Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-10-20
written for te--Nashville Patriot.
American cities.-No. 8.
PHILADELP HIA.

The city of Philadelphia was laid out in
1858; and az it has been lying out ever since,
it is of course considerably injured by con-
tinual exposure to the weather. 1t couldn't
be bought, however, like other damaged
goods, at first cost; though. some of the dry
goods dealers there, who come to this country
on drumming expedition, are occasionally
sold by the wags exceedingly cheap.
At the time Philadelphia was staked out,
the banks of the Delaware and Schuylkill, "a
name calculated to kill any school out of
Russia), on which the city stands, and, in
fact, always did stand, were inhabited by a
species of wild animals called 'Injuns," which
usually went on a couple of legs like Kan
CARGO or an orang-outang, and used their fore
paws (not four paws, for they generally had
but two) in shooting ''pisened arrers" at each
other. and in tearing the hair off of one an
others heads. These wild beasts were very
troublesome to the early settlers of Philadel-
phia. who at last determined to settle them,
which they did to some extent by the use OF
buck shot and TO not quite so great an extent
by the use of the Penn, thereby giving rise to
the now familiar cOuplet-
s'In the hands of men entirely great,
The pen mghtier than the sword"
Hence. the State Of which Philadelphia is
the chief city, was called Pennsylvania. But
as the inhabitants of the place had but one
available Penn among them, and had to ac-
custom themselves to the use of the pencil,
tho1y for lonp t;nna oalIad thar State Pen
cilvania, so that both instruments might have
a share in the honor of the thing
Philadelphia, which is sometimes called the
| City of Brotherly Love by the prose poets,
and the Quaker City in one of Lppard's his
| tnrical works, is, like the deceased Mileslan
at wake, very dacently laid out. The streets
| are very straight-so straight in fact, you
might-that is, if you are skilled in artillery
practice-you might fire cannon-ball at the
| end of one of them, and it would come out
at the other end without touching brick
| though, the experiment might cost you some
thing, as the municipal law contains clause
which is at least constructively antagonistic
| to this branch of uncivil engineering.
The United States Bank was located in
| Philadelphia. 1t was conducted by Old Nick,
i mean old Nick Biddle,-and was finally
wound up by the Democracy. which charged
Nicholas with making it an engine for the
overthrow of that "great national party"
An attempt was made in l84l tC re-establish
the concern, when it was again wound up by
| the patentee of the celebrated Tyler Grip"
which was so popular about that time through
| this country; and the truth of history requires
me to say, that it also wound him up. The
bank building, marble structure of the DOric
order of architecture, ian order instituted by
a well-known Governor Of Rhode lsland,)
after the model of the Parthenon of Athens,
| "a Furnishing town in North Alabama). was
five wears in being erected, but cost the mere
| trife of $500. 600. When the Bank was made
! to 90 under. the building was converted into
| a Custom House; aud it would be a good
| custom 10 serve half the other banks on the
continent in the same way. Two-thirds OF
the other half might, with benefit to the cOun-
try, be converted into prisons for the accom-
| mediation of the swindlers who run them.
| Philadelphia is in the immediate neighbor-
! hood of Grard College. and is celebrated
| throughout the Union for the remarkable fa-
ciity with which her lawyers, of which she
has several, decipher all kinds of illegible
handwriting. Here it was that the Cont
mental Congress met to resist the English
tariff on glass and tea, and to pledge their
| lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor
that rather than be swindled by the British
stamp act out of penny per sheet on paper,
they and their constituency-particul
their coSstituency-would stand seven
years fight Which they accordingly did. 1t
! is necessary to say that they licked the oppo-
site party. and that Messrs. Washington and
| LAFAYETTE held the hats for the boys while
they did it,
The city of Philadelphia is inhabited exclu-
| sively 10y Quakers, who number about l2l,-
All in all. They are engaged principally in
| polishing and parading their tire-engines, in
| showing strangers Fair Mount Water Works
and Independence Hall, and in manufactur-
! ing male and female doctors, CARROTS Snuh,
all-paper. and Godey's Lady's Book. Their
| principal exports are patent medicines, dry
| goods drummers, machine-made bugges and
''yallcr kivered literature" Y.