I pity the man who, on a fine morning, can walk through the shady and
clean streets of Philadelphia and cry, "all is barren!" In my eyes, it
appeared, even at first sight,--and no place improves more upon
acquaintance,--one of the most attractive-looking towns I had ever
beheld.
Coming immediately out of the noise, bustle, and variety of Broadway,
its general aspect appears quiet, almost _triste_; but the cleanliness,
the neatness, the air of comfort, propriety, and health, that reigns on
all sides, bespeaks immediate favour.
The progress of improvement, and enlargement too, are sufficiently
evident, for at either extremity of the city, the fall of hammer and
chisel give unceasing note of preparation. The circle designed and
marked out as the limit of its future greatness by the sanguine mind of
its sagacious founder has long since been overleaped; the wide Delaware
on one side, and on the other the Schuylkill, seem incapable of bounding
the ambitious city. Already does Market-street rest upon these two
points, which cannot be less than three miles apart.
Touching Market-street I ought to know something, since, on two
occasions, I got out of my bed to visit it at four A.M. I am curious in
looking upon these interesting _entrepots_ whence we cull the dainties
of a well-furnished larder, and a view over this was truly worth the
pains; for in no place have I ever seen more lavish display of the good
things most esteemed by this eating generation, nor could any market
offer them to the amateur in form more tempting. Neatness and care were
evident in the perfect arrangement of the poultry, vegetables, fruit,
butter, &c.; and the display of well-fed beef, with the artist-like way
in which it was dressed, might have excited our Giblets' spleen even in
the Christmas week.
Poultry of all kinds here is equal to that of any country, and the
butter almost as good as the best Irish, which I think the sweetest in
the world. The market, at the early time I mentioned, offered a busy and
amusing scene, and I passed away a couple of hours here very much to my
satisfaction, besides cheating those souls of d----d critics, the
musquitoes, out of a breakfast; for each day, about the first light, I
used to be awakened by their assembling for a little _dejeuner dansant_,
whereat I was victim.
One of the pleasantest visits a man can pay in Philadelphia on a hot
day, is to the water-works at Fair-mount, on the Schuylkill: the very
name is refreshing with the mercury at 96 deg. in the shade; and, if there
be a breeze in Pennsylvania, you will find it here. No city can be
better supplied with water than this; and I never looked upon the pure
liquid, welling through the pipes and deluging the thirsty streets,
without a feeling of gratitude to these water-works, and of respect for
the pride with which the Philadelphians regard their spirited public
labour. They have evinced much taste, too, in the quiet, simple
disposition of the ground and reservoirs connected with the machinery;
the trees and plants are well selected for the situation, and will soon
add to the natural beauty of this very fine reach of the river.
Mounting the east bank of the stream, from this to the village of
Manayunk, you have a very pretty ride; and crossing the bridge at the
"Falls of the Schuylkill,"--falls no longer, thanks to the dam at
Fair-mount,--the way back winds along by, or hangs above, the canal and
river, here marching side by side; offering, in about four miles, as
charming a succession of river views as painter or poet could desire. It
is a lovely ramble by all lights, and I have viewed it by all,--in the
blaze of noon, and by the sober grey of summer twilight; I have ridden
beneath its wooded heights, and through its overhanging masses of rare
foliage, in the alternate bright cold light and deep shade of a
cloudless moon; and again, when tree, and field, and flower were yet
fresh and humid with the heavy dew, and sparkling in the glow of early
morning.
At the period of my first visit, the huge piers of a new bridge,
projected by the Columbian Railroad Company, were just appearing in
different degrees above the gentle river's surface. The smoke of the
workmen's fires rising from the wood above, and the numerous attendant
barges moored beneath the tall cliff from which the road was to be
thrown, added no little to the effect. I have since seen this viaduct
completed, and have been whirled over it in the train of a locomotive;
and, although it is a fine work, I cannot but think every lover of the
picturesque will mourn the violation of the solitude so lately to be
found here.
