“The rivalries between American cities,” said Irving, “seem to take a far more aggressive form than the rivalry between England and America, or even between France and England; I mean in regard to their criticisms of each other, and their hostile chaff or badinage in regard to each other’s peculiarities.”
“Is it not very much the same in England?”
“Perhaps.”
“Sheffield scoffs at Birmingham, Liverpool sneers at Bristol, Manchester is supercilious concerning London,” I said.
“And London mildly patronizes the whole of them. I think you are right; but one does not notice the competition at home so much, perhaps, as in America. Boston and Philadelphia seem to indulge in a good deal of badinage at each other’s expense.”
“And they are both sarcastic about the morality of Chicago.”
“A Boston friend of ours,” said Irving, “was telling me yesterday of a little war of words he had with a Philadelphian. Said Boston to the Quaker, ‘Well, there is one thing in which you have the best of us.’—‘Glad you admit one point in our favor anyhow; what is it?’—‘You are nearer to New York than we are.’ Our Boston friend is fond of New York, takes his holidays there; says he likes it nearly as well as London. A less subtle, but more direct, hit at Philadelphia was that of the Bostonian, who, in reply to the question of a Philadelphian, ‘Why don’t you lay out your streets properly?’ said, ‘If they were as dead as yours we would lay them out.’”
“Looked at from a balloon,” I said, “Philadelphia would have the appearance of a checker-board. Boston, on the other hand, would present many of the irregular features of an English city. Both cities are eminently representative of American characteristics, and both are possibly more English in their habits, manners, and customs, than any other cities of the Union.”
“There is nothing dead about the Philadelphia streets, so far as I have noticed them,” Irving replied. “This morning I walked along Chestnut street, and thought it particularly lively and pleasant. The absence of the elevated railroad struck me as an advantage. I felt that when walking down Broadway, in New York. Then the cars in the street itself did not rush along at the New York pace. These seem to me to be advantages in their way on the side of life in Philadelphia. Perhaps one feels the rest, too, of a calmer city, a quieter atmosphere.”