This cannot fail to make Washington a more agreeable abode than any other city in the Union.
The total absence of all sights, sounds, or smells of commerce, adds greatly to the charm.

Instead of drays you see handsome carriages; and instead of the busy bustling hustle of men, shuffling on to a sale of "dry goods" or "prime broad stuffs," you see very well-dressed personages lounging leisurely up and down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Mr.Pishey Thompson, the English bookseller, with his pretty collection of all sorts of pretty literature, fresh from London, and Mr.Somebody, the jeweller, with his brilliant shop full of trinkets, are the principal points of attraction and business.
What a contrast to all other American cities! The members, who pass several months every year in this lounging easy way, with no labour but a little talking, and with the _douceur_ of eight dollars a day to pay them for it, must feel the change sadly when their term of public service is over.
There is another circumstance which renders the evening parties at Washington extremely unlike those of other places in the Union; this is the great majority of gentlemen.

The expense, the trouble, or the necessity of a ruling eye at home, one or all of these reasons, prevents the members' ladies from accompanying them to Washington; at least, I heard of very few who had their wives with them.

The female society is chiefly to be found among the families of the foreign ministers, those of the officers of state, and of the few members, the wealthiest and most aristocratic of the land, who bring their families with them.
Some few independent persons reside in or near the city, but this is a class so thinly scattered that they can hardly be accounted a part of the population.
But, strange to say, even here a theatre cannot be supported for more than a few weeks at a time.

I was told that gambling is the favourite recreation of the gentlemen, and that it is carried to a very considerable extent; but here, as elsewhere within the country, it is kept extremely well out of sight.