h thick clouds of dust charged with particles of mica,
which really made it a hazardous matter to venture forth on a gusty day,
unless in a closed carriage, when tired of sitting at home, suffocated
with heat, or smothered with dust by the wind, which ought to have
borne health and comfort on its wings instead of this eighth plague.

Every one complained, all suffered; members, senators, the President,
and the cabinet, all were having dust flung in their eyes, at a period
when the commonwealth required that they should all be most especially
keen and clearsighted. The Potomac, meantime, swept by them, clear and
cool, and the classic Tiber could with difficulty be kept out of their
houses. The Romans would have made their Tiber useful on such an
occasion, and the ready remedy at length suggested itself to the
half-smothered senators. The sum of a few hundred dollars was promptly
voted to abate the evil, in conjunction with the Tiber, whose
contribution was here on demand. The bill was, however, rejected on its
farther course: the dust continued to rise, the people saved their
dollars, their representatives continued blind, and the banks of the
Tiber remained undrawn on.

If you venture an observation upon this obvious absence of all decent
pride in their capital, as being somewhat singular in a people who seem
wrapt in their country, and solicitous that it should show worthily in
the world's eyes, the case is admitted, and accounted for readily
enough, but by no means creditably, in my mind.

The members from Louisiana or Maine will tell you that they cannot
satisfactorily account to their constituents for voting sums of money to
adorn or render convenient a city these may never see, and for whose
very existence they have no care.

The man from the great western valley will shrug up his shoulders at
your observation, admit its truth, but add, that the idea of the
continuance of Washington, as the metropolis of the Union, and seat of
the general government, is a ridicule, since this ought clearly to wait
upon the tide of population, and be situated west of the Alleghanies.

Neither of these answers are worthy the country or the American people:
the citizen voters of these distant states should be reminded that the
district of Columbia is their common property, and Washington the
capital of their great Union, representing them in the eyes of
strangers, and from whose present condition the least prejudiced
European wil