Evening Star Newspaper, October 6, 1894, Page 19

e oF SS 7 EASBY’S POINT, MAIN SEWER. LIKE A BIG TUNNEL The Work on the Fizst of the In- tercepting Sewers. A HUGE HOLE THROUGH THE GROUND Large Enough to Run a Tally-Ho Coach In. WORK OF CONSTRUCTION HE NEW SYSTEM of sewerage proposed | for the District of Columbia has had a pesitive beginning. The first branch of the mammoth brick tunne? which will ul- timately wind itself like a huge hollow snake through the whole city is now teing built. The he- sinning of the work, is cut of the way of the walks of the ordinery pedestrian, so but comparatively few people have noticed its construction, or have any idea of the immensity of the work now being done. But it is a fact that a ick tunnel, large enough to run a train cf cable cars through is now rapidly plowing its way to the in- tersection of Pennsyivania avenue and 15th street. Starting at Easby’s Point, on the Sullivan lived in that locality, and this trough was a noted watering place in front of his house in the early years of the cen- tury. The most difficult part of the work has been passed. This was at 22d street, where the sewer pierces the solid rock. Heavy and dangerous blasting was here necessary to make the deep cut, and large landslides oc- curred, ‘causing considerable delay and dam- age. ‘The sewer is made in sections of about twenty-five feet in length, and one section is completed before the next one is joined to it. The lower half of the circle is composed of fifty-four courses of vitrified brick, laid in Portland cement, and the upper half is made of pressed brick, also laid in cement. It is one of the first pressed-brick sewers ever buiit. The walls are about eighteen inches thick. The interior surface Is as smooth as the front of a fine brick house, and especially the lower part, constructed of vitrified brick. This is the first time vitrified bricks have been used in the construction of sewers, and they are considered a very important improvement, as the bottom of a sewer is subjected to severe wearing from the grinding of grit and sand passing along with the swift current of water. These bricks are expected to stand this wear, as they are harder than marble. Like a Big Can: The work now being done along D street suggests to the looker-on the building of a canal rather than a sewer. The level of the street is low at this point and the work is near the surface. Stone walls, as across the flats, are being built and the bed of cement at the bottom forms a solid square canal in which the sewer will be construct- ed. As there is no high ground between here and the terminus of the sewer there will be no more deep excavations necessary and the work will progress very rapidly. At the end of this work it is supposed the contract for another sewer, proposed to run down F street to 7th, will be let, and this will be connected at 15th and the avenue with the one now being constructed. In fact, two sewers will connect with the pres- ent one at that point, the one already laid down 15th street and the proposed F street sewer. They will be connected by a large brick basin in the form of a bell, as com- bined they will be larger than the Easby Point sewer. The proposed F street section river front, near the extended foot of 26th street northwest, the line of construction Tuns in a rather circuitous route to the southeast corner of the treasury building. The work Is now half completed, and be- fore June rext will be finished. It is not So large as some of the present sewers in the city, but in point of workmanship and improved methods of construction it will be second to none of the sewers here and very few elsewhere. It is known as the Easby Point and F street high-level interceptor. It {s the largest municipal work constructed in this city for many years, and will cost $250,000. ‘Two appropriations have been made for it by Congress, one of $9,000 and one of $160,000. The contract was let to H. L. Cranford & Co. of this city, and the first ground broken in June, 1803. The first brick was laid in the following October. From Easby’s Point the work runs across the flats to Wgter and 23d streets, along Water to 22d, to C, to 19th, to D, which is as far as it has advanced to date, but it will be rapidly pushed along D to the White Lot, which it will pass through on its way to 15th and the avenue. The chief engineer for the contractor ts Mr. Frank P. Davis, who was for five years division engineer in charge of the Nicaragua canal. The two inspectors for the District of Columbia are Mr. J. C. Clarke and Mr. James A. French. These two officials are constantly inspect- ing the work, and they say it is of a very high character. The contract calls for the Twenty-Second and Water Streets. completion of the sewer by July, 1895, and there are now 200 men at work upon it. In all probability {t will be finished before the limit of time. The large 17th street sewer will soon be intercepted. This will be the first body of water turned Into !t, and then the work will be more than half finished. Crossing the Flats. In crossing the flats there was no founda- tion whatever to build upon and it was necessary to make an artificial one of piles. These were driven down to rock bottom and on top of them a heavy wooden top was laid, bringing the foundation to the level of the flats. Parallel stone walls were then constructed upon this ten feet high and the Sewer built between them. The space be-/} tween the sewer and the walls was then filled in with cement, making a solid struc- ture about twelve feet above the flats. Al- though not intended, this will naturally act as a dam acress the flats and be of con- siderable advantage in protecting the por- tion of flats below it in times of small freshets. The top of this structure ts on the street grade, and it shows how high the flats have yet to be raised before they can be used as streets. Crossing the flats to the intersection of Water street the sewer is D shaped and eleven feet three inches in diam- eter. The bottom is nearly flat and about two feet above low tide, which will permit