They are usually found a little in arrear on the subject of all passing events; and at election times, or on occasions of extraordinary stir, when a man is striving to render them _au courant_ with late occurrences, they will now and then interrupt their informant with, "Bud why de teufel doesn't Vashington come down to de Nord and bud it all to rights?" The public buildings are here of a more ambitious style of architecture than any of the other cities can boast, and some of them are built in exceeding good taste; but the one which had most interest in my eyes was the old State-house, wherein the "Declaration of Independence" was signed. The Senate-chamber is, I fancy, little changed since that period; and contained, when I was last within it, models for various public works: amongst others, several for a heroic statue of Washington, about to be erected, somewhat late in the day to be sure, by the city; others for the new college, now building, according to the will of the late S. Girard, and intended to assist in perpetuating his name and wealth to all posterity. Such appears to have been the great object of the will of this worthy citizen, and there is every prospect of its fully answering the purpose, since it has already set the whole community by the ears, and promises to prove as prolific of evils as the strong box of Miss Pandora, without having even Hope at the bottom. This man, who has been so much eulogized dead, seems, as well as I could glean amongst his contemporaries, to have been anything but estimable in his living character. He is universally described as having been tricky, overreaching, and litigious in his dealings as a merchant; an unfeeling relation, an exacting, ungrateful, and forgetful master; and a selfish, cold-hearted man: unoccupied with any generous sympathy, public or private, throughout a long life, devoted to one purpose with sleepless energy, and to one purpose only--making and hoarding money; which, living, he contrived, as far as in him lay, to render as little beneficial to any as possible, and, dying, disposed of to his own personal glorification, but to the vexation of the community, amongst which he appeared to have lived unhonoured, and certainly died unregretted! I am aware that "de mortuis nil nisi bonum" has usually been applied to cases similar to the above; "nil nisi _justem_" I think a sounder reading where a man is held up as a public example, and deem that the selection of a church or a college for a monument should not be permitted to shield the base from animadversion, or call for honours to the worthless. THE THEATRES--WALNUT AND CHESTNUT: So called were the houses at which I first acted here, situated in the two fine streets bearing the same names.