Arizona citizen., 1872-03-23
FROM PHILADELPHIA.


 Brag -- Independence Hall, and
 s.How the Old Thing Works ''--
 And Other Things.
 PHILADELPHIA (Pa.) Feb. 17.-An old Latin proverb says that "a great city is a great desert" and as Arizona borders upon the great deserts of Southern California, there may be 8 fellow-feeling existing between your place and this. Moreover, the City of Brotherly Love is where the Quaker policy had it's origin. Here occurred the great slippery-elm treaty, proving MT. Penn's goosequill more powerful than thousand swords. Also, quite @ number of Arizona soldiers and cit izens hail from this neighborhood, ani altogether letter may be acceptable.
 A great city indeed Over eight hundred thousand mortals so quietly collected into unbroken walls of brick houses, hardly heard from through the dispatches except when a fire destroys some portion. Wm. Penn mapped out this site very deliberately about 200 years ago, and if he were to come back and view the ground, he would find his great expectations quite re- alized. 1 have seen many town-sites set forth accordingly, that will not come to so much short of two thou sand years The secret of this great growth, continual improvement and undoubted stability, is manufacture under the protective-tariff system, of which old man Greeley is the fierce, uncompromising exponent. When the white-coated philosopher gets crowded a little, he simply falls back upon the Democratic pig-iron reserves of Penn sylvania, against which the combined free-traders battle in vain. This city covers several times the space of New York proper, because of the law en- forcing a certain sort of building leaving so much of the lot for a breathing-place. Yet the streets pre- sent solid fronts for miles-red brick walls, white window and door finish, @ subject for derogatory remark on the part of strangers; but the sturdy old average Philadelphia mind cares noth- ing for what Dickens or the devil may say. In his American Notes,' the first named parsonage says his hat be- gan to widen and shirt collar to grow as soon as he landed here. Every thing here is laid out and conducted in an unavoidable manner, uncommer- cial way-meaning business through out of most intense sort, but of a kind quite different from that of New York or Boston. The Public Library here looks more like 8 long, one-story, partly oval-roofed railroad depot. All the books are on the first floor within one s reach, like series of hat racks. It is eminently business-like, after the manner of Philadelphia generally. The Public Library of Boston, on the contrary, is as cranny-lilze as skull iron stairways of filigree formation; very brainy and the imbodiment of Boston conceit. The double track Pennsylvania Central Railroad stops west of the Schuykill river, from whence the freight cars are dragged throughout the city into the great warehouses, by long tandem teams of horses, etc. The newspaper press here is also eminently characteristic of the conservatism seen in all things in the State east of Pittsburg. Compared with The Tribune Times, Herald or World of New York, these representa- tive sheets of Philadelphia seem quite insignificant; yet they doubtless have certain national influence, though no one sees it or hears of it beyond the State limits, except by means of the hackneyed saying that "as Pennsyl- vania goes, so goes the Union" I be- ieve the Public Ledger here has the largest daily circulation of any paper in the United States, yet 1t is not as interesting print as The Cali of San Francisco. None of them-not even