CHAPTER III

Summary

I soon, next morning, engaged a lecturing hall from the stout good-humoured caretaker; and after due insertion of lecture announcements in the papers and other matters therein-concerning, I rambled over the town, which had a pleasant Quaker-like cleanliness and stateliness, giving it a physiognomy of its own.

When one is tired of rambling, there is always the pleasant reading-room resource. The Ledger, National Intelligencer, and the Union, which are the names seen upon the papers the two readers have been perusing (p. 99), bring back to mind this admirable adjunct of a newsroom, which is a feature of all American hotels. They were salient Philadelphian organs of opinion, doubtless exponents of the thoughts and feelings of the Society of Friends, to which these twin figures seemed also to belong.

Though Philadelphia had no statues at that time, you soon gleaned that the three salient figures of its history were—William Penn, its famed founder; Benjamin Franklin; and, lastly, the wealthy Bordeaux workman Girard, who had presented the town with thirty millions of francs as a bequest.

William Penn is remembered and recalled by endless popular announcements, to which his name is attached.

Exemplifying this hero-worship, there was the awning shading the hotel, embellished with his three-cornered hat and wig; the hero holding; his famous treaty, which West's picture has made familiar. Franklin's renowned hand-printing press is here.