its superb hospitality. The family was composed of Señor and Señorita
Freyre and the four daughters; but it took eight cooks to provide
for their wonderful table. Whilst six would be hard at work in the
kitchen the other two would be scouring the markets of the capital to
secure terrapin, reed-birds, canvasback and all other dainties for
which this famous locality is noted. As a natural consequence, they
grew so enormous in size that only two could occupy a carriage at a
time, so it took three carriages, or a funeral procession, to land
the family in church, and they were all such devoted Catholics that
no religious rites were omitted. The very baby of the family weighed
over three hundred pounds. But it happened, as it always will, that
too many reed-birds brought this family to grief. Sickness seized the
father and eldest daughter and both died within a very short time
of each other. Whilst the father lay on his death-bed, he sent for
an American lawyer who had once been a Cabinet minister of General
Grant, to help him make his will. After devising ample fortunes to
his wife and the four daughters, he began: “Five thousand Spanish
dollars to my son Don Manuel;” five thousand to another, giving the
name; five thousand to another, until eleven sons and daughters had
been remembered. He then brought this astounding will to a close by
saying, “These are not the children by my wife, but my children, by
my God.” One of our citizens would probably have died under the same
circumstances and bravely kept his lips closed to the last. So let
us honor the sincerity and courage of the man. His widow has lost
her vast fortune by the late turmoil in Peru and is now living very
quietly in Florence, Italy.
Our last diplomatic scandal relates to Victoria’s new protégé, the
English “envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary,” the Hon.
Lionel Sackville-West. If he were not Victoria’s “Knight of the
Garter,” it would not be so sad. Now it appears that when Lionel
went to Spain as a young attaché he became desperately enamored with
a ballet-dancer. “He loved not wisely, but too well.” The proud
Sackville-Wests would have none of it. They declare to this day that
Lionel is a bachelor Simon pure, and so he is inscribed on the awful
book of the peerage. It is not understood whether the ballet-dancer
has put on angel plumage, but it is known that she left a brood of
little chick Sackville-Wests, which the Honorable Lionel is willing
to gather under his wings as a hen doth her chickens. His eldest
daughter is with him--his acknowledged child--and here lies all
the trouble. If he would only ignore her, or wait, as the Peruvian
minister did, till he hears the toot of the last trump, Victoria
and “Washington society” would wink at his little “escapades.” But
the British minister shows that he has a will of his own and a mind
of his own, with the Prince of Wales to stand between him and his
virtuous sovereign. The capital is becoming alive with men who manage
to elude the snares of matrimony, whilst the foreign legations--words
fail not because the source is exhausted, but newspaper articles must
come to an end.
OLIVIA.
CLOSING SCENES IN THE HOUSE.
PEN PICTURES OF BLACKBURN, GARFIELD, RANDALL AND LESSER LIGHTS.
WASHINGTON, _March 4, 1879_.
Prematurely crushed before half its most important work was
performed, the Forty-fifth Congress of the Republic has ceased to
live. Its dying hours were marked with scenes of almost riotous
confusion, reminding one of the exciting days of “secession times.”
It is only when each great party has almost an equal number of
combatants in Congress that a hand-to-hand battle takes place. To-day
the men whose official career ends for the present in the House were
the plumed leaders in the strife. In the advance were Foster, of
Ohio; Hale, of Maine, and Durham, of Kentucky. To carry out the idea
of death, flowers were strewn on the desks of departing members,
and on the Speaker’s table uprose a pyramid of floral display. Not
an inch of standing room was visible. Even the diplomatic gallery
contained an unusual number of distinguished foreigners, whilst that
part designated as the “members’ gallery” was crowded to overflowing
by the acknowledged leaders of the social world of which politics
make a part.
On a front seat in a central position sat Mrs. Hayes, conspicuous
among the silks, satins, and jewels by the extreme simplicity of her
attire, and lack of pretense of all that pertains to the aristocratic
and exclusive. The black and shining bands of hair were drawn close
and prim over the temples; the large gray eyes that warm or freeze
according to the will of the possessor; the shapely nose above the
cold, thin lips, finished with a chin indicating strong points of
character.
Neither natural roses nor lilies bloomed in the members’ gallery.
Pale, sallow, worn-out women came who proved to the lookers-on what
a season of fashionable folly will do if permitted to have matters
all its own way. But if real charms were lacking, the loss was
fortunately replaced by wise manipulations of the artist. The “paint
pots” so vividly pictured by the immortal Vicar of Wakefield had been
brought into requisition, and Olivia and Sophie were as well prepared
as ever for future triumph and conquest. The diplomatic gallery was
graced by the Brazilian, Dutch and Belgian ministers, and by the
pretty, modest daughters of Secretary Evarts, attended by some of the
handsome officials of the Department of State. Asia was represented,
half and half, in the person of Yung Wing, of China, and his American
wife. What a strange pair? He is a genuine son of the land of
Confucius, with his dark-yellow skin drawn smooth like parchment over
his dome of thought; inky hair and eyes, and with all those strange
hieroglyphic signs of mystery stamped on his sphinx-like face. Madame
Yung Wing seemed to enjoy her novel position, as she leaned back
enveloped in all that finery which her marital captivity enables
her to wear. This mingling of the races, to the honor of American
women let it be recorded, happens only in the extremes of our social
system--among the very highest or lowest--the diamonds or the dirt.
The gallery to the right of the Speaker is a study for the artist.
Every part of this broad land is represented. The Boston girl is
there, with a voice that reminds you of the higher notes of Ole
Bull’s supernatural violin. The most beautiful women of the continent
spring from the land of the setting sun, descendants of the belles
of the “blue grass region,” grown and ripened under the cool sun
and peculiar atmosphere of Colorado and California. There they sit,
mothers and daughters, as luscious to the eye as a basket of their
own inimitable pears and transparent grapes. The women of the Sunny
South were there. Slender, willowy creations, that remind you of
Damascus blades. As full of passion as a fagot of wood with sticks,
each one carries an invisible goad to prod the statesman if he even
thinks of “compromise.” Stronger than ever are the women entrenched
in the rulings of the House. Opposite the Speaker might have been
seen Africa--reflected from the seats in all tints, from ebony to
“Alderney cream.” Ever since the gallery doors were thrown open
to this race the space is occupied. The cushioned seats have been
removed, but day after day of the session sees the same row, as
though the House were a great school in which the spectators are
pupils. Few colored women are to be seen, and the crowd seemed made
up of those who have no employment, but who go to Congress to bask in
the artificial heat and enjoy the tropical magnificence to be felt on
every side.
The gavel falls on the Speaker’s table like the blacksmith’s blows on
the forge. A muttering silence follows. General Butler has left the
Republican side and rolls over to the Democratic. He glances down on
the diminutive figure of Aleck Stevens in his rolling chair, pauses a
moment as though he were going to speak, apparently changes his mind,
passes on, then sinks into a chair with a staunch Democrat on either
side.
The semi-silence is broken, and the Honorable Charles Foster, of
Ohio, is on his feet. His face is very white, but his black eyes
burn like the wolf’s in the cave when it was pursued by General
Israel Putnam. No man in the House commands more respect than the one
who has the floor. “Hear! hear!” In a moment the House was made to
understand that Charley, as usual, had a political panacea to apply
to the blistered situation; but his plan is hurled back by Atkins, of
Tennessee, and then the struggle to fasten the responsibility of an
extra session begins.
Rapidly the hour hand describes the passage which marks the circle
lying between 11 o’clock and 12. “Only a moment,” begs Atkins, “to
put myself right before the country!” Hale, of Maine, intercedes
for a moment in which he “may set the Republican party all right,
and fix the responsibility for all the calamities which may follow
future Democratic legislation.” Anxious eyes glance at the clock.
Only twenty-five minutes left. A voice is heard pleading that the
crowd of ladies, composed largely of those who include members in the
“family,” be permitted to occupy the floor. Speaker Randall asks if
there is any objection. None being raised, in an instant the doors
become sluiceways through which pour a flood of feminine humanity.
This element spills itself in every direction; sinks into crevices
made vacant by retreating forms of members. In vain Speaker Randall
asserts “the ladies are not to occupy the chairs within the circle.”
The timid ones slink back, but a few charming ones stick, and strange
to say the members seem to like it. Conger, of Michigan, beckoned
his pretty daughter Florence to a seat beside him. In an instant
the vinegar and aggressive spleen disappeared from his countenance,
proving that the ugly face he wears in Congress is only a mask. One
aged sinner, at least one old enough to know better, slipped his arm
around the back of a chair, and though no apparent damage was done
it was enough to prove the crookedness of the legislative mind. The
flirtations on the floor occupied very little time, and divided the
space consumed in receiving messages from the Senate. All at once a
tall man rises in the gallery, and says audibly to the people around:
“A half dozen men on each side do the business; all the rest are
drummers!” After this mercantile speech, the stranger subsides. In
the midst of the excitement a burly form is seen entering a doorway,
and a face lights up the surroundings as a beacon flame flings its
beams far out on a turbulent sea. Haul down the canvas; let go the
pumps; it is ex-Secretary Robeson, at last safely beached. Republican
sympathy clings to him because he has no money, and thought it his
duty to repair our war vessels so long as the port holes showed no
signs of decay.
Leaning carelessly back, but in an attitude of inimitable grace
stands Joe Blackburn of Kentucky, the “blue grass” boy who will be
entered in the coming session for the Speaker’s race. Possessed of
remarkable points of physical beauty, few men in Congress in this
respect can be called his peers. Tall and slender, made up entirely
of bone, nerve and muscle, he seems the embodiment of life’s fiercest
forces. The energy of his mind is in keeping with the casket, and his
chances for the Speakership at the present time seem best of all.
General Garfield disturbs the stifling air by offering a resolution
of thanks to Speaker Randall, who receives it with that becoming
modesty he knows so well how to assume. In a voice tremulous with
emotion, in a few well chosen words, Honorable Sam. Randall announces
his labor and his arduous duties done; and for the last time the
gavel descended, the curtain fell, whilst the Forty-fifth Congress
entered that silent bourn from whence no traveler returns.
OLIVIA.
A MATRIMONIAL REGISTER.
LIST OF ELIGIBLES OF THE SENATE AND CABINET.
WASHINGTON, _December 24, 1879_.
“They don’t propose! They won’t propose!
For fear perhaps I’d say yes!
Just let ’em try it, for heaven knows
I’m tired of single blessedness!”
At the moment of writing the waters of social life are becalmed in
Washington. Very little is doing in matrimonial business and mothers
with marriageable daughters are advised to hold on to the stock in
hand (unless there is danger of spoiling), as an advance is expected
as soon as a batch of single Congressmen arrive, and this interesting
event will probably happen soon after the holidays. General Ben
Butler is already here, and though he has shed his late Congressional
skin and is no longer interesting on this account, he still has the
chance to be governor of Massachusetts; but aside from this honor,
any respectable matrimonial agency would give him a clean bill of
sale the moment the right kind of a purchaser can be found. It is
said the gallant General has a “blind eye,” but even with this fact
in a woman’s favor it will be necessary to approach him as carefully
as though he were gunpowder or an “infernal machine,” and be well
prepared for the explosion which would be sure to follow. But it must
be remembered that all the valuable things of the earth are obtained
at great personal sacrifice and often with loss of life. Just as the
biggest pearls are fished from the deepest waters, the greatest men
are brought to the right point with a corresponding loss of female
vitality.
Senator Sharon! “Lo! the conquering hero comes” on the breath of
the wind, at the same time hitched behind a fiery locomotive. He is
already done up in broad-cloth and fine linen, and is probably at
this hour sleeping in his own “special car” as he rushes over the
steel roadway with which dear old Oakes Ames spanned the continent.
What a picture of Oriental magnificence, with his almond-eyed,
dark-haired daughter at his side! What a flutter among the dames of
the grand West End! In his presence a small bore of the Army and
Navy, a “swell” of an upper clerk, or even an obscure Congressman
pales as the stars are wiped out by the effulgence of a full-blown
sun! “But he ain’t handsome!” Shut up, you ill-bred child! Handsome
is that handsome does! Didn’t Senator Sharon spend $40,000 on the
Grant reception, and owns a house so large that people get lost in
it? It takes as long to explore it as it does the Mammoth Cave! “What
does he come here for, mamma?” “Why, to show his heathen Chinee, and
see if his glass shoe will fit any Cinderella at the capital.” “They
pared their heels and they pared their toes,” but the special car
goes back to the Pacific slope empty and tenantless, in one sense,
as it came. The ripple subsides, to rise at each approach of the
“special car,” and so the play goes on.
Senator Booth, of California, is another matrimonial venture worth
looking after, but he has already been toughened by several winter
campaigns in Washington, until it is declared by those that ought
to know that a sigh drawn fresh and pure from the deepest and most
capacious female bosom and applied to the right place will have
no more effect than a Holman liver pad administered for lockjaw,
whilst a glance from the most brilliant eye falls like a sunbeam on
an alligator’s back. Managing mammas have given up whist parties on
his account, because he is far more “whist” than the count. But the
Senator is in a tolerable state of preservation, considering the
number of sieges he has endured, and bids fair to return to the sand
lots of California no worse for the tender wear and tear to which he
has been so cruelly subjected.
If there are any tears to shed, prepare to shed them now! Step
softly! blind your eyes! This is Senator Ferry, of Michigan, he who
has convulsed the heart of woman, lo! these many years. Mothers
have plotted, widows intrigued, girls have cried for him, all to
no purpose. It has taken subtle cunning to elude the snares spread
for his gentle, trusting being, but Senator Ferry has been equal
to the trial and has come out of the fiery flames handsome and
jubilant as ever. Whilst the years come and go and at the same
time snatch the hairs from his brother Senators’ heads, leaving
crowsfeet all along the track, Senator Ferry defies the “Old Man
of the Sickle,” and is just as capable of cracking a young girl’s
heart to-day as when in the morning of his manly strength, before
the stars sang together. As soon as Congress assembles a committee
will be appointed to investigate the source of his mighty power, as
it is not intended that one red-bearded Senator shall get more than
his share. As Senator Ferry usually buys up all newspapers which
print advertisements of him, this is intended as a cheap way to get
rid of a solid edition of _The Times_, but the article will only
call for the usual liberal rate which it pays to its most valued
correspondents.
The next names registered on the books of the matrimonial register
come under the head of “twins,” and such a pair of twins have never
been seen since Gemini and Pollux took their places in the heavens
in order to chase the “big bear” around the polar star. Possibly
Senators Burnside and Anthony have been condensed into twins, because
Rhode Island is too small a State to hold them singly and apart. At
one time Senator Burnside came very near scaring off all the girls
by wearing a gray night-cap in the daytime, but he immediately
rallied and gave a lunch party and explained to the “wee darlin’s”
there wasn’t the slightest danger in it. The girls remonstrated,
but without avail, until Senator Anthony declared that he wouldn’t
be twin to a night-cap, even though it was the color of the
side-whiskers, unless the gender could be changed. There is always
an incipient battle going on between the two, similar in object and
manner as those in which the late Siamese twins indulged, but this
is done simply to amuse each other and at the same time keep the
thoughts of the female sirens out of their united minds; besides it
takes Senator Anthony all his spare time to keep Senator Burnside
out of mischief. Since the Senatorial night-cap has been laid aside
all sorts of mental eggs have been hatching in his brain, and some
time ago one of these eggs turned into an immense black horse and
two-wheeled vehicle, adorned by a real tiger skin. This chariot was
driven by a Jehu black as the wings of night, and had not Senator
Burnside sat by the sable driver the people of the capital would have
believed that the whole contrivance was a phantom, such as Washington
Irving used to paint with his magic pen. “I told him,” said Charlie
Foster, “that he must not drive so fast. That his black beast was
a dray horse and not a ‘roadster.’” But the immense black animal,
the two black wheels, the sable driver, with the tiger skin flying,
thundered up and down the Avenue, a target for the witty Stilson
Hutchins, whose paragraphs on the subject were looked for in the
_Post_ with keener relish than the most aromatic coffee. Thin-skinned
Anthony could stand it no longer and the black horse disappeared from
Congressional history. It has never been ascertained whether it was a
real horse or one of those uncanny creations “conjured” by means of
the “black art,” but as everything about it was black and all in the
highest style of art, it is safe to pronounce it black art until a
better word can be invented. Just as long as Senator Burnside is in
the Senate Senator Anthony will have his hands full. In the meantime
matrimonial schemes will be laid over as unfinished business, and
this is peculiarly trying, for the loss to some fair woman in not
being allowed to cling to Senator Anthony is more painful than pen
can describe.
As altogether too much space of this valuable paper has been given
to the irreclaimable old single-tops of the Senate, it is high
time the gay and festive “House” should be reached; but, alas! if
this is done, the “catchables” of the Cabinet will be overlooked,
and what will Mrs. Hayes say? The writer knows very little about
General Devens, but it has been ascertained that he was not imported
from England, but belongs to an entirely different breed, whilst
President Hayes claims all the honor of original discovery. At any
rate, it is well known that he was picked up on the codfish shores
of Massachusetts in a remarkable state of preservation. General
Devens is blue-blooded to the last degree, and it is claimed that a
large portion of the fluid that runs in his veins was imported in
the _Mayflower_, and this accounts for the small quantity of it.
Whilst there is enough for all Cabinet purposes and to occasionally
amuse Mrs. Hayes, the illuminating power seems to require some such
tinker as the hero of Menlo Park to bring it to the required point of
perfection. Like Edison’s electric light, though it “shines,” there
is very little heat, and a girl complains that in his presence she
always has a cold nose, but it is declared that he shall not go out
of the Cabinet on this account, and the probabilities are that he has
come to stay.
Listen to the mocking-bird! Trills, quavers, semi-quavers,
demi-semi-quavers, a flute, a flageolet, a dulcimer! It is only
the voice of Carl Schurz, but it is a whole opera concealed in his
throat. Creation has contrived a few voices whose intonation in
speech is the highest and most triumphant music. Such sounds come
out of the mouth of a shell. It is heard in the patter of a fairy
cascade. It is the hissing ring of the rain as it kisses the bosom
of the dimpled deep. Nature’s pure, sweet, unadulterated chimes--not
spoiled by “foreign master” or any other training. Born in a castle,
the son of a gamekeeper; half aristocrat, half peasant; haughty as
a king; humble as the lowliest who seek his favor; least understood
because his intellect includes both large and small gifts culled from
the whole vast domain which governs the law of humanity--daughters
admire him, mothers fear him, fathers hate him. Why? Because he is
not only a man, but somewhat more! During office hours he attends
to business precisely like other Cabinet officers, with even more
accuracy and attention, but, his work done, the uncanny orgie begins.
He has the power to draw the most weird and unearthly music out of
his piano. The yells of the cats before they were made into “strings”
are revived with added ferocity. All the sounds of nature are
imitated. He is never weary and never lies down, but he has been seen
to uncoil, throw his head back, open his lips and show his white,
glistening fangs. Then somebody is sure to get hurt. When Mother
Nature begins to pull the string to let down the curtain of night, a
dark, slender horse, bearing upon its back a tall, sinuous form, may
be seen flying in a northeasterly direction. Nothing more solemn and
ghoul-like can be imagined. To the awful northeast lies “Edgewood,”
most sentimental of earthly pilgrimages. Cemeteries here and there
blot the highway. The lonely road stretches on, unlit by flash except
a “Jack o’ lantern,” which leads the way for the dark horse of the
smoking flank. Once Senator Conkling was taking an airing in this
direction for his poor health’s sake and met the “horseman.” It
was more than his nerves could bear. Edgewood is now deserted, the
cemeteries are all quiet, and the “vision” is left to its own mad
career. Any woman who meditates “designs” on Carl Schurz should first
cultivate a love for sulphur and practice with an electric battery
every day.
The House may safely be called an ocean of matrimonial possibilities.
When mothers say “there are as good fish in the sea as ever were
caught,” they have direct reference to the House, the lurking-place
of so much that is sweet, shy and forbidding. Here, at almost any
hour of the Congressional day, may be seen “sporting” a whole shoal
of bachelor Greenbackers; but their backs are no more green than
their fellow members, unless the verdant tint may be noticed with
which all Congressmen are more or less afflicted. Here bachelor Le
Fevre spouts like a great sperm whale; and one speculates on the
quantity of oil he would “turn out,” and feels sad to think he was
not discovered before the coal oil regions, for in that case he
would have proved of vast service to the world. At present he is
ostensibly engaged in storming the departments to find places for his
constituents, but the real truth shows that he is only exhibiting his
handsome person to the Treasury girls as a target, and each one is
allowed a given number of shots at the mark. As the space allotted
by _The Times_ to its most valued correspondents has been filled to
the brim and just a little slopped over, it is announced that the
next article will take up dear, precious Charley O’Neill. It will
treat of the sentimental damage wrought at the capital by this “broth
of a boy,” for if all his “doin’s” could be made visible to mortal
eye, the old Keystone State would blot out the memory of its late
Centennial glory and at the same time give General Grant a rest.
OLIVIA.
BACHELORS AND WIDOWERS.
CONGRESSMEN SPEER, CLYMER, ACKLEY AND O’NEILL.
WASHINGTON, _January 15, 1880_.
“Birdie, oh, come and live with me;
You shall be happy--you shall be free.”