receive at many formal dinners and stately functions, and under their combined influence Washington society became as polished and as exclusive as the best in other cities.
A drawback to the city's progress lay in the constant agitation for the removal of the capital—an agitation that in no wise abated until in very recent times, when the railroad and the telegraph overcame "remoteness and inaccessibility," the chief grounds for complaint. The press of New York and Philadelphia united with the Northern members in declaiming against the discomforts of the infant city, and such pressure was brought to bear that in March, 1804, a bill "to remove the seat of government to Baltimore" passed to its second reading in the Senate. However, the "Capital-movers," as they came to be called, succeeded only in retarding the growth of the city. As a result, at the close of Jefferson's administration there were but five thousand inhabitants. The North spread the sarcasm that Washington was a city of streets without houses and houses without streets. The ludicrous fame of America's capital created laughter even in Europe. Foreigners after gazing at the President's house were said to peer into