of the sewer being drained whenever the tide Is down. At the intersection of Water street It continues eleven feet in diameter, but becomes circular in shape. Excavation begins at this point, becoming deeper as it reaches 22d street, where the cut goes fifty feet down into a bed of solid rock, giving the work the appearance of railroad buiid- ing through a mountain. Huge cragged rotks project along the sides, and looking down upon this rugged canyon one sees the shapely brick tunnel piercing {ts way along the bottom, seeming to push the shapeless rocks aside from its course. At 22d street it makes a graceful curve around the rough cut into D street, where a down grade brings the work nearer to the level of the street up to the point on D street where the work has progressed. Along D street made ground is again encountered almost similar to that of the fla This ground has to be excavated to the solid surface and filled in with cement up to the correct elevation of the tunnel at that point, thus causing an immense amount of work. The excavation goes down to the original level of that lo- cality before it was filled tn, hich is eighteen feet. It was in this nefghberhood the ancient village of Funkstown once re- posed, and as the excavation goes original level of this town some things are unearthed. The oth y watering trough, such as is commonly see: beside a road for watering horses, taken out. It was in a good state of p: vation and the spring which ran into it was Still flowing. One of the engineers made from 15th to 7th will be only six feet in diameter. The deepest excavation will be A Sectional Vievs.- thirty-three feet, at 14th and F. The total length of the two sections will be 10,525 feet. The Easby Point section is 6,000 feet long and contains 500 bricks to the foot. It is estimated that the Easby Point and F street sewers combined will take the storm water and sewage from a thickly populated area of 537 acres. The Easby section alone is proportioned to take a rainfall of one and one-fourth inches per hour upon its whole drainage area. When the two sections are finished they will in- tercept all old sewers crossing toward the river between 7th street and Hasby Point, including the 15th and 17th street sewers, thus doing away with many thousand feet of old sewers. Of course, this sewer is not to be com- pared im size to the famous sewers of Lon- don and Paris, but there are few sewers in American cities that are of equal or great- er size. One would suppose the sew- ers of New York to be large, but they are not. New York has no need of large sewers and they are much smaller than the Easby Point sewer. The city is so situated that the sewage can be conducted by the use of large pipes to the river on either side and it immediately passes off in the swift currents. Philadelphia has some of the largest sewers in this country, but only a few of them are much larger than our new sewer. Baltimore has, practically, no sewers. : Walking Through the Sewer. The finishing touches have been put upon the Easby sewer from the river to the bend at 22d and D streets, a distance of over a mile. The upper end {s barricaded on ac- count of falling rock, which threatened to injure the new work, but as no connection with other sewers has yet been made there is consequently no water in it, and it can be entered from the river. With the as- sistance of a lantern one can walk the whole distance as comfortably as upon the street. Toward the middle there may be a desire on the part of the visitor to crawl up a manhole and get a bit of fresh air, but otherwise it is not a disagreeable place to take a stroll. There is not yet any of the characteristic odor and dirt of a sewer, and it appears in walking through more like an underground railroad tunnel. Eleven feet in diameter seems to be small, but a six- horse tally-ho coach could’ be driven through it with passengers on top, and a beat which would hold fifty persons could navigate in it. If going toward the river a boat would need no motive power other than the current, which will run at the rate of four miles an hour when the sewer is half full cf water. Viewing it from the exterior one has little idea of its size. It is necessary to go inside in order to appreciate The Proposed System. While this section, in itself, 1s a large af- feir, it is only the beginning of the very ex- tensive system of sewerage proposed by the board of three special sanitary engineers ap- pointed August 17, 1889, by ex-President Harrison to examine and report upon the system of sewerage existing in the District ot Columbia, and authorized to suggest the best means of improving the same. The engineers appointed to do this work were Rudolph Hering of New York, Frederick P. Stearns of Massachusetts, and Samuel M. Grey of Rhode Island. A very extensive re- port upon the subject was prepared by them and submitted to Congress In June, 1890. This report has been previously detailed in ‘The Star. Congress approved the project recommended by this board and the Easby Point sewer is the result of the first appro- priation made for this work. This board was appointed only two months after the flood of June, 1889, and their principal object was to determine upon a system of sewerage which would combine the two advantages of carrying off both the stoPm water and the natural drainage in ordinary dry weath- er. While it was found necessary to guard agalmmt the flocding of the low districts, a danger to be removed lay in the fact that the present outlets are too flat, and instead of discharging the water Into the channels, as they were Intended to do, the sewers re- mained constantly filled with foul deposit, and overflowed at the s! test Increase of discharging matter. In this clty, more than , the sewers are rapidly filled by st siorm, because the asphaltum er of absorption. The drainage is so large from a storm of only thre inches rainfall per hour that it taxes the present sewers to their limit. The pro- ject recommended by the three sanitary en- sineers Is calculated to answer every re- quirement for the next forty