146 
Some years ago, the house caught fire, and the conflagration 
was so rapid that more than thirty children perished in the flames. 
In rebuilding the house, they had the praiseworthy consideration 
to banish wood entirely from the building, and even the stairs 
are of stone. The Widow’s Asylum is tenanted by helpless 
widows, over which the above-mentioned board also have control. 
They are boarded, clothed, and nursed as long as they live. The 
rooms are occupied by one or two persons each, and there is a 
common sitting and eating room. In this establishment great 
cleanliness is also observable. 
The large and celebrated hospital of Philadelphia was esta¬ 
blished by the Quakers, and is under their direction. It owes 
its origin to voluntary contributions and posthumous donations. 
It is surrounded by a garden, and consists of a main building 
with two wings, besides other separate buildings, one of which 
is used for incurable lunatics, another for venereal patients, and 
others for household purposes and stables; for they here keep 
carriages, in which the convalescents ride when it is allowed. 
Behind the principal building is a kitchen garden, with a hot-house 
that contains many exotic plants. A particular building has been 
erected for the painting of Sir Benjamin West, who was a native of 
Philadelphia, and presented it to the hospital. The subject of the 
painting is Christ healing the sick. Neither the composition nor 
the execution of this painting appear to me to be successful; and 
perhaps it is only here, where they are unaccustomed to see 
great and well executed paintings, that this could excite such 
astonishing admiration as it has done. * It is really singular that 
near this painting, which certainly has some merit, they should 
hang a little picture, accidentally discovered in the city, which 
was daubed as a first essay by the same artist, when young. 
The hospital is three stories high; in the lower story are the 
offices, the apothecary, the rooms of two physicians, one of 
whom must always be in the house, and the library, which con¬ 
tains a very handsome collection of books on medicine and na¬ 
tural history. As a sort of antiquity, they show here William 
Penn’s arm-chair; a leaden statue, made in England, of this emi¬ 
nent man, of full size and in the Quaker dress, stands in the 
square in front of the house. Corridors run through both wings, 
and thence you enter the rooms, each containing twelve patients; 
they are under the care of female nurses, and lay on wooden bed¬ 
steads; only the maniacs have them of iron. Throughout this 
* [Perhaps, had his highness known that this picture was long exhibited and 
admired in London by amateurs and artists, who certainly are somewhat accus¬ 
tomed to seeing good pictures, he would not have pronounced so decidedly 
from a very cursory examination. There is nothing, however, which the Duke 
of Saxe-Weimar says concerning the fine arts, in these travels, to entitle hi$ 
opinion on paintings to any authority. ]—*Tj^ans. 
