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Samuel J. Randall, Democratic Representative in Congress from the First Congressional district in the same State: a kindly, honest heart beats under that broad breast. Justice William Strong, of the Supreme Court of the United States, now living in Washington, looks like one of the sacred Nine, and wears well under his years.

Of course, these two pleasant fellows are George W. Childs, of the Ledger, and Anthony J. Drexel, inseparable even here, as they are in good works everywhere. They have braved the panic, both of them, and gather in pennies and greenbacks with a wondrous good-fortune, which makes them generous in turn. James L. Claghorn needs no office to make him famous. He lives in his unrivalled pictures and engravings and the just finished Academy of Fine Arts, growing into a glory of marvellous beauty, at the corner of Broad and Cherry streets, Philadelphia. Talking of fine architecture, we must not forget the new Masonic Temple, on Broad Street, near Market, the grand monument of which all the brethren of the Mystic Tie are so proud; and here, near me, is one of the high-priests of the order, Hon. Henry M. Phillips, who was in the Twenty-fifth Congress in 1858-59, and is now President of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, one of the best types of the Jewish people; with a hand always open to the needy, rich in his own deservings and in the respect of all denominations. I need not tell you who that is standing before the picture of Marguerite; for though you may never have met him, you detect him from his photographs-that was E. L. Davenport, the actor, the finest Hamlet and the best Sir Giles Overreach of our day, also gone to his last rest.

No! there is no music at the Saturday Night Club; nothing but conversation and good living, and, as you have seen, no ladies. No doctors? Why, certainly, there were three of the greatest just before you-Professor Joseph Pancoast, Professor Samuel D. Gross, and Dr. J. H. B. McClellan-as well known

in Washington and New York as they are in Philadelphia. Two men of opposite natures are John Edgar Thomson, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad (since dead), and Franklin B. Gowen, of the Reading; the one quiet, solid, and reticent, the other built like a gladiator, with a smile like a woman's, and a voice full of command. Gray, small, and full of dignity and ease was the ex-Secretary of the Navy, Adolph E. Borie, who took office with a sigh and gave it up with a laugh, also since gone from among us. Ah! here is a batch of editorsThompson Westcott, of the Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch, with his scholar glasses and gray beard, and hearty, honest hand; W. V. McKean, of the Ledger, who writes without fear, and likes to talk to you of the old times in Washington when he was chief clerk of the great Congress of 1855-56, before Banks was made Speaker after eight weeks' balloting. Colonel Charles J. Biddle, of the Age, was with us in winter every Saturday, the knightly, courteous journalist; but now he sleeps his last sleep. The graceful, pleasant gentleman on the sofa is W. W. Harding, of the Inquirer, and the gentleman with the spectacles is Dr. E. Morwitz, of the German Democrat, who owns and edits fifty newspapers in Pennsylvania alone, of all sorts of politics. Who is that making such a row in the corner? Ah! that is Daniel Dougherty, with a new story, and you see how he is telling it! People will love him while he lives, and many will regret they never knew him after he is gone. He is a casket of fun, and he scatters his jewels with a lavish hand. Here was David Landreth, the agriculturist, whose seed-farm at Bristol, near Philadelphia, was the resort of the gentleman farmer, and whose books on floriculture are still standard. He has gone too! Here, also, are some of our merchant kings, John O. James, Edward C. Knight, and John Welsh-the man of dry-goods, the man of ships, and the great sugar-dealer, each in his sphere a master, and ready in every enterprise, whether it relates to the Centennial, local reform, or city and State development.

The gentleman near the mantel is E. D. Marchant, who painted the finest picture of Henry Clay, I think, in this country, now in the possession of George B. Butler, of New York.