years, but they @ome inquiry and it was learned that a Mr. specially recommend that the entire system be constructed immediately, as incomplete sections of it will offer little or no advan- tage over the present system. The project contemplates the delivery of practically all the sewerage of the District at the lowest proposed outlet, which is a projecting point in the river a short dis- tance north of the naval magazine. A small portion of Georgetown fronting on the river can, it is held, always discharge its Sewage directly into the channel without objection. Interceptors will be built to pre- vent the discharge of sewage into Rock creek, the Eastern branch, the Potomac river between these tributaries, or the ‘Washington canal, and will deliver it to a pumping station at the foot of New Jersey avenue near the Eastern branch. At thi station the seyage will be lifted to a suftl- cient height, so that it can flow by gravity through iron inverted siphons, laid under the Eastern branch to Poplar Point, thence through brick sewer to the bank of the Potomac and then through Iron outiet pipes to the channel. At the same station there will be a pumping plant sufficient to lift the storm water of the low district into the Eastern branch, when the water in the lat- ter is too high to permit of a dischirge by gravity. The Easby Point sewer will not answer the full purpose for which it was intended by the board until the Rock creek branch of the system is built. After the Rock creek sewer is completed, it will not answer its entire purpose until another branch of the proposed system is built; and so on through the entire project, one branch helps another. Capt. Derby, the assistant to the Engineer Commissioner, says: “Building portions of the system is similar to buliding an engine with one wheel and a boiler, leaving unfin- ished the other parts, and expecting the engire to do its proper work.” Capt. Derby says that it has lately been estimated by the Engineer Commissioner that the entire Proposed system could be built now for three million dollars, owing to the cheap- ress of labor and building material at the present, while the estimate of the board was fcur million, . ——>_—_ WHY THEY MARRY OFFICERS. A Woman’s Explanation of Their Ad- vantages as Husbands. From the New York Times. In West Point, at table, on the terrace, Capt. Archibald Wellington Perry rolls a cigarette. Mrs. Perry hands a lighted matza to him, He puffs, and, suddenly: He—Do you know that Hanley is to be married? She—He, too? He will be the fourth after us this year. He—Yes, he makes me think of people who throw themselves in a well cr hang themselves in a barn because others have done so. She—Oh, how your comparisons are com- plimentary! He—Pshaw! One can say these things pleasantly, She—You are Henryjamesizing, my dear; and so Hanley is to merry a young girl, Pretty, finely formed, of excellent family, and ornamented with a great lot of little talents. He—Who told you. ae officers find pearls of this descrip- ion. He—Georgie, your modesty will not stifle you. She—I hope not. He—After all, you are right. We are. sur- prisingly popular in the marriage market. Why do women want to marry us so much? She—I have often asked myself the same questicn. If I were sure that you would not make fun of me, I would tell you under what conditions I first thought of it. He-I am as grave as a bi wheel. She—Wei il, you remember that you asked 'y you by letter. My parents lived in the south, and I @id not know when I could see your father in pei = Sne—The true rea8n ts that military men, with ail their brave airs, are timid. When papa showed your letter to me, I fell into tears .without replying anyth As yi were to come Sunday tor an answer, I a ed time for rejection, and every nig could have n> other idea than that 1 had the time to decide. Thus it happened that Sunday morning 1 had not “yet decided, Young women do not think. They are fas- cinated by the tinsel, the gilt, the sword,and the style of the uniform; they are victims of @ sort of indolent admiraticn; the word in- toxicates them—“Oflicer! Officer!” When one of our friends n-arries a captain we fall into hysterics of jealousy and swear to marry at least a colonel; we think nothing of the obligations of an Officer's life. I was thinking of these things in my little white bed, and it was too late to ask advice of grave persoms, Then I remem- bered the experience of Edith, our first bridesmaid. One morning she was in a hurry to go to confession, in order that she might take communion that day. She tele- phoned to the sacristy, and, alone in her father’s office, related her little affairs to her confessor in the telephone. When the priest gave her absolution she did not know if she was to kneel before the receiver, for this, you know, is not provided for in the catechism. ‘Thea what did I do? I ran in my long nightgown to father’s library and tele- phoned for the curate. Fortunately, he was in the sacristy. I asked him what he thought of my marrying an officer. I hear him still: “My dear child, I have had the honor of knowing many officers, principally on battlefields, when I was a chaplain. They seem prilliant, but they are good people. They are straight, simple, guarded by ‘their rough life from mundane dissipa- me tions. I wish you much happiness in the P grand sacrament of marriage.” He—An intelligent man, your father con- fessor. She—Wait a moment. I asked my uncle, the Congressman. He called for his sec- retary, but I said: “Uncle, what do you think of officers as husbands?” He replied: “Officers are honest people. Thus they are different from everybody else. These. ob- cure heroes—’ I interrupted him, because I had often heard this commencement of a phrase, the only phrase that he ever spoke in the House of Kepresentatives, the one which is called in the family “uncle's phrase.” I asked him to get his wife, my gocd Aunt Alice. To my first words she re- plied: “You are right to marry an officer. They are good, very good, husbands. They are big children, and it is amusing to turn them around one’s finger.” In order to finish my consultation with my little Senate, I telephoned for my other aunt, Penelope. She said: “The Lord pre- serve you from marrying an officer, my child. Young girls are influenced by uni- forms, and after they are married they find themselves {imprisoned in a narrow world with special customs,” etc., etc. He—Yes, of course, she wanted you to marry her son. She—But the more she talked the more determined I was. All the objections that she enumerated attracted me as much as the advantages that I thought of. Father entered and found me in my nightgown on the tips of my toes before his telephone. He said, “Well, what are you doing here?’ Then I fell into his arms and stammered, “Father, I want to marry Mr. Perry.” ——-— cee. — —__ Tons of Silver an Altar. A dispatch from Mexico announces that the erection of the magnificent candpy over the high altar of Our Lady in the shrine of Guadalupe has been completed. The pillars to support it are each a solid block of pol- ished Scotch granite, weighing seven tons. The diameter of each pillar is three feet and the height twenty feet. The altar will be ready for dedication December 12 (Guada- lupe day), and will be the most elaborate and costly one in America. The additions to the church edifice will not be completed for nearly two years at the present rate of progress. When finished the shrine of the Lady of Guadalupe will be one ofthe most notable Catholic church edifices in the world. The solid silver altar railing weighs twenty-six tons, and many millions of dol- lars are in other ways represented in this palatial palace of worship. From Life. Having his wits about him. THE SUPREME COURT The October Term peers With a Full Bench, CEREMONIES 0 TAKE PLACE MONDAY The Members of the ‘Court and Its Way of Doing Business. SALARIES WELL EARNED Written for The Evening Star, HE MOST DIGNI- fied and most con- servative Judicial body in the United States assemblies Monday noon in the Capitol. On that day will begin the October term of the Supreme Court— the third of the great co-ordinate branches of the government established by the Constitution. It will find a full docket; for the business of the court ia several years behind, and it will probably always be more or less in arrears. But there will be no hurrying for the pur- pose of expediting business. The same de- liberation will characterize the sessions of the court which has marked them since the first meeting was held more than a cen- tury ago in New York. The Supreme Court moves slowly not alone becausé of the dignity of the court and of its members, though they are re- straining influences. The great importance of @ decision by this, the court of last re- sort, makes it imperative that the greatest care be exercised in determining a verdict. So, though urgent matters are advanced on the docket at every term, there is no haste about transacting the routine busi- hess. Everything takes its turn. The infusion of new blood into the Sen- ate of the United States has turned that most conservative of American legislative bodies upside down. It is no longer a dig- nified and deliberative body as the Senators of fifty years ago understood. It more nearly resembles the bear garden of the House of Representatives than the dignified deliberative body of fifty years ago. But no new blood disturbs the traditional qulet of the Supreme Court. It is not the custom be Po of the Presidents of the United States now, |. to appoint young men to seats on the Su- preme bench; in fact, it was a matter of comment that Mr. Hognblower, Mr. Cieve- land’s appointee of a year ago, who was rejected by the Senate, was only forty-two years old. This would’ not have been con- sidered extraordinarily young for the po- sition a century agg. In November, 1811, President Madison appointed Joseph’ Story to the Supreme * bench, though he was only thirty-two years, old.. President Jeffer- son appointed William Johnson of South Carolina to the Supreme, bench in March, 1s04, though Johnson, was then little more than thirty-two yeats of, age. Bushrod Washington, a nephew of President Wash- ington, appointed fg the Supreme 798, at the age of thirty-six. So the earlier appointments to the bench were made among younger men than are ever now selected. It is seliom now that a lawyer attains the dignity of admission to the Supreme Court bar at as early an age as thirty-two. Of the later appointecs to the bench, Mr. White of Louisiana was forty-nine years old when the Senate co firmed him. Mr. Jackson was nearly sixt: one; Mr. Shiras was about the same age; Mr. Brown was fifty-four, and Mr. Brewer was fifty-two. The youngest appointee now appointed at the age of fort Justice Fuller was fifty-five y he took the oath of office. The chief jus- tice, Mr. Shiras and Mr. White, by the way, had seen no judicial service of any kind before their appointment to the Su- preme bench. Not a Sinecare. The position of associate justice of the Supreme Court is no sinecure—tt cannot even be classed a3 “an easy job.” The Justices give full value for the $10,000 a year which each of them receives. Their time on the bench—averaging about four aud a half hours a day during the term— is not the only time devoted to their duties. Every Saturday they gather in the cot suitation room in the basement of the Cap- itgl. This room was once the office of the clerk of the court; the Supreme Court chamber was at that time the chamber of the United States Senate. To these con- suitations of the justices no one is ad- mitted—not even the clerk of the court. Here the cases which have been argued during the week are discussed and dissect- ed. Here the judgment of the court is de- termined ond the task cf writing an opin- jon is assigned to one or more justices in each case. I say one or more, because ‘it does not always happen that the justices are unanimous in their determination of a matter; and in case of a division the views of the court are prepared by one of the justices and the views of the dissenting justices cre prepared by another. These opinions are written out at their homes