The passion for hunting led to other amusements not quite so interesting or innocent, both as regarded their character and the influence they were calculated to have on society. These were horse-racing and bull-baiting. The latter were frequent, more particularly in the Northern Liberties, and were first supported chiefly by butchers, but gradually assumed a more aristocratical character, being encouraged by many members of the “Old Hunting Club.” John Ord, an Englishman, kept bull-dogs for the purpose of the breed. His establishment was at the corner of Second and High Streets. The cruel amusement of bull-baiting—one which gave to Old Spain a character for cruelty only equalled by that of the Inquisition—continued until about 1798, when Robert Wharton, Esq., was elected mayor of the city. He attended one of these “bull-baits,” and actually, just as they were about to loose the dogs, jumped into the ring, and, calling aloud, said he would arrest the first man who should commence the cruel work. The effect was tremendous: men started back in affright; the very dogs cowed beneath the glance of his flashing eyes; and the bull gave a roar,—no doubt one of rejoicing for his escape. There were no more bull-baitings after that. William Penn did not enter upon his mission in the colonies unprepared for all the difficulties he had to encounter, nor was he ignorant of the history of those nations and their great cities which ages ago gave them a classic habitation and a home. Penn evidently had the celebrated city of Babylon in view as a model for Philadelphia; and, from a draft before us, the idea, as far as regularity and order were concerned, appears to have been well conceived, and, as proved, subsequently carried out. The history of Philadelphia, as it was during its colonial, caterpillar state, and as it is now in dazzling, butterfly beauty under a far different system of government, is familiar to all: yet we shall have occasion, in connection with our subject, to allude to its former history as we proceed. The post-office scheme of Colonel John Hamilton was well adapted to the wants of the colonists. In 1717 a settled post was established from Virginia to Maryland, which went through all the Northern colonies, bringing and forwarding letters from Boston to Williamsburg, in Virginia, in four weeks. In 1727 the mail to Annapolis was opened, to go once a fortnight in summer, and once a month in winter, _viâ_ New Castle, &c., to the Western Shore, and back to the Eastern Shore, managed by William Bradford in Philadelphia, and by William Parks, of Annapolis.