This chapter is serious, grave, gay and mysterious.—Good advice to Uncle Sam.—A dream which clears up the mystery of beards and mustaches, and accounts for some things, but cannot account for others, until the author dreams again; perhaps not even then!—Inquiries and doubts, not answered or solved in this chapter.
Should that time ever arrive when the members of our state and national legislatures practise all the vices which the laws they make are apparently made to punish and prevent—what influence can their legislative acts exert on the community? Why enact laws to prevent the commission of acts, which their own examples encourage and aid, and even induce? If such legislators are often seen at the card table, in the race field, or at the nightly debauch, will not men in less honorable stations continue to follow such blighting examples? Unless men in the highest, civil, military and naval stations, pay due regard to the decencies of life, to the strict rules of morality, will persons in private life and in humble stations do better than their superiors in office? Because the rich man can afford to live in luxury, will not his example exert a bad influence on the poor, and on those whose means do not enable them to live a life of extravagance and wasteful expenditure? What effect then have high salaries on this or any other community? Let any observing man look over this district, and then answer my question. We live in an age of innovation—in an age, when the passions are let loose, and when the pseudo reformers are busily engaged in their endeavors to uproot all our old, well-established forms of government, religion, morals and law. Like the largest oak on the Alleghanies, which has withstood the fury of the elements during five centuries, we hope our institutions of all sorts may survive the furious blasts of demagogues in morals, politics and religion. But if we wish these institutions to last, we must stand by our colors, hanging out our banner on the outward wall, and manfully defend our fortress against all the assaults of innovators—of restless, rash and wicked men. We must stand to our arms, and dare to meet every emergency, with blow for blow and gun for gun. Under the care of such guardians, liberty, religion and law have little to fear for the result. I thank God, that there are a considerable number of such men in this district, whom I well know and duly appreciate.
These reflections grew out of my associations, sometimes not voluntary, but from necessity, where I heard, and was compelled to hear, every institution in the whole country assailed by several noisy, ignorant and self-conceited men, conversing together so flippantly as to resemble the chatterings of so many monkeys, and with less good sense than is possessed by the animals they so much resembled in their gestures, noise and frivolity.
During a long session of Congress, as the first session of each Congress is sometimes called, assembled here from all parts of the Union, may be seen true and faithful representatives of every party, sect, faction and even fragments of all these parties and factions. Democrats, whigs, nullifiers, abolitionists, and all other crats, isms and ists. They are all busy, all active, sometimes noisy, boisterous and persevering. Could each one of them be believed, all the world will soon come over to their several creeds. Poor fellows! we suspect that the world will still roll on in its own orbit, around the sun, and the puny, tiny insects that are now buzzing about here, will all pass off and be gone far away, before dogdays come.
In this Babel, as it is just now, the people of the district refrain mostly from entering much into the feelings, interests and views of the visiters from a distance. The letter writers, the speculators, office seekers, and the office suckers, the courtiers and the courtezans will leave the city when Congress rises. While Congress sits, all the crowd will continue to haunt the public places and the public offices. One would naturally enough conclude, that in a city, no larger than this, where some three millions of dollars are annually expended by members of Congress and by visiters, money would be plenty and the citizens would be all wealthy; but that is not the case. What becomes of such a vast sum? Shall I answer my own question? I will answer it, and confess, that I do not know, and cannot even imagine what becomes of it. It disappears from our sight, and those who have handled the most money, appear to be in the greatest distress for the means of paying their just debts! Perhaps there are exceptions to my general rule, but the exception proves the general rule to be a correct one. House rent, being very high, is assigned as the cause of much distress to renters. Some of these houses were built very cheaply, fourteen years since, by the joint labors of brick makers, brick layers, joiners and carpenters, who hired their day laborers at the low price of twelve and a half cents a day, besides board! So the day laborers used to tell me, at the time they were thus employed. Their assertions, as to their compensation, might have been untrue, but circumstances satisfied me at the time, that they told me the truth. Possibly these day laborers did not work all day.
