The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-04

gates to the Assembly are men of wide-awake
intelligence as well as piety, and shrewd
enough to perceive the importance of finding
a leverage for great religious operations in
the centre of both commercial and mental
enterprise There is a certain force freedom
and sweep in the very air of New York that
give to every business undertaking based
here a strong propulsion to success. New
York has rank vigor enough to spare for the
help Of dozen sluggish places such as Phila-
delphia or Chicago, and is equally ready TO
send missionaries to lead their sleepy iuhabi.
tants to heaven, or repeaters to do their
voting for them, as occasion may require
But while congratulating our reverend
friends of the Assembly upon the acumen
displayed in their choice, we feel constrained
not to allow the occasion to pass without ad-
dressing grave word of warning to our
stoid Quaker sister city. 1t has always been
supposed that it was against her will that the
currents of trade and enterprise of every kind
steadily ebbed from her to New York When
her capitalists were forced to come here To
establish bases of operations, even to start a
line of steamers, we gave her credit at least
for viewing the secession with a wry face
We held it to be her misfortune, and not her
fault, that she was always left high and dry
on the lee-shore; that not only trade, but
even empty-headed fashion, passed her by.
We deemed her worthy of sympathy when,
year by year, tradespeope, brokers, artists
journalists, everybody, in short in whom
was a breath of energy, fled precipitately
from under the cloud of stagnation that in
volved her, as the righteous of old from the
unhappy, befogged cities of the plain. But
we learn with surprise of late that this
desertion is looked upon with complacency
by our sister city. She has looked SO long and
steadfastly at her own image that, like Mar
cissus, she has fallen in love with it. What
can TASTE refinement, culture, ask more in a
city than her comfortable boxes of dwellings,
faced by Paramount water works and backed
by her markets? Nothing in human nature,
of course, can surpass Penn. Perfection
being thus reached in every count, she has
resolved to lie down, inexorably finished for
all time, lapsing into a state of as utter pas
sivity as Buddha himself. The Treaty Elm
throws its shadow of torpidity to her utter
most limit. She has set up the image of
Penn on all her public places, upon her
streets, even to the bakers wagons that roll
therein. Woe to him who jars her rest now
with vulgar motions of trade or reform Be
| he capitalist, man of genius, or colored lee
| turer, she sends him to New York snubbed
! and silenced.
Is it worth while to try to rouse her Has
! she determined, like the drowning French
man, that she will be dead and nobody shall
! save her? After all, may not this utter tor
| por be wholesome spectacle in the hurry
burly of American life, and serve the same
! purpose of Indictment to solemn and melan-
! choly thoughts of death and the decay of all
| things as cemetery in the midst of crowded
city? Such, doubtless, is the useful end de-
| signed for our comatose sister. We stand
aside, therefore, and regard her with respect
| full silence. Peace to her slumbers.