Newspaper Page Text
1852.]
(giiitor's Deprtant.
CHARLESTON: SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1852.
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE.
LETTER THIRD.
Philadelphia, June 8, 1852.
My Dear Reader : —I mailed my last letter at
the great metropolis, but I followed it very close
ly to this more quiet city, making my transit by
the pleasant and expeditious route of the Camden
and Amboy rail-way— a route which all travellers,
who have their time at their own disposal, should
choose. The journey is pleasantly varied by
steam-boat and cars, the former conveying you to
Amboy, and the latter thence to Camden, by Bor
deutown and Burlington, both pretty towns, in
that great peach-orchard and melon-patch—called
New-Jersey. A commodious steam-ferry con
nects Camden with Philadelphia, and the whole
journey occupies four hours. It was at the spa
cious wharf of the Camden and Amboy Compa
ny, in New-York, that I saw, the other day, a
novel kind of fishing. The carriage drivers, who
lined the edge of the dock, had each fastened his
card to the extremity of his long flexible whip,
and there they stood a-row, and ‘bobbed/ with
their tickets for bait, to the passengers upon the
nearing boat, considering any one caught who
took the card from the whip ! It was an amusing
spectacle, and a much more profitable occupation,
ii seemed to me, than more legitimate exhibitions
ot “angling” which were presented upon neigh
bouring wharves.
My sojourn in New-York was altogether too
briel to afford me any opportunity to pay my
J respects to the ‘lions’ of the season. I regretted
very much to have to give the Annual Exhibition
ol the National Academy the go-by, as the col
lection ol pictures is said to be more than usually
attractive.
I he extension of the city is one of its most sur
\ prising leatures. The streets are graded miles
away irom the regions ol upper-ten-dom, and mul
titudes ot houses are going up far into the country.
; I passed, on the Harlem rail-way, the proposed
I sites lor the two great parks—one of which is to
t ‘Otain as its central ornament the new reservoir
“t the Croton aqueduct—itself a respectable lake.
Much of the Harlem rail-way will be thrown
Uli dcr ground by the progressive grading of the
I( ?ets which lie contiguous to its route. I noticed
aic hes for tunneling it in process of erection
•’ °ue or two points, between the city and the
i Harlem stations.
Ih e papers have said much, of late, concerning
1 e the publishers and booksellers, as in-
SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
dicated in the “free-stone palaces” erected for
their business operations. It is an agreeable fact
that such tokens ol thrift are not wanting. Many
ol the trade have moved into most spacious and
elegant buildings, and display a generous compe
tition with those of other trades, in their stores
and ware-houses. I am not able to testify per
sonally that the book-writers are as fortunate and
flourishing as those who give their progeny to the
world in hot-press and gilt cloth. One thing
seems probable, however, that the thrift of the
two classes must bo somewhat proportional.
The infrequent visitor at New-York, know r s
little, I imagine, of the under-ground operations in
that city. He is not conscious, perhaps, as he
perambulates Broadway, or some cross street, that
he is walking over the heads of hundreds of busy
operatives—over clanking steam-engines—revolv
ing cylinders—throwing offnewspapers like snow
flakes—carpet saloons, in which fair ladies in
spect the gay patterns of piled velvet, or heavy
tapestrie—in short, over a busy world to which
the light of day in admitted through the very
pavements upon which he treads. If at all ob
servant, however, he may hate noticed among
the flag-stones beneath his feet large discs or
squares, containing a very large number of glass
globes, about the size of a Madeira nut. These
are set into iron sockets, and constitute what is
termed Hyatt’s patent vault light. 1 dropped in,
for a few moments, at the workshop of the inge
nious patentee, and saw some promising modifi
cations of his admirable contrivance for illumina
ting the “lower regions” of the city. They are,
already, extensively used, not alone in New-York,
but in other large towns, and hence-forward no
building with extensive cellarage will be judi
ciously constructed without them.
The competition between the Hudson River
steam-boats and the Hudson River Rail-way, is
one of the liveliest features of the season. The
rail-way fare is down to one dollar and fifty
cents, or less than one cent a mile, and the trains
go and come thronged to suffocation with passen
gers. Meanwhile the magnificent floating palaces
traverse nature’s great high-way with their “le
gions,” at fifty cents a piece ! The rail-way has
the advantage of speed more than two to one,
and in this age speed is every thing !
My letter is dated at Philadelphia, and I am
gossipping altogether about Gotham. Reverious
a nous moutons !
I took a stroll this morning through the Phila
delphia market. Now I have always thought
that our Charleston market was—to use a some
what slang word —“some,” but I must be candid
enough to confess, that at present, at least, the
Philadelphia market is “summer.” It is a busy
and attractive scene—a sort of victualling bazaar,
where you can get any thing you want for the
gratification of the appetite. Besides the usual
supplies of meats and vegetables, stalls are filled
with fresh dairy products—milk, butter, cheese,
(hard and soft;) with all manner of pies and
tarts ; with pickles and preserves; with green
fruits —such as apples, currants and gooseberries,
for stewing ; with every description ot herb ; with
delicious ice cream—genuine Delaware cream—
with vast trays of strawberries temptingly large
and red, at a “ ’loven penny bit” a quart; with
bread, and buns, and crackers, and cakes, and
muffins, and crumpets—and so on ad infinitum !
It is somewhat singular, by the way, to a stran
ger from the South particularly, to sec handsome
ly dressed women—ladies to all appearance—
stopping in the “market place,” to eat an ice
cream from one of the huge freezing cans which
stand in front of the ice cream stalls. It is quite
a common sight, however, and really the market
creams are proverbially of exquisite flavour, and
of enviable consistency. They are served, too,
on scrupulously clean saucers of China, and in
some cases, at least, with real silver spoons. Let
our Charleston confectioners who put us off with
pewter spoons and half frozen custards, think of
that and—do likewise! Will not some enter
prising party in our city take this hint, for which 1
charge nothing at all!
I called this morning on the magazine-king—
the amiable, excellent, and ‘considerable’ Godey
—and found him up to his neck (over his should
ers) in piles of the forthcoming July number of
the “Book.” A hasty glance over it satisfied me
that I might venture to give it a puff’ in anticipa
tion.
I was greatly delighted yesterday by an exam
ination of a collection of specimens of typogra
phy and lithography, executed at Vienna, and
exhibited at the World’s Fair in London. It was,
subsequently, sent forth by the Austrian Govern
ment to Messrs. Lippincott, Grambo & Cos., at
whose establishment I had the pleasure of in
specting it. One of the typographical specimens
was the Lords prayer, in no fewer than six hun
dred languages and dialects. Such superb press
work I never before beheld. Os the lithographs,
I saw several specimens which I had very inno
cently taken for fine oil paintings. They proved
to be prints in oil colours, over which no brush
had ever passed. It is almost impossible to con-;
ceive of such perfection of colour from a series
of stones, and yet they * are nothing more than
lithographs! It will be a long time befor# either
lithography or typography in this country reaches
the degree of excellence displayed by these Aus
trian works of art. Our national vanity, which
makes us fancy that we are ahead of all the civil
ized world, meets many a rebuke of this kind.
I have now passed several nights at German
town, an ancient and populous ‘village’ about se
ven miles (and half an hour by rail-road) from
Quakerdom. It is a pleasant place, with a tem
perature as cool as one could reasonably ask in
summer, though I am told it sometimes grows hot
there. It is one of the chief summer retreats of
the inhabitants of this city, and it is improving so
fast that it will soon be a regular rus in urbe.
This afternoon I shall start on my homeward
route, and must here make my acknowledgments
to Mr. A. Hart, the publisher of Mrs. Lee Hentz’s
popular and excellent stories, for “the first copy
done up” of “ Eolme ,” anew novellette, by that
amiable and accomplished lady. By the w r ay,
Mr. Hart advertises “Marcus Wariand” as an
“antidote” to Mrs. Beecher Stowe’s exaggera
tion—“ Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The idea is ahap-
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