Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/101

 sumptuous coffin was lying on the pavement without any embarrassment, