For more than any other American city, Philadelphia has suffered the loss of her comeliness, a comeliness that was very dear to those who first heard the promise of the Bell. “After our cares for the necessities of life are over,” said the wise Franklin, “we shall come to think of its embellishments.” In the pursuit of a rational happiness, Philadelphians devoted time, thought, and money to the embellishment of their daily lives. They had an unerring taste in architecture and decoration. Their portraits were painted by good artists, Peale and Stuart and Sully. Trim gardens lent brilliancy of colour to their handsome, sober homes. They made of “Faire Mount” hill a thing of beauty, a little spot of classic grace and charm, which artists loved, and politicians ruthlessly destroyed—perhaps because it was the only thing in the nature of an eminence to break the level surface on which Penn laid out his checkerboard town. To the casual visitor of to-day, Philadelphia seems an ugly and shabby city, set in the fields of Paradise. Surroundings of exceptional loveliness have lured the town-dweller from his narrow streets, from soot and grime and perpetual racket, to pursue happiness in the clean and composed life of the country. And as more and more citizens seek every year this method of escape, the abandoned city grows more and more downcast and forlorn. It is to be forever regretted that its oldest streets, lined with houses of unsurpassable dignity, should have degenerated into filthy slums, where an alien population violates every tradition of reticence and propriety. Christ Church, Gloria Dei, and Saint Peter’s still stand inviolate, keeping their dirty neighbours at arm’s length with green churchyards and cherished slips of lawn. Indeed, churchyards, which were once in disfavour, have come to be highly commended. They interpose their undesecrated neatness between many an ancient place of worship and its elbowing associates.