United States, a boast which I am told Indianapolis also makes and, as far as I am concerned, can keep on making undisputed, for I do not believe in measuring literature like so much sheet iron or calico. But no matter what we have come to in Philadelphia, in the old days the Philadelphian seldom gave his lions a chance to roar at home or paid the least attention to them if they tried to. I rather think he would have affected to share the Western Congressman's opinion of "them literary fellers" when the literary fellers came from his native town.
But the Philadelphian must have done a great deal of reading to judge by the number of public libraries in the town,—the Philadelphia Library, the Ridgway, the Mercantile, the Free Public Library, the University Library, the Bryn Mawr College Library, the Friends' Germantown Library, the Library of the Historical Society, and no doubt dozens I know nothing about—and there were always collectors from the days of Logan and Dr. Rush to those of Mr. Widener, George C. Thomas and Governor Pennypacker. But the Philadelphia reading man never talked books and the Philadelphia collector never vaunted and advertised his treasures, as he does now that collecting is correct. The average man kept his books out of sight. I remember few in my Grandfather's house, and not a bookcase from top to bottom—few in any other house except my Father's. But I know that many people had books and a library set apart to read them in, and I have been astonished since to see the large collections in houses where
