Terre Haute Weekly Gazette, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 29 April 1886 — Page 9

1 HE CORlbUfc SIGHTS OF THE CON» GRESSIONAL BASEMENTS.

Coiigreiwmen Get Their Mall—i J.ook at the Restaurants How and What Great Men Eat—Art Treasure! Bidden from View, Etc. v-v f»J

S

(Special

Correflondi'n'».j"i^

V»

WASHINGTON, April 19.-rSome of the most interesting scenes at tlie 'Capitol are those which go on under the floors of congress. Below these floors there are two great basements, each covering more than, three acres of sp^ce, every foot of which is full of things unknown to the sightseer and of interest to him who will go to see. These basements are cut up into dark passage ways as winding as the paths of Rosamond's bower, and many ol them as sepulchral as the catacombs. Directly below the house and senate is the basement proper, and in this letter I will deal with it alone. It may be in the future I shall take you down into the subterranean regions of the floor below, where tbe light never penetrates, and where a lost man might wander for hours without finding an outlet. The basement of the Capitol is on a level with the ground. Going into it we pass through massive walls many feet thick, under thfe great porches which lead to the floor above and by square marble columns, each of which weighs many tons. Everything is massive, heavy and somber. The policemen who sit at the doors have a sort of a funereal aspect, and you feel as though you were going into a tomb instead of one of the busiest departments of the legislative workshops.

Inside the door yoa find the gas burning as though it were night instead of mid-day, and standing at the house entrance and looking down through the corridor which leads to the senate yoi^see nothing but along row of gas jets

gl

owing smaller and smaller until the great cavern-like hole loses itself amid the columns in the distance. Prom this grand corridor other corridors run off, and you are amazed to find every inch of the scene before you buzzing with lifa There is none of the dignity of the flow obova Messengers rush to and fro jostling congressmen. Lobbyists and statesmen are talking together in that corner, and a busy little page with a nickel badge on his coat and a pile of books almost as big as himself in his arm, is pushing big way through them to carry his load to a congressman who is speaking

011

the floor abova.

At tbe right is the house postoffice and outside of it lie great bags of mail. No body ol nun in the United States get as many letters as does our house of "representatives, and the letters received here daily run high into ths thousands. Kaoh member receives from 50 to S00 letters a day, and some get great quantities of papers and other documents. Morrison has a large tariff mail, as have indeed also Pig Iron KelJey and Sam Randall. Mr. Hitt, of Illinois, and William Walter Phelps re-c-eivr ntany letters fi*om abroad, and every \v«'k or tun the postoffice is overloaded with a lot of Turkish papers which Minister Cox sends, marked, to his old friends in the house. The postofRoes of congress are built just like the interiors of any ordinary country postoffice. There is a lot of pigeon holes with glass fronts built- ill two walls of the form of a light angle so as to shut off about one-half of the room, and in each wall there is an opening to ask for letters, and a slit below in which to post them. The postmaster of the house is a short, slim, goodnal ured. red-whiskered fellow from Indiana, named Dawson, and he has a number of clerks under him. The house elevator runs up and down this side of the Capitol just outside of the postoffice door, and the postoffice is a great place for gossipping congressmen, and when I looked in to-day I saw Tom Reed splitting himself with laughter over a joke which Judge Taylor, of Ohio, was telling to him and Bam Rkndall.

Tbe elevators of the Capitol carry up thousands daily, and they are free to aU. Tbe little black haired fellow who runs the machine is known as "Sunshine" by the congressmen from the perpetual smile which sits upon his face. He tells me that many of the strangers who go up with him have never ridden in an elevator, and some of the women grow frightened, while certain of the boys want to get in and ride all day long.

Just beyond the postoffice is the bouse restaurant, where the busy world of the Capitol is fed. It is filled from the time congress meets until it adjourns with gentlemen and ladies of all classes and characters. It comprises four or five rooms, and one of these consists of a lunch counter, behind which

an ebony waiter stands and serves raw oysters, hot soups and other articles to great man who prefer to stand while they take their snacks. The other rooms have tables, with white cloths upon them and good table furniture. Tou take your seat, look over the elaborate bill of fare which tbe colored waiter in his white apron hands you, and give your order. It comes in a moment from the kitchen below, and while you are eating you look with curiosity on the scene about you. Congressmen in twos and threes are sitting all around you. Most of them are eating voraciously, and if you look closely you will see that one or two members from the back counties use their knives to convey the food to their mouths, and, In a manner, lap their soup up from their spoons. There is Perry Belmont, dark-faced and sour-look-ing, eating a plate ol raw oysters, and-at another t^ble rim Campbell Is lunching with a congressman from Brooklyn.

If you will step to the door of the ladies' room you will'find several ladies dining with

a western congressman, and If your eyes art as good as mine you can see that there is'a champagne bottle on the table and that it is labeled "Extra Dry." The ladies may be friends of the congressman's wife they may be Washington society girls and he a bachelor statesman who is in this way paying off his bets. And they may be otherwise. Everything here, however, goes off with great decorum, and though liquor is served to those who order it, I have never seen any one in the restaurant under its influence. There is a law against the selling of whisky in the restaurant of the house, but this law is broken daily and openly. During the tiroes of the temperance excitements the order for liquor is given under the name of "cold tea," and old Kentucky Bourbon is brought out in response to this in China cups. But during ordinary times it is only green members who heat around the bush and I dined with an Ohio statesman the other day who yelled out to a waiter half across the room: "Boy, I want a whisky cocktail! Quick 1 A moment later it was served to himin cut glass, and I noted as he washed it down that the article was no sl^anger to his palate.

Your average congressman is a drinking man, though at present many statesmen do not touch strong liquors. Senators Teller, Colquitt, Joe Brown and Blair drink nothing at all, and Senator Hoar never touches anything stronger than milk. Edmunds likes almost any kind of good liquor, though he never takes too much, and Beck and Blackburn, like most of the southern senators, are fond of a nice article of whisky.

It is hardly safe, however, for a statesman to drink at Washington. Some men can do it with safety, but hundreds have tried it and failed. One of the brightest men from Colorado ruined himself by coming to Washington. He got to drinking, and liquor turned him from a great man into a great fool He was so loved in his own home that a purse was made up for him of $10,000, a few months ago, after he bad promised to stop the use of liquors. His father at this time told me he was doing well, and that if he kept away from Washington he could make $100,000 a year at the practice of law in Colorado. For a time he did well, and the papers were full of glowing accounts or his success. In his strength he resolved to pay a visit to Washington. saw him here this session, and be had again fallen. He lias left the city, and liow he i."^doing now I do not know.

Your average congressional waiter is a good deal of a swell! He struts around in the serving of his orders, and he always manages to bring you such change for bills as will leave a quarter or a dime as a fee for himself in case you will give it If you don't chose to fee him he will 6ay nothing, but a look of withering contempt will spread over his features, and he will pose during the remainder of your sitting in such away as to cause you more agony than is represented by the pictures in Fox's Book of Martyrs.

Your average statesman takes a light hinch, and the richest of them as a role spends the least on their stomachs. Tbe average senatorial lunch is crackers and milk, *nfl the members of the house dine as a rule on a plate of soup or a half dozen raw oysters. A lunch of this sort costs between twenty-five and fifty cents, and the latter b't

''"i" —&/

will include coffee and a cigar. Sometimes members of the house or senate give lunches in their committee rooms, and sometimes they bring ladies down below and serve them up very nice lunches. Tom Bayard, the present secretary of state, gave a lunch to Mrs. Langtry when she paid her visit to the Capitol, and the event is now one of the reminiscences of the restaurant. Bayard has always been fond of being with actors, and he paid a £reat deal of attention to Henrv Irvimr

g^ TERRE HAUTE. INDIANA, SATUR PAY. APRIL 24 18J80. TWO PARTS PART SECOND UNDER THE CAPITOL

when he was in this country. He is a good liver, and it is said that he prepares the terrapin which he gives at his dinners with his own hands.

The basement of. the Capitol contains a great number of committee rooms, and in some of these rooms documents are piled' up by the tens of thousands. Just outsidie of the law library, which is a low vaulted chamber filled with many thousands of law books, are the columns designed, I think, by Jefferson, which have their capitals made of eeffs of corn instead of acanthus leaves. It may be more appropriate to this country, but they are by no means •04retty as the pure Corinthian pillars of the front porticos. Few people note the curiosities of architecture which are to be seen way down here under the doma. There is a row of columns below Statuary hall which have capitals modeled after the tobacco plant and tbe thistle, atd above you may find other columns which have capitals of coin leaves, tobacco and magnolias. All throughout the basement of the Cajrftol you will' find ornamented rooms—rooms which stand as a- monument to congressional extravagance. Away down in the darkness are beautiful paintings' which but few eyes ever see and which have cost the government thousands of dollars. On both* the house and tbe senate side of the Capitol there is a bronze staircase leading to the first floor. Very few people ever see either of them, yet they cost 122,600, or over $11,000 apiece. In one of the committee rooms there is a collection of oil paintings, illustrating life among the Sioux Indians, and in the house committee on agriculture are frescoes by Brumidi. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been thrown away in the art decorations of the CSapitoL The whole buildlug has cost for construction alone more than $15,000,000, and I suppose the art worki would run this figure up much higher. Scat tered throughout the great building are beautiful things hid in dark corners and there are loads of bronzes, oil painting and statuary, which seem to have been made alone for the eyes of a committee elerk and half a dozen congressmen.

One of the most curious places in this great basement is the crypt, which is in its center and directly under the massive dome. Below this crypt it was intended to have buried Washington, but Martha Washington objected, and his remains were left at Mount Vernon. The dome which rests over you AS you stand here weighs more than 8,000,000 pounds, a weight, indeed, which is more than the human mind can easily comprehend. Take the fattest man you know, and he will hardly weigh 300 pounds. Twenty-five thousand such men would not weigh as much as

that dome. Still it hangs above you as firmly as though it rested on the Pyramids, and you walk under it feeling as safe as though it were but a canopy of feathers.

FRANK GEORGE.

JBasebali Prizes During 1880.

For losing an ear, appointment as usher in the grand stand. A broken finger joint, lay off until it is well

Scraping skin from elbow in stealing a base, promise of an increase in salary both elbows, two promises.

Getting Second on along slide (basement of pants must remain intact), autographs of managers.

For having wire from mask driven into tbe skull, loud applause from directors for getting killed, set of resolutions, without frame, to relatives.

For twisting the ankle in tryingjto make an impossible play, a monkey wrench it will be found a useful implement in such cases.

Bruising the shins, the right to rub them. For losing the sight of tbe eyes in trying to catch a fly in the face of the sun, release, with back pay.

For baring spike in an opponent's shoe driven through tbe instep, two day's vacation.

Having teeth knocked oat and continuing play, the privilege of being called "tough." For killing a scorer, a $1,000 United States bond.

For kicking against the umpire's decisions, when he is known to be right, two shoes from a mule this is an emblematic trophy.

The management, in offering the above prizes, does it for the pupose of encouraging the players to put forth their best endeavors, as by doing so the games will be more entertaining and with the hope that the dividends will be larger than they otherwise would be.— Boston Herald.

., A Sensitive Lad.

"Mr.-—aw—Looskins, your boy seems to be—aw—troubled." '•Yes, colonel, he is. You know them horned frogs?" "Yaas beastly prickly reptiles." "Well, Sammy had one of them as a pet and he lost it" "Aw—indeed. The loss seems to have given him pain." "Now you re talk in". That's just what it |iL» "How did he—aw—lose itf. "He swallowed it." "Awl"-—Texas Sifting*.

GOULD'S WRITING.

FAC SIMILE OF WIS LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS TO HOXIE.

Uowa and Powderly—Foemen Worthy Eaeh Other's 8t*el, Although Powderly Seems Incllned. «o Spell It "Steal."

Arbitrating IMflfisrences.

As specimens of plain English the recent letters that have

passed

between G. M. W.

K. of L. Powderly and Jay Gould are worthy of note. The epistles are written in such good, forcible English that it would have been'the greatest pity if they had not got into the hewspapera. They are as well written, in fact, as if Gtald and Powderly had been newspaper mei£ every bit. Such fine literary talent lying latent among business men like these two is a credit to the country. A Briton could not write such letters. He might be Just as .mad, and he undoubtedly would say quite as hard things, but he would go at it in a bulldog, meat-ax way. His language would be heavy, too. For neatly dissecting and polishing off his enemy, he could not hold a candle to the two opposing gpptlemeu whom some supposed to represent capital and labor.

It will be a pretty, fight, they say. If it goes on, there are indlcAtions that it will be abroad one. Mr. Powderly would call it the battle between labor on the one hand and the Gould system of heaping up wealth on the other. It not against capital, he declares, but against capital got by unjust means.

In the correspondence that has been published, Grand Master, Pewderly has the strongest convictions,' while Gould is the more adroit In nothing does this overmatching wiliness appear more vividly than in Gould's first letter of directions to VicePresident Hoxfo on settling the strike.

Those who would care to see a specimen of Mr. Gould's handwriting may be interested in glancing over the accompanying too simile of that letter. Mr. Gould's chirography is very peculiar. It is cramped and littfo

J*-)*"

... &<vf*4JLk

ill: -,

fittl* 9*1/

'fyh uJl

StLr tr fair Uofo did

tyj/ &> c+juy. UU

hit/llihku hrliM i*)

jhviv I ALJ/'

&U tiJtS itp ''ft-' f.

jL, JLv 6/3L

MR. GOULD'S FRIENDLY LETTBR.

