buildings. Tree planting on an unparalleled scale in number and in taste has been a unique feature. In the estimation of those who have travelled extensively Washington is already regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and it is growing more beautiful every year. Since it is now practically coterminous with the District of Columbia—for it is spreading fast over the sixty-nine square miles of land left by the retrocession of 1846-it has become a great city in area and appearance. Men who saw it during the Civil War and had not seen it since until the present year can hardly believe their eyes as they note the contrasts.

Washington has always had a very interesting society, cosmopolitan in character, and distinguished by refinement and culture. Members of the Government and other officials, good families from the neighboring States, and the members of the Diplomatic Corps formed the society of Washington at the beginning, and similar elements have contributed to give it distinction ever since. Until Jackson began to give the "victors" the "spoils," there was stability in the civil service, in accordance with the views of the fathers; but this was not the case again until the civil service law was enacted in 1883. Since then every President has, in the execution of that law, made the tenure of office in the executive departments more and more stable, and this has had a marked effect upon the life of the District of Columbia.

Col. Carroll D. Wright, in a recent address before the Washington Academy of Sciences, indicated certain aspects of this effect when he said:

"There are employed under the Federal Government in the District of Columbia in round numbers 20,000 persons, to whom is paid more than $23,000,000 annually. These 20,000 persons represent, with themselves, 80,000 of the population. The industry of government, therefore, is at the basis of our economic conditions and social well-being. The expenditure of this vast sum annually preserves the commercial stability of the city. Industrial depressions, except in their moral effect, do not seriously cripple the business affairs of Washington. The body of citizens to whom this large sum is paid is safely the most intelligent group of employés that can be found in the United States. So large a group, too, representing intelligent men and women reflects the highest civilization and insists upon the best moral and intellectual conditions. So the churches of Washington flourish, and its schools rank with the first in the land."

In this company of office-holders are now numbered a larger number of men of science than can be found in any other American city. They have come here to fill places in the increasing and enlarging scientific bureaus of the Government, and form a distinctive and important class.

They maintain half a dozen scientific socie

ties, and furnish the largest element in one of the three most important clubs. The new institutions of learning which are being founded in Washington, namely, the Catholic University of America, and its sister, Trinity College for women, the American University, commonly called the Methodist University, that the schools affiliated with the proposed cathedral of the Protestant Episcopal Church, together with the old institutions which have taken new life, Georgetown College, Columbian University, and the National University, which are especially rich in their schools of law and medicine, besides Howard University, the Alma Mater of so many colored men, are drawing to Washington, in constantly increasing numbers, scholars and students. There are many good private schools. The public school system is an admirable one. The recent improvements in it — made by the new Board of Education, appointed by the Commissioners, under the act of Congress passed at the last session, as the result of an investigation of the methods of teaching and the curriculum-have removed causes of adverse criticism.

Another gain from the last session of Congress was the creation of a Board of Charities, designed to bring into coördination and coöperation all charitable institutions maintained in whole or in part by public funds, for which over $750,000 has been appropriated annually. The outdoor relief of the poor has been efficiently organized within recent years. The Associated Charities makes the inquiries and keeps the records, while the Central Relief Committee raises and disburses the funds which the Associated Charities shows to be needed. This system greatly reduces the expenditures while increasing the effectiveness of the service. Washington is a most charitable and generous city and has every kind of charitable institution or society. But there has been great need of making the philanthropic efforts of the city systematic, and this is now being One of the results is a plan for a municipal hospital of modern type, for which the Commissioners, with an appropriation of $100,000, have purchased recently a beautiful tract of thirty-six acres on the hills above the city, but easily accessible from its center, for which they paid $65,000; and Congress will doubtless authorize that the expense of a model plan, to be prepared by a commission of experts, shall be defrayed out of the remainder. The principles of the best modern public charity work are being applied in all that is being done in the District of Columbia.

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Washington is a church-going city and might well be called a city

of churches. The influence of the churches appears in the life of the city in many ways. The latter is remarkably orderly, free from violent and gross crimes and from any public appearance of vice, notwithstanding the fact that Congress has not provided enough policemen, so that at most hours of daylight there are only seventyfive men on the beats, or a little over one to a square mile. The Fire Department, like the Police Department, is fine in quality, but inadequate in quantity.

Washington has never had a public library worthy of the city; but through the munificence of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who has given $350,000 for the purpose, a fine building will be opened in March, 1902, in Mount Vernon Square, a small park in the heart of the city, which will be the home of a free library. The nucleus of this library, brought together by the efforts of public-spirited citizens, has been used by the people, in its temporary quarters, with an avidity which shows how great is the need for the public library. The library of Congress loans books to members of the Government only, and the libraries of the different executive departments loan them to the officers and employés of those departments only; so that the general public of Washington has had nowhere to turn for library facilities.

