Year: 1872

annoying to stranger of nervous temperament. and who can't under stand what this people do on Sunday anyhow. But the history of the place is not altogether monotonous-some of the more startling events of the coun- try occurring and emansting here. Old Independence Hall remains quite intact-good for centuries to come, with its furniture and relics also we'll preserved. The fault found with the PhiladelphianS in this connection, Is that they have crowded 1t round with more ungaiDly structures for city uses, whereas the beautiful square should have been wholly reserved for a park, with the grand old State House as its chitf ornament l have seen what was labeled the original parchmentary document of the Declaration, in the

 Washington Patent Office. Only the chairs, table, bell, and the like fix lures, remain in the old hall-the east room on the first floor. Some Sunday

 School performance is enacted in the

 west room. Up stairs, the City Coun- cil hold forth. The steeple, from

 which the best bird d's-eye view of the

 city can be had, has been supplied

 with great clock. The old bell, cracked up one side and nibbled

 around the rim as if by relic vandals,

 stands in d glass case down below. It

 should be made do special duty at the

 centennial anniversary of '76 to come.

 With all due respect or reverence,

 however, 1 don't know that the origi-

 nal signers of the Declaration and

 that secondary body who invented the

 Constitution, were much better men

 than generations gone before or suc-

 ceeding ones. They doubtless did the

 best they could, but their work in its

 effects was not unlike many hastily or

 selfshly formed marriages; confer

 ring untold cause for repentance and

 anguish upon near posterity. Mir.

 Jefferson even "trembled when he

 thought God was just" in anticipa- ton of what was brewing in his time. Thus the hand that wrote the immortal document was hardly cold

 before humanity came i'll for '' indirect damages to the extent of half a mil

 lion stout mems lives, countless treas

 ure and bitterness beyond measure.

 It seems probable that all this might

 have been prevented, had those docu.-

 ments been made to read more defi-

 nitely on certain vital points. l al-

 ways think, when see old President Hancock's signature, what fighting cock he must have thought himself when he took up so much space in spreading his name below, leaving the

 balance of the boys little room to show their hands He would have made good frontier editor-willing to shed the last drop of ink in the house for the cause. Philadelphians are accused of want of patriotic reverence respect ing the remains of Beni Franklin and Robert Morris. The latter came out with much private coin at a critical point in the struggle, in return for

 which bread he scarcely gets stone in the old cemetery corner of Fifth and Arch streets. Through a kindly grating in the stone fence there, you can see where Ben njamin and Deborah F. sleep beneath granite slab scarce ly more attractive than an old cellar door. Stephen Glrard, on the con- trary, bequeathed $20,000,00 to the city, and he is we'll set forth ill marble and all the rest of 1t. But think he looked out for himself both here and hereafter, however. Now, Benjamin, unlike printers generally, preached and practiced excessive economy, and perhaps Philadelphians are not so much to blame for letting the respected dead bury itself. Boston and New York have "set up" the old type sticker in beautiful columns of stone, brass, etc. As for Robert Morris, his case is more national still, and besides he ought to have known the ingrati- tude of republics. 1 am, you may in- fer, partial toward the Philadelphians in everything, except their want of 8 regular Sunday daily paper. It is not very likely that the ocean commerce with this city will ever amount to much more than it is, in proportion as the city grows. The Delaware river is frozen and the shipping looks thin and behindhand generally. New York and Norfolk will rule the waves pretty much on this latitude, but they lo.. I.