He signs the letter "Jay Gould, Prest," thus giving it his official stamp. He sees no objection to arbitrating differences between the Missouri Pacific's company and its employes. On the strength of that, it was announced that employes would resume work, trains start running, and the whole enchanted palace of labor start into full activity again. The strike was ended, quoth the newspapers of Monday, March 29. Mr. Gould's letter was written the Sunday previous. That Monday the stock of the Gould southwestern roads went up several cents. First they boomed, then they dropped a little, then they went up again. His enemies say that the little financier cleared a cool million on the strength of that friendly letter.

Then came another hitch. Vice-President Hoccie, out in St Louis, would settle individual difficulties with striking employes, but he would have nothing to do in any shape or form with an official committee of the Knights of Labor. He drew the line there and was as granite in holding to it Meeting a committee of the K. of L. wasn't his idea of "arbitrating differences." Anti when Mr. Gould's famous letter of instructions to Mr. Hoxie came to be strictly looked into, it was found to be no settlement of the difficulty at alL Mr. Hoxie was left free to do just as he had been doing before, and he has at no time sinoe been informed by Mr. Gould that the president of the road "saw no objections" to his receiving a oomibittee of the K. of L.

The strike was reopened, and then followed between Gould and Powderly tbe letters containing the forceful English one must admire. The question itself is on3 on whose merits it is extremely difficult for either an outsider or an insider to come to a decision. Powderly and Gould mutually throw the blame for the continuance of the strike upon each other. What the outcome will be who can tell? Though the present ngressional inquiry will, it is hoped, settle the difficulty.

European papers remark upon the goort Imitations of celluloid now manufactured from potatoes.

A YOUUG INVENTOR.

W. Silvey, Who Anticipated Edlian in the Indactien Telegraph. The inventor of the induction telegraph— the qrstem of telegraphing from moving railway trains—and the man who is believed to be the most promising young inventor before the public, is William L. Silvey, of Cincinnati & is bnt 35 years of age, and already has secured several patents of great value to electrical progress. He was born at Castleton, Ind., in 18(50. His father, Zachary Silvey, has been dead thirteen years. His mother, Mrs. Catharine Silvey, resides on the homestead farm, near Castleton. Young Silvey only had the advantages of a common school education. Electrical science, for 'which he neglected everything else, has been his constant study since he was 16 years old. He has pursued this study under great disadvantages, his workshops being such odd corners as he could appropriate to his use in the outbuildings on his mother's farm. His experiments in inductive telegraphy were made on wires

W. L. SCLVET.

stretched in the orchard, and on these he perfected his invention, first telegraphing from one wire to another forty feet distant His first successful experiment in this was made in 1879, when he was but 19 years of age. His patent for the inductive telegraph was issued July 12, 1881, tbe application having been made in 18S0. This invention promises to revolutionize the system ot handling railroad trains, and is regarded as the most important step yet taken relating to the application of electricity. He also has valuable improvements on his inductive telegraph apparatus, issued a year later than the original patent Few inventors of any country have accomplished so much at so early an age, and Mr. Silvey's wonderful achievements have naturally attracted a great deal of attention to himself. He is a practical, industrious, young mechanic, modest even to diffidence, and apparently unconscious of the high rank he has taken in the world of progress.

United States Minister to Slam. The president of the Missouri Press asi ciation is Col Jacob T. Child, who has recently been appointed our minister to Siam. Col Child is of Quaker ancestry, as his appearance would indicate. He was born in Philadelphia in 1833. At the age of 5 years he removed with his parents to Richmond, Va., where he attended the common schools, and was subsequently apprenticed in the office of The Richmond Whig. In 1855 Mr. Child raised a company of young men and accompanied them to "Bleeding Kansas," taking an active part in the Doniphan expedition. Afterwards he went to St Joseph and started The Tri-weekly Journal, which, in the course of a year, was converted into the first daily paper published in the Missouri valley. At the outbreak of the civil war, although surrounded by sympathizers with the

JACOB T. CHILD.

south, I16 enlisted on the side of the Union, and was commissioned a major in CoL Robert Stewart's regiment His paper was thereupon suppressed by Gen. Sterling Price, but be revived it during the war, and afterward started The Evening News in connection with Charles Thompson, a brother of the noted Gen. Jeff. Thompson. He became adjutant of the Twenty-first Missouri regiment, and subsequently colonel, but shortly afterward resigned his commission. CoL Child assisted in establishing The Union newspaper of St Joseph, but severed bis connection with it in 1806. He then moved to Richmond, Ray county, and purchased The Conservator, which he has continued to publish ever sincv.

a

Utah's New Governor.

