Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1884 — The Government’s Gold-Fish. [ARTICLE]

The Government’s Gold-Fish.

On the western front of the Capitol, on the second terrace, is a small oval pond fenced with high, .thick railings. In it is a little water, a good deal of ice and a dozen or two small-sized gold fish. lam told that it costs the Government S3O apiece per annum to keep those fish. Of course, they have to be fed, cared for, and taken out of the pond when it freezes solid, and boarded around until it thaws again; but main expense, I am told, grows out of the attempts which have been made to blbck the little game of a stalwart catfish which comes up the big dnain-pipe from the Potomac, half a mile off, and eats up the spawn of the gold-fish. It has been the custom to drain the pond and make a raid upon him three or four times a year. In each case, of course, he has quietly gone down the drain to his native river.— Washington better.