and generally no source of income but the salary which they draw from those newspapers, from thirty to a hundred dollars a week. The other five are vulgar, unscrupulous, and rich. They belong to insignificant papers, and sell their paragraphs to inexperienced men who come to Washington to get things "through," and desire the aid of the press. Lobbyists who understand their business seldom approach correspondents with illegitimate propositions, because they know that the representatives of influential newspapers cannot sell their columns, and would disdain to attempt doing so. The corrupt five, who prey generally upon the inexperienced, occasionally get lucrative jobs from men who ought to be ashamed to employ them. They make it a point to cultivate a certain kind of intimacy with members, a billiard-room intimacy, a champagnesupper intimacy. They like to be seen on the floor of the House of Representatives, and may go so far as to slap a senatorial carpet-bagger on the back. It is part of their game to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue arm-in-arm with a member of Congress, and to get the entrée of as many members' apartments as possible. Some members who know and despise them are yet in some degree afraid of them; for any man who can get access to a newspaper can do harm and give pain. To the publicity of the press there are as many avenues in the country as there are newspapers to exchange with; and any paper, even the most remote and least important, is competent to start a falsehood which the great thunderers of the press may copy, and which no denial can ever quite eradicate from the public mind. These jovial fellows, who treat green members to champagne, and ask them to vote for dubious measures, are also the chief calumniators of Congress. It is they who have caused so many timid and credulous people to think that the Congress of the United States is a corrupt body. They revenge themselves for their failure to carry improper measures by slandering the honest men whose votes defeated them. They thrive on the preposterous schemes to which a loose interpretation of the Constitution has given birth.

But my friend who was strolling toward the Capitol was not one of the scurvy five, but of the honorable fifty-five; nd, strange to relate, the lobby chief who escorted and

took him aside was a master of his art. But the scheme which he represented was in imminent peril, and it was deemed essential that the leading papers of the West should, at least, not oppose it. It was thought better that the papers should even leave the subject unmentioned. It were needless to give in detail the interview. The substance of what our lobbyist had to propose to this young journalist was this: "Take this roll of greenbacks, and don't send a word over the wires about our measure." From the appearance of the roll, it was supposed to contain about as much money as the correspondent would earn in the whole of a short session of Congress. What a temptation to a young married man aud father! -a quarter's salary for merely not writing a short paragraph, which, in any case, he need not have written, and might not have thought of writing. He was not tempted, however; but only blushed, and turned away with the remark that he was sorry the tempter thought so meanly of him. It is illegitimate. schemes, such as ought never to get as far as Washington, that are usually sought to be advanced by such tactics as these. Either by a new article of the Constitution, such as President Jefferson proposed sixty-five years ago, or by a clearly defined interpretation of existing articles, the people should be notified anew that Congress is not authorized to expend the public money, or lend the public credit," for any but strictly national objects, - objects necessary to the defence and protection of the whole people, and such as the State governments and private individuals cannot do for themselves. Any one who has been in Washington during the last few winters, and kept his eyes open, must have felt that this was a most pressing need of the time. It is sorrowful to see so much effort and so much money wasted in urging Congress to do what it cannot do without the grossest violation of the great charter that created it.

I feel all the difficulty of laying down a rule that will stand the test of strong temptation. The difficulty is shown by our failures hitherto; for this question of the power of Congress to do desirable works has been an "issue in Presidential contests, and the theme of a hundred debates in both Houses. President Washington, influenced perhaps by his English-minded Secretary of the Treasury,

ion.