CALEB W. WEST.

Caleb W. Whet, of Kentucky, who was recently nominated by the president to„ be

governor ot Utah territory. Jives in provincial little town, Cynthiana, where James G. Blaine ones taught school At the breaking out of the war Mr. West joined th« company of fighting Joe Desha, who in after years became one of the Confederate leaders. After a year's fighting with Desha, West joined the army of Gen. John Morgan, and was one of his staff when that chieftain surrendered at Greenville. At the close of the war he prepared himself for the law, and baa risen to thp dignity of a judge, which position he occupied at the time at his appointment At the last congressional nomination in his district he had ambitions to come to congress, but declined the honor in favor of his friend, Col. Breckenridge. Judge West is a handsome fellow, a typical Kentuckian, and no better judge of horses ever graced tbe •acred soil of the "Dark and Bloody Grounds." West is a gentleman of considerable abilii poI friends that he has tbe proper meta to deal

and polish. It is claimed for by

with the Mormons, and will inukf a-- goort fovernor as his predecessor, F.i Muiiay.

Honors, to a Distinguished Georgian It goes without saying that if Gen. Grant had been a southerner, or was h? even buried in southern soil, it is more than likely that a memorial to him would not have to go begging for subscriptions, and that notwithstanding the great differenca in the wealth of the two sections. The southern poopl* hava always been an impulsive race, but they are also warm hearted and grateful to their friends. Witness the magnificent memorial that they are about to erect in Richmond to their dead chieftain, Robert E. Lea And here is another monument, but this time it statesman that is to be honored.

THE "BEN" HILL STATUE.

On Peachtree street, Atlanta, Ga., not far from the governor's mansion, there is now in course of erection a magnificent pedestal tor a statute of heroic proportions to the late Senator Benjamin H. Hill, of that state. The figure is of marbl^ modeled by Sculptor John Doyle, of New York city, and stands ten feet in height It presents the sturdy senator in a calm and thoughtful attitude. Tbe clothes of 'our modern immortals are the most difficult portion of the work for an artist to handle without presenting a stiff and ungraceful appearance. The sculptor seems to have mitnogul the costume pretty well in this case, but the unfortunate thought in the matter is thai when the Prince Albert coat is superseded by the coming changes of fickle fashion, then the itatue will become unsightly. Senator Hill has only been dead three years, and thus •arly do the citisens of his state honor him.

Chicago Failles.

A Clark street justice, who makes a specialty of remarrying divorced couples who have become reconciled, han^s out the sign, "Re-pairing neatly done."

Miss Mimosa—Well, ma, I'm glad to-day's Sunday. I,shan't have to work.on your

Mrs. Mimosa (a very strong church woman) —But how can you have it done for the reception to-morrow night unless you do?

Miss M.—But, ma, it is Sunday. You always told me it was wrong to work on Sunday.

Mrs. M.—So I did, my dear but there are extenuating circumstances in this case. So go to work. You ten sing a hymn while you are sewing!

SHE CAME FROM VAS8AR.

Fond Husband—Well, my dear what are you sobbing about! Young Wife—Why, that sponge cake I sent to the agricultural fair has just taken the first prise. Boo-hoo.

Fond Husband—What is there to cry about in that? You ought to feel proud, my dear, of your knowledge of the culinary art

Young Wife—But you don't understand. The judges gave it the award as the best specimen of concrete sent in. Boo-hoo. —Chicago Rambler.

Jottings From lilfe.

It was a Vassar graduate who wanted to know if the muzzle of the gun was to prevent it from going off prematurely.

Tom—How's that cold of yours? Bert—Oh! I got rid of it. Tom—What did you take? Bert—A fresh one. Diffident Lover—I know that I am a perfect bear' in "my manner.

She—Sheep, you mean Ix ars hug people— you do nothing but bleat. Yes, John Henry, an umpire might be called a man of judgment, but you'd better not let him hear you making any such jokes in his vicinity. He might bat you on the head, base man!

Customer (in restaurant)—I ordered some cheese, waiter. Waiter—Yes, sab. I done brought it, sah.

Customer—Well, where is it, then? Waiter—Didn't yo' eat it? Customer—Eat it? Certainly not Waiter—Den I 'spects it must a got away^ sah.—Life. ... ...,