the panes required. I shall also send the measures of the fireplaces, and the pier of glass. The chimneys do well, and I have baked in the oven, and found it is good. The room we call yours, has in it. a desk, the harmonica made like a desk,-a large chest with all the writings, the boxes of glasses for music, and for the electricity, and all your clothes. The pictures are not put up, as I do not like to drive nails, lest they should not be right. The Blue room, has the harmonica and the harpsicord, the gilt sconce, a card-table, a set of tea china, the worked chairs, and screen,-a very handsome stand for the tea kettle to stand on, and the ornamental china. The paper of this room has lost much of its bloom by pasting up. The curtains are not yet made. The south room is my sleeping room with my Susannah,-where we have a bed without curtains,-a chest of drawers, a table, a glass, and old black walnut chairs, and some of our family pictures. I have taken all the dead letters, [meaning those he had as Post Master General,] and the papers, that were in the garret, with the books not taken by Billy, [his son W. Franklin, at Burlington.] and had them boxed and barreled up, and put in the south garret to await your return. Sally has the south room up two pair of stairs, having therein a bed, bureau, table, glass, and the picture-a trunk and books-but these you can't have any notion of!"

She finally concludes familiarly and pathetically-"O my child! there is a great odds between a man's being at home and abroad :as every body is afraid they shall do wrong,—so, every thing is left undone!"

Family Equipage.-There is scarcely any thing in Philadel phia which has undergone so great a change as the increased style and number of our travelling vehicles and equipage. I have seen aged persons who could name the few proprietors of every coach used in the whole province of Pennsylvania-a less number than are now enrolled on the books of some individual establishments among us for the mere hiring of coaches! Even since our war of Independence there were not more than ten or twelve in the city, and, rare as they were, every man's coach was known at sight by every body. A hack had not been heard of. Our progenitors did not deem a carriage a necessary appendage of wealth or respectability. Merchants and professional gentlemen were quite content to keep a one horsechair; these had none of the present trappings of silver plate, nor were the chair bodies varnished; plain paint alone adorned them, and brass rings and buckles were all the ornaments found on the harness; the chairs were without springs, on leather bands— such as could now be made for fifty dollars.

James Reed, Esq., an aged gentleman who died in the fever of 1793, said he could remember when there were only eight fourwheeled carriages kept in all the province! As he enumerated them, they were set down in the commonplace book of my friend Mrs. D. L., to wit: Coaches-the Governor's, (Gordon) Jonathan

Dickinson's, Isaac Norris's, Andrew Hamilton's, Anthony Palmer's. Fourwheeled chairs, drawn by two horses: James Logan's, Stenton; David Lloyd's, Chester; Lawrence Growden's, Bucks.

At the earliest period of the city some two or three coaches are incidentally known. Thus William Penn, the founder, in his note to James Logan of 1700, says, "Let John (his black) have the coach, and horses put in it, for Pennsbury, from the city." In another he speaks of his "calash." He also requests the Justices may place bridges over the Pennepack and other waters, for his car riage to pass.

I have preserved, on page 172 of my MS. Annals in the City Library, the general list, with the names of the several owners of every kind of carriage used in Philadelphia in the year 1761. William Allen the Chief Justice, the Widow Lawrence, and Widow Martin, were the only owners of coaches. William Peters and Thomas Willing, owned the only two landaus. There were eighteen chariots enumerated, of which the Proprietor and the Governor had each of them one. Fifteen chairs concluded the whole enumeration, making a total of thirty-eight vehicles.

In the MS. of Dusimitiere he has preserved an enumeration of the year 1772, making a total of eighty-four carriages.

The rapid progress in this article of luxury and often of conve nience, is still further shown by the list of duties imposed on pleasure carriages, showing, that in the year 1794, they were stated thus, to wit: thirty three coaches, one hundred and fifty-seven coachees, thirty-five chariots, twenty-two phaetons, eighty light wagons, and five hundred and twenty chairs and sulkies.

The aged T. Matlack, Esq., before named, told me the first coach he remembered to have seen was that of Judge William Allen's who lived in Water street, on the corner of the first alley below High street. His coachman, as a great whip, was imported from England. He drove a kind of landau with four black horses. To show his skill as a driver he gave the Judge a whirl round the shambles, which then stood where Jersey market is since built, and turned with such dashing science as to put the Judge and the spectators in great concern! The tops of this carriage fell down front and back, and thus made an open carriage if required.

Mrs. Shoemaker, as aged as 95, told me that pleasure carriages were very rare in her youth. She remembered that her grandfather had one, and that he used to say he was almost ashamed to appear abroad in it, although it was only a one horsechair, lest he should be thought effeminate and proud. She remembered old Richard Wistar had one also. When she was about twenty Mr. Charles Willing, merchant, brought a calash coach with him from England. This and Judge William Allen's were the only ones she had ever seen! This Charles Willing was the father of the late aged Thomas Willing, Esq., President of the first Bank of the United States.

In the year 1728, I perceive by the Gazette, that one Thomas Skelton advertises that he has got "a fourwheeled chaise, in Chestnut street, to be hired. His prices are thus appointed: "For four persons to Germin-town, 12 shillings and 6 pence; to Frankford, 10 shillings; and to Gray's Ferry, 7 shillings and 6 pence to 10 shillings."

In the year 1746, Mr. Abram Carpenter, a cooper, in Dock street, near the Golden Fleece, makes his advertisement, to hire two chairs and some saddle horses, to this effect, to wit:

"Two handsome chairs,

With very good geers,
With horses, or without,
To carry friends about.

Likewise, saddle horses, if gentlemen please,

To carry them handsomely, much at their ease,
Is to be hired by Abram Carpenter, cooper
Well known as a very good cask-hooper."

In October, 1751, a MS. letter of Doctor William Shippen, to John Godman, in London, wrote to discourage him from sending out two chairs or chaises for sale here, saying, they are dull sale.

The most splendid looking carriage ever in Philadelphia, at that time, was that used by General Washington, while President. There was in it, at least to my young mind, a greater air of stately grandeur than I have ever seen since. It was very large, so much so, as to make four horses an indispensable appendage. It had been previously imported for Governor Richard Penn. It was of a cream colour, with much more of gilded carvings in the frame than is since used. Its strongest attractions were the relief ornaments on the pannels, they being painted medallion pictures of playing cupids or naked children. That carriage I afterwards saw, in 1804-5, in my store yard at New Orleans, where it lay an outcast in the weather!—the result of a bad speculation in a certain Doctor Young, who had bought it at public sale, took it out to Orleans for sale, and could find none to buy it, where all were content with plain volantes! A far better speculation would have been to have taken it to the Marquis of Lansdown, or other admirers of Washington in England.

Even the character of the steeds used and preferred for riding and carriages, have undergone the change of fashion too. In old time, the horses most valued were pacers-now so odious deemed! To this end, the breed was propagated with care, and pace races were held in preference! The Narraganset racers of Rhode Island were in such repute that they were sent for, at much trouble and expense, by some few who were choice in their selections. It may amuse the present generation to peruse the history of one such

It became in time a kind of outhouse, in which fowls roosted; and in the great battle of New Orleans it stood between the combatants, and was greatly shot-ridden! Its gooseneck crane, has been laid aside for me.

horse, spoken of in the letter of Rip Van Dam, of New York, of the year 1711, to Jonathan Dickinson of Philadelphia. It states the fact of the trouble he had taken to procure him a horse. He was shipped from Rhode Island in a sloop, from which he jumped overboard and swam ashore to his former home! He arrived at New York in fourteen days passage much reduced in flesh and spirit. He cost 32. and his freight 50 shillings. From New York he was sent inland to Philadelphia "by the next post," i. e., postman. He shows therein, that the same postrider rode through the whole route from city to city! He says of the pacer, he is no beauty although "so high priced," save in his legs; says "he always plays and acts; will never stand still; will take a glass of wine, beer, or cider, and probably would drink a dram in a cold moming!" This writer, Rip Van Dam, was a great personage, he having been President of the Council in 1731, and, on the death of Governor Montgomery, that year was ex officio Governor of New York. His mural monument is in St. Paul's church in that city.

