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SOCIETY IN THE AMERICAN METROPOLIS.

three or four years ago, General Almonte, the then minister from Mexico, was considered the LEADER of the corps diplomatique in Washington! When the United States claimed twenty-five millions of francs, as an indemnity due from France to our citizens, the best British periodicals, being fully convinced of the awkwardness and inexperience of our ministers abroad, made use of this laconic remark: "Jonathan has claimed the money, and Jonathan will have it;" and the prophecy became true.

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respectability can well be excluded. The case is different with the invitations to parties en petit comité, which are the only ones that entitle you to a call on the family of the minister ;-all others give you only the privilege of carding. The fact is, the corps diplomatique, from its very position, cannot lead society in any country. The elements of which it is composed are too heterogeneous to admit of assimilation; and if such an assimilation were possible, every civilized country would have a right to expect that its own standard of manners should be adopted by foreigners.

Passing from the corps diplomatique to the other privileged classes of Washington, we come to the secretaries and heads of bureaux. The former live in Washington pretty much as they like-sometimes in accordance with their future hopes and aspirations. Those who ex

And now let us see what men the United States has had to represent her interests, successively, in England, France, Russia, and Germany, and compare them with the comparatively obscure men whom Europe has sent to America. We were represented by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Jefferson, Monroe, Clay, John Quincy Adams, Livingston, Rush, Gallatin, Dallas, Bucha-pect to rise higher, entertain pretty liberally; nan, Cass, Everett, Wheaton, and Bancroft,- -a those who expect to return to private life, or galaxy of statesmen, jurists, historians, and to try their fortunes once more in an inferior philosophers, of which any country in its capacity, generally manage to live within their palmiest days might well be proud, and em- income, which is modest enough even for the bracing a greater number of men of historical sternest republicans. Once a year only they renown, than fill the annals of all European are obliged, by the custom of the place, to keep diplomacy in the same space of time. In open house, and entertain whoever chooses to comparison to these men, all the names Europe visit them, viz., on New Year's day; but a glass has sent us, might well befit the inmates of a of wine and a piece of cake is all that is expected charity hospital, and the best European writers of their hospitality. The heads of bureaux, would hardly assign them a better place among for some time past, seem to have given up the the notabilities of their own country. In short, practice of entertaining members and senators. our ill-paid diplomatic agents, the objects of Life is too short, and living too expensive, to so much private and official pity, have managed waste money and politeness on men who, as to maintain their rank and position; while the the experience of former times has shown, whole business of the corps diplomatique in the are seldom propitiated by such a course. United States seems to consist in gracing the Instances have occurred, in which the invited social circles of the boundless metropolis. It guests of such parties have actually intrigued is they who set the fashions in Washington; against their hospitable entertainers in favour but it does not appear that their influence of absent friends, so that mine host not only extends over more than a dozen families. The lost his wine and his trouble, but his place to people of Washington are essentially poor, and boot. their imitation of outlandish manners seldom goes beyond a late hour for breakfast or dinner. The foreign ministers themselves have, within the last ten or twelve years, gradually reduced their expenses, and it is no exaggeration to say that the greater part of them do not nearly live surrounded by the comfort and elegance of our wealthy merchants in the Atlantic cities. Great stress is laid in Washington on having the entrée to a foreign minister, and great are the social privileges granted to some of these gentlemen for this sort of favour. In Europe, an ambassador's house is scarcely looked upon as more private than a public hotel, and an invitation to the ball of a foreign minister is not valued higher than in New York the permission of joining "a hop" at the Astor. Everybody goes, and no man of a certain

