Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1881 — Sinecures at Washington. [ARTICLE]

Sinecures at Washington.

Before this house (the one occupied by Mr. Seward when he was attacked by Payne), for several years afterward, a sentry paced night and day, even when Mr. Seward had moved away and gone out of office. The same building was once used as a club-house, and from it Key had just issued when he was shot by Sickles. This lonely sentry, still at his post long after he had been forgotten at the War Department, and allowed to remain, I suppose, because no one thought it was his duty to relieve‘him, reminds me of several similar incidents that are related in Washington. The great falls of the Potomac are about sixteen miles above Washington, and during the war there was a station for the collection of provisions for the army on the bank of the canal near these grand cataracts. The road between Washington and Great Falls was several times raided by the Confederates, and a block-house was erected by the

Federate at a point three or four miles above Georgetown to prevent parties of rebels from passing up and down the road. At the close of the war the defenses about the capital were one after l another deserted, but nobody seems to have remembered the corporal’s guard stationed out there on the Aqueduct road, and they remained on duty for a year or two. After they were relieved the block-house was set on fire by tramps or boys, and only, a few blackened posts now mark its site. A still more remarkable case was that discovered by Gen. B. F. Butler about ti n years ago. He was nosing around among the appropriations one day, when he discovered tn officer in the Capitol whose duty he did not understand. He was ‘ watching crypt. ’ An investigation showed that many years ago it was proposed to deposit the bones of Gen. George Washington beneath the Capitol, and a crypt was prepared for that purpose. When it was completed, a public officer was appointed whose duty it was to watch this crypt and prevent its desecration, and there be had been ever since, growing gray in the service, and, while Congress had appropriated money to pay his salary year after year, nobody had thought it worth while to inquire how he earn'ed it.— Washington Cor. Providence Press.