And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. In my youthful days it was a great sport with the boys to sled down hills in the city, on the snow in winter. Since the population and the wheel-carriages have increased, the danger of being run over more than formerly, and the rarity of the snow, has made boy's leave it off for some years. Thirty to forty boys and sleds could be seen running down each of the streets descending from Front street to the river. There was also much sledding down the streets and hills descending to Pegg's run. The boys at Friends' school in south Fourth street were formerly (although gravely disciplined) as mischievous and sportive as others. Some still alive may be amused to be reminded of their puerilities; when they were taught by Jonah Thompson, who was a man of good military port and aspect, accustomed to walk at the head of his corps of scholars to week-day meetings in a long line of "two and two." On such occasion the town was surprised to see them so marching with wooden guns, (a kind of received Quaker emblem) and having withal a little flag! These they had succeeded to take up as they walked out of school without the knowledge of their chieftain, who had preceded them without deigning to look back on their array. On another occasion, when Robert Proud, the historian, was their teacher, and was remarkable for retaining his large bush-wig, long after others had disused them, they bored a hole through the ceiling over his sitting place, and by suspending a pinhook to a cord, so attached it to his wig as to draw it up, leaving it suspended as if depending from the ceiling. At another time they combined at night to take to pieces a country wagon which they lifted on to a chinney wall then building, there replacing the wheels, awning, &c., to the astonishment of the owner and the diversion of the populace. Some of those urchins lived, notwithstanding their misapplied talents and ingenuity, to make very grave and exemplary members of society. Youth is the season of levity and mirth, and although we must chide its wanton aberrations, we may yet feel sensations of indulgence, knowing what we ourselves have been, and to what they with ourselves must come,— "When cherish'd fancies one by one The time was when the "uptown" and "downtown boys" were rival clans, as well understood in the city precincts as the bigger clans of feds and anti-feds. They used to have, according to the streets, their regular night-battles with sticks and stones, making the panes of glass to jingle occasionally. But the appearance of "old Carlisle" and the famous West (the constable) would scatter them into all the hiding-places-peeping out from holes and corners when the coast was clear. Those from the south of Chestnut street were frequently headed by one whose naval exploits, since that time, in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic, have secured to him imperishable fame; also by his faithful friend and ardent admirer, well known since throughout the community for his suavity and exquisitely polished manners. They were the Achilles and the Patrocles of the "downtowners." The Northern Liberties about Camptown and Pegg's run used to be in agitation almost every Saturday night by the regular clans of" rough and tumble" fighting, between the ship-carpenters from Kensington, and the butchers from Spring Garden-the public authority not even attempting to hinder them, as it was deemed an affair out of town. All this spirit of rivalry and fighting was the product of the war of Independence. Their ears, as boys, were filled with the echoes of battles lost or won. They felt their buoyant spirits inspired with martial ardour too, and having no real enemies to encounter, they invented them for the occasion. In this way the academy boys were accoutred as young soldiers, and they much piqued themselves as the rivals of another class of school-boys. Each had their officers, and all of them some emblems a la militaire-all aspiring to the marks and influence of manhood; burning to get through their minority, and to take their chances in the world before them: "Then passions wild and dark and strong, THE CITY DANCING ASSEMBLY. J THIS association in its time-like another Almacks, embodied the exclusives of the day. The elite and fashionables of the city then were far more peculiarly marked by its metes and bounds of separation, than now. It only professed to enroll and retain in its union, those who had ancestral bearings and associations. Some of the original MSS. lists of the day having been put into my hands, it may be curious at this time to here copy the record, and to furnish to sundry of the descendants this roll of remembrance of their ancestors-to wit: "A list of subscribers for an assembly, appointed under the direction of Joseph Shippen, James Burd, Redmund Conyngham, and Joseph Sims, for the season (the year 1749). Each subscription to be 3-to be paid to any of the Directors at subscribing." List of Belles and Dames of Philadelphia fashionables, of about the year 1757. An original list for the ball of the City Assembly. Mrs. Hopkinson, Mrs. Hockley, Miss Molly Francis, Miss Molly Lawrence, Miss Randolph, Miss Sophia White, Miss Betty Clifften, Mrs. Peter Bard, Mrs. Franklin, Miss Lucy De Normondie, Miss Phebe Winecoop, Mrs. Harkly. I have also preserved a card of admission, of the year 1749, addressed to Mrs. Jeykell, a lady of pre-eminent fashion and beauty, the then leading lady of the ton. She was the grand-daughter of the first Edward Shippen, a mayor, merchant, and Quaker. She was married to the brother of Sir Joseph Jeykell, the secretary of Queen Anne; and when in her glory in Philadelph, she dwelt in and owned the house next southward of "Edward Shippen's great house" in south Second street, where is now Nicholas Waln's row. It is worthy of remark, now that we have such elegant devices in the form of visiting and admission cards, that this card, and all the cards of that day, were written or printed upon common playing cards; this from the circumstance that blank cards were not then in the country, and none but playing cards were imported for sale. I have seen, at least a variety of a dozen in number, addressed to this same lady. One of them, from a leading gentleman of that day, contained on the back, the glaring effigy of a queen of clubs! One of the cards to her of the year 1755, was a printed one upon a playing card, and read thus, to wit: "The gentlemen of the Army present their compliments to Mrs. Jeykell, and beg the favour of her company to a ball at the State house on Monday next. Saturday, September 20, 1755.” An elderly gentleman informs me that the aristocratic feelings continued to prevail in their full force, down to the time of the Revolution. And as a case in point he mentions that when squire Hillegas' daughter was married to John A-, an extensive goldsmith and jeweller, in High street, she was no longer admitted to her former place in the "old city assembly." About the same time there was another assembly not so fastidious-and when it so happened that General Washington was invited to both balls on the same night on some special public occasion, he went to the latter and danced with a mechanic's daughter. "I tell the story as it was told to me." At one time, it was proposed to give, (in ill nature, it is presumed,) the genealogy of the old city assembly. The same old gentleman told me that he saw part of it in poetic MSS., and thinks it still exists. It quoted documents and records, to blur, so far as it might, "the vellum of pedigree." One of the really honourables of the colonial days has told me of his mother (the wife of the chief justice) going to a great ball in Water street, in her youthful days, to Hamilton's stores on the wharf, on Water street next to the drawbridge-she going to the same in her full dress on horseback! EDUCATION. "Thus form the mind by use of alphabetic signs." IT is greatly to the credit of our forefathers, that they showed an early and continued regard to the education of their posterity. They were men of too much practical wisdom not to foresee the abiding advantages of proper instruction to the rising generation. What they aimed to impart was solid and substantial. If it in general bore the plain appellation of "reading, writing and arith metic" only, it gave these so effectively as to make many of their pupils persons of first rate consequence and wisdom in the early annals of our country. With such gifts in their possession, many of them were enabled from suitable books, to become their self-instructers in numerous branches of science and belles-lettres studies. In that day they made no glaring display, under imposing names and high charges, of teaching youth geography, use of maps and globes, dictionary, history, chronology, composition, &c. &c. &c. All these came as matter of course, by mere readings at home, when the mind was matured and the school acquirements were finished. They then learned to read on purpose to be able to pursue such branches of inquiry for themselves; and having the means in possession, the end as certainly followed without the school bill charge as with it. They thus acquired, when the mind was old enough fondly to enlist |