by the justices to whom they are assigned and then they are brought to the consulta- tion room and read to the full bench. If they are approved, they are laid before the court on Monday, which ts decision day. Writing an opinion for the Supreme Court is often a weighty matter. The late Justice Lamar remarked once that in pre- paring an opinion in a patent case he had to familiarize himself with the manufacture and use of corsets, their exact application to the female form divine, and all the other trade facts which constituted expert knowledge. The corsets in dispute were an exhibit in the case when it was argued in the court. There are frequently amusing displays in the court room during the dis- cussion of a case. The late Ben Butler very nearly destroyed the gravity of the court one day by introducing a number of pat ented doll bables in evidence and flourish- ing them aloft during his argument in a comical way. There are specialists among the judges, and the cases are assigned to them often in accordance with their known famillarity with the particular branch of jurisprudence involved. Thus, Mr. Brad- ley was for many years the writer of most of the patent decisions, and Mr. Blatch- ford of most of the decisions in the marine cases. Mr. Lamar succeeded to a great deal of the patent and land decision busi- ness, because his experience as Secretary of the Interior had made him familiar with these subjects. But whatever may be the specialty of this or that justice, all are sup- posed to be sufficiently Well informed on all of the subjects considered te render an accurate judgment of the disputed point. In addition to the work which they per- form on and off the bench in Washington, the justices go out during the recess of the court and travel over thé try, sitting with the circuit judges Inthe hearing of important cases. Justice ‘Field goes every year to the Pacific coast, where he covers the circuit including California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Montana, Nevada, Idaho and Arizona. Chiéf Justice Fuller covers Maryland, the Virginias and the Carolinas. . The assembling of the Supreme Court fs a matter of much form and ceremony. The hour of assembling is noon. The court meets at “the place provided by law,” so that if Congress, after the adjournment of the court, decided to move its quarters, it would have simply to conform to the new law, without special action by the court it- self. The “place provided by law” this year is, as usual, the Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol at Washington. The justices will gather at about 11:20 o'clock on Mon- day morning in the robing room. This ts a small room adjoining the clerk's office, which is directly across the hall from the Supreme Court chamber. The clerk's office was once the office of the secretary of the Senate. In the robing room hangs a por- trait of Chief Justice Jay, attired in a robe with scarlet facings. Such gaudy equip- ment has not been seen in the court room within the mem of this generation at least. There is no reason in the world except personal taste, though, which should keep Mr. Fuller from wearing a robe of sky blue. There is no law on the subject. Around the walls of the tobing roBra hang the black silk gowns of the justices and @ number of second-hand gowns. It is usual for a new justice to be inaugurated in an old gown. If one of the colored at- tendants in the robing room could tell their experiences and the uses to which they have been put these gowns ought to have @ historic value. Of course, they have never hung on any but justices’ shoulders, unless Clerk McKenney or some of his peo- le have tried them on in sport, just to learn how it would look and feel to Supreme Court justice, The Justices’ Robes. A justice pays as much for his robe of office as he would pay for a very handsome sult of clothing. There ts a fixed price for the gown—a price which does not vary with the fluctuations in the guties on silk. One woman has made all the justices’ gowns for forty years, and her invariable price for one ts $100. Like the tallors who make.a specialty of outfits for officers of the army and navy, she knows just what are the re- quirements of a justice’s gown, and all that her customer has to be concerned about is the fit. The gown must set well across the shoulders and it should reach from the neck to the heels; but it shouid not drag on the floor. I say floor, because, except on in- auguration day, the justice does not wear his gown out of doors. When he attends an official dinner or reception at the White House he wears the garb of everyday life; even when he calls on the President on the opening day of the court's session, he goes in the clothes he would wear at the break- fast table. 1f you visited one of the justices at his home of an evening you would find a pleasant, rather off-hand man, in a frock coat, with none of the solemnity of manner that cloaks the justices when they are on the bench. The Supreme Court justices are by ao means unapproachable. They are, in fact, considered very jolly after-dinner companions and they are in great demand in social Washington. The justice wears his robe only when the Supreme Court, as a body, is participating in some official ceremony. He may go gowned to @ funeral, if it {is an official funeral. He wears it at the inauguration of a President; but ordinarily he puts it on in the robing room in the morning and takes it off in the robing room at dusk. He does not wear it even in the consulting mm; 5O there is very little wear and tear on it and one robe will outlast several suits of cloth- ing. According to the technical description of it, the justice’s robe is made of large straight widths of silk. It is three and a quarter yards wide at the bottom. It has @ narrow hem around the bottom and a broad hem down the front. It is gauged at the top to a yoke, which is short on the shcuiders and forms a deep scallop at the beck, The flowing sleeves are a yard anda quarter wide and reach to the wrist. A jus- tice usually accepts his first gown without qvestion; but as he grows a little older on the bench he ts as fussy about the fit of the garment as a young woman with her first ball dress, Having donned their robes, with the aid of the oid attendants—and they are old enough to be conspicuous even ig this city of long service—the justices, at a few minutes before noon, cross the hall to the ante-room of the court. “The transit of the justices is a matter of daily interest and wonder to the visitors at the Capitol. It is the signal for a raid—a very subdued, dign!- fied raid—on the door of the court room, where a doorkeeper sits, solemnly manipu- lating the swinging door with a cord. Only So many people are admitted to the court room, and the number is small. There are but a few rows of benches outside the in- closure reserved for the members of the bar. No crowding of the court room is per- mitted. Opening the Court. At noon, led by the chief justice, the jus- tices file into the court room, behind the long tow of pillars which support the nar- row galiery—a gallery, by the way, which is never used now. There is a theatrical touch to the entrance. The black-robed figures glide mysteriously behind the pillars, and then, as though at a prompter’s signal, ap- pear at the spaces between the pillars and move to their places. These places are fixed, and if you know the order which is invari- y followed in assigning them you can answer without hesitation any question as to the chronological order of the associate justices. The chief justice, of course, sits in the middle, On the right of the chief justice sits the justice longest in service. That jus- tice now is Mr. Field, who was appointed by President Lincoln in 1863. On the left of the chief justice sits Justice Harlan, who stands next to Mr. Field in point of service. Then comes Mr. Gray, on the right (one seat removed from the > then Mr. Brewer, on the lei Brown, on the right; Mr, Sairas, on the left; Mr. Jackson, on the right, id Mr. White, on the left. The last seat on the left-hand of the chief justice is always occupied by the youngest of the justices—the latest appointee. The shifting of seats which occurs when an cld justice dies makes considerable confusion in the court for a time. When the justices enter the court erier raps three times and says in a sing-songtone: “Oyez, oyez, oyez! All persons having busi- ness before the honorable the Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give attention, as the court is about to assemble. God bless the United States and this honorable court!” When the gavel first falls, all those with- in the bar of the court rise and remain standing until the justices, at a signal from the chief justice, tuke their seats. As they sit down they bow to the Attorney General and the members of the bar. Usually the first business—and, in fact, almost the anly business of the first day of the term—is the swearing in of lawyers who have practiced in the supreme courts of the states or who, by the fulfillment of some other condition, are eligible to admission. They are sworn in in batches of half a dozen. They gather about the clerk's desk, and as many as can do so conveniently lay their right hands on the little old Bible which has been in use more than half a century, and the clerk reads to them the form of oath, This ceremony concluded, the court ad- journs, and the justices march out as solemnly as they marched in and proceed to the robing rocm, where they remove their garments of silk and satin. Calling on the President. It is customary for the justices of the Su- preme Court, if the President and the Vice President are in the city on the day when the term opens, to call on them formally. This call is made in ordinary street dress; but each justice 1s accompanied by his body servant, who sits on the box of the carriage, and the solemn order of prece- dence is observed. This order must be noted by the Vice President and regarded by him when he returns the call of the justices. The President, of course, does not return theit call. He {s exempt from all calling. This order of precedence is observed by the justices in making the formal calls in their own circle. As for calling on other people, that is done after the other people have called on them. The wives of Senators are disposed sometimes to dispute the prece- dence of justices’ wives on the ground that the justices are confirmed by the Sen- ate, and are, therefore, of less importance: but the Supreme Court circle still maintains its social supremacy.It is an exclusive circle, too, though not in a snobbish sense. The members of the court and their people are congenial, and they associate much in their homes. ig Although it is the ambition of every young lawyer to practice before the Su- preme Court, that practice does not afford the opportunities which are to be found in courts of original jurisdiction. The “argu- ment” made to the Supreme Court is hardly more than a statement of fact and a quota- tion of precedents. When Mr. Cleveland appeared before the Supreme Court a few years ago he read his argument from manuscript. The only other ex-President who has appeared in the Supreme Court rcom is John Quincy Adams, and he ar- gued one case. There is usually a dry for- Mality about the hearing of a case which nakes the sessions of the court very monot- onous to those who are not directly inter- ested in the matter on trial. Sometimes, however, the session 1s enlivened; as when Justice Shiras interrupted the attorney who was arguivs the validity of the patent for a collar button with the query whether among the virtues of this button (which he had described at some length) was the property of being accessible when {t fell under the bureau. These breaks in the monotony of the court hearings, though, are not frequent. Service on the Supreme bench seems con- uetee eee at Sh eee served thirty-four years, Justice Story, thirty-three years; Justice McLean and Justice Wayne, thirty-two years each; Jus- tice Washington, thirty-one years, and Jus- tice Johnson, thirty years. But most of these men were appointed at a comparatively early