About the banquet? It fell below the “Oriental landscape” attempt. It was spread under the directions of A. G. Jiraudan. We never heard of this man before, and yet he will be remembered for his stale boned turkey and hard crusts. In place of ice cream we were treated to doubtful frozen custard. The salad might have been made of lamp oil, judging by its flavor. The coffee was such as contractors furnished the army during the late war, and water was denied the last resting place of a goblet. We drank it from the humble plebeian glass in the shape of a mug without a handle.
Fancy Sir Edward Thornton carrying this cup to his aristocratic lips at an entertainment given to royalty! Will not motherly Philadelphia or her sister city New York open the doors of hospitality and retrieve Washington from her niggardly disgrace? Not that the people of the capital are in fault, but a grave charge lies somewhere. Let exposure do its work.
Because we have no Westminster Abbey, or other royal sleeping place when genius passes away, we have memorial services held at the capital of the nation, under the shadow of the dome and the Goddess of Liberty. No man since the Saviour was born has ever had such obsequies follow him to the grave as the plain citizen of a Republic who has just passed away. The ceiling of the House of Representatives had been pierced, and numerous wires were seen suspended from the wall, and these ended below the Speaker’s desk, where an electric instrument was placed that transferred to those present that throb of sympathy which alone makes the world akin. The voices of seventy cities of the Union were heard speaking in the Hall of Representatives, for Professor Morse had given to each a tongue of flame. Click, click, click; from the bed of mighty waters came the sob of the Old World. London sent her condolence, dated many hours subsequent to our time. April the sixteenth was dead and gone in England, but on the wings of the lightning came the intelligence of an unborn day. From Europe, Egypt, China, flashed sympathy with this nation because a simple American citizen had gone to his eternal home. In the self-same spot where all this tribute was paid to his memory he had once stood--poor, obscure, and alone, working out the solemn problem which should revolutionize the world.