A letter of Doctor William Shippen, of 1745, which I have seen, thus writes to George Barney, (celebrated for procuring good horses,) saying, "I want a genteel carriage horse of about fifteen hands high, round bodied, full of courage, close ribbed, dark chesnut, not a swift pacer, if that must much enhance his price. I much liked the pacer you procured for James Logan."

Formerly, livery stables and hacks (things of modern introduction,) were not in use. Those who kept horses and vehicles were much restricted to those only whose establishments embraced their own stables. The few who kept their horses without such appendages placed them at the taverns. They who depended upon hire were accustomed to procure them of such persons as had frequent uses for a horse to labour in their business, who, to diminish their expense, occasionally hired them in the circle of their acquaintance. In this way, many who were merchants (the ancestors of those who have now a horse and gig for almost every son,) were fain to get their draymen to exempt a horse from his usual drudgery for the benefit of his employers for a country airing. A drayman who kept two or three such horses for porterage, usually kept a plain chair to meet such occasions. If the vehicles were homelier than now, they were sure to be drawn by better horses. and looked in all respects more like the suitable equipments of substantial livers than the hired and glaring fripperies of the livery-fineries of the present sumptuous days. Then ladies took long walks to the miry grounds of the South street Theatre, without the chance of calling for hacks for their conveyance. There is a slight recollection of a solitary hack which used to stand before the Conestoga Inn, in High street-an unproductive concern, which could only obtain an occasional call from the strangers visiting the inn, for a ride out of town. To have rode in town would have been regarded as gross affectation,-practically reasoning,

that as our limbs were bestowed before hacks were devised, they should be used and worn out first, before the others were encouraged.

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS IN PUBLIC AND DOMESTIC COMFORTS AND CONVENIENCES.

AN attention to the following notices of the alterations and improvements of our city in its streets, houses, &c., for the purpose of increasing public and individual conveniences and comforts, or for facilitating business and trade, will much aid our right conception of things as they once were, and of the means and times used to produce the alterations which we now witness.

Wells and Pumps.-The conveniences of pumps were rarely seen for many years in the primitive city. Even wells for the use of families were generally public and in the streets. Aged persons have told me of their recollections of such wells even in their time. They became the frequent subject of presentments of the Grand Juries. As early as the year 1723, they present" two old and very deep wells lying open at Centre Square," also a pump at Pewterplatter alley. They urge, too, that a pump at the great arch, (Arch street) standing out much into the street, ought to be removed. They recommend to fill up the well in the middle of the footpath in Second street, near Thomas Rutter's. The well in the common shore in High street is noticed as a nuisance "for want of a better covering." In 1741, they present an open well in Second street at William Fishbourne's, and another in Third street at Enoch Story's. In 1735, it is publicly stated in the Gazette, as manifest, that "some public pumps are wanting," and in 1744, the Union Fire Company show their care of them by advertising a reward of £5, "for apprehending the persons who stole the nozles from High street, and other streets." When Kalm was here in 1748, he says there was a well to every house, and several in the streets. The water he praised much, as very good and clear.

Watchmen, Lamps, and Constables.-Aged persons have told me that in their early days there were no watchmen: and that in lieu of them the constables went round every night, before going to rest, to see that all was well. Even the constables were originally citizens, serving for a period by necessity. In the year 1750, the Grand Jury represent the great need of watchmen and paved streets, saying of the former, they would "repress nightly insults," and of the latter, "frequent complaints are made by strangers and others of the