weeks, was returning to the city in the second week of November, having heard that the danger was no more. He met a man on the road going from Philadelphia; and naturally inquired into the state of affairs. The other, to indulge the contemptible propensity of hoaxing, told him, that a coffin maker, who had been employed by the committee for relief of the sick, had found such a decrease of demand two weeks before, that he had a large supply of coffins on hand; but that the mortality had again so far increased, that he had sold all, and had seven journeymen employed day and night. This so alarmed the Philadelphian, that he again returned with his family, to wait a more favourable issue.

A drunken sailor lay in the street, in the Northern Liberties, for a few hours asleep, and was supposed by the neighbours to be dead with the disorder; but they were too much afraid to make personal examination. They sent to the committee at the city hall for a cart and a coffin. The carter took the man by the heels, and was going to put him into the coffin. Handling him roughly he awoke, and damning his eyes, asked him what he was about? the carter let him drop in a fright, and ran off as if a ghost was at his heels.

A lunatic, who had the malignant fever, was advised, by his neighbours, to go to Bushhill. He consented, and got into the cart; but soon changing his mind, he slipped out at the end, unknown to the carter, who, after a while, missing him, and seeing him at a distance running away, turned his horse about, and trotted hard after him. The other doubled his pace; and the carter whipped his horse to a gallop; but the man turned a corner, and hid himself in a house, leaving the mortified carter to return, and deliver an account of his ludicrous adventure.

Several instances have occurred of the carters on their arrival at Bushhill, and proceeding to deliver up their charge, finding, to their amazement, the carts empty.

A woman, whose husband died, refused to have him buried in a coffin provided for her by one of her friends, as too paltry and mean. She bought an elegant and costly one-and had the other laid by in the yard. In a week she was herself a corpseand was buried in the very coffin she had so much despised.

The wife of a man who lived in Walnut street, was seized with the malignant fever, and given over by the doctors. The husband abandoned her, and next night lay out of the house for

fear of catching the infection. In the morning, taking it for granted, from the very low state she had been in, that she was dead, he purchased a coffin for her; but on entering the house, was surprised to see her much recovered. He fell sick shortly after, died, and was buried in the very coffin, which he had so precipitately bought for his wife, who is still living.

The powers of the god of love might be imagined to lie dormant amidst such scenes of distress as Bushhill exhibited. But we find that his sway was felt there with equal force as any where else. John Johnson, and Priscilla Hicks, two of the patients, who had recovered, and officiated as nurses to the sick, were smitten with each other's charms-and, procuring leave of absence for an hour or two, they came to the city on the 23d of September, were joined in the bands of matrimony, and returned to their avocation at the hospital. A long chasm took place in the hymeneal records; for no adventure of the same kind occurred, until the 5th of November, when Nassy, a Portuguese mulatto, took to wife Hannah Smith, a bouncing German girl, who, as well as himself, was employed as nurse.

The state of the police and of society in Philadelphia, appears to no small advantage, when we consider one circumstance. Notwithstanding the absence of the magistrates, and the immense value of property left unprotected through the fears of the owners, and the deaths of the persons left to take care of it, only one or two burglaries were committed.-One was attempted: but the rogues were discovered and taken. A hardened villain from a neighbouring state, formed a plot with some negroes to plunder houses. He was a master rogue, had digested a complete system, and formed a large partnership for the more successful execution of his schemes. However, he was soon seized, and the company dissolved.

The jail of Philadelphia is under such excellent regulation, that the disorder made its appearance there only in two or three instances, although such abodes of misery are places where contagious disorders are very frequently generated. When the yellow fever raged most violently in the city, there were in the jail one hundred and six French soldiers and sailors, confined by order of the French consul; besides eighty convicts, vagrants, and persons for trial; all of whom, except two or three, remained perfectly free from the complaint. Several circumstances conspired to produce this salutary effect. The people confined were frequently cleansed and purified by the use of the

cold bath-they were kept constantly employed-vegetables formed a considerable part of their diet-in the yard, vegetation flourished-and many of them being employed in stonecutting, the water, constantly running, kept the atmosphere in a moist state, while the people of Philadelphia were almost uninterruptedly parched up by unceasing heat. Elijah Weed, the late jailor, caught the disorder in the city, and died in the jail, without communicating it to any of the people confined. I hope I shall be excused for paying a tribute to the memory of this valuable citizen, under whose government of the jail, and with whose hearty co-operation, most of the regulations in that institution have been effected, which, with the successful experiments made in England, prove that jails may be easily converted from sinks of human depravity and wretchedness, into places of reformation; so that, instead of rendering the idle vagrant, confined merely on suspicion, or for want of friends to protect him, obdurate, wicked, and ripe for rapine and spoil,the profligate and abandoned may be so reclaimed in them, as, on their liberation, to become useful members of society. For the honour of human nature, it ought to be recorded, that some of the convicts in the jail, a part of the term of whose confinement had been remitted, as a reward for their peaceable, orderly behaviour, voluntarily offered themselves as nurses, to attend the sick at Bushhill, and have in that capacity conducted themselves with great fidelity. Among them are some who were formerly regarded, and with justice, as hardened, abandoned villains, which the old system usually rendered every tenant of a jail, who remained there a few weeks. According to the same summary system, these men's lives would have been long since offered up as an atonement to society for the injury they had done it. That is, in plain English, because society had suffered one injury by rapine, it was necessary it should suffer another by law. But by the present improved and humane plan, they and great numbers of others are restored to society and usefulness once more. So much better, although a little more troublesome, is it, to reform mer, than to butcher them under colour of law and justice.

The sympathy for our calamities, displayed in various places, and the very liberal contributions raised for our relief, reflect the highest honour on their inhabitants, and demand our warmest gratitude. The inhabitants of Gloucester county, in New Jersey, have the honour of being first in this laudable race. So

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early as the 30th of September, they had a considerable sun collected, with which they purchased a quantity of provisions for the use of the hospital at Bushhill. They have, from that time, regularly continued copious supplies twice a week. In addition to this they have made, and are now making, considerable purchases of wood, for the relief of the poor during the winter. From a few citizens of Philadelphia, near Germantown, there have been received two thousand dollars; from others near Darby, fourteen hundred; from New York, five thousand; from a person unknown, five hundred; from Bucks' county, sixteen hundred; from Delaware county, twelve hundred; from Franklin county, nearly five hundred; from Boston, sundry articles, which have been sold for nearly two thousand; and from sundry other persons and places, contributions equally liberal and honourable.

There has been a very strong analogy between the state of Philadelphia, and that of an army. About the close of August, and till the middle of September, when the dangers were few, and, by prudent management, might have been easily surmounted, an universal trepidation benumbed people's faculties; and flight and self-preservation seemed to engross the whole attention of a large proportion of the citizens. Just so, with an army of recruits. Every breath of wind terrifies them. Vague rumours are heard with fear and trembling. In every tree at a distance is beheld a formidable enemy, to whom they are ready to lay down their arms, and surrender at discretion. But when the "din of arms, and cannon's rattle" have familiarized them with the horrid trade of death, the obstinate phalanx beholds, unmoved, its ranks mowed down, and death advancing, with rapid strides, to terminate their (as it is falsely termed) glorious career. Even thus was it here. Towards the close of September, and during the first part of October, when the horrors of the scene were constantly increasing, and from fifty to a hundred were interred daily, then people cast away their various preventives-thieves' vinegar, tarred ropes, garlic, camphor bags, smelling bottles, &c.-And then it was, that they assumed a manly fortitude, tempered with the sober, serious pensiveness, befitting such an awful scene.

A friend, to whom I communicated this idea, has endeavoured to explain the matter differently. He says, that those who were terrified at first, generally fled away-and left behind such as were possessed of a stronger frame of mind. This is

an error; as many men, who were among the most striking instances of the influence of terror at first, behaved, in the end, with the most exemplary fortitude.

Shall I be pardoned for passing a censure on those, whose mistaken zeal led them, during the most dreadful stages of the calamity, to crowd some of our churches, and aid this frightful enemy in his work of destruction? who, fearful, lest their prayers and adoration at home would not find acceptance before the Deity, resorted to churches filled with bodies of contagious air, where, with every breath, they inhaled noxious miasmata? To this cause may probably be ascribed a considerable proportion of the mortality-And it is remarkable, that those congregations, whose places of worship were most crowded, have suffered the most dreadfully. Will men never acquire wisdom? Are we yet to learn, that the Almighty architect of the heavens and earth, does not require "temples made with men's hands?" that going to a place of worship, against the great law of self-preservation, implanted in indelible characters by his divine hand, on the breast of every one of his creatures, constitutes no part of the adoration due to the maker and preserver of mankind? That a "meek and humble heart" is the temple wherein he delights to be worshipped? I hope not-I hope the awful lesson some of our congregations hold forth on this subject, by a mortality out of all proportion to their numbers, will serve as a memento at all future times, in the like critical emergencies!"*

Some of those who remained in the city have absurdly been in the habit of reproaching those who fled, with criminality as deserters, who abandoned their posts.† I'believe, on the contra

* This paragraph, although erroneous, is retained, that I may have an opportunity, which I cheerfully embrace, of acknowledging the mistake I have committed. On a revision of the bills of mortality, it appears, that those congregations who kept up religious worship regularly, did not lose more than, and some not so many as, their usual proportions. In one year, ending July 31, 1793, the German Lutherans buried more than a sixth of the whole number of the dead in the city-the German Reformed, a fifteenth-the Friends, a tenth-and St. Mary's, an eighth. From August 1, to November 9, 1793, the burials among the German Lutherans were not quite a sixthamong the German Reformed, nearly a sixteenth-among the Friends, an eleventh-and in St. Mary's grave yard, a sixteenth. These were the congregations I alluded to, in the above remarks.

If they were even guilty of a crime, it brought its own punishment; as I am fully convinced, that those who were absent, and a prey to the anxiety caused by the frightful reports current, suffered as much as those who remained in the city.