"1823, January 8th, Jury sworn a second time.

"9th. Returned the following verdict: 'The Jury find, that the Election held in June last, in the City of Washington, for Mayor of the said City, was illegally conducted by the absence of one Commissioner, from the 5th Ward; and that, therefore the Election of Thomas Carbery was void.'

On Saturday, January 11, the National Intelligencer announced:

"Mr. Carbery is yet Mayor of our City. Though the verdict of the Jury is against him, the Court has not yet delivered its judgment accordingly. We have not heard whether Mr. C. will take an appeal to the Supreme Court."

Mr. Carbery's promise to relinquish the honorable office if the Court decided against him, if he made it at all, he forgot; or, if he remembered it, the consequence of turning the government over to the other political side was fraught with such disaster to the city he could not think of such a thing. However, his political opponents did not press the performance of the promise. The case is reported in Cranch's Circuit Court Reports, 2, 358. The concluding paragraph is:

"Verdict for the relator; who thereupon filed an information in the nature of a quo warranto, in the name of the Attorney of the United States, but it was never prosecuted, as the term for which the mayor was elected expired on the first Monday of June, 1824, and it could hardly be expected that the proceedings upon the quo warranto would be terminated before that day."

During the Carbery mayoralty, many years before and many afterward, with great zeal, were celebrated the Birthday Anniversary and Independence Day. A parade there was. Sometimes a prize poem. Always a public dinner, a feast with countless toasts. The Mayor usually presided at the dinner. Captain Car

bery did during his term, and so courteous and courtly was he, he was impressed into this pleasant presidency out of his term.

Captain Carbery was the chairman of the Fourth of July committee, 1822.

The newspaper account has:

"The City Dinner took place at Strother's, and was provided with an abundance and taste that did credit to the hotel. The Mayor of the City presided, assisted by Gen. J. P. Van Ness as Vice-President. A respectable number of citizens partook of the feast, amongst whom were all the heads of Departments, and other officers of the government. Most of the representatives of foreign nations, resident here, accepted of the invitation which was given to them, and attended."

The toasts were thirty-four on this occasion. That by the President of the day-"The plan of our Federal Government-May it be handed down to the latest posterity, in the purity of Republican simplicity." That to the President of the day-"Our President, and Mayor of the city.-We confidently believe that the discharge of his official duties, in his latter capacity, will be as able and indefatigable as his deportment today has been polite and affable.”

The Independence Day of 1823.-Of the committee of arrangements, Thomas Carbery, Esq., was chairman and Alexander Kerr, secretary. Colonel Henry Ashton was the orator, and General John P. Van Ness read the declaration.

In the National Intelligencer, Wednesday, June 5, 1822, is the announcement that the offices of the Mayor and the Register are removed to the City Hall, where also the two Boards of the City Council will meet on Monday next and hold their sessions hereafter. At that date the central portion of the original building was complete.

The total vote for the mayoralty was 729. The population of the city according to the census, 1820, was: white, 4,786 males, 4,820, females; slaves, males 880, females 1,065; free colored, 750 males, 946 females; a grand total of 13,247. The tax on real estate was one half of one per cent. on the estimated value, which is on a basis of one half of the existing rate of taxation.

The play during the Carbery mayoralty was well patronized if the sparse population is considered. For in the newspaper is "In consequence of the very great applause with which the 'Wandering Boys' was received, the public are respectfully informed it will be repeated on Saturday evening (July 27, 1822).” A year later (Thursday, September 24) was at Washington Theater, "Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson's Benefit," to conclude with an absurd farce called the "Lady and the Devil." Some of the titles of the plays must have been productive of curiosity, as "Wives as They' Were and Maids as They Are" (April 8, 1824). A little while before the Carbery administration this, the Washington Theater, was opened, to wit: August 8, 1821. It was located on the south side of Louisiana Avenue between 4 and 6th streets, and was known finally as Canterbury Hall. In the square south of the theater was built about the same time the Circus. These places of amusement seated seven to eight hundred respectively.

In the Carbery administration literature flourished in every other form as well as poetry. That reliance may not be entirely upon my say so, I quote a sample:

ON HEARING A LADY PRAISE A CERTAIN REVEREND GENTLEMAN'S EYES. "I cannot praise the Doctor's eyes,

I never saw his glance divine;

For when he prays he shuts his eyes,

And when he preaches he shuts mine."'

In the Carbery administation was first published the Washington Directory. Date 1822. Compiler, Judah Delano; publisher, William Duncan.

The Sessford Annals (reprinted in Vol. 11 of the Society) begin with the Carbery administration and give the statistics of population and disease and with particularity all improvements, as the number of private buildings, the progress in the construction of public buildings, the streets paved, the water supply extended and nothing is omitted as important as "a steeple has been raised on the Unitarian Church and a Bell placed in it." The Unitarian bell did not ring alone. Its merry cadence was in unison with the Episcopalian bell which began to ring in Mr. Sessford's same paragraph-"a Bell placed in the steeple of St. John's Church." 1822.

During the Carbery administration and the previous and subsequent administrations there was no Board of Trade or Chamber of Commerce-not even a citizens' association. Town meetings there were and frequent. At these meetings were discussed national exigencies, strong suggestions given to Congress and almost direction to the Common Council what it should legislate and to the Court what its rules of practice should be. At the town meeting, usually, for each matter were selected a chairman and a secretary and a committee of two from each of the wards. Under date of September 20, 1823, is a report:

"The Committee appointed at a Public Meeting of the Citizens of Washington, held on the 28th day of October last, to take measures to provide a permanent fund for the support of the Washington Female Orphan Asylum, in further discharge of the duty imposed upon them, take this method of apprizing the fellow citizens that, in the month of June last, they ad6 November 13, 1822.

dressed to the Board of Alderman and the Board of Common Council, through the Mayor of the city, a Memorial, of which a copy is subjoined. Their hopes of success in the application were sanguine but they have been disappointed.

"In the Board of Common Council, a decided majority appeared to be opposed to affording any aid to the Institution. A bill actually passed the Board of Alderman, proposing to appropriate two hundred dollars per annum toward the support of the Institution which was decisively rejected by the Board of Common Council.

"WILLIAM HAWLEY, Chairman; and "JOSEPH GALES, JR., Secretary."

October 16, 1822, pursuant to public notice a town. meeting was held in the City Assembly Room. The Mayor was chairman and John N. Moulder secretary. Dr. Thornton addressed the meeting on the object of the call, the cause of the Greeks. The doctor was a Utopian or whatever he is who schemes to be good to everybody whether he can or not. At an adjourned meeting he proposed a committee from each of the wards to receive subscriptions. The others thought it better not to attempt to give what they had not but to give in abundance what they could-words of encouragement, among which were:

"That they look forward with elated hope to the disenthralment of that fair and famed land, and to the restoration of that People to the privileges of freemen, and to the political eminence which anciently the Grecian States enjoyed."

Another town meeting:

"Resolved, That a committee of twelve citizens, two from each Ward, be appointed, to take into consideration the probable effect of certain Rules recently established by the Circuit Court for the County of Washington, in the District of Columbia, in relation to the recovery of debts, upon the rights, the liberties, and interests, of the people of the said County,