Memoirs | Page 7

stories, which she had collected from old people.
As for the black witches, as there were still four negro sorcerers in Philadelphia in 1883 (I have their addresses), it may be imagined to what an extent Voodoo still prevailed among our Ebo-ny men and brothers. Of one of these my mother had a sad experience. We had a black cook named Ann Lloyd, of whom, to express it mildly, one must say that she was "no good." My mother dismissed her, but several who succeeded her left abruptly. Then it was found that Ann, who professed to be a witch, had put a spell of death on all who should take her place. My mother learned this, and when the last black cook gave warning she received a good admonition as to a Christian being a slave to the evil one. I believe that this ended the enchantment. There is or was in South Fifth Street an African church, over the door of which was the charming inscription, "Those who have walked in Darkness have seen a great light." But this light has not even yet penetrated to the darksome depths of Lombard or South Streets, if I may believe the strange tales which I have heard, even of late, of superstition there.
Philadelphia was a very beautiful old-fashioned city in those days, with a marked character. Every house had its garden, in which vines twined over arbours, and the magnolia, honeysuckle, and rose spread rich perfume of summer nights, and where the humming-bird rested, and scarlet tanager or oriole with the yellow and blue bird flitted in sunshine or in shade. Then swallows darted at noon over the broad streets, and the mighty sturgeon was so abundant in the Delaware that one could hardly remain a minute on the wharf in early morn or ruddy evening without seeing some six-foot monster dart high in air, falling on his side with a plash. In the winter-time the river was allowed to freeze over, and then every schoolboy walked across to Camden and back, as if it had been a pilgrimage or religious duty, while meantime there was always a kind of Russian carnival on the ice, oxen being sometimes roasted whole, and all kinds of "fakirs," as they are now termed, selling doughnuts, spruce-beer, and gingerbread, or tempting the adventurous with thimblerig; many pedestrians stopping at the old-fashioned inn on Smith's Island for hot punch. Juleps and cobblers, and the "one thousand and one American fancy drinks," were not as yet invented, and men drank themselves unto the devil quite as easily on rum or brandy straight, peach and honey, madeira and punch, as they now do on more varied temptations. Lager beer was not as yet in the land. I remember drinking it in after years in New Street, where a German known as der dicke Georg first dealt it in 1848 to our American public. Maize-whisky could then be bought for fifteen cents a gallon; even good "old rye" was not much dearer; and the best Havanna cigars until 1840 cost only three cents a-piece. As they rose in price they depreciated in quality, and it is now many years since I have met with a really aromatic old-fashioned Havanna.
It was a very well-shaded, peaceful city, not "a great village," as it was called by New Yorkers, but like a pleasant English town of earlier times, in which a certain picturesque rural beauty still lingered. The grand old double houses, with high flights of steps, built by the Colonial aristocracy--such as the Bird mansion in Chestnut Street by Ninth Street--had a marked and pleasing character, as had many of the quaint black and red-brick houses, whose fronts reminded one of the chequer-board map of our city. All of this quiet charm departed from them after they were surrounded by a newer and noisier life. I well remember one of these fine old Colonial houses. It had been the old Penington mansion, but belonged in my early boyhood to Mr. Jones, who was one of my father's partners in business. It stood at the corner of Fourth and Race Streets, and was surrounded on all sides by a garden. There was a legend to the effect that a beautiful lady, who had long before inhabited the house, had been so fond of this garden, that after death her spirit was often seen of summer nights tending or watering the flowers. She was a gentle ghost, and the story made a great impression on me. I still possess a pictured tile from a chimney-piece of this old mansion.
The house is gone, but it is endeared to me by a very strange memory. When I was six or seven years of age, I had read Shakespeare's "Tempest," and duly reflected on it. The