Shoreham, Gordon, and Raleigh are favorite resorts for after-the-theater suppers. On F, G, Ninth, Seventh, and other streets in the region near the public buildings, are a large number of dairies, bakeries, ice-cream saloons, and eating-places of every grade, resorted to by government clerks, men and women, high and low. Dining-rooms are numerous on the avenue and in Georgetown. The restaurants in the Capitol are good, especially that in the Senate basement, and there are good ones at the Library of Congress and National Museum. Boardinghouses. Professional boarding-houses, often with the names and pretensions of "hotels," are plentiful, particularly in the region north of the avenue, between Tenth and Fourteenth streets, and in the neighborhood of the Pension Building; and this quarter also abounds in private houses renting rooms and perhaps furnishing board. All these are indicated by small signs displayed at the door or in a window. The best plan for a person desiring such quarters is to walk about, observe these signs, and examine what suits him. A man and his wife can get very comfortable lodging and board for $60 to $75 a month. The shops of Washington are extensive and fine. The principal shopping streets are Pennsylvania Avenue, Seventh, Ninth, F, and G streets, between Ninth and Fourteenth streets, but there are local groups of stores, especially for provisions, on Capitol Hill, in Georgetown, and along H Street, N. E. Shops. Origin of The District of Columbia had a peculiar origin, and its constitution and history account for many of the peculiarities of the present capital city. The first Congress of the United States had the task of establishing a Federal capital, under a plan for taking in some small tract of land and exercising exclusive jurisdiction over it. In 1790 a bill was passed, after many postponements and much hot discussion, accepting from the States of Maryland of Columbia. and Virginia a tract ten miles square on the Potomac, to be called the District of Columbia; but in 1846 Virginia's portion - some thirty-six square miles south of the river-was ceded back to her. Three Commissioners were appointed by the President (Washington) to purchase the land from its owners, and to provide suitable buildings for the Government. Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a French engineer who had fought in the Revolution, was appointed to lay out the city, but proved so irreconcilable to discipline that it became necessary to dismiss him, though his plan was essentially followed by Ellicott, his assistant, who succeeded him. The avenues were named after the States, and in a certain order. By reason of its midway and influential position, that had already given it the excellent soubriquet "Keystone State," Pennsylvania was entitled to the name of the great central avenue. The avenues south of this received the names of the Arrangement Southern States; the avenues which crossed Pennsylvania were named of Streets. after the Middle States, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, while the New England States were left to designate the avenues then regarded as remote possibilities among the swamps and hills of the northwest. The curious way in which the capital has developed along the lines of the last-named group is typical of the growth and change in the balance of the whole country since L'Enfant's day. The rectilinear streets run exactly north and south and east and west. The streets running east and west are known by the letters of the alphabet, so we have North A and South A, North B and South B, and so on; at right angles to the alphabetical streets are the streets bearing numbers, and beginning their house enumeration at a line running due north and south through the Capitol. This divides the city into four quarters, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest, each with its own set of numbers for the houses, arranged upon the decimal system—that is, 100 numbers for each block. This is repeated in a direction away from each of the Capitol streets; all addresses, therefore, should bear the added designation of the quarter by its initials - N. W., N. E., S. E., or S. W. In this book, as nearly everything mentioned is in the Northwest Quarter, these initials are uniformly omitted for that quarter, but are always supplied elsewhere. In 1800 the seat of Government was established in Washington City, which was first so called, it is said, by the Commissioners in 1791. The General himself, who was its most active promoter, always spoke of it as the Federal City. The town was all in the woods, and had only 3,000 inhabitants, mostly living in the northwestern quarter, or on Capitol Hill. Nevertheless Early it grew until 1814, when, after a weak resistance at Bladensburg, it was captured by the British, who set fire to the public buildings and some private residences, intending to destroy the town altogether. A hurricane of wind and rain came that night to complete the destruction in some respects, but this extinguished the conflagration. Next day the British left in a panic of causeless fear, excepting a large contingent of deserters, who took this opportunity to stay behind and " grow up with the country." The city was immediately rebuilt, and in 1860 it contained 61,000 inhabitants. When the Civil War was over the city found itself with an enlarged population and a vastly greater importance. The population of the District of Columbia, including the city, is now about 300,000, : and it is steadily growing. The Federal Government, in lieu of assessed taxes, contributes Population. one-half of all the District's expenses, and practically has done much more than that in the form of public grounds, boulevards, and reservations free to the public, and maintained at the public expense. The relations of the District and Federal City to the Union are very peculiar. After several experiments in municipal government, Congress created a form of administration of District and city affairs, which consists simply of two civilian District Commissioners appointed by the President, and confirmed by the Senate, Government. and one army engineer officer detailed by the Secretary of War, the three constituting a Board of Commissioners for three