The President of the United States is, socially speaking, a being sui generis, that is, altogether beyond the reach of ordinary capacities. He is bound by no rule of etiquette except such as he establishes himself; and it is precisely for this reason that even the chief magistrate cannot contribute to the refinement and agreeable entertainment of Washington society. The President is a stranger in Washington; residing there only for a few years, and incapable, during that short period, either to shake off the burdensome dignity of office, or the predilections and prejudices of party. Presidential usage requires him to receive friends and foes with apparent cordiality, and what is more, to dine them alphabetically. Such entertainments must, from their very nature, be stiff and ceremonial, and can

ment. Washington is beautifully situated, and laid out in a manner infinitely superior to that of any other city in the Union. It might be made the abode of science and the arts, and become the resort of fortune, retired from the more arduous pursuits of life. It has admirable drives in the neighbourhood, and the Capitol grounds themselves are unsurpassed in the whole country for the beauty of the prospect enjoyed from them. The avenues are all as wide, or nearly so, as the Champs Elysées in Paris, and might, with proper care, be rendered

only serve to render the hospitality of the White House an onerous duty to the American President. The presidential mansion, on this account, always has the appearance of the most cheerless building in the whole city; although its windows look into Virginia, the most hospitable state of the old confederacy. It is neither a castle, nor the humble dwelling of a private citizen; everybody has a right to go there, and yet none may say that he is sure of a hearty welcome. To the occupants pro tem, it may be something between a boardinghouse and a family mansion, without the inde-shady and delightful. Congress ought to appendence or comfort of either; but to the people of Washington, it is very little more than one of the departments of the government. It is a place for official receptions and bows; but the civilities there interchanged seldom warm into the agreeable liking of an acquaintance, and rarely into lasting friendship. There is no greater stranger in Washington than the President himself; and strangers cannot be sup-provements, might be made the most delightful posed to set the fashions or to exercise much influence on the standard of conventional manners. The early Virginia Presidents were, in this respect, a little better circumstanced. Their homes being near, they maintained an agreeable intercourse with their personalness of society, moving sketches of metropolitan friends, which served as an introduction to a larger sphere of interesting acquaintances.

One of the misfortunes of Washington consists undoubtedly in the asperity of political feelings, and the strong partisan character of many of its most conspicuous inhabitants. The people of the District have no vote in regard to the presidency, and yet nowhere are political distinctions more rigidly preserved and cherished. The town being small, every person of note is soon known; and as there seem to be few other pursuits in Washington than politics, differences in relation to them are constantly brought in view and commented upon. The best breeding cannot entirely suppress all feeling on the subject, and the periodical changes of members and officers are admirably calculated to sharpen the stings of disappointment and revenge. There are, of course, men above the vexations of party; but their number is small, from the fact that there are but few private fortunes in Washington of sufficient magnitude to render their possessors independent, and scarcely any road to wealth, or even competence, except through official patronage. Everybody in Washington lives on the government or its functionaries, and every new administration necessarily unsettles every species of real and personal property.

The strong partisan feeling in Washington is undoubtedly the cause why Congress has heretofore shown so little disposition to make the necessary appropriations for its improve

propriate annually not less than the sum of one hundred thousand dollars towards making Washington worthy of its name, and of being the metropolis of the giant republic of the nineteenth century; and this appropriation would probably be agreed to in Congress, but for the party hostilities exhibited by some of its inhabitants. Washington, with suitable im

city in the United States. It might not, indeed, rival New York or Philadelphia in some respects; but it would possess advantages possessed by no other city-such as close contact with the epitome of the national mind, constant fresh

and provincial life, and the indispensable prerequisites of refined society-a constant number of families of independent fortune and position, who would be able to fix on some national, purely American standard of manners. Such a society, no doubt, Washington will, in the end, command in a superior degree to any other city in the Union; but it is not to be found there now, and may not be called into existence for the next ten years.

To sum up, Washington is the most singular place in the world. Its most distinguished inhabitants, the gentlemen highest in office, have little or no influence on society, indeed they may hardly be said to belong to it; while those who constitute its chief ornaments are, after all, but officials; the few fortunes in Washington being hardly sufficient to take the lead. Washington is, and will yet remain for many years, a huge caravansary for politicians from all parts of the globe; but few of the faithful will ever think of erecting mosques and harems in its neighbourhood. You may there meet with many agreeable and entertaining people; but they are birds of passage like yourself, and so completely interspersed with persons of accidental position, whom nobody cares to know, that they only excite the desire of meeting them elsewhere, where one could enjoy their society without intrusion.

