These, Sir, are facts, well known to every person in this quarter, which I have committed to paper for your own satisfaction, and that of those to whom you may choose to mention them.  I only pray that my letter may not go out of your own hands, lest it should get into the newspapers, a bear-garden scene into which I have made it a point to enter on no provocation.

I am, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CCLXII.—­TO DOCTOR RUSH, September 23, 1800

TO DOCTOR RUSH.

Monticello, September 23, 1800.

Dear Sir,

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of August the 22nd, and to congratulate you on the healthiness of your city.  Still Baltimore, Norfolk, and Providence admonish us that we are not clear of our new scourge.  When great evils happen, I am in the habit of looking out for what good may arise from them as consolations to us, and Providence has in fact so established the order of things, as that most evils are the means of producing some good.  The yellow fever will discourage the growth of great cities in our nation, and I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.  True, they nourish some of the elegant arts, but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere, and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue, and freedom, would be my choice.

I agree with you entirely, in condemning the mania of giving names to objects of any kind after persons still living.  Death alone can seal the title of any man to this honor, by putting it out of his power to forfeit it.  There is one other mode of recording merit, which I have often thought might be introduced, so as to gratify the living by praising the dead.  In giving, for instance, a commission of Chief Justice to Bushrod Washington, it should be in consideration of his integrity, and science in the laws, and of the services rendered to our country by his illustrious relation, &c.  A commission to a descendant of Dr. Franklin, besides being in consideration of the proper qualifications of the person, should add, that of the great services rendered by his illustrious ancestor, Benjamin Franklin, by the advancement of science, by inventions useful to man, &c.  I am not sure that we ought to change all our names.  And, during the regal government, sometimes indeed they were given through adulation; but often also as the reward of the merit of the times, sometimes for services rendered the colony.  Perhaps, too, a name when given, should be deemed a sacred property.