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.
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