A Caustic Criticism Of Scribner's

Mr. 'Editor: In the October number of Scribners Magazine is an article by Tennis S. Hamlin upon " Historie Houses of Washington." The intelligent reader is at a loss to know wbetlier its authov intended the article for iiction or fact. For instance he says that Congress, in session at Philadelphia, located the capital at Washington, lt happened to be in session at New York when tbat act was passed. He says that the wife of Commodore Decatur died ín 1855, when in fact that estimable lady, to the great delight of lier innumerable friends, tarried in fchia "vain and deceitful world" flve years longer, dying in 1860. He says that Henry Clay died in 1857, and gives a picture of the room in the Xsitional Hotel from which his spirit took its flight that year. Heury Clay died in 1852. It is possible that he ïeturned to earth and rose again from that room in 1857, but we skeptics out west "demand the proof." He says that 'vMrs. Madison a few months before her death at seventy-erght jears of age," etc, Here is a doublé mistake. To preserve the "series of proportion" and have this statement harmonize with the two last preceding statements, he should have made a mistake of flve years, when as a matter of fact he has only made a mistake of four years. Mrs. Madison died at the age of eightytwo. These are ouly specimens. This article sadly needs "revisión," Or perhaps it would be quite as well for the editor of Scribners to "revise" its author. Ann Arboi' Sept. 24, 1893