff-takers disappears. The last wave of his ancient bandana heralds the Senatorial coming of one of the most aggressive movers on the stronghold of all the appropriations. In 1850, $5,000 was taken from the public funds and in 1851, $750 only. A rest came here until 1855, when $1,500 was taken to build a house in which to store the plants brought from Japan, and during the same year $12,000 was taken at one time and $3,000 at another to fix up the grounds of the Botanic Garden and put them in proper order. In 1856 the grounds still wanted to be fixed to the amount of $5,650 at one time and $11,000 at another of the same year, and the “grounds” hardly a scant half-dozen acres in extent; in fact, only two squares long, but not two whole squares deep. Following up the official figures it is found that $6,000 more was expended on the Botanic Garden, taken from another appropriation, making for the year 1856, $22,650. This it was claimed was paid for “draining the grounds in the vicinity of the national greenhouses.” In 1857—$2,600 at one time, $5,000 at another, but all the same year, and from another appropriation $3,360, making in all $10,960 for the year 1857. In 1858, $2,600 at one time, $3,360 at another, making the round sum of $5,960. The years 1859 and 1860 only required a thousand each for the bouquets, and during the war, to the credit of Congress let it be recorded, not a dollar was sunk in the Botanic swamp so far as can be ascertained in the Congressional records. But in 1866 the rage for flowers broke out afresh, and it required $2,500 to stop the wound, which continued when the vast sum of $25,057.90 was required to build the bouquets to the right proportion—a sum which exceeded the President’s yearly salary the same year. In 1867 it took $35,000; in 1868, $41,784.05,etc., etc. The figures alone stretch out until the crack of doom. Let it be understood that such men as that pure statesman Garfield held the strings of the public purse and helped on these appropriations. General Garfield is promoted to the Senate; Thurman, the statesman, remanded to private life.
In 1874 the last of the large appropriations was made, and this represented $16,925. About this time the Republican party began to weaken, and with it the innocent taste of lovely flowers. It must not be understood these vast sums represented the flowers at so much apiece; but it always happened that the Botanic Garden was crying for tools, more greenhouses, fertilizers, brick walls, iron fences, glazing and painting. Its pathways were in a constant state of eruption; its gates always hanging on broken hinges. Seneca stone was constantly giving out and always in peremptory demand. The substantial fences were always going out of fashion and needed to be replaced as often as a woman’s headgear. The call for “tubs, pots, packing materials, labels, seeds, envelopes, grading, repairing, sewers, horse hire and manure,” ascended to heaven like the cry of the young ravens for food. Could Garfield, chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, withstand these demands on the public funds? During these historic days of fat appropriations the Woodhull sisterhood attempted to establish a “colony” at the Capitol. Brisbane, of pneumatic fame, succeeded in getting a $15,000 appropriation to sustain life whilst he should dig a ditch from the Capitol to the Government printing office. The colony was being planted, the ditch was being dug all at the same time, and extra flowers were needed for the Christian statesmen in Congress to reclaim the “colony,” or at least make it so fragrant that the citizens of the District could endure the new innovation sustained by Congressional influence and protected by the sacrifices of the Christian statesmen. Flowers in the missionary cause were needed, and Parson Garfield,chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, stood at the mouth of the public purse and dealt out the shining thousands as Aladdin showered the sequins brought him by the genii invoked by his wonderful lamp. To the credit of a Democratic Congress let it be recorded that no vast sums have been “appropriated” to keep the bouquet business in full bloom. If the Confederate brigadiers wear the “society” bouquet, they pay for them as they do their cigars. It is declared by those who ought to know that the Botanic Garden is on the road to swift decay; that it has little or no support, except from the water which flows from the Congressional baths, and considering the source, it is astonishing what excellent results have been achieved. Sam Randall declares that so long as the greenhouses can be made to flourish in this way he will not “object” to the cleanliness if it will prevent an “appropriation;” besides the bouquets derived from such a source are almost sentimentally equal to the flower which the maiden sent her lover that had been “watered with her tears.”
