then had charged all their enormities on the President. The people in every part of the Union had become exasperated at these flagrant acts of oppression and injustice. Claimants, where the case was as clear as the noon-day, were postponed from day to day, for weeks and months; their claims were to be acted on, none could say when. It is a fashion they have here, of putting off the settlement of claims until the applicant has spent here about all that he gets from the government. The supernumerary officers, block up every avenue to the treasury. Congress should either dismiss them altogether, or send them off to clear out our western rivers, or employ them as far off as possible from the seat of the national government. Why they are here at all is a mystery to me, and why Congress permits them to throng their lobbies and the rotundo, is equally surprising to me. West Point academy was once useful, but if the cadets are to accumulate as rapidly as they have of late years, it may lead in the end to an aristocracy in this country. Whether this institution, on the whole, is an useful one, is at best quite doubtful in my mind. Taking a recess, as a legislator would call it, I here say that Washington city and its surrounding country is delightfully situated for the seat of the national government.--The ground rising gradually from the water and extending back in places a mile or more, with the space occupied by water, between, the ground around it on all sides of it, presents every variety of aspect, almost, calculated to render it pleasant as a residence. It has none of the bustle of commerce, none of its noise or crowd. During a session of Congress, persons of both sexes are in the city from all parts of the Union, with whom the stranger can associate, and obtain a great deal of information, topographical, literary, scientific, general or particular. Every person in the whole Union being here represented, one can gain correct information concerning any man of any note in the nation. By going to the library room of Congress, he can there find and read almost any books which he desires to consult. He can there see daily, persons of the most refined taste, polite manners and agreeable conversation. None but such persons are rarely seen in that room. I have always found reading people more placid and more agreeable in their manners than others, and were any whole nation wholly composed of such materials, it would be the happiest and the best nation in the world. Mr. John S. Meehan the librarian and Edward B. Stelle, C. H. W. Meehan and Robert Kearon, his assistants, are among the most polite and agreeable gentlemen in this city. They are always ready to attend to the wishes of all who call on them. Personally acquainted with nearly all who call at their room, they are always ready to introduce a stranger to any gentleman who is in the room. Fatigued as they sometimes are with the constant labor