age. Justice Field, who sits at the right hand of Chief Justice Fuller, was ap- pointed at the age of forty-seven, and he has served thirty-one years. He is eligible to retirement, but he is trying to beat Mr. Marshall's record. He is growing old and somewhat feeble; and it was proposed re- cently to relieve him of the long trip to the Pacific coast every summer; but he declines to change the accustomed routine of hi Ufe. If he succeeds in carrying out his resolution, his successor will be appointed by the President who follows Mr. Cleveland. GEORGE GRANTHAM Baza, THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1894-TWENTY PAGES. PLANISPHERE FOR OCTOBER. THIS CHART SHOWS THE PRINCIPAL STARS NOW VISIBLE AT 9 P.M. ENCE IS THE HORIZON; ITS CENTER, THE ZENITH. HOLD IT OVERHEAD. ITS CIRCUMFER- TO COMPARE WITH THE HEA\ENS, FOR STAR GAZERS October Has Many Delights for Them. BRIAN? ASPECT OP THE SKY Constellations That Are Visible, and Their Legends. OBSERVING THE PLANETS Written for The Evening Star. CTOBER IS ONE OF the most delightful months of the year for star-gazing. At about 9 o'clock, in the early part of the month, and an hour earlier near its close, the heavens present an exceptionally bril- ° Mant aspect. The broad, irregular arch of the Milky Way, spanning the sky in a direction from southwest to northeast, then passes nearly overhead. In it or near it are the con- stellations Ophiuchus, the Eagle, the Swan, Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Perseus and Auriga The Milky Way itself, simply a mass of telescopic stars, is resplendent with stars of every magnitude, particularly in the neighborhood of the Swan, which may now be seen nearly overhead. The region on the northwestern side of the Milky Way contains the constellations Hercules, the Lyre, the Northern Crown, the Dragon and the Two Bears, In the southeast is the monster constel- lation Cetus, the Whale, remarkable not jess for its paucity of stars than for its great size; and directly south is the South- ern Fish, notable solely for its brilliant star, Fomalhaut. Above the Whale and Fish runs the line of the zodiacal constellations—Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries and Tau- rus; and between this line and the Milky Way lie Andromeda and the winged horse, Pegasus. With the aid of the planisphere one should have little difficulty in locating all of these constellations. The Swan (Cyg- nus) may readily be recognized from the cross-like arrangement of its six brighter stars. This asterism is, in fact, popularly own as the Northern Cross, the star in the head of the Swan forming the foot of the cross and the outer s' in the southern wing being omitted. The star in the tall of the Swan, Deneb Cygni, is considerably brighter than the remaining five, and is sometimes regarded as of the first magni- tude, the others being of the second. It will assist in identifying th!s star to note that it forms, with Vega, in the Lyre, and Altair, in the Eagle, a large isoceles tri- angle, of which Altair is the apex. The head of the Swan is turned toward ¢ southwest, and the bird appears to be flying or sailing along the course of the Milky Way. It is hanily nec to say that one will seek in vain for the outlines of the Swan as it is represented here. The con- stellation owes its name, probably, to its cross-like figure, this being a figure which a flying bird ts often represented in @ rough Way, one stroke forming the body and a cross stroke the outspread wings. The stars in the Eagle are somewhat similarly grouped, and quite likely the two stars which flank Altair were originally the Eagle's wings, though no longer so con- sidered. At any rate, there is no bird to be seen here such gs is depicted on the chart. Constellations and Their Names. It should be borne in mind that the pic- torial representations of the constellations found on our celestial charts have been drawn by modern artists who seem to have had an eye to the appearance of the chart rather than the appearance of the heavens. None of the ancient representa- tions of these fanciful objects, if any there were, have come down to us, and the an- clent descriptions of them are extremely vague. It is in a great measure a matter of conjecture how the stars in any given constellation were grouped originally. It is well, therefore, in our search for constel- lations to be on our guard against being misled by the pictorial representations of them, which are usually drawn to suit their names rather than the actual con- figuration of the stars. The sketches of Hercules and Cepheus given in the planisphere are designed to illustrate this point. The “Kneeler,” thus represented, is certainly not a very im- posing figure, but he may be found among the stars, and so may Cepheus. Even the lovely Cassiopeia yields readily to this treatment. Divested of the outlines given her in the chart, a figure remains, which may pass for a queen in a sitting posture, provided one’s imagination is suf- ficiently active, although the head is even more than classically small. It has already been shown, in a previous article, how the “skeleton” of the Great Bear may be traced. It requires, however, a lively imagination to discover it, and perhaps the explanation of this constella- uon given by f. Max Muller, the emi- rent philologist, affords a more satisfac- tory solution of this riddle of the Ursa Major. According to Prof. Muller the Great Rear owes its origin to an egregious blund. There is no bear here and never has been. His account of it is this: An ancient Aryan designation of the seven stars which form what we commonly call the Great Dipper was the “Seven Rikshas.” The word riksha, Prof. Muller tells us, meant “bright one,” and was ap- parently applied to all the stars. The “Sev- en Rikshas” meant, therefore, simply the “Seven Stars.” But other names for the stars were also used in those primitive times, and after a while the word riksha ceased to be so used except with reference to the remarkable group of seven ih the north, This is what happened in conse- quence: The Hindoo branch of the