And the undersigned goes home to calm his mind by an hour's perusal of Dr. WATTS, and then to dream of star-spangled GILMORES and electric PAREPA batteries until morning.
MATADOR.
JOTTINGS FROM WASHINGTON.
WASHINGTON CITY, June 4, 1870.
DEAR PUNCHINELLO: I have noticed with pleasure your bold and generous championship of Philadelphia. I have witnessed, with genuine delight, your expose of the designs of the Iron Legislature upon that most unhappy of rectangular cities; and I have been emboldened thereby to hazard a petition to you to fly still higher in your philanthropic endeavors to do and dare still more for the oppressed of your race—to—to—in short, to attempt the defence of Washington and the Washingtonians!!
There! it is out! But that I know you of old; but that, knowing you, I regretted with a great regret your former withdrawal from affairs of State; but that I welcomed your return to the arena of which, in former years, you were the acknowledged victor; but that I knew your unlimited compassion, I would not, though a bold man, have dared to ask so much.
Yet, I have reason for my request. For, if Philadelphia be rectangular, Washington has greater claims, seeing that she is scalene, crooked, trapezoidal, and, in general terms, catacornered. If Philadelphia be legislature-ridden, Washington is Congress-burdened. It Philadelphia suffers under an infliction of horse-railroads and white wooden shutters, Washington groans under the pangs and pains of unmitigated CHRONICLE!
This last is our greatest grievance. Fortunately for you, dear P., you know not what it is to be Congress-burdened, but we do. Alas! too well. It means mud and dust; it means unpaved streets pervaded by perambulating pigs and contemplative cows, and rendered still more rural in its aspect by the gambolings of frolicsome kids around grave goats. It means an empty treasury, high rents, extraordinary taxes, and poor grub. In short, it means WRETCHEDNESS. But to be "Chronicled"—