The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1883-11-21
PHILADELPHIA.
Joaquin Miller Writes Impressions si
the Metropolis Of the Keystone.

Joaquin Miller Writes Impressions si
the Metropolis Of the keystone.
Philadelphia is . brickl Nay
more, she is millions of brick. In
fact, Philadelphia is all brick all
except the marble steys, with the
stringy maids scrubbing them per.
petually, and the stream of placid
soapsuds flowing on forever either
way; TRANQUILITY, dreamily, dirti.
ly.
l have found here, fifty miles from
the sea as the honey bee flies, a city
containing l56, 900 dwelling houses.
OF all this number there are not fifty
that are, architecturally speaking,
fit to look upon. The brown-stons
houses of New York are hideous,
monotonous, even in their continu-
Gus and unbroken ugliness but
these seven hundred miles of houses
down here, with their marble door
steps and the stringy maids scrub.
bing them perpetually, and the
ceaseless streams of soap and dirt in
either direction, are simply 100
miles OF nightmare.
| have discovered here in this
vast city of 129 square miles, more
than six hundred well attended
churches. The ladies are abundant,
shy, refined, and far more beautiful
by nature, than the marvelously
beautiful ladies of New York. Yet,
disdaining art. they do not first seem
SO striking and attractive.
| find here 1900 street cars thump-
ing and jumping through night and
day over $50 miles of cobble stones
and street rails. The racket is some
thing awful.
Now, | am going to offer some
advice. Of course | will get no
thanks for it. | rarely do. Even
this city, which l have discussed
here, and propose to picture In this
sketch exactly, may possibly be i'm
patient with me for my work. Yet
| see she is even now tearing down
the fences from around her parks
and giving them to the people, just
as | told her to last summer. Good
but she would not admit my hand
in the work. And no matter. No
matter who tears down these ugly
and insolent fences all over the Re- |
public, only so that it is done. The
advice? Ah, it is this Take up
your cobble-stones, widen your
streets, you have land enough, room
enough now, more than you will
have century hence, when it will |
be impossible. And when you have
carted off your cobble-stones and
widened your streets, then plant
them in trees as Washington City
has, and pave them with asphalt as
Washington city has; and finally,
if you possibly can rise to.the spirit
of it, build few bright, airy, ele-
CANT ard Pompeian-hued houses,
such as now charm, invite, instruct,
inspire strangers at Washington
City. And ah, above all. do, in
pity, take up that kneeling posture,
that mute and almost motionless
maiden, streaming her two perpetu-
al streams of soapsuds from your
beautiful and tomblike marble door
steps.
A LOFTY EDIFICE.
The new City Hall sits white and
serene here in the centre of the one
noble street, and spreads her white
skirts over more than five solid acres
Of land. This vast array of marble
nearly 600 rooms. If / re-
member rightly, the highest of the
great pyramids falls under 500 feet.
But the tower of this stupendous
City Hall is to be, when completed,
535 feet in height ! A city that can
;it still and quietly build such
noble mass of marble as that can
afford to take very good naturedly
all the criticisms any one has to
offer.
l find more than 1900 school
teachers. What help they would
nave been to fog the British a hum
1red years ago! These schools, teach
srs, scholars, all stand unaccounta-
bly, high. To be educated in Phila-
lelphia is, don't quite know why,
counted good thing in the far
West. | find more than a hundred
thousand children here at school.
They are all comfortable, and SO
ar as | can see and learn from visit
ng half a dozen of the 500 public
very healthy, and as happy,
90, as it is permitted any one in
his caterpillar state of transmission
% be.
BAD LOT OF COLOR.
Along with the city editor of
paper of this i" fiat" stale and "un-
profitable" town, sought out, flank
ID by two officers, the slums of
Philadelphia But, like those of
New York, they have almost passed
1ut of existence. Ten wears ago 1
vent alone into this same place here,
paid my five cents for supper, lodg-
ng and breakfast, and wrote up the
whole thing for the NJ Y. Independent.
After that others poured in for
years till the place is, like the famous
Did Five Points, almost as safe for
strangers, provided they have no
money or jewelry with them, as any
DOT of this very staid and honest
I'D town of Penn and franklin.
And yet, for all that, this black quar- {
er is bowling bad spot, cancer {
m the breast of a loving and not !
woman.
These 1900 blacks require nearl
lalf of the city's force of fiftee Z
hundred policemen to keep them
lown. They make up more than !
lalf of the criminal resource of this {
'ery populous city. These negroes t
lere are the worst by far l have
ound anywhere. How much better
o turn this whole quarter into q q
'ublic park, and break up this
'owling, drunken rookery of blacks. T
t would be long way the cheapest
hing for the city. il
Driving out the other day in the
Iya of fhn rifv 10 ~ovo orIdapfv C