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Show A Burial and Memories Awakened THE removal last Wednesday of the remains of Major 1' Enfant's remains from a cemetery ceme-tery in Maryland, where they were burled In 1835, to Washington, the having appropriate ceremonies over them there and then the giving of them final sepulchre with the glorified dead at Arlington, was most appropriate and at the same time awakened many sacred memories, for the dead French soldier fought gallantly under Lafayette and Washington and was wounded, almost al-most unto death, but he was beside a close personal per-sonal friend of Washington, was by him entrusted en-trusted with the laying out of the grounds on which the city of Washington now stands. Those who have studied those ground plans say that in case of an insurrection there it would be easy with a little artillery to sweep the streets leading lead-ing to or from the capitol and the White House. Then the city has many remarkable features. No other city has so many public squares and places for statues, and all the names of the states are remembered in the streets. The idea, at least one idea seemed to be to catch and hold, the sacred names in national history, both of men and places, and at the same time have ample room for trade. And the old story Is revived that Congress one afternoon declared that Annapolis should bo the permanent capital of the nation, but that night George Washington used his Influence and next morning Congress reconsidered the resolution, and fixed the site on land belonging to Washington Washing-ton ,and that the city was at first built down on the flats by the river, was because old George held the high lands at such figures that people, In those thrifty times, could not afford to buy, but Washington's estate at his death footed up $1,000,000, which was a splendid fortune In tho beginning of the nineteenth century. Still it was a most shabby and forlorn place until, after tho great war, Shopard took it In hand and amid fearful oxecratlons transformed It and made possible pos-sible tho city which It npw Is, and which fifty years hence in tho natural order of things, will be tho most beautiful of cities, and which, loolc- B;: ing forward to the distant future, will be a very H'H splendor of the earth. The French ambassador, H speaking over the dust of PEnfant, on Wednes- H day, said he even when he laid out the city, an- Bv ticipated that) it would be a capital which would H bo of a. nation of fifty states, a magnificent na- Hi t, tion. But that so great a miracle has so quickly H l been performed, is due to some agencies which H1 even the shrewd engineer could not have antici- H- pated, the gas light, the electric light, the loco- H;'jf1 motive, "the electric motor, the world of new in- Hj ventions to expedite work and make possible un-H un-H " dertakings impossible in his day; all these have H, hastened the splendor, and still no other struc- Hj ture compares with the capitol that was planned H then, and then call over the names of the giants Hi that first walked those dingy streets, Washing- H ton, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall, Ad- H ams, Madison, Clinton,, Jay, Pinckney, and tho K others. Has any modem invention added tany Hi splendor to that array? After all the great thing in a nation is the K character of her men. In this regard it was good W to give 1'Bnfant sepulchre at Arlington, for H some who are sleeping there would have been i great in any age of the world, because of their deeds the nation took on more majesty, the flag H new splendor. |