ate in the Union. He told us that he had about five thousand
open accounts with different American booksellers. His policy is to keep
in stock everything that a country bookseller requires, from a Bible to
a stick of sealing-wax, so that when their stores get low they are able
to write to him for everything they want. He contends, as other
Philadelphians do, that New York is not the capital of America, but only
its chief port of import, and that Philadelphia is the chief centre for
distribution. Mr. Hepworth Dixon had been here not long before, and, as
was right and fitting in the city of Quakers, a high banquet had been
held in honor of the vindicator of William Penn.

[Thence Mr. Latham went to Baltimore, of which he describes the
following old-time experience: "When an American train reaches
a town it does not dream of pulling up short in a suburb, but
advances slowly through the streets; the driver on the engine
rings a large bell, and a man on horseback rides in front to
clear the way. Thus we entered Baltimore, arrived at the
terminus and uncoupled the engine; and then, still sitting in
the railway-car, were drawn by a team of horses along the
street-rails to the terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway
on the other side of the town." He is talking of antediluvian
days. We have reformed all that. After some experience in duck
and partridge shooting, and a taste of terrapin soup, he
proceeded to Washington. Of his varied experience there we can
give but a single out-door example.]

We went this morning over the Capitol, an enormous edifice still in
progress; parts of it are continually built on to, and rebuilt, to meet
the wants of the legislature. The two new white marble wings are very
beautiful and nearly complete, and the dome is on the same scale with
them, and of the same material. The centre is now out of proportion
since the wings were built, and is of stone, painted white to match the
rest in color and preserve it from the frost. If the South had succeeded
in seceding it might have sufficed; but now it is bound to grow, and
Congress are going to vote the amount of dollars necessary to make the
Capitol complete. When completed it will be magnificent.

We are very unlucky in seeing these great marble palaces (for several of
the public buildings of Washington are of this material) with the snow
upon the ground. Against the pure white sn