The President's social intercourse with the people of Washington is usually confined to receptions and levees, to which the public are

SOCIETY IN THE AMERICAN METROPOLIS.

invited through the newspapers. My experience about these receptions and levees is that they are the most tiresome things one can well conceive of, though exceedingly proper, nay, praiseworthy in themselves. The receptions are stiff from their very nature; being as it were obligatory on the part of the President, and have yet this inconvenience, that they present you constantly with new faces, and that the company is seldom numerous enough to admit of an agreeable chat without being observed or noted by a reporter. The case is different with the levees, which are always jammed after the fashion of the crushroom at the London Opera House. One cannot, of course, call this society; as well might you consider the people in the streets your company; but the custom is laudable, and the idea which introduced it in perfect unison with the simplicity of our government. Once every month, if not oftener, the President opens his house, (which is in fact the people's house,) to all who wish to pay their respects to him. He receives them, not as their chief magistrate, but as a gentleman receives his invited guests, who, on that occasion, are his equals and must be treated with cordial civility. Considering that everybody goes, and that there is no master of ceremonies appointed to preserve order and decorum among the visiters, the scene at the levee of an American President is a source of just pride to every citizen. I have never noticed any glaring impropriety such as one does notice occasionally at European courts, where none are invited who have not been regularly presented; and as to the eagerness with which, according to foreign criticism," the universal mob at a President's levee" attack the refreshments, it has been vastly exceeded by the select mob of Frenchmen and Englishmen in their rush to the supper-room at the Tuileries. I doubt whether any European sovereign would be personally safe in throwing his palace open to a mixed multitude, and there is certainly no city in Europe the entire population of which would, under such circumstances, conduct themselves with such distinguished propriety as the people of Washington.

And here I think it is proper that I should notice some of the agreeable things in and about the federal city, which atone really in a great measure for its foibles. One of them is the unpretending, generous hospitality which the people extend, without scarcely an exception, to respectable strangers from all parts of the Union. There are no "vulgar upstarts" about Washington, there is no "codfish aristocracy," as Mr. Bennett has baptized it, no irritating and offensive exclusiveness on the part of self-constituted "upper classes." The

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very poverty of the people of Washington protects them from the vulgar pride of wealth and the vices of a society merely based on fortune. There is none of the crudeness and arrogance of a fast-growing place, though of course none of the vigour and energy which accompany the movements of such communities.

Washington, moreover, is delightful from the absence of all inquisitive neighbours, no matter in what part of the town you happen to reside. Neighbours, in a city, are always troublesome; they are a sort of forced acquaintance which every one tries to get rid of as best he can, without giving offence or rendering himself obnoxious to their censure; their very sympathy is distressing, and even in prosperity little better than an annoyance. The people of Washington are not much troubled with such affectionate incumbrances, and a sudden transition from Boston, for instance, to the federal city, must really produce a very lively sensation of individual and social independence.

I do not

Again, Washington has no mob, though in and slaves, constituting by far the worst body lieu thereof a mixed population of free blacks of servants in the United States. remember having conversed with a Washingtonian who did not complain of his "domestics." As the evil is generally felt, I wonder they do not propose some adequate means of effecting

a cure.

At all events, the absence of a mob is a pretty good offset against the absence of good servants, and adds certainly much to the security of property in the District, the whole of which is guarded by about sixteen watchmen and an auxiliary guard, of which I never saw but the captain.—Perhaps the rest are militia!

Among the other good things in Washington, I must not forget to mention a very important one in all cities and all times; I would here allude to the absence of all provincial feeling, and the presence of a high-toned comprehensive patriotism which embraces the whole Union. This is the more gratifying when contrasted with the state pride of the inhabitants of other cities, which but too often degenerates into a sentiment almost antagonistical to Americanism. To whatever extent partisan feelings in politics may be carried in Washington, a genuine imperishable love of the Union, of the whole country, is a characteristic quality of its inhabitants. One cannot but be convinced that here, after all, beats the national heart! With all the vexations of mind and body to which strangers are exposed in the federal city, few will leave it without grateful remembrances, and an attachment to its very soil, which will make a return to it an object of gratification and delight.

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