I could not refrain from picturing to myself the light canoes of the
Delaware Indians as at no very remote period they lay rocking beneath
the shelter of that very bluff where now were moored a fleet of
deep-laden barges: indeed these ideas were constantly forcing
themselves, as it were, into my mind as I wandered over the changeful
face of this singular land, where the fresh print of the moccasin is
followed by the tread of the engineer and his attendants, and the light
trail of the red man is effaced by the road of iron: hardly have the
echoes ceased to repeat through the woods the Indian's hunter-cry before
this is followed by the angry rush of the ponderous steam-engine, urged
forward! still forward! by the restless pursuer of his fated race.
Wander whither you will,--take any direction, the most frequented or the
most secluded,--at every and at all points do these lines of railway
intercept your path. Each state, north, south, and west, is eagerly
thrusting forth these iron arms, to knit, as it were, in a straiter
embrace her neighbours; and I have not a doubt but, in a very short
time, a man may journey from the St. Lawrence to the gulf of Mexico
coastwise with as much facility as he now does from Boston to
Washington, a distance of four hundred and fifty miles, which may be at
this day performed within forty hours, out of which you pass a night in
New York.
But to leave anticipations and imaginings,--which, by the way, is a
forbearance hard of practice in a region where all things are on the
whirl of speculative change, and where practical results outrun the
projections of even the most visionary theorist,--and return to make
such rapid survey of this interesting city as may be ventured on during
a first visit of some twenty days. I feel, indeed, that but little can
be really known in so short a time of a place containing two hundred and
twenty thousand souls, and having in a rapid state of advancement
various alterations and improvements, including nearly five thousand new
buildings all immediately required: although there are persons gifted
with such power of intuition, that, as I learn from their own showing,
they are enabled in half the period to decide upon the condition of the
whole state of Pennsylvania; to discover the wants of its capital, the
defects of its institutions, the value of its commerce, the drift of its
policy; to gauge its morals, become intimate with its society, and make
out a correct estimate of its relative condition and prospects compared
with the other great divisions of the Union, surveyed, I presume, with
equal rapidity, judged with equal candour, and estimated with equal
correctness.
Each in his degree: and so, in my way, good reader, I will endeavour to
give you some notion of this capital of old Penn's Sylvania; but if your
own imagination come not to the help of my outline, I fear, after all my
painstaking, your notion of the subject will be only a faintish one.
Philadelphia is built upon a peninsula formed by two rivers, the
Delaware and the Schuylkill, having a long graduated rise from each, the
highest point being about the centre of the city. It is laid out in
squares, and the streets run in parallel lines of two and three miles in
length, retaining the same names throughout, only divided by
Market-street into north, and south: with the exception of this dividing
street, those running east and west are named after trees, flowers, and
fruits,--as chestnut, walnut, peach, &c.; and those parallel with the
rivers, first, Front-street, or that facing the water; next,
Second-street, third, fourth, fifth, &c. distinguished as, divided by
Market-street, into South-second, North-second, &c.; a simplicity of
arrangement which is unique, and renders the stranger's course an
exceeding easy one: all he has to do is, first, to run down the latitude
of his street by any of the great avenues, and, having fairly struck it,
steer north or south, as may be, till he hits upon the friendly number.
The side-walks throughout are broad and well-ordered, neatly paved with
brick, and generally bordered by rows of healthful trees of different
kinds, affording in hot weather a most welcome shade, and giving to the
houses an air of freshness and repose rarely to be met with in a
populous city.
The dwellings are chiefly of brick, of a good colour, very neatly
pointed; and nothing can be more tasteful than their fitting-up
externally. The windows are furnished with latticed shutters; these,
when not closed, fold back on either hand against the wall, and being
painted green, and kept with much care and freshness, would invest
humbler dwellings with an attractive air, especially in the eyes of an
Englishman, accustomed to the dingy aspect of our city residences, which
look as though the owners had resolved on making them as forbidding as
possible without, in order to enhance the excelling comforts within.
