use of
Detention and Inmates--Women and Boy
Prisoners--Capital Punishment--A House of
Correction--Four Hundred Single
Cells--Comparison with English Prisons--Inns
and Landlords--At Washington--Hotel
Extortion--Philadelphia Penitentiary--The
Solitary System--Solitary Prisoners--Talk with
Inspectors--Bookseller Carey--Changes of
Temperature--Henry Clay--Proposed
Journeyings--Letters from England--Congress and
Senate--Leading American Statesmen--The People
of America--Englishmen "located" there--"Surgit
amari aliquid"--The Copyright Petition--At
Richmond--Irving appointed to Spain--Experience
of a Slave City--Incidents of Slave
Life--Discussion with a Slaveholder--Feeling of
South to England--Levees at Richmond--One more
Banquet accepted--My Gift of _Shakspeare_--Home
Letters and Fancies--Self-reproach of a Noble
Nature--Washington Irving's Leave-taking.

DICKENS'S next letter was begun in the "United States Hotel,
Philadelphia," and bore date "Sunday, sixth March, 1842." It treated of
much dealt with afterwards at greater length in the _Notes_, but the
freshness and vivacity of the first impressions in it have surprised me.
I do not, however, print any passage here which has not its own interest
independently of anything contained in that book. The rule will be
continued, as in the portions of letters already given, of not
transcribing anything before printed, or anything having even but a near
resemblance to descriptions that appear in the _Notes_.

". . . . . . As this is likely to be the only quiet day I shall have for a
long time, I devote it to writing to you. We have heard nothing from
you[49] yet, and only have for our consolation the reflection that the
Columbia[50] is now on her way out. No news had been heard of the
Caledonia yesterday afternoon, when we left New York. We _were_ to have
quitted that place last Tuesday, but have been detained there all the
week by Kate having so bad a sore throat that she was obliged to keep
her bed. We left yesterday afternoon at five o'clock, and arrived here
at eleven last night. Let me say, by the way, that this is a very trying
climate.

"I have often asked Americans in London which were the better
railroads,--ours or theirs? They have taken time for reflection, and
generally replied on mature consideration