do it!" but his eyes expanded, and his grasp grew firm
when the voice of a blue-eyed youth reached his ears in shouts of
triumph as he flew up the stairs of the tower, shouting: "Ring, grandpa,
ring; they've signed!"

What a day this old "Liberty Bell" reminds you of!

There, in the Independence Hall, the delegates were gathered. Benjamin
Harrison, the ancestor of the present occupier of the White House,
seized John Hancock, upon whose head a price was set, in his arms, and
placing him in the presidential chair, said: "We will show Mother
Britain how little we care for her, by making our president a
Massachusetts man, whom she has excluded from pardon by public
proclamation," and, says Mr. Chauncey M. Depew in one of his beautiful
orations, when they were signing the Declaration, and the slender
Elbridge Gerry uttered the grim pleasantry, "We must hang together, or
surely we will hang separately," the portly Harrison responded with more
daring humor, "It will be all over with me in a moment, but you will be
kicking in the air half an hour after I am gone."

[Illustration: THE INKSTAND.]

The National Museum is the auxiliary chamber to Independence Hall, and
there you find many most interesting relics of Colonial and
Revolutionary days: the silver inkstand used in signing the famous
Declaration; Hancock's chair; the little table upon which the document
was signed, and hundreds of souvenirs piously preserved by generations
of grateful Americans.

* * * * *

It is said that Philadelphia has produced only two successful men, Mr.
Wanamaker, the great dry-goods-store man, now a member of President
Benjamin Harrison's Cabinet, and Mr. George W. Childs, proprietor of the
Philadelphia _Public Ledger_, one of the most important and successful
newspapers in the United States.

I went to Mr. Wanamaker's dry-goods-store, an establishment strongly
reminding you of the Paris _Bon Marche_, or Mr. Whiteley's warehouses in
London.

By far the most interesting visit was that which I paid to Mr. George W.
Childs in his study at the _Public Ledger's_ offices. It would require a
whole volume to describe in detail all the treasures that Mr. Childs has
accumulated: curios of all kinds, rare books, manuscripts and
autographs, portraits, china, relics from the celebrities of the world,
etc. Mr. Childs, like the Prussians during their unwelcome visit to
France in 1870, has a strong _penchant_ for clocks. I