All the _streets_ are spacious; the names of many of them, as Sassafras, Chesnut, and Locust, record their sylvan origin: rows of Lombardy poplars are planted in them. The private _houses_ are characterized by elegant neatness; the steps and window-sills of many of them are of grey marble, and they have large mats placed before the doors. The streets are carefully swept, as well as the foot-paths, which are paved with brick. The _shops_ do not yield, in display, to those of London. The principal street is one hundred feet wide; and the others vary from eighty to fifty. In the foot-paths a great inconvenience is experienced by the injudicious mode in which cellars are constructed, the openings of which project into the street; and also by the slovenly practice of the store or shopkeepers placing great quantities of loose goods on the outside of their doors.
Philadelphia stands on the bank of the river _Delaware_; and, in 1795, when Mr. Weld was there, its appearance, as approached from the water, was not very prepossessing. Nothing was visible but confused heaps of wooden store-houses, crowded upon each other, and wharfs, which projected a considerable way into the river. The wharfs were built of wood; they jutted out, in every direction, and were well adapted for the accommodation of shipping; the largest merchant vessels being able to lie close alongside of them. Behind the wharfs, and parallel to the river, runs a street called _Water-street_. This is the first street which the stranger in America usually enters, after landing; and (says Mr. Weld) it will not give him a very favourable opinion either of the neatness or commodiousness of the public ways of Philadelphia. Such stenches, at times, prevail in it, owing in part to the quantity of filth and dirt that is suffered to remain on the pavement, and in part to what is deposited in waste-houses, of which there are several in the street, that it is really dreadful to pass through it. It was here, in the year 1793, that the malignant yellow fever broke out, which made such terrible ravages among the inhabitants; and, in the summer season, in general, this street is extremely unhealthy.
Few of the _public buildings_ in Philadelphia pretend to great architectural merit. The churches are neat, but plain. The Masonic Hall is an unsightly combination of brick and marble, in the Gothic style. The Philadelphia bank is in a similar style. The United States and Pennsylvania banks are the finest edifices in the city: the first has a handsome portico, with Corinthian columns of white marble, and the latter is a miniature representation of the temple of Minerva at Athens, and is the purest specimen of architecture in the states: the whole building is of marble.