For many years the luxurious accessories of the toilet have been on the free list in the Senate. Thousands of dollars are invested yearly in soap, tooth brushes, infant powder, perfumery, brandy and whiskey, combs, Turkish toweling, lemons, and tea. And this is one of the safest investments of the public funds. What right has the nation to elect Senators if they cannot afford to keep them clean? Isn’t cleanliness next to godliness; and isn’t this purity of the body about as close to the Creator as the average Senator attempts to reach? Free flowers have been the only free luxuries in which the less aristocratic branch had the same right, and is it a wonder that it required more than $41,000 in a single year to make the sweets go around?
Olivia.
Customs Prevailing Under the Lincoln, Grant, Hayes and Johnson Regimes.
Washington,February 6, 1880.
A residence at the national capital which spans the social rule from the days of queenly Harriet Lane to the present “first lady” at the White House affords an opportunity to note the different changes and peculiar innovations inaugurated by those whom fate or accident has called to wield the most powerful social scepter to be found upon the face of the globe. The public need not be told that the wife of our President has more real political power than Queen Victoria. True, she does not ride “in state,” drawn by eight cream-colored horses to open Parliament in person, but she waits carefully in an ante-room, and when Cabinet sessions are over seizes upon the head of any of the Departments, and then and there, like a Catharine or Elizabeth, makes known her command. Mrs. Abraham Lincoln inaugurated this excellent plan of doing business, because the exigencies of the war wholly occupied the mind and time of the President, and it became necessary for the “first lady” to look after the minor affairs of the country at this particular date. To prove exactly what the writer means, the case of the first Commissioner of Agriculture is called up. Several crafty men put their heads together and decided to call into being a “Bureau Of Agriculture.” Its different departments were to be “run,” each one by its particular head, independent of the other. It was to be a cluster of little kingdoms with a nominal head that should be empty of ideas, possessing only one requisite, that of managing Mrs. Lincoln and the appropriation of the public funds. Theseshrewd men made the good old Quaker Newton believe that he was among the greatest men of the universe, and while he was busy talking “spiritualism” to our “first lady,” escorting her with his old time chivalry and grace to the humble homes of the “mediums,” the head men of his department were scattering the worthless seeds broadcast over the country and making up those absurd reports which have brought ridicule on one of the most important branches of the public service down to the present time.
One of the most impressive and gorgeous receptions which the writer ever attended was given by the President and Mrs. Lincoln toward the last of this important term. The White House looked old, worn, and dingy, for this preceded the golden splendor of the Grant regime, but the brilliancy and magnificence was made up by the scarlet uniforms of the Marine Band with the gilt buttons and shoulderstraps of the brave defenders of the Union, who clustered about the capital in those historic days. The same struggling tide of humanity inundated the doors of the Executive Mansion, but at every turn a soldier was stationed to keep the crowd within the limit of Mrs. Lincoln’s law. Bayonets glittered over the daintily dressed heads and bare shoulders of the beautifully dressed ladies who declared that “mob law” was now inaugurated and “they should never visit the White House again, until a change.” But if the guests felt insulted at the presence of the bayonets what was their astonishment upon going into the “presence” to find a genuine crown on Mrs. Lincoln’s head. It was made of gilt, but looked precisely like those which are found on the heads of those distinguished women about whom we read in Agnes Strickland’s “Lives of the Queens of England.” The stones or gems were wanting, but the tinsel and gilt were all there. There was only time allowed to note that dear old Abraham looked down at the little “bobbing” woman at his side as he might at a frolicsome kitten, thena cold steel bayonet pressed the writer’s shoulder, while the military gruff voice added: “Pass on! pass on!”Afterwards it wasascertained that the “crown” was a harmless head-dress invented by a Philadelphia milliner, and that Mr. Lincoln ridiculed it so severely that its debut and withdrawal all took place the same night. It was Mrs. Lincoln who arranged that a division of society should be made after the guests have entered the White House. She had a door set apart for the Judges of the Supreme Court, Senators, Army and Navy, and foreign ministers. Members of Congress were herded with the common people, and actually forced through the same door. When Mrs. Julia Grant succeeded to the sceptre she realized that any distinction of this kind would make any administration unpopular; so she decided that all persons who entered the front door of the mansion were entitled to the same social privilege, and all doors should be alike to the guests. But to get over the difficulty and please royalty as well as democracy, Mrs. Grant discovered a side door, a sort of sneak entrance, where those who wished to avoid the crowd could pass in, take up their positions in the rear of the “throne,” and glare upon the struggling crowd of humanity as it passed by in single file.
With astonishment the writer learned by personal experience that Mrs. Hayes has revived Mrs. Lincoln’s law as to the aristocracy of the doors. Last Saturday for the first time at a public reception the writer entered the White House. Seeing an immense crowd struggling to go through one door, and kept back by the police, while at another in close proximity only now and then a few were permitted to pass, upon inquiry it was learned that a door was set apart for the privileged few. As the hour was about to expire and it was found that if we waited our “turn” with the crowd there would be no view of republican royalty that day, at least, it was learned that a fat man in another part of the mansion had the powerto let even a common person slip through the aristocratic door, and by means of that bribery which the “minions of the press” know so well how to bestow, access was gained the “presence” and a picture was hung on the walls of memory, to last us as long as the soul floats down the great river of eternity. In the same room the writer had gazed at a wonderful kaleidoscope. Instead of bits of colored glass, it was men and women shifting about in the hands of Time, beginning with the rare beauty and unstudied grace of Harriet Lane as she stood by the side of President Buchanan, followed by Mrs. Lincoln and her tinsel crown, succeeded by the daughters of Andy Johnson, who said, “We are plain people from the mountains of Tennessee; too much, we fear, is expected of us.” Then Julia Dent Grant, who possesses the wonderful power of conciliating all the distracting elements which help unite social and political society.
It is a historic fact that the White House is modeled after the palace of the Duke of Leister. This accounts for the lofty walls so decorated and beautiful in frescoes that they resemble in intention, if not in genius, the noble creations wrought by Raphael and Michael Angelo. As the eye descends from the ceiling it rests upon the inlaid floor, but this is covered with carpeting so thick that the tramp of a regiment would be noiseless as phantom wings. Ebony furniture with richest satin upholstering, candelabra which reach from floor to mantel, holding waxen candles all ready to light, pictures on the walls, huge baskets of flowers, with decorated pots of greenery scattered everywhere. In a row, like school girls in a class, stood the wives and daughters of the Cabinet officials, with Mrs. President Hayes at the head. That it was strictly “official” was proved by the order observed in their positions. Just as the departments are ranked the women stood. State, then Treasury, War, Post Office, Interior and Attorney-General. Mrs. Hayes may safely be called a “handsome woman,” and there will none be found brave enough to dispute the palm. A brunette of the puresttype, with large, brilliant eyes that convey the idea of surface but not depth—like a transparent window that opens into space—a rather low, Greek forehead, over which is banded that shining mass of satin hair. If the glossy coronet could be improved by wave or bangs; but the dark, rich brunette complexion forbids this modern fashion, and Mrs. Hayes is an artist in one or more ways. Clad in rich, ruby satin and silk combination, the corsage square and low, as Pompadour invented to call attention to her charms, no fault can be found with Mrs. Hayes, for her dress is as costly and showy as any worn by the celebrated beauties who flourished in the Cabinet during the Grant reign. Mrs. Hayes has invented a way to shake hands which ought to be known to the official world, as it saves this useful member from crushing annihilation. Never give your fingers to the crowd, and, instead of allowing your own hand to be seized, grasp the unruly enemy by the hand as far as the unfortunate thumb will permit you to go, one vigorous squeeze, and the torment is over. All this is done on the same principle of a collision at sea. It is the vessel that is hit that sustains all the harm.
A plain, dignified, matronly woman stood next to Mrs. Hayes. A lace cap—Quaker-like in its simplicity—rested on her snowy hair, a self-trimmed black silk dress (for Mrs. Evarts has not wholly discarded mourning for a beloved son) made one of the simplest toilettes to be found in the crowded throng. A whole head and shoulders above Mrs. Evarts stood Mrs. Secretary Sherman—one of those creations which can be compared to the lilies of the field in purity of style and stately grace—occupying the middle ground between blonde and brunette, her tawny hair, with its natural wave gathered in the low, Greek coil, without comb or ornament of any kind. A simple black dress, relieved at the throat with illusion ruchings, she seemed the personified embodiment of one of Tennyson’s poems: