The Society was founded by the Philosophical Franklin, and its presidential chair is now occupied by the learned and venerable Duponceau.
There exists here a club of twenty-four philosophers, who give every Saturday evening very agreeable male parties;3 consisting of the club, twenty invited citizens and any strangers who may happen to be in town. These parties are not confined to any particular circle; but all men who are distinguished in the arts, whether fine or mechanical; or in the sciences, whether natural or artificial, are liable to be invited. The members of the club are all M. A. P. S., and the parties are supposed to look with a steady eye towards the cultivation of science; the other eye however regards with equal complacency the useful and ornamental arts of eating and drinking. The only defect in the latter department that we have discovered, is the banishment of ice cream and roman punch.
3 Called Wistar parties, in honor of the late illustrious Caspar Wistar, M.D., Professor of Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania.
The markets are well supplied with good things. The principal one is held under long colonnades running along the middle of Market street, and extending from Front to Eighth street, a distance of more than one thousand yards. The columns are of brick and the roofs of shingles, arched and ceiled underneath. If I were to say all they deserve of its beef, mutton and veal, there would be no end to the praises that flesh is heir to; but the butter and cream-cheese in the spring and summer, are such dainties as are found in no other place under the welkin. They are produced on dairy farms and by families near the city, whose energies have for several generations been directed to this one useful end, and who now work with an art made perfect by the experience of a century.
Here is the seat of the University of Pennsylvania, which comprehends a College of the Arts and several preparatory schools; and a college of Medicine the most celebrated of the United States, in the list of whose professors are many names advantageously known in all civilized nations.
The Hospital for the insane, sick and wounded is a well conducted institution, and worth a stranger's visit. Go and see also the Museum, the Water-Works, the Navy-Yard, and the public squares, and lots of other things too tedious to write down.
The site of the city promises very little for the scenery of the environs; but unlike the witches in Macbeth, what is promised is more than kept. Take an open carriage and cross the Schuylkill by the Market street bridge, and ride up the west bank of the river for five or six miles, and your labor will be fully rewarded by a succession of lovely landscapes, comprehending water, hill and dale; wood, lawn and meadow; villas, farmhouses and cottages, mingled in a charming variety.
On the west bank of the Schuylkill opposite to the city, we regret to say, is an enormous palace, which cost many hundred thousand dollars, called an Almshouse, (unhappy misnomer,) which is big enough to hold all the paupers that would be in the world, if there were no poor laws to make them. But you had better go and see it, and take the length and breadth and height of our unreason, in this age of light, when we ought to know better.
The people of Philadelphia are in general well-informed, well-bred, kind, hospitable and of good manners, very slightly tinged with quaker reserve; and the tone of society is good, except in a small circle of exclusive imagines subitæ, who imitate very awkwardly the exaggerations of European fashion. The tone of the Satanic school, which has somewhat infected the highest circles of fashion in England, has not yet crossed the Atlantic.
There are many good Hotels, and extensive boarding houses; and the table of the Mansion House is said to be faultless.