Now the houses of Philadelphia are as clean and neat in all the detail
of the exterior, as they are well-ordered and admirably furnished. The
mountings of the rails and doors are either of polished silver plating
or brass, and kept as bright as care can make them. The solid hall-door,
in hot weather, is superseded by one of green lattice-work, similar to
the window-shutters, which answers the purpose of keeping out every
intrusive stranger, except the air,--air being at such seasons, as most
strangers are at all times, especially welcome to Philadelphia, which is
about the hottest place I know of in the autumn; the halls are commonly
flagged with fine white marble, are spacious, lofty, and well fitted-up.
The houses average three stories, but in the best streets, those of the
first class are run up to five, and even six, and are of great depth:
indeed, I should say, the inhabitants of this city generally enjoy
greater space in their lodgings than is afforded to those of any other
large capital. Where population increases rapidly rents are necessarily
high; and a good house in Philadelphia costs about as much, independent
of taxation, as a dwelling of the same class in London.
Besides the great market, which gives its name to the dividing line of
the city, and runs through its whole breadth, there are several others,
less extensive perhaps, but all alike under cover, well adapted to the
purpose, and boasting a due proportion of the abundance of good things,
which, profusely displayed on all sides, give ready evidence of the
agricultural wealth of the neighbourhood.
Numbers of the best market-farmers for vegetables, poultry, butter, &c.
are Germans, who, although most earnest in enriching the country by
their labour, yet cling with strange tenacity to the customs and
language of "Fader-land." Their costume and manner yet continues as
distinct and recognizable as was the appearance of their progenitors on
landing here some eighty years back, for the colony from which they are
chiefly derived had existence about the middle of the eighteenth
century; and many of these men, yet speaking no word of English, are of
the third generation. They have German magistrates, an interpreter in
courts when they act as jurors, German newspapers, &c.; and are the
stoutest, if not the promptest, asserters of democracy.
They are usually found a little in arrear on the subject of all passing
events; and at election times, or on occasions of extraordinary stir,
when a man is striving to render them _au courant_ with late
occurrences, they will now and then interrupt their informant with, "Bud
why de teufel doesn't Vashington come down to de Nord and bud it all to
rights?"
The public buildings are here of a more ambitious style of architecture
than any of the other cities can boast, and some of them are built in
exceeding good taste; but the one which had most interest in my eyes was
the old State-house, wherein the "Declaration of Independence" was
signed. The Senate-chamber is, I fancy, little changed since that
period; and contained, when I was last within it, models for various
public works: amongst others, several for a heroic statue of Washington,
about to be erected, somewhat late in the day to be sure, by the city;
others for the new college, now building, according to the will of the
late S. Girard, and intended to assist in perpetuating his name and
wealth to all posterity.
Such appears to have been the great object of the will of this worthy
citizen, and there is every prospect of its fully answering the purpose,
since it has already set the whole community by the ears, and promises
to prove as prolific of evils as the strong box of Miss Pandora, without
having even Hope at the bottom.
This man, who has been so much eulogized dead, seems, as well as I could
glean amongst his contemporaries, to have been anything but estimable in
his living character. He is universally described as having been tricky,
overreaching, and litigious in his dealings as a merchant; an unfeeling
relation, an exacting, ungrateful, and forgetful master; and a selfish,
cold-hearted man: unoccupied with any generous sympathy, public or
private, throughout a long life, devoted to one purpose with sleepless
energy, and to one purpose only--making and hoarding money; which,
living, he contrived, as far as in him lay, to render as little
beneficial to any as possible, and, dying, disposed of to his own
personal glorification, but to the vexation of the community, amongst
which he appeared to have lived unhonoured, and certainly died
unregretted!
I am aware that "de mortuis nil nisi bonum" has usually been applied to
cases similar to the above; "nil nisi _justem_" I think a sounder
reading where a man is held up as a public example, and deem that the
selection of a church or a college for a monument should not be
permitted to shield the base from animadversion, or call for honours to
the worthless.