The City of Philadelphia lies between the two rivers, the Delaware and the Schuylkill.  Eight chief streets run from river to river, and twenty-four principal cross-streets bisect the eight at right angles.  The cross-streets are all called by their numbers.  In the long streets the numbers of the houses are not consecutive, but follow the numbers of the cross-streets; so that a person living on Chestnut Street between Tenth Street and Eleventh Street, and ten doors from Tenth Street, would live at No. 1010.  The opposite house would be No. 1011.  It thus follows that the number of the house indicates the exact block of houses in which it is situated.  I do not like the right-angled building of these towns, nor do I like the sound of Twentieth Street and Thirtieth Street; but I must acknowledge that the arrangement in Philadelphia has its convenience.  In New York I found it by no means an easy thing to arrive at the desired locality.

They boast in Philadelphia that they have half a million inhabitants.  If this be taken as a true calculation, Philadelphia is in size the fourth city in the world—­putting out of the question the cities of China, as to which we have heard so much and believe so little.  But in making this calculation the citizens include the population of a district on some sides ten miles distant from Philadelphia.  It takes in other towns, connected with it by railway but separated by large spaces of open country.  American cities are very proud of their population; but if they all counted in this way, there would soon be no rural population left at all.  There is a very fine bank at Philadelphia, and Philadelphia is a town somewhat celebrated in its banking history.  My remarks here, however, apply simply to the external building, and not to its internal honesty and wisdom, or to its commercial credit.

In Philadelphia also stands the old house of Congress—­the house in which the Congress of the United States was held previous to 1800, when the government and the Congress with it were moved to the new City of Washington.  I believe, however, that the first Congress, properly so called, was assembled at New York in 1789, the date of the inauguration of the first President.  It was, however, here in this building at Philadelphia that the independence of the Union was declared in 1776, and that the Constitution of the United States was framed.

Pennsylvania, with Philadelphia for its capital, was once the leading State of the Union, leading by a long distance.  At the end of the last century it beat all the other States in population, but has since been surpassed by New York in all respects—­in population, commerce, wealth, and general activity.  Of course it is known that Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn, the Quaker, by Charles II.  I cannot completely understand what was the meaning of such grants—­how far they implied absolute possession in the territory, or how far they confirmed simply the power of settling and governing a colony.  In this case a very considerable property was confirmed; as the claim made by Penn’s children, after Penn’s death, was bought up by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 130,000l., which, in those days, was a large price for almost any landed estate on the other side of the Atlantic.