Aryan family, still using this name, even after having quite forgotten its original mean- ing, In the end confounded the word rik- sha with the word rishi, hich meant ‘poet,” and this consi: jon became known among them as the Seven Rishis, or Seven Poets, a story being invented, of Naggre to explain how they go: their place the sky. The Greeks were equally unfortunate, ac- @ording to Professor Muller. The old word | lf ayy, riksha or arksha became in the Greek lan- arktos, which was the common stook both being misled by @ pame, the meaning of which had been for- gotten. How the seven bears became trans- ‘The Dipper. An old Roman name for the seven stars of the Dipper was Septemtriones, whence we get our adjective “septemtrionai,” in the sense of “northern.” Varro expleins this name as meaning the “Seven Plow-Oxen,” trio being, archale tions has no basis whatever among the stars, but is of an exotic growth, for which the suggestiveness of a mere name is often wholly responsible. It seems not unlikely that, whatever was the origin of the constellation of the Great Bear, this asterism was limited —~ = the dipper-like group of seven stars, was subsequently extended by astronomers to suit their own purposes. Hence, a some- what similar group of seven stars, known to us as the Litue Dipper, received the name Smaller Bear (Ursa Minor). The constellation Auriga, the Charioteer, can be located readily means of its bright star, Capella, the She-Goat, which way now be escen fairly above the horizon in the northeast. 5, ing in his right hand his sword—of which, by the way, there is not the slightest trace mong the stars—and swinging in his left hand the terrible Medusa head, marked by the variable star Algol, the “blinking To the right of Perseus and in mid- heavens, in the east, reclines Andromeda, Still farther to the right and at a greater altitude is Pegasus. A large dipper-shaped group of seven stars of the second magni- tude forms the basis of these three constella- tions and renders their location easy. The pair second and one of the third Aries, magnit which mark the head of the — Near the more southerly of the two is @ fourth magnitude star, which renders the pair easy to identify. To the left of the Ram's head and at a Somewhat lower altitude is a small triangle of stars, the brightest of the third magni- tude, which forms the constellation of the . Below the Fly may be seen the well- known cluster of the Pletades. Some ten degrees south of the Ram's head may now be seen the planet Mars, far out- shining with its familiar ruddy glow a star of the first magnitude. beneath Mars % Menkar, a second-magnitude star, in the head of Cetus. At about two-thirds of the distance from this star to Fomathaut is Deneb Kaitos, also of the second magni- tude, which marks the monster's tail. These two stars show the extent of Cetus, which is about all that the ordinary observ- er — care = note. e two which form the constel tion Pisces—the Northern and the 4 Fish—are shown on the planisphere, the former between Andromeda and Aries, the latter between Pegasus and the tail of Cetus. Each is marked loose aggre- gation of faint stars, and e keen-sighted observer can trace the string or vhich unites them. This constellation te — ever, of little interest, except as zodiacal constellations. oad eee Regering the Wat order, ag we proceed westward alon zodiac. He is represented on the chart ‘by the figure of a man in a rather cramped position, holding in his right hand an in- verted urn, from which flows a stream of water, traceable by a stream of faint stars, which curves downward beneath his feet to the mouth of the Southern Fish. The shoulders of Aqvarius aro marked wy s pair of third-magritude stars, which Torm with the star in the nose of sus @ nearly right-angied triangle with two equal — The urn ‘ formed by e@ small ¥- shaped group of fourth-magnitude stars mear the right ee g Capricorn can be found means of two stars, one of the coceatipes one of the third magnitude, in his head. These stars are at the southern angle of a nearly equal- sided triangle, of which the two other — are run by Altair and the star in the nose exasus. Capricorn would hardly be worth noting but for the cirqum- Stance that his name has been given to one of the “tropics.” The western limit of the “sign” Capricora (constellation Sag- ittarius) is midway between the two equi- mone pe ge — the sun in its annual roun the heavens arrives at this point about December 21, it is at its farthest ‘ais: tance south of the celestial equator. : The Planets. Mercury is an evening star, and at sun- set tonight will be about three-quarters of an hour high, between west and southwest. It will reach its greatest elongation east on the 18th. Venus is still visible as a morning star, but fs rapidly drawing in toward the sun. Mars is now the cynosure of all eyes astronomically inclined. Its position ts shown on the planisphere, together with that portion of its track among the stars traversed by it between the Ist of August last and the 16th of January next. On the Mth of September it was “stationary.” Since that date it has been “retrogradi —moving toward the west. It will again come to a stand on the 23d of November. During the remainder of the year its course will be “direct,” or toward the east. On the 26th of November it will pass its as- cending node—that it will cross sun's path fom south to north. Its “op- position” will occur on the morning of 2ist of this month. - - Jupiter is now an evening star, rising at about 10 p.m. On the 2éth it will be sta- tionary, and during the remainder of the year 1ts course will be retrogra@e. eptune is still plodding his slow course, invisible to the naked eye, in the constella- tion Taurus. Saturn and Uranus are hidden in the sun's rays. They will be i conjunction with the sun next month, The position of the moon at 9 p.m. ts marked on the planisphere for every @ay cf the month on which she will be above the horizon at that hour. She will be found tonight near the head of Capricora, a a FoR presmity ‘sford’s Acid Phosphate. comes next in