years. They are empowered by Congress to make, and change at will, building, health, and police regulations. They also appoint all subordinate officials and clerks. They are required to make and submit to the Secretary of the Treasury annual estimates for all the expenditures within the District for the ensuing year. One-half of the amount to be raised is assessed upon the District, the other half is appropriated by Congress. The headquarters of District affairs is in the District Building on Louisiana Avenue, near City Hall. The District courts, except the Police Court, are in the City Hall, an old building in Judiciary Square, facing Four-and-a-half Street, where the Marshal and certain other functionaries also have offices. It was in this edifice, built for the courthouse, that Garfield's assassin, Guiteau, was tried, and other noted cases have been heard there. In front of it, upon a marble column, stands a monument of Lincoln carved by Lot Flannery, who has been described as a "self-taught sculptor." Capitol Grounds. The great advantage that Washington enjoys in having been intelligently platted before any building of consequence had begun, is signally shown in the choice of this central and sightly hilltop as the position of the Capitol. The grounds in front of the building were made perfectly level, but in the rear they sloped downward some eighty feet to the Potomac flats, which are overflowed occasionally even yet. The present arrangement of the park dates from 1874, when it was enlarged to its present enclosure of forty-six acres, and beautified by the late Frederick Law Olmstead. The splendid marble terraces on the western side of the building, and their ornamental approaches, together costing $200,000, are a part of the general scheme of outdoor decoration, which each year becomes more admirable as the trees and shrubberies mature. A pretty feature of the northwestern part of the park is the ivy-covered rest-house, one window of which looks into a grotto. The low stone towers, becoming vine-covered, in the western parts of the park, are the orifices through which is drawn the supply of fresh air for the ventilation of the Senate chamber and hall of Representatives. Immediately in front (east) of the Capitol is the Plaza, where vast crowds assemble to witness presidential inaugurations, and here, facing the main entrance, stands Greenough's statue of Washington, sitting in a curule chair as the first great tribune of the American people. A statue of Washington was ordered by Congress in 1832, to signalize the centennial anniversary of his birth. The commission was given to Horatio Greenough, who was then residing in Florence, Italy, the only restriction upon the execution Greenough's of his plan being that it should not be equestrian, and that the counteStatue of nance should conform to that of the Houdon statue. His price of $20,Washington. 000 was accepted, and he devoted the principal part of his time for eight years to its completion. The intention was to place this statue in the center of the rotunda, over the mausoleum provided for Washington in the undercroft; but by the time it was completed and had been brought here in a special ship (1841), the idea of placing the bones of Washington in the Capitol had been abandoned, and it was decided to leave it out-of-doors. This statue, which is covered from the weather in winter and invisible, is of Carrara marble, and represents, in heroic size, the Father of his Country in a Roman toga, which has slipped from his shoulders, lifting a hand of warning and advice to the nation. As a work of art, it has caused great controversy among people of taste. It is probable that we know too much of Washington as a man - he is too near to us to make an attempt at classic idealization of him seem natural or pleasing. Beginnings of the Capitol. The act of Congress of July 9, 1790, which established the District of Columbia as the National Capital, provided that prior to the first Monday of December, 1800, the Commissioners should have finished a suitable building for the sessions of Congress. When the Commissioners had accepted L'Enfant's plan for the city, they found this hill selected by him as the site of the national legislative halls, and as soon as the Commissioners could accumulate money enough from their land sales to make a respectable showing, they began the erection of the two buildings first needed the Executive Mansion and the Congressional halls ¦ and offices, which at Jefferson's suggestion, it is said, came to be called the Capitol. One of the interesting features of early life at the seat of Government is the degree to which formal classics ruled in taste. The corner-stones were laid with Masonic rites and all possible parade, George Washington officiating. October 13, 1792, was the date at the President's House; but the corner-stone of the Capitol (marked in 1895 by a bronze plate) was not laid until September 18, 1793. Materials were slow and uncertain, and had not Virginia and Maryland advanced the money Congress refused, the work would have stopped altogether. The town was yet only a muddy village in the woods; and the Commissioners had to fight opposition and obstacles at every step. | Nevertheless an edifice, such as it was, was ready for the Government, which came from Philadelphia, bag and baggage, in a single sloop, and took possession during October, 1800. Plan and Whose was the plan has excited much controversy, for several minds contributed. The original sketch came from Doctor Thornton, a native of the West Indies, and then in charge of the Patent Office, and so pleased Washington that it was adopted. The plans were redrawn by Stephen H. Hallett, who was a student of Nash, the most famous house-builder of his time. Hoban, the architect of the White House, and others made suggestions, so that Thornton's plan was much modified; still less did it foreshadow the Capitol of to-day. Only the north wing, or that part of the main building containing the present Supreme Court rooms, was finished in 1800, the opposite wing not being ready until 1811. A wooden passageway connected them across the space now occupied by the basement of the rotunda. The expenditure up to that time had been $787,000. When, |