Page 2 Advertisements Column 2

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12881, 2 May 1913, Page 2

Sydney Brooks writes in the "Fortnightly" on "Washington and the' Whito House." After a reference to Australia and South Africa, he romarKs that the forces and emotionsthafc have .stirred the latest-born democracies nro the same forces and emotions that 120 years ago moved Americans to fix the seat of the Federal Government on a stretch of marshy scrub, far away from the real life of the nation. That was in 1700. Ten years were allowed in which to transtorm thin waste of woods and bog into the national capital.. But progress was slow, and when the Government moved in" in 1800 tliero wore only the President's mansion, two wings (one of them incomplete) of the nationill legislature, la tavern, and half a ■closcn wooden shanties- in the place. Tho streets were indicated by felled trees; the nearest lodginps were three miles away; ,-vnd the members of Congress, flujior ( ] own on this chaos of desolation, began to pine for the -fleshpots of Philadelphia', We in Australia, nro makintr , a similar'beginning at Canberra. The writer of -the article nays a tribute to the French enginer, Ma^'or L'Enfanf, who dre-v the plann of Washington—so comprehensive that even now they stil! await fulfilment, and so perfect in every detail that they have never been departed from without- loss to tlio beauty of the city. He gives Washington another " in which to become the model capital and the' model municipality of the world.