and this design was successfully carried out in the execution. A small, but elegant structure, denominated the Temple of Liberty, was erected on an elevated site at Bush Hill. The procession was formed in the city, and its course was directed to the temple, in the porch of which stood the orator of the day, James Wilson, Esq., afterwards an associate judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. Although the city was then not more than onethird as populous as it now is, yet, as every man, whether of a sacred or secular vocation, had a right to make a part of it, and the greater number of all classes actually exercised that right, when the front of the procession reached Bush Hill, the rear had scarcely left the city.

A TITLE FOR THE PRESIDENT.

At the period we contemplate, I made a part of a company, in which a conversation took place, the report of which I think you will receive with some interest. Dr. William Shippen, the first professor, and for a long time an eminent one, in the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, had for his wife a lady of Virginia. It was, I suppose, in consequence of this, that when the Virginia delegation to the first congress arrived in Philadelphia, on their way to New York, he invited some of the members of that delegation, or perhaps the whole of them, to a dinner at his own house. I remember the names of Madison, Page and Lee, and I think there were one or two more. Chief Justice McKean, afterwards Governor of Pennsylvania, and Mr. William Bingham, subsequently a member of the United States Senate, were likewise invited guests; and as the doctor was a member of my congregation, he also honored me with an invitation. Soon after we had taken our seats in the drawing room, before dinner, the Chief Justice said to Mr. Madison-"Have you thought,

sir, of a title for our new President?" Madison's answer was in the negative; and he added, that in his judgment, no title, except that of President, would be necessary or proper. "Yes, sir," replied McKean, "he must have a title; and I have been examining the titles of certain princes in Europe, to discover one that has not been appropriated. Most Serene Highness, I find is appropriated ; but Serene Highness, without the word most, is not appropriated; and I think it will be proper that our President should be known by the style and title of His Serene Highness, the President of the United States." This elicited an amicable controversy, which continued for some time, Madison and his colleagues opposing, and McKean maintaining the propriety of conferring the title he had proposed on President Washington.

THE LOCATION OF THE FEDERAL CITY.

The men of the present generation have no just conception of the excitement produced by this subject, during the discussion of it in congress. The agitation it caused extended throughout the whole country. It was once decided, and afterwards the decision repealed. When it had thus become again an open question, Dr. Witherspoon wrote and published a short essay, the scope of which was to urge a delay in attempting to settle it, lest the attempt should produce a mischievous, if not a fatal disunion. "If I am rightly informed," said he, "the disputes that have already taken place in congress upon this subject, have been carried on with greater virulence of temper, and acrimony of expression, than on any other that has been under deliberation." The point at issue was between a northern or a southern location. The west, which in a few years from the present time, will probably have a commanding majority in our national house of representatives, was but

little regarded. Ohio did not then exist as a State; her population, according to Morse, in 1791, two years after the question of location was decided, was but three thousand. Kentucky was then our most westerly State, and she was still in the cradle Her population, according to the former authority, was less than seventy-four thousand. But the north and the south carried on the conflict, and each obtained as many votes as possible in the national legislature. You are aware how the matter was finally settled, by deciding that congress should sit for ten years in Philadelphia, and then be permanently located in what is now the federal city. It was in 1790 that congress, under the present constitution, first met in Philadelphia-of course the removal to Washington was in 1800.

AN OLD LADY.

RICHMOND, MARCH 14TH, 1851.

Mr. Editor,-The following communication was, at my request, prepared and handed to me by a lady whose appreciation of the relics of by-gone times accords well with your own. I think it will interest some of your readers, and therefore respectfully ask a place for it in your pages. Yours, &c.

In the month of January, 1851, I paid a long contemplated visit to Mrs. P, an old lady of upwards of fourscore years and ten, residing in Henrico county, near Richmond. When I expressed a wish to hear her tell of the Revolutionary times, she said, "well, honey, a whole parcel of the British rode up here one day; my husband happened to be away and so were all the hands but one man. I had three little girls clinging around me and a baby in my arms. They said they must have meat and

bread and whatever they wanted, and asked for my keysthey soon had the most of my meat out of the smokehouse-my meal and flour; and they fried and baked and called for liquor, and said they must have forage for their horses-well, honey, they eat and drank, and tried to destroy what they could not eat and drink, and some of them said, 'let's make the Rebel drink a toast.' 'I said I did not drink'-then, with an oath they said, 'you shall drink.' 'Well,' I said, 'give me a glass, and I'll drink a toast for you.' I then held up the glass and said, 'Success to General Washington, and destruction to Cornwallis.' She did not say how they took the toast, but on they went rioting until she said to them, 'I have given you my meat and bread, and food for your horses, and now if you go on destroying the little I have left, I will go myself to Cornwallis's Camp and inform against you.' After a while they mounted their horses and I was glad to see their backs, honey, though, said she, smiling, 'I did not let them see how scared I was.'

"Some days after this, another troop, not so large, came riding up-some were British and some Refugees-they begged for something to eat, and honey, they seemed almost famished; they said they had not had any thing to eat for a day and night. I looked in the smoke-house and found a large joint of meat that the others, I suppose, had not seen. I told them to knock it down and had some fried for them and some bread baked-they ate mighty heartily and thanked me so much, that at last I said, 'my good folks you have thanked me enough, just get on your horses and go away, and I shall be obliged to you.' Their horses, poorereturs,' looked jaded enough as they rode away."

In September, 1850, Mrs. P had attained the age of ninety-four-she was able to walk about her house with a

stick, until about eighteen months ago; since then, her place is in her arm-chair, by the fire-side where her meals are given to her. Though so aged, there is nothing revolting in her appearance-her pretty brown eyes and kind smile, still give to her face, a pleasant expression-her dress is as antique as her age-an old fashioned gown extending only to the sides of the waist and worn with an apron in front, sleeves reaching to the elbows and gloves covering the arms, have now for warmth given place to the long sleeves of modern days. She was married at fifteen and settled immediately on the farm where she has resided ever since. About two years ago, it was necessary, her daughter told us, for her mother to sign her name to a paper which she wrote quite legibly by candle light, and without spectacles. Before that period she was quite active in attending to her domestic affairs, and generally employed herself in knitting-now, she is in a perfectly quiescent state, sitting in her elbow chair by the fire-side, and waiting for that tide which will gently waft her to the regions of Light and Life.

SOCIAL EVILS.

The more carefully we examine the history of the past, the more reason shall we find to dissent from those who imagine that our age has been fruitful of new social evils. The truth is that the evils are, with scarcely an exception, old. That which is new is the intelligence which discerns, and the humanity which remedies them.-Macaulay.