Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 39, January, 1861 | Page 2

coal or a number
of ships-knees, which are but boomerangs of a larger growth. Another
has invented the deadliest of political missiles, (in their recoil,) shaped
like mules and dismantled forts, while a third has demolished the
Treasury with a simple miscalculation. Still more astonishing are the
performances of an eminent functionary who encourages polygamy by
intimidation, purchases redress for national insult by intercepting his
armies and fleets with an apology in the mouth of a Commissioner, and
elevates the Republic in the eyes of mankind by conquering at Ostend
even less than he has lost at the Executive Mansion.
In truth, the list of Washington anomalies is so extensive and so various,
that no writer with a proper regard for his own reputation or his readers'
credulity would dare enumerate them one by one. Without material
injury to the common understanding, a few may be mentioned; but
respect for public opinion would urge that the enormous whole be
summed up in the comparatively safe and respectful assertion, that the
one only absolutely certain thing in Washington is the absence of
everything that is at all permanent. The following are some of the more
obnoxious astonishments of the place.
Traversing a rocky prairie inflated with hacks, you arrive late in the

afternoon at a curbed boundary, too fatigued in body and too suffocated
with dust to resent the insult to your common-sense implied in the
announcement that you have merely crossed what is called an Avenue.
Recovered from your fatigue, you ascend the steps of a marble palace,
and enter but to find it garrisoned by shabby regiments armed with
quills and steel pens. The cells they inhabit are gloomy as dungeons,
but furnished like parlors. Their business is to keep everybody's
accounts but their own. They are of all ages, but of a uniformly
dejected aspect. Do not underrate their value. Mr. Bulwer has said, that,
in the hands of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword.
Suffer yourself to be astonished at their numbers, but permit yourself to
withdraw from their vicinity without questioning too closely their
present utility or future destination. No personal affront to the public or
the nineteenth century is intended by the superfluity of their numbers or
the inadequacy of their capacities. Their rapid increase is attributable
not to any incestuous breeding in-and-in among themselves, but to a
violent seduction of the President and the Heads of Department by
importunate Congressmen; and you may rest assured that this criminal
multiplication fills nobody with half so much righteous indignation and
virtuous sorrow as the clerks themselves. Emerging from the palace of
quill-drivers, a new surprise awaits you. The palace is surmounted by
what appear to be gigantic masts and booms, economically, but
strongly rigged, and without any sails. In the distance, you see other
palaces rigged in the same manner. The effect of this spectacle is
painful in the extreme. Standing dry-shod as the Israelites were while
crossing the Red Sea, you nevertheless seem to be in the midst of a
small fleet of unaccountable sloops of the Saurian period. You question
whether these are not the fabulous "Ships of State" so often mentioned
in the elegant oratory of your country. You observe that these ships are
anchored in an ocean of pavement, and your no longer trustworthy eyes
search vainly for their helms. The nearest approach to a rudder is a
chimney or an unfinished pillar; the closest resemblance to a pilot is a
hod-carrying workman clambering up a gangway. Dismissing the
nautical hypothesis, your next effort to relieve your perplexity results in
the conjecture that the prodigious masts and booms may be nothing
more than curious gibbets, the cross-pieces to which, conforming
rigidly to the Washington rule of contrariety, are fastened to the bottom

instead of the top of the upright. Your theory is, that the destinies of the
nation are to be hanged on these monstrous gibbets, and you wonder
whether the laws of gravitation will be complaisant enough to turn
upside down for the accommodation of the hangman, whoever he may
be. It is not without pain that you are forced at last to the commonplace
belief that these remarkable mountings of the Public Buildings are
neither masts nor booms, but simply derricks,--mechanical
contrivances for the lifting of very heavy weights. It is some
consolation, however, to be told that the weakness of these derricks has
never been proved by the endeavor to elevate by means of them the
moral character of the inhabitants of Washington. Content yourself,
after a reasonable delay for natural wonderment, to leave the strange
scene. This shipping-like aspect of the incomplete Departments is only
a nice architectural tribute to the fact that the population of Washington
is a floating population. This you will not be