In some instances it is possible that quite too many persons follow some particular calling, to allow it to be profitable to any one of that calling. Is the competition too great? All the nation, I need not say, cannot live at the seat of the national government. I should doubt, too, whether all things being duly considered, this is the best place in which to rear a family of children, or one consisting mostly of young people. More or less dissipation and vice will always surround the seat of this government. Move the capitol where we will, the turkey-buzzards, perhaps the same birds, will follow it, and build their nests under the eaves of the treasury building. Their bills will always be thrust their whole lengths into Uncle Sam’s purse and Uncle Sam’s pocket.
Address to Uncle Sam.
“Unfortunate old uncle! you have a great many lazy, idle, worthless pets, whom you do wrong, very wrong, to support in idleness, sloth and dissipation. Are you sure, Sir, that you are acting the part of a prudent, discreet and excellent old gentleman, so long as you indulge such pets in practices so repugnant to your better nature, in your earlier years and better days? I do not expect you to turn them out to grass, as Nebuchadnezzar was turned out in days of yore; but certainly, the prairies of Illinois would afford them a better pasture, than this sterile district does. Alas! Selden’s refectory is preferred by them, to all the prairies of the West, blooming with tall grasses and the most brilliant and beautiful flowers, and a mint julep to any other vegetable. Of all the fowls of the air, some of them prefer the wing of an ox, whereas others prefer the oyster to every other bird of passage! Pray, Sir, be wise in time, put all your sons into some honest calling, whereby they may get an honest living and pay their honest debts, by their industry, economy and enterprise. Do this forthwith, or you will become a bankrupt in fame, fortune and resources and be compelled to take the benefit of the act for the relief of insolvent debtors. You own a great many large houses here, which cost you a great deal of money, but are there no mortgages on them which may be foreclosed? That being done, shall we not soon afterwards see all your household furniture, your carpets, your tables, chairs, beds and bedding exposed to a public sale, on some market morning, opposite the market-house, on the avenue?—Good bye, Sir.”
P.S.—A large lot furniture and a great lottery wheel, from the War office, were offered for sale at auction the other day on the avenue.
Among the mysteries of this mysterious city, take the following: Soon after my return from New York, I went all alone into the monumental square, east of the capitol, to discover what a certain low ill-looking shanty contained. On entering the building, I saw a statue of Jupiter Tonans, easing himself, without a shirt on his back, holding a thunderbolt in his right hand! Every wrinkle and every feature of his face, and his Roman dress, without a shirt, and coated with dust, proved to me at a glance of the eye, in a moment, that some Italian had either stolen and brought off the original statue, or he had exactly copied it; and that some one had placed it here, for the purpose of setting up the worship of Jupiter here at the seat of the national government! And this in a christian country, in this nineteenth century! Until I saw this statue here standing, I did suppose that christianity, in her onward march, from the banks of the Jordan to our farthest West, had overthrown the pagan religion, and had erected the cross wherever Jupiter Tonans and his kindred gods had once stood. After examining the statue of this heathen deity, I looked, and behold it stood on a granite rock, inscribed: “WASHINGTON!” That Washington was well represented by a block of granite, I was not prepared either to affirm or deny, but that any one could with any sort of propriety introduce into this square, the worship of Rome’s old pagan gods, I do deny, and will maintain my denial on substantial grounds of correct taste. The old story of Jupiter Tonans, if my memory serves me, after having read it forty-four years ago, for the last time, I believe is this. Some Roman emperor, perhaps Augustus, was being carried along in a litter, when one of his bearers was instantly killed by lightning. The emperor, from a sense of gratitude to “The Thunderer,” for sparing his own life, promised to erect, and finally did erect a temple, dedicated to “the thundering Jupiter” and placed his statue in it, in the very act of darting his deadly bolt. Who would have thought that that statue would have been transported here, and erected for the adoration of the pagans in this christian country? Paganism in Washington, in the nineteenth century! Why not forthwith get up lectures and send around beggars to crave money in order to stop its further progress?