Colonel A. K. McClure and Colonel W. B. Mann are chatting together in the picture-gallery, warm personal friends, yet decided political adversaries-McClure of almost gigantic proportions, with a round, level head, on broad, square shoulders, showing high intellect and athletic strength; Mann, shorter, yet equally stalwart, brain and passion in every line of his strong face, and every movement of his well-knit frame. They are rich in natural and acquired abilities, and make a fair match in politics and law. You have often heard of General George Cadwalader. There he was, the handsome, erect, black-haired man, with a florid face and Roman nose; a rare old Philadelphia gentleman, "all of the olden time." He did not look as old as his record, but rather as one who enjoyed life and loved his friends. The smaller figure at his side, very pale, with white hair, was his distinguished brother, John Cadwalader, Judge of the District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania, a hardshell Democrat, an upright jurist, and, while in Congress, an incorruptible legislator. It is many years since Horace Binney appeared at a Wistar party; and if you had seen him in 1873, you would have been astonished at the healthy look of a character who was within a little over six years of being a centenarian; who was older than the Constitution; who was born before Washington was President, and voted in the third election for Chief Magistrate; who dined well, slept well, took his glass of wine, and smoked his cigar, and in 1874 wrote a strong letter in his own hand in favor of the new Constitution of Pennsylvania.

I recollect well what a proud position that of Governor of Pennsylvania was thirty years ago, and how I loved to hear my seniors talk of Simon Snyder and William Hiester thirty years before that. I knew George Wolf, Francis R. Shunk, and Henry

A. Muhlenberg, two of whom filled the chair of state with infinite credit and dignity, and the last lost it by the hand of death. To-day the three surviving ex-Governors of Pennsylvania-William Bigler, also ex-United States Senator; James Pollock, present Director of the United States Mint and exCongressman; and Andrew G. Curtin, late American Minister to Russia-are occasionally seen on Saturday evenings. They wear their years as gracefully as their honors, and move together in the ranks of progress. Hon. James H. Campbell, formerly in Congress from Pennsylvania, and American Minister to Sweden a few years ago, resides in West Philadelphia, and has his fine house full of guests on certain winter Saturday evenings, when the club is out in force; and Hon. E. Joy Morris, American Minister to Constantinople during Mr. Lincoln's Presidency, is now in private life, pursuing literature as a pastime, and studying politics as a philosophy. We have also our share of much-abused men, and here is one in the person of William H. Kemble, late State Treasurer of Pennsylvania, at present among the most influential of our party leaders. You cannot fail to be interested in him. He convinces you before he has spoken three sentences that he is fearless and outspoken to a fault. Impetuous and often irritable, he can be liberal, gentle, and forgiving. Starting poor, he has become fortunate and rich. In direct conflict with him on some questions, as I am and have been, I can certify that he is a manly antagonist and a generous friend. We have differed more than once, and sometimes widely, but the end of every discussion leaves us where we started, warmly attached to each other. If he is a mark for criticism, he can safely assert that he has made a mark in the improvement of Philadelphia by the Union Passenger Railroad, that will always remain a monument to his memory.

But I should tire you with the endless procession. About ten the line moves into the wine, terrapins, oysters, canvas

backs, croquets, and chicken-salad. Here, at least, there is no novelty; all is familiarity; all is hospitality. They may improve on us in the future in other things-in mechanism, in art, in the navigation of the clouds, in the bridging of the seas, and in tearing from the earth the secrets of nature; but they cannot improve on the genius that conceived or the inspiration that completes the glorious fare of a Philadelphia Saturday Evening Club in winter.

In such parties as these-for the Wistar gatherings were prolonged many years after the gentle Doctor had passed away -might have been seen Henry Clay, when he visited Philadelphia as the guest of his friend Henry White; or Daniel Webster, when he came to join William M. Meredith in a great lawcase; or Lafayette, the nation's guest in 1824-25; or General Jackson, before and after he was President; or Washington Irving, on his frequent visits to his friends in the Quaker City; or Edmund Kean, Edwin Forrest, William C. Macready, William E. Burton; or De Tocqueville, the French traveller; Louis Philippe, before he became King of the French; Joseph Bonaparte, from his palace at Bordentown; or Dickens, in 1842, when Colonel Thomas B. Florence received him as the leader of the boys with their hearts in their hands; or Thackeray, when he stopped with William B. Reed, on Walnut, near Ninth; or Edward Everett, Commodore Perry, General Scott, George Poindexter, James Buchanan, and Thaddeus Stevens. In those days Philadelphia was even more national than to-day, Centennial-crowned as it has been. It had the Bank of the United States, with Nicholas Biddle at the head of finance and society, a combination of orator, poet, and banker. It had John Sergeant, Horace Binney, Henry J. Williams, and David Paul Brown among its lawyer kings. It had Paul Beck, Jr., Stephen Girard, Thomas P. Cope, and Samuel Archer among its merchant princes.

During the war, social life in Philadelphia was marred by

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