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Evans? 221

I observed at Cincinnati, & in some other cities, that the American Jews affect in their synagogues a Moorish style of architecture. As American cities can have no historical buildings, there is nothing in them to counteract the unclear of commerce, & of their method of laying out cities, except the Churches. And as many of them, as is always the case in America, are embellished with towers or spires, their redeeming effect on the appearance of the town is very considerable.

As I am on the subject of American towns?, I trust that my friends in that part of the world will excuse me for never having been persuaded by them to fall into ecstaciesat the contemplations of the plan of Philadelphia, which they point to with feelings of enthusiasim, as the very perfection of taste & judgment in the art of building cities. There is, however, as far as I cd see, nothing in Philadelphia which is not also in St Louis & Cincinnati, & a hundred other cities, in embryo, or in adolescence. The three cities, whose names I have just mentioned are, saving their reverence, as like one another as three peas. They have no main street, but a number of parallel streets, at equal distances from each other.These are numbered, first, second, third etc?. Another set of streets, again exactly parallel to each other cut the first at right angles. This second set of streets, in the three cities I have names, are called after different trees, Bitch, Elm, Hicory [[etc?}}. This is everything. It is the very democracy of houses?: for all the Streets & blocks are