THE YOUTH'’S CABINET.

225

 

A Letter to my Children.

Y DEAR CHILDREN,—I am in
Philadelphia, a great way off
from our home in Georgia.
I have been to see a great

_many interesting things since I have

been here. This morning, feeling that

I needed exercise, I walked out into

Market street, and down to the banks

of the Delaware. I love to pass through

the market, there is about it so much to
please and interest one, Almost every-
thing is neat and clean; and I do not
remember to have heard a bad word
spoken in the market at any time. Here
mingle Catholics and Protestants, Jews
and infidels, negroes and white people,

Americans, and foreigners from almost

every nation under heaven.

I saw this morning rock-fishes so
large and beautiful that I thought how
their sides would look fried; and I felt
hungry at the thought, although I had
just eaten breakfast. Flounders, black
on one side and white on the other, were
lying there, flat enough, to tempt the
passing epicure. Huge halibuts, as
white as cotton, were “sleeping their
last sleep” on the market shelves, and
their owners were cutting up and weigh-
ing them out, at, I suppose, five or six
cents per pound. Large packs of poor,
pitiful-looking herrings were there, and
any amount of fat-looking mackerels,
Guinea squashes (or egg plants, as they
call them here) as large, nearly, as Wil-
liam’s head, were piled’ up in many
places; peaches, pears, apples, potatoes,
and tomatoes, in baskets and in piles,
seemed countless; and cabbages, red
and white, abounded, with many vege-

tables whose names I have not learned. !

Butchers, in white gowns, were cut-
ting up the fattest and finest beef, and
a few hams and shoulders were hanging
by, as fine as I ever saw, coffee and hot
soups were sending up their fragrant
steam from hissing cauldrons, and men
and women stood ready behind tables
covered with cakes and pies, and bread
and butter, to give any hungry person
a breakfast for a “levy,” that is, twelve
and a half cents.

From the market I went,to Market
street wharf, to look at the shipping.
O what a forest of masts, and rigging,
and ship signals were there! On the
right and on the left, as far as the eye
could reach, barques, sloops, brigs,
schooners, packets, steamboats, were
crowded together. Vessels in full sail
came riding gallantly up to the wharves ;
steamboat bells were ringing almost
every moment ; and small shallops were
dashing like sprightly sea-gulls over the
rippling waters. It was early day; the
beautiful sunlight was flashing on the»
waves, and as I looked out over their
noble expanse I thought of the “ rebel
kegs” which, in 1778,

“Came floating down the tide sir.”

Over on the other side, toward the east,
glittered the green shore of New Jersey.
Here, at many a mast-head, waved the
cross of St. George, and there, at Cam-
den, flapped the flag of red, white, and
blue, the lovely fleur-de-lis of France.
On the banks of this river our fathers
fought for liberty and human rights, in
the stormy days of our revolution. Then
they were few and feeble; but now
Philadelphia herself could almost defy
all the regular army of Great Britain.

After the day’s business was over, I