CHAPTER VIII.

PHILADELPHIA AND THE APPROACH TO IT-A SURE PLAN OF

FINDING YOUR WAY IN IT- GIRARD'S COLLEGE, AND ITS FOUNDER A CALIFORNIAN DIGGER AT THE MINT-DIDDLE'S

BANK-PENNSYLVANIA DEEMED PARTIALLY A SLAVE STATE

HOW TO GET Α GOOD BUSINESS BACK AGAIN-WILLIAM PENN'S ELM-YOUNG AMERICA'S IDEA OF THE WORD " BOY”

TAN-YARD WIT-FRANKLIN'S

66

TOMB-MARKETING-ADVAN

TAGES OF WEIGHING A POUND OF BUTTER -DELAWARE

FISHING-PROS AND CONS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

SMOKING IN A CHAPEL-PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY-A MEXI

CAN GENERAL-THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS-A WORD OF

ADVICE ABOUT THEM THE CHANCES OF REACHING PITTSBURGH-DARKNESS VISIBLE WHEN YOU GET THERE A GOOD HOTEL TO GO TO, AND AN EXCELLENT PROPRIETOR AS LONG

AS YOU ARE IN IT.

It is by no means a pleasant road, nor a pleasant mode of travelling over it, between the two greatest

cities of the United States. A railway through a dull country, over two ferries, and across a dozen rivers, more or less, is neither interesting, agreeable, nor secure. A circumstance which might have turned out fatal will be found recorded in the pages of a subsequent chapter, and the only observation we can add thereto, is an expression of our wonder that such occurrences do not happen more frequently.

You start from the state of New York, and commence your journey in a ferry-boat, without which you could not arrive in the state of New Jersey; and on reaching Camden you have to get into another, without which you could not arrive in the state of Pennsylvania, and in its enormous city, Philadelphia. We presume no one need to be told the full particulars of William Penn and his two thousand followers having landed from England at Newcastle, on the banks of the Delaware, in 1682, for the purpose of pitching on some tract of land where the disciples of his persuasion might retire and pass their days, unmolested by those persecutions which beset them in the mother country. The tract he did pitch upon was granted to him by Charles II., in consideration of services his father, Sir William Penn, had rendered

to the Crown; and from this said grant sprung up, what has turned out to be, the celebrated Quaker City. Its very appearance, to say nothing of that of a large portion of its inhabitants, is neat and demure, as are all matters connected with the professors of that creed. The building of its streets comes under the denomination of right angles, and lying between the Delaware and Schuylkill, they run in parallel lines from river to river; and so unbroken are those lines, that, notwithstanding we individually admire the unique view they present, we can fully understand the feeling of a writer who said "it would be quite a relief if one could get only a glimpse of a crooked lane in them." There is the city "proper," and what the wags call the city "improper," both of which have distinct governments of their own, as they form separate municipalities. The stranger will be considerably puzzled at first to find out the various localities of this huge place, his attention being now directed to South-East-Street, then to North-West Street, one minute to the corner of Fourth and some other, and then to the end of Eighth Street, and so on; therefore whenever you find yourself bewildered, make a bolt for the Central Avenue (Broad Street), and

having got this popular rhyme by heart, keep on repeating it each way from that point, and you'll find out the street you want, for all the principal streets, inward from their respective rivers, verge to it:

"Chesnut, walnut, spruce and pine,

Mulberry, cherry, race and vine!"

Philadelphia, every reader may not know, was the seat of government until the year 1800, when it was transferred to Washington, and from the steps by which you ascend to Independence Halla building as dear to this city as Fanueil Hall is to Boston-was first promulgated the Declaration of Independence, drawn up and signed in a chamber at the east end of that old building, a copy of which remains there, the original having been taken to the Patent Office, at Washington. It is not unfrequently called the Key-Stone State, as being the centre one of the original thirteen which subscribed to the Declaration, as will be seen by referring to the six which preceded it to the north, and the sixth who came after it to the south, and as the line of demarcation between the free and the slave states:

The cleanliness of this vast thoroughfare, owing in a great measure to its excellent draining, is one of its striking characteristics, which, coupled with the uniformity of its buildings, faced with and sometimes half composed of white marble, quarried in some counties at no great distance from the city, imparts an air of neatness and comfort nowhere else so discernible throughout the whole empire.

We shall go no farther into historical or descriptive disquisition than we have done elsewhere. But if we did nothing else, it would be impossible to pass over, unnoticed, one of the most remarkable institutions in that, or any other place—the Girard College.