The Corcoran Gallery of Art furnishes the one public collection of paintings and sculpture, although there are several fine private collections. The trustees of the Corcoran Gallery are as hospitable as the rest of the people of the city, and entertain the distinguished guests of the District in the gallery's beautiful building, at evening receptions. There is a strong artistic element in Washington – painters, sculptors, and musicians—and there are several good theatres. The American Institute of Architects has its headquarters in the old Octagon Mansion, where the Madisons lived after they were driven out of the White House by the British, and where the treaty of Ghent was signed.

Although Washington will never become the "greatest commercial emporium" of the United States, which President Washington thought it might, every census reveals, rather to the astonishment of Washingtonians, a marked increase in its commercial wealth; and although manufactures have been discouraged rather than encouraged, they have increased until, in 1890, products to the value of nearly $40,000,000 were recorded. Col. Carroll D. Wright has pointed out that the "per capita wealth of the District has kept in ad

vance of that of the whole country" since 1860. has also said:

Colonel Wright

"The District is one of the most industrious places in the country. In the United States at large nearly 48 per cent of the population over ten years of age are engaged in some remunerative occupation. In the District of Columbia over 53 per cent of its population over ten years of age are so engaged. This is the more remarkable, because the great body of colored people residing here constitute onethird of the total population. They have a few representatives in the clerkships of the Government; they have their professional men and old families of means and standing-in fact, an aristocracy which is commendable for its intelligent and progressive ways—but the great body of colored people is excluded in a large degree from the higher lines of service."

The population of the District of Columbia in 1800 was 14,093. It increased over 70 per cent in the following decade; but after that the percentage of increase gradually fell off, until in the fourth decade it was less than 10 per cent. Since then it has increased — abnormally during the Civil War decade, but normally before and after until it was reported, as the result of the Census taken on June 1, 1900, to be 278,718, which is probably some ten thousand less than the real population, as at least that many people would be away at that time of the year. The total valuation of real and personal property in the District of Columbia was $14,018,074, in 1850, and $343,596,733, in 1890. These figures tell the story of the economic growth of the national capital. As Colonel Wright says:

"With stable economic conditions, with the cessation of retarding influences through the agitation of the removal of the capital, with a well employed constituency, with the best street car service in the United States, with excellent markets and sources of supply, with ample banking facilities, with strong local insurance companies and opportunities for savings through savings banks and building and loan associations, with the general cost of living as favorable as in other localities, with the attractive suburban developments that are going on, with the extension of streets and the beautification of squares and circles, the District of Columbia, it may be said, now has few, if any, economic problems demanding solution."

But the District of Columbia has real and pressing needs as it enters the twentieth century. First, it needs to see its water supply made sufficient and safe. Again, it must have a complete modern system of sewage disposal. The miasmatic marshes running along the Anacostia River, the eastern boundary of the city of Washington, which is commonly called the eastern branch of the Potomac, must be turned into either wholesome land or water, and the improvement of the old Potomac flats south of the city must be completed. All this is imperatively demanded by the health of the District. The abolition of railway grade crossings is provided for in bills acceptable to the railway companies traversing the streets, bills

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now pending in Congress, with a prospect of early enactment. improvement of park lands, and the reservation of additional land for parks, in view of the fact that the population will soon cover the entire District, and that in another quarter of a century it will amount to half a million people, are also most important considerations.

Both the dignity and the large and growing business of the government of the District of Columbia, require that it should be provided with an appropriate public building for its offices. It has never had any other than a rented building, and has moved around from one makeshift to another, until it is now paying over eleven thousand dollars a year in rent for inadequate, unattractive, and uncomfortable quarters, not fireproof, in which all the District archives and the only records of the underground constructions of the District are hourly exposed to destruction by fire. The extension of streets and avenues beyond the old city limits is a large undertaking, and ought to be prosecuted more rapidly than has been done in the past. The proposed Memorial Bridge, connecting the south western corner of the city of Washington with Arlington Cemetery, "a memorial to American patriotism," is greatly desired, and it ought to be followed by the construction of other suitable and beautiful bridges across the Potomac, in place of the poor and ugly structures that now span the river.

A codification of the laws governing the District of Columbia, which are derived from old Maryland and Virginia statutes, as well as from the enactments of Congress and some local legislation, has been long desired. After the failure of repeated attempts the latest effort seems likely to be successful. Justice Cox of the Supreme Court of the District, with the coöperation of his associates and the Bar Association, has prepared a code which Congress is considering and may adopt. HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND.