The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper CorrespondentBriggs, Emily Edson
History
The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper Correspondent
Briggs, Emily Edson
United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1933; Washington (D.C.) -- History
About the banquet? It fell below the “Oriental landscape” attempt. It
was spread under the directions of A. G. Jiraudan. We never heard of
this man before, and yet he will be remembered for his stale boned
turkey and hard crusts. In place of ice cream we were treated to
doubtful frozen custard. The salad might have been made of lamp oil,
judging by its flavor. The coffee was such as contractors furnished
the army during the late war, and water was denied the last resting
place of a goblet. We drank it from the humble plebeian glass in the
shape of a mug without a handle.
Fancy Sir Edward Thornton carrying this cup to his aristocratic lips
at an entertainment given to royalty! Will not motherly Philadelphia
or her sister city New York open the doors of hospitality and
retrieve Washington from her niggardly disgrace? Not that the people
of the capital are in fault, but a grave charge lies somewhere. Let
exposure do its work.
OLIVIA.
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE.
MEMORIAL SERVICES HELD AT THE CAPITOL.
WASHINGTON, _April 17, 1872_.
Because we have no Westminster Abbey, or other royal sleeping
place when genius passes away, we have memorial services held at
the capital of the nation, under the shadow of the dome and the
Goddess of Liberty. No man since the Saviour was born has ever
had such obsequies follow him to the grave as the plain citizen
of a Republic who has just passed away. The ceiling of the House
of Representatives had been pierced, and numerous wires were seen
suspended from the wall, and these ended below the Speaker’s desk,
where an electric instrument was placed that transferred to those
present that throb of sympathy which alone makes the world akin. The
voices of seventy cities of the Union were heard speaking in the Hall
of Representatives, for Professor Morse had given to each a tongue
of flame. Click, click, click; from the bed of mighty waters came
the sob of the Old World. London sent her condolence, dated many
hours subsequent to our time. April the sixteenth was dead and gone
in England, but on the wings of the lightning came the intelligence
of an unborn day. From Europe, Egypt, China, flashed sympathy with
this nation because a simple American citizen had gone to his eternal
home. In the self-same spot where all this tribute was paid to his
memory he had once stood--poor, obscure, and alone, working out the
solemn problem which should revolutionize the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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