vention center where delegates are requested to report on arrival, and where they will find the registration and information bureaus, convention postoffice, recreation-rooms, etc. Rev. Donald C. MacLeod, D. D., 1819 Q Street, Washington, D. C., is the chairman of the committee on entertainment.

Aside from the great purpose of the convention, Washington will be especially interesting to the delegates from foreign countries. It is for them particularly and for the delegates from American cities who have not familiarized themselves with the history of the capital, the following sketch will be interesting:

The District of Columbia is unique in many respects. It embraces about sixty-five square miles, its principal city contains over 300,000 inhabitants, is the seat of the National Government, the official residence of the President, and the meeting place of Congress, but no elections are held in the district. Although it is and has always been the headquarters of the army and navy, yet a foreign foe has been in possession, burnt the Capitol and other public buildings, and a hostile fleet has sailed up the Potomac and anchored within gunshot.

Mighty armies have gathered within its borders; the rumble of artillery, the clatter of cavalry and the solid tramp of infantry have been heard in the streets of Washington; hospitals containing thousands of wounded men have occupied the public square; two national cemeteries with long rows of headstones show the last resting place of many soldiers, but the only battle fought in the borders of the district was in 1864, when Early's gray-clad battalions threatened the city, and President Lincoln was among the spectators on the breastworks. During the Revolution, the Continental Congress was a movable body, having

met in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Trenton and Annapolis, and when at the close of the war the session in Philadelphia was threatened by disbanded troops, clamoring for their pay, the city authorities declined to interfere to preserve peace. This object lesson was not lost, and one of the important matters demanding early attention was fixing a location for a permanent capital, where the national authority should be supreme. Great jealousy existed among the States of the new Union, the smaller fearing the aggressions of the larger, and the selection of a capital city was the cause of a heated discussion. One proposition, seriously considered, was to have two capitals, one north of the Delaware River, the other in one of the Southern States, meetings of Congress to be held in each capital in alternate years. The plan adopted was to have a tract set apart as a Federal District, the necessary land for streets, parks and public buildings to be donated, and the State to relinquish jurisdiction, that the seat of government should be free from any State or local influence. After much discussion -some of it not very good-natured-the decision was reached not to consider any location north of New Jersey, which State was advocating Trenton, offering to set apart a tract eight miles square, while Maryland made a similar tender of land and $180,000 in cash with which to erect buildings if Annapolis should be chosen. This was before the days of steam; travel on land was by stage coach or on horseback, and on water by sail boats, and it was deemed advisable to secure a place which was not only near the center of population, but while being inland and on navigable water, should not be too accessible to an enemy or exposed to attacks from hostile navies in