-what little there were--used to kill not only the
town, but the people in it; to support men of weight in the community
who really did not want it polluted by trade or manufactures or any
such vulgar things.

The Capitol, which now, like the Irishman's shanty, has the front door
on the back side, was made to face the east because in that direction
lay as fine a site as ever a town possessed, and there the city was to
be built. To the westward the ground was such that men are living who as
boys waded for reed-birds and caught catfish where now is the centre of
business. The necessity of transforming this tract in the very beginning
of trade retarded the general growth incalculably. The owners of the
good ground didn't want to do anything themselves, and were too greedy
to let anybody else. The Executive Mansion, a mile to the westward,
attracted other public buildings about it; the people who had to support
themselves bought real estate in the swamps; those who lived without
business of their own followed them of course; and the fine plateau
prepared by Nature has been touched only so far as improvement has been
compelled by forces radiating from the other side of the Capitol. The
life and trade that tend to crystallize around one centre are still much
dissipated by the policy that ruined Capitol Hill; but as this can no
longer endanger the general prosperity, it is now more a blessing than a
calamity. It makes sure and speedy the reclamation of the waste places,
while the improvement of all the good ones must take place at last. The
owners of the barren sites which yet break the continuity of blocks in
good localities can sit still and "hold on" if they please, but they
must expect to see the "worthless" tracts--Swampoodle, Murder Bay and
Hell's Bottom--fill with life and rise in value faster than their own.

Another calamity, which has grown with the city instead of being
outgrown, is the changes that have been permitted to take place in the
Potomac. Long Bridge, instead of being built so as to permit an
uninterrupted flow of the stream, was composed for a great distance of
an earthen road--a dam--arresting half the water of the river. This
temporarily benefited the Georgetown channel, no doubt, by forcing all
the water into it. But a marsh is rising in the middle of the stream,
creeping rapidly up to the Washington wharves, threatening the health of
the city, and so crippling its commerce that an expensive remedy mus