Hamilton, evidently thought that Congress could do almost anything which the British Parliament could do; and we see him urging Congress to realize Hamilton's dream of a great National University. John Adams shared this opinWhen Mr. Jefferson came into power, in 1801, on a strict-constructionist issue, Republicans thought the thing was settled. But no: there occurred an opportunity to buy Louisiana, and that opportunity seemed transient. Napoleon wanted money desperately, and had sense enough to understand the uselessness of Louisiana to France. Jefferson yielded. He bought Louisiana, and then asked Congress to frame an amendment to the Constitution that would cover the act. I never could see the necessity for an amendment for that case; for it certainly belonged to "the common defence" for the United States to own its own back door. Then came that perplexing surplus of 1805, when Mr. Jefferson asked Congress to take the whole subject of internal improvements into consideration, and frame an article of the Constitution which would be a clear guide for all future legislation. It was not done. The war of 1812 betrayed the weakness of the country in some essential particulars, and broke down the strict-construction theory, while confirming in power the party of strict-constructionists. Madison revived the project of a National University, without asking for a new article; and the old Federalist ideas gained such ground, that, when John Quincy Adams came into power, in 1825, Congress was asked to do more than Hamilton had so much as proposed in Cabinet-meeting. Jackson, impelled by his puerile hatred of Henry Clay, re-established the strict-construction principle; but it would not remain re-established. In 1843, Congress gave Professor Morse twenty thousand dollars with which to try his immortal experiment with the telegraph. Congress had no right to do this; but the splendor of the result dazzled every mind and silenced all reproach. Then came Mr. Douglas's device by which a Democratic Congress was enabled to set up a railroad company with capital from the sale of the public lands, and leave to the railroad company all the profit upon the investment. Finally was achieved the masterpiece of evasion called "lending the public credit."

I never could see the necessity of any device to justify Congress in constructing one Pacific Railroad outright; because it was a cheap and necessary measure of " common defence." That railroad defends the frontiers against the Indians better than mounted regiments, and defends the Pacific States better than costly fleets. But the most strained reading of the Constitution cannot make it authorize the building of a railroad beginning and ending in the same State, nor justify the voting of public money to make scientific experiments. Probably there are now in Washington at least fifty lobbies (or will be erelong) working for schemes suggested by those two violations of trust, to the sore tribulation of members of Congress, and to the grievous loss of persons interested.

The time is favorable for an attempt to settle this question, because it does not now enter into the conflict of parties. Perhaps the Congress of an empire like this ought to have power to aid in such a work as the Darien Canal. Perhaps the mere magnitude of the undertaking makes it exceptional, makes it necessarily national. It may properly belong to an imperial parliament to aid scientific experiments which are too costly for individuals to undertake. Perhaps a national Congress is incompletely endowed unless it can reward services that cannot otherwise be rewarded, — such a service, for example, as that rendered by the discoverers of the pain-suspending power of ether. If so, let the power be frankly granted, but carefully defined. If not, let the fact be known. There should be an end of evasions, devices, and tricks for doing what the Constitution does not authorize. A tolerably well-informed citizen of the United States should be able to ascertain with certainty, before going to Washington and publishing a gorgeous album, whether his enterprise is one which Congress has or has not the constitutional right to assist.

THE CLOTHES MANIA.

HAT Alpine hat which broke out upon us with so much

force in the interior States, is a good illustration of the way in which a fashion originates, "takes," spreads, rages, declines, dies away in the distance, and is lost to view, until it pleases our sovereign lords, the fashion-makers, to spring it upon mankind again. The son of a New York hatter, late in the year 1867, while making the tour of Europe, found himself at Naples, where he noticed a pretty green hat that was much in vogue, called the Alpine hat. It was steeplecrowned, with wide brim, and a broad black ribbon round the crown which was further decorated by a feather. It differed from the familiar Tyrolese hat, which we often see at the opera upon the heads of picturesque banditti, chiefly in having the brim turned up instead of down, and in having a deep, regular dent or cleft in the top of the crown, such as all soft hats have when they are first unpacked. The young hatter, though on pleasure bent, had a mind attentive to business, and he sent one of these hats home to his father, who placed it in his store for the amusement of his customers. It was as though he had said, “See what things those absurd foreigners wear! Yes, sir, they actually wear that kind of thing in Naples; out of doors, and in broad daylight! Just fancy a man wearing a green hat, with a feather in it, in the streets!"

For three months or more this hat, so pretty at Naples, so ridiculous in New York, was exhibited in the hat-store in Broadway without exciting in the breast of any man a desire to possess it. The realistic drama was then in fashion. Managers advertised their new effects as patented ; dramatists sought the twofold protection of the Patent