Two Doors, As A Rule, Enjoy One Set Of Steps, On The Outer Edges Of Which There Is Generally No Parapet Or Raised Curb-Stone.

This, to my eye, gave the houses an unfinished appearance - as though the marble ran short, and no further expenditure could be made.

The frost came when I was there, and then all these steps were covered up in wooden cases.

The City of Philadelphia lies between the two rivers, the Delaware and the Schuylkill. Eight chief streets run from river to river, and twenty-four principal cross-streets bisect the eight at right angles. The cross-streets are all called by their numbers. In the long streets the numbers of the houses are not consecutive, but follow the numbers of the cross-streets; so that a person living on Chestnut Street between Tenth Street and Eleventh Street, and ten doors from Tenth Street, would live at No. 1010. The opposite house would be No. 1011. It thus follows that the number of the house indicates the exact block of houses in which it is situated. I do not like the right-angled building of these towns, nor do I like the sound of Twentieth Street and Thirtieth Street; but I must acknowledge that the arrangement in Philadelphia has its convenience. In New York I found it by no means an easy thing to arrive at the desired locality.

They boast in Philadelphia that they have half a million inhabitants. If this be taken as a true calculation, Philadelphia is in size the fourth city in the world - putting out of the question the cities of China, as to which we have heard so much and believe so little. But in making this calculation the citizens include the population of a district on some sides ten miles distant from Philadelphia. It takes in other towns, connected with it by railway but separated by large spaces of open country. American cities are very proud of their population; but if they all counted in this way, there would soon be no rural population left at all. There is a very fine bank at Philadelphia, and Philadelphia is a town somewhat celebrated in its banking history. My remarks here, however, apply simply to the external building, and not to its internal honesty and wisdom, or to its commercial credit.

In Philadelphia also stands the old house of Congress - the house in which the Congress of the United States was held previous to 1800, when the government and the Congress with it were moved to the new City of Washington. I believe, however, that the first Congress, properly so called, was assembled at New York in 1789, the date of the inauguration of the first President. It was, however, here in this building at Philadelphia that the independence of the Union was declared in 1776, and that the Constitution of the United States was framed.

Pennsylvania, with Philadelphia for its capital, was once the leading State of the Union, leading by a long distance.

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