chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, stood at the mouth of the public purse and dealt out the shining thousands as Aladdin showered the sequins brought him by the genii invoked by his wonderful lamp. To the credit of a Democratic Congress let it be recorded that no vast sums have been "appropriated" to keep the bouquet business in full bloom. If the Confederate brigadiers wear the "society" bouquet, they pay for them as they do their cigars. It is declared by those who ought to know that the Botanic Garden is on the road to swift decay; that it has little or no support, except from the water which flows from the Congressional baths, and considering the source, it is astonishing what excellent results have been achieved. Sam Randall declares that so long as the greenhouses can be made to flourish in this way he will not "object" to the cleanliness if it will prevent an "appropriation;" besides the bouquets derived from such a source are almost sentimentally equal to the flower which the maiden sent her lover that had been "watered with her tears."

For many years the luxurious accessories of the toilet have been on the free list in the Senate. Thousands of dollars are invested yearly in soap, tooth brushes, infant powder, perfumery, brandy and whiskey, combs, Turkish toweling, lemons, and tea. And this is one of the safest investments of the public funds. What right has the nation to elect Senators if they cannot afford to keep them clean? Isn't cleanliness next to godliness; and isn't this purity of the body about as close to the Creator as the average Senator attempts to reach? Free flowers have been the only free luxuries in which the less aristocratic branch had the same right, and is it a wonder that it required more than $41,000 in a single year to make the sweets go around? OLIVIA.

WHITE HOUSE RECEPTIONS COMPARED.

CUSTOMS PREVAILING UNDER THE LINCOLN, GRANT, HAYES AND JOHNSON REGIMES.

WASHINGTON, February 6, 1880.

A residence at the national capital which spans the social rule from the days of queenly Harriet Lane to the present "first lady" at the White House affords an opportunity to note the different changes and peculiar innovations inaugurated by those whom fate or accident has called to wield the most powerful social scepter to be found upon the face of the globe. The public need not be told that the wife of our President has more real political power than Queen Victoria. True, she does not ride "in state," drawn by eight cream-colored horses to open Parliament in person, but she waits carefully in an ante-room, and when Cabinet sessions are over seizes upon the head of any of the Departments, and then and there, like a Catharine or Elizabeth, makes known her command. Mrs. Abraham Lincoln inaugurated this excellent plan of doing business, because the exigencies of the war wholly occupied the mind and time of the President, and it became necessary for the "first lady" to look after the minor affairs of the country at this particular date. To prove exactly what the writer means, the case of the first Commissioner of Agriculture is called up. Several crafty men put their heads together and decided to call into being a "Bureau of Agriculture." Its different departments were to be "run," each one by its particular head, independent of the other. It was to be a cluster of little kingdoms with a nominal head that should be empty of ideas, possessing only one requisite, that of managing Mrs. Lincoln and the appropriation of the public funds. These

shrewd men made the good old Quaker Newton believe that he was among the greatest men of the universe, and while he was busy talking "spiritualism" to our "first lady," escorting her with his old time chivalry and grace to the humble homes of the "mediums," the head men of his department were scattering the worthless seeds broadcast over the country and making up those absurd reports which have brought ridicule on one of the most important branches of the public service down to the present time.

One of the most impressive and gorgeous receptions which the writer ever attended was given by the President and Mrs. Lincoln toward the last of this important term. The White House looked old, worn, and dingy, for this preceded the golden splendor of the Grant regime, but the brilliancy and magnificence was made up by the scarlet uniforms of the Marine Band with the gilt buttons and shoulderstraps of the brave defenders of the Union, who clustered about the capital in those historic days. The same struggling tide of humanity inundated the doors of the Executive Mansion, but at every turn a soldier was stationed to keep the crowd within the limit of Mrs. Lincoln's law. Bayonets glittered over the daintily dressed heads and bare shoulders of the beautifully dressed ladies who declared that "mob law" was now inaugurated and "they should never visit the White House again, until a change." But if the guests felt insulted at the presence of the bayonets what was their astonishment upon going into the "presence" to find a genuine crown on Mrs. Lincoln's head. It was made of gilt, but looked precisely like those which are found on the heads of those distinguished women about whom we read in Agnes Strickland's "Lives of the Queens of England." The stones or gems were wanting, but the tinsel and gilt were all there. There was only time allowed to note that dear old Abraham looked down at the little "bobbing" woman at his side as he might at a frolicsome kitten, then

a cold steel bayonet pressed the writer's shoulder, while the military gruff voice added: "Pass on! pass on!" Afterwards is was ascertained that the "crown" was a harmless head-dress invented by a Philadelphia milliner, and that Mr. Lincoln ridiculed it so severely that its debut and withdrawal all took place the same night. It was Mrs. Lincoln who arranged that a division of society should be made after the guests have entered the White House. She had a door set apart for the Judges of the Supreme Court, Senators, Army and Navy, and foreign ministers. Members of Congress were herded with the common people, and actually forced through the same door. When Mrs. Julia Grant succeeded to the sceptre she realized that any distinction of this kind would make any administration unpopular; so she decided that all persons who entered the front door of the mansion were entitled to the same social privilege, and all doors should be alike to the guests. But to get over the difficulty and please royalty as well as democracy, Mrs. Grant discovered a side door, a sort of sneak entrance, where those who wished to avoid the crowd could pass in, take up their positions in the rear of the "throne," and glare upon the struggling crowd of humanity as it passed by in single file.

With astonishment the writer learned by personal experience that Mrs. Hayes has revived Mrs. Lincoln's law as to the aristocracy of the doors. Last Saturday for the first time at a public reception the writer entered the White House. Seeing an immense crowd struggling to go through one door, and kept back by the police, while at another in close proximity only now and then a few were permitted to pass, upon inquiry it was learned that a door was set apart for the privileged few. As the hour was about to expire and it was found that if we waited our "turn" with the crowd there would be no view of republican royalty that day, at least, it was learned that a fat man in another part of the mansion had the power

to let even a common person slip through the aristocratic door, and by means of that bribery which the "minions of the press" know so well how to bestow, access was gained the "presence" and a picture was hung on the walls of memory, to last us as long as the soul floats down the great river of eternity. In the same room the writer had gazed at a wonderful kaleidoscope. Instead of bits of colored glass, it was men and women shifting about in the hands of Time, beginning with the rare beauty and unstudied grace of Harriet Lane as she stood by the side of President Buchanan, followed by Mrs. Lincoln and her tinsel crown, succeeded by the daughters of Andy Johnson, who said, "We are plain people from the mountains of Tennessee; too much, we fear, is expected of us." Then Julia Dent Grant, who possesses the wonderful power of conciliating all the distracting elements which help unite social and political society.

It is a historic fact that the White House is modeled' after the palace of the Duke of Leister. This accounts for the lofty walls so decorated and beautiful in frescoes that they resemble in intention, if not in genius, the noble creations wrought by Raphael and Michael Angelo. As the eye descends from the ceiling it rests upon the inlaid floor, but this is covered with carpeting so thick that the tramp of a regiment would be noiseless as phantom wings. Ebony furniture with richest satin upholstering, candelabra which reach from floor to mantel, holding waxen candles all ready to light, pictures on the walls, huge baskets of flowers, with decorated pots of greenery scattered everywhere. In a row, like school girls in a class, stood the wives and daughters of the Cabinet officials, with Mrs. President Hayes at the head. That it was strictly "official" was proved by the order observed in their positions. Just as the departments are ranked the women stood. State, then Treasury, War, Post Office, Interior and Attorney-General. Mrs. Hayes may safely be called a "handsome woman," and there will none be found brave enough to dispute the palm. A brunette of the purest