But the old stories have lost what little point they had. Philadelphia does not look slow and sleepy any longer. Things have changed, indeed, when a modern traveller like Mr. Arnold Bennett can speak of "spacious gaiety" in connection with Philadelphia—with its spacious dulness the earlier traveller was more apt to be impressed. At last, however, it has given up its country-town airs for the airs of the big town it is—given up the calmness that was its chief characteristic for the hurry-flurry of the ordinary American town. And there is scarcely a Philadelphian who regrets it, that is the saddest part of it—scarcely a Philadelphian who does not rejoice that Philadelphia is getting to be like New York.
THE MARKET STREET ELEVATED AT THE DELAWARE END
I think, of all the innovations, this was the one that distressed me most, though I could understand the difficulty of calm in the face of the multitude of new housing and traffic problems it has had to tackle, at a rate and with a speed that the Philadelphian, left to himself, would never have imposed upon it. Somehow, it has had to keep on putting up those rows of little two-story houses in sufficient numbers to shelter the too rapidly increasing population if it is to maintain its reputation as the City of Homes; somehow, it has had to provide subways, and elevateds, and new suburban lines with no level crossings, and new central Stations and Terminals, and big trolley cars out of all proportion to Philadelphia's narrow streets, and taxis too dear for any but the millionaire to drive in, if the too-rapidly increasing crowds are to be got to work and back again; somehow, new bridges have had to cross the Schuylkill, new streets have had to be laid out, so many new things have had to be begun and done in the too-rapidly growing town, that there is small chance and less time for it to take them calmly or, alas! to keep itself clean and tidy.
II
In my memory Philadelphia was a model of cleanliness under a clean sky, free of the smoke that the use of soft coal has brought with it. Every Saturday every servant girl—"maid," Philadelphia calls her now—turned out with mops and buckets and hose, for such a washing up of the front for a week that, until the next Saturday, Philadelphia could not look dirty if it tried. But I do not believe that a legion of servant girls, with all the mops, buckets, and hose in the world, could ever wash Philadelphia clean again, to such depths of dirt has it fallen. It could not have been more of a disgrace to its citizens when Franklin deplored the shocking condition of its streets, especially in wet weather, or when Washington had to wade through mud to get to the theatre where he found his recreation. It has become actually the Filthydelphia somebody once called it in jest. Not even in the little Spanish and Italian towns whose dirt the American deplores, have I seen such streets—all rivers and pools and lakes when it rains, ankle-deep in dust when it is dry, papers flying loose, corners choked with dirt, tins of ashes and garbage standing at the gutter side all day long—even London, that I used to think the dirtiest of dirty towns, knows how to order its garbage better than that. We Americans are supposed to be long-suffering, to endure almost anything until the crisis comes. But I thought that crisis had long since come in the Philadelphia streets. Everybody agreed with me, and I was assured that a corrupt government having been got out and a reform government got in, already there was tremendous talk of schemes for garbage—bags to be hauled off full of garbage, dust-tight on the way, and hauled back empty, old paper to be bought up by the city so that no thrifty citizen would throw a scrap of paper into the street—and as tremendous talk of experiments in garbage, ten patriotic citizens promising to contribute one thousand dollars each to make them. I was assured also that the reform Mayor has done his best and struggled valiantly against the evil, but unfortunately it is not he alone who can vote the money for a wholesale spring-cleaning. It occurred to me that, in the meanwhile, we might be better off if we returned with much less expense, to the hogs that were "the best of scavengers" when William Cobbett visited Philadelphia. Or, at no more than the cost of a ticket to New York, the reformers might at least learn how to keep garbage tins off the front steps of inoffensive, tax-paying citizens at five o'clock in the afternoon when they ask their friends to drink tea in that English fashion which is as novel in my Philadelphia as the difficulty with the garbage.
THE RAILROAD BRIDGES AT FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL
My own opinion was that Philadelphia had lost its head over the magnitude of the task before it. In no other way could I account for the recklessness with which old streets were torn up for blocks and repaired by inches; new streets built and horrible stagnant pools left on their outskirts—the suburbs quite as bad in this respect, so bad that I understand associations of citizens are formed to do what the authorities don't seem able to; boulevards planned and held up when half finished, a monumental entrance designed to the most beautiful Park in the world and, on its either side, silly little wooden pergolas set up to try the effect, by the dethroned government I believe, and, though nobody, from one end of the town to the other, approves, neither the time nor the money is found to pull them down again—neither the time nor the money found for anything but dirt and untidiness.