efit of actual settlers. The Census every ten years brings into service a large army of clerks. These are but a few of the many subjects under the supervision of this Department, which is emphatically the Department of Peace. Its operations are very large, although the effect of the civil war is everywhere visible.

If by looking at them now we realize the immense operations of the Government, how much more forcibly does it bring home to us the recklessness of those who, on so slight a pretext, have interrupted the development of this mighty nation in all the arts that pertain to the civilization and comfort of mankind.

XXVII.

THE ARSENAL.

THE street which is dubbed by the delectable name of "Four and a half" extends from the front of the City Hall in a direct line to Greenleaf's Point at the intersection of the Eastern Branch with the Potomac, at a distance of about a mile and a half from the Avenue.

Time may come when this will be a very pleasant drive, but, as the ground is perfectly flat and the negroes and poor Irish have formed extensive settlements in that direction, it would

seem as if it could never be made a very inviting street certainly not for a long period; as there is little demand for lots in this quarter, for business purposes, and less for substantial dwellings to take the place of "small frames which now so much abound. And this leads to the remark, in passing, how seldom we find anything like an attempt at making laborers' houses attractive, by even the most common shrubbery or flowers! Here they do not even appear to make use of their spare ground for the popular purpose of planting cabbages—perhaps for the reason assigned in Mrs. Adams' time, that "the ground is too valuable." A better reason however is to be found in the intense effort which many of the occupants are obliged to make in order to get a living by their ordinary occupations. They have no time for indulging in the ornamental.

We have elsewhere adverted to the fact that this part of the City was regarded in the beginning as most promising, and that large fortunes were sunk in property which is now hardly worth the taxes. Shortly before entering the Arsenal grounds, we pass, on the right, the only row of buildings which was ever completed. The chimnies of twenty others long remained as a monument of disappointed hopes.

Most inviting in appearance are the Arsenal

grounds, neat walks everywhere, and green grass sprinkled over with little pyramids of cannon balls, with every now and then a huge cannon of such pattern as is to be found in great fortifications. Some of these are of brass, trophies taken from the English and the Mexi

cans.

If you enter the Armory you will see many a thousand stand of arms such as soldiers use; and, as you look upon the long ranges of polished musket barrels you will realize the sentiment if you do not recall the words of Longfellow's lines.

"This is the Arsenal-From floor to ceiling,

Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villages with strange alarms.

Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary
When the death-angel touches the swift keys!
What loud lament and dismal Miserere

Will mingle with their awful symphonies!

Little did the poet dream that this picture of his fancy would so soon be realized. Probably he thought, as have hundreds of others before and since, while visiting the arsenals at Springfield and Harper's Ferry, that there could hardly be any use in such constant forging of implements of war in this civilized land.

"Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error,

There were no need of arsenals and forts."

Besides the evidences that war is really upon us which are presented in the active preparation of "material" in all the workshops, and on the grounds, the subject is forced upon you, as you stand on the southern wharf, and look across the placid water upon the green hills of Virginia and Maryland.

Immediately across the Eastern Branch you see the long, zig-zag, and not unpicturesque edifice of the Lunatic Asylum, and on the hills behind it, from right to left are some ten forts,* which appear to guard every prominent point. It was over there that the Ellsworth Zouaves were encamped before they passed by boat to Alexandria, to lose their gallant but injudicious Colonel, in the tragedy of the Marshall House, which furnished for some time a martyr for the North and another for the South, until, unhappily, the number of martyrs became too numerous to retain the distinction of any one individual very prominently before the public.

That Lunatic Asylum is an interesting place

* Forts Greble, Carrol, Snyder, Stanton, Wagner, Baker, Davis, Carton, Dupont and Mahan.

to visit; not only because of the wild men within, presenting the usual melancholy variety of cases, especially those caused by political excitement; but because it is also the receptacle of the wild animals sent to the Smithsonian. The view too of the City from this point is also one of the best.

But let us return-It was on these grounds that the Americans, during the war of 1812, before evacuating the place, deposited large quantities of ammunition in a dry well which the British soldiers accidentally exploded, while trying to destroy some cannon by firing one into the other. A large number lost their lives.

XXVIII.

THE BARRY CHAPEL.

THERE is a road leading from the Arsenal to the Navy Yard (a lettered street, probably L or M South) which I hope will one day be better than it was when I last traversed it. It is a short cut to the Navy Yard, and, on the left, you have the Capitol in sight most of the way with nothing to obstruct your view but now and then a brick kiln. On the right hand side the ground is more elevated in places, and on one of these, commanding a view of the