Page:The Southern Literary Messenger - Minor.djvu/173

 Rh first two floors were eight lawyers' offices, each with two rooms. The other two floors had large rooms; one of which, overlooking the Square, was occupied by the Virginia Historical Society; the other three were used for printing and mailing the Messenger; but the editorial rooms were the eastern law office on the second floor, with a separate stairway from the street. Possession of these new quarters was taken in January, 1847. After the Whig Building, at the corner of 13th (Governor) and Franklin streets and the new State Court House, just inside the Square, were finished and the nuisances near by removed, the improvement to this previously repugnant southeast corner of the Square was about equal, relatively, to that of the Jefferson Hotel, even before it was impaired by the fire. Surely the damage by that conflagration ought to be speedily repaired. It is a shame that people who get money for nothing should be so much less public-spirited with it than he who made it for them.

For some years the red brick Whig Building, painted to match the stucco of the Law Building, has been combined with it in a hotel, which has several times changed its name. At present there seem to be two, the Whig, the Davis House; the Law, the Franklin House.

The editor also purchased from Governor "Extra Billy" Smith another notch of the Capitol