Cabin John Bridge

Sunday Scene in Local Option Montgomery County.

BOYS AND GIRLS DRINKING

Slot Machines in Full Operation for Gambling.

SOME OF THE INCIDENTS

View of the back side of the Cabin John Hotel, early 20th century.

While the good people of Washington were attending church Sunday, just across the District line at Cabin John bridge the depraved were rollicking in high carnival. The day was not propitious for a general turning out, but there was nevertheless a big crowd at the well-known resort, where everything goes. The place recalled the early western mining camps, where no distinction was made as to men and methods, and where everything was “wide open all the time.”

It was a poor commentary on the morals of the capital city to witness the scenes of depravity that were enacted almost within the shadow of the great white dome beneath which laws for the good government of mankind are made. The frequenters of the resort last Sunday were made up for the most part of the lower strata of society, yet there were others present who are well known in the business world of Washington, and there was another class, as much out of place it seemed as a rose in a swamp—young girls who came on bicycles, stopping “just for a minute” to get a drink of lemonade. The excitement of the place seemed to Intoxicate them, and they tarried, many of them to taste for the first time this new sensation of depraved society. They stay perhaps to taste their first drink of intoxicants, ending in the wild orgies that too often form a part of the program at such resorts.

Illustration of Kossoth in a Broadway parade in New York

Kossuth in America

The National Era, Washington, DC, January 22, 1852 The reception of the great Hungarian by the people of the United States is freely commented on by the English press. “The…

Congressional Proceedings

Evening Star, Washington, DC, January 17, 1856

In the House yesterday, after we went to press, other gentlemen explained the reasons actuating them in voting on Mr. Thorington’s resolution, viz : Messrs. Purviance, Sherman, Dunn, Fuller of Pa., Stanton, Thorington, Wade, and Washburn of Me.

Some debate took place between Messrs. Stephens, Zollicoffer, and Richardson, in the course of which the latter took occasion to say that while he believed that, according to the letter of the constitution, Congress had the power to exclude slavery from the territory of the United States, yet that it was unjust and wrong, and in violation of the spirit of that instrument, to do so, as the constitution was made for the purpose of securing equality among the States and to the people of the whole country.