quarto, 4 pp., old folds, some splits along folds, postal cancellation and sealing wax on integral address leaf, some light soiling and damp-staining, good condition.

Letter to Samuel Hood, a Philadelphia lawyer, born in 1800 and who had emigrated from Ireland to America in 1826.

"My dear Hood,

I am inclined to the opinion that what with horrid murders - awful conflagrations - bank suspensions and presidential receptions you Philadelphians have become so engrossed in your municipal affairs as to forget that you have friends out of the sounds of Christ Church bells. I do hope that in time the quiet for which our good city was once so celebrated may return and that her denizens may give a thought and a line to those whose hearts are at home tho' their persons are away. Seriously, how are you? And how is your worthy chum Horn? And all our other good men and true? The newspapers you sent me were duly received and read with pleasure especially the one containing a notice of our staid 6th street friend William to whom be all honor and glory legal and aquitable. [sic] As I have by "my preliminary observations" as the orators & ministers say pretty directly called on you for some news you may reasonably expect me to impart some which I should be more happy to do if I had any but having none I must excuse myself by propounding the problem of take nothing from nothing and what remains? The answer will give you all the news which so far as this place is concerned is the return of the President & Heads of Department and the various subs connected therewith who had been so fortunate as to have the means and the permission to absent themselves for a summer excursion from this city of magnificent distances, dust, dems, and blue devils. All hands are now I believe, pretty generally hard at it preparing for the approaching session. Milliners - store keepers- and hack drivers are making their preparations to reap their annual harvest from the crowd of loafers, sharpers, gulls, politicians, legislators, office hunters, and people of all kinds & descriptions who congregate here during the winter from motives of curiosity, business, pleasure or dissipation. It would be really worth your while to spend a month or two here in the midst of the season, to a man of observation, thought and reflection it affords a rare treat. One I am sure you would understand and appreciate tho' I doubt whether you would much enjoy it. Looking merely at the surface it affords an intoxicating sort of pleasure but penetrating too deeply into its mysteries and becoming intimate with it the feeling produced is rather that of disgust and contempt for the sort of human nature that it portrays. Had not my paper run out and my tea bell rung I fear you would have been inflicted with a fit of moralizing brought about by a rainy afternoon and a little self exercise of the "serious second thought" of a poor public officer, one of a class which from all accounts don't much indulge in that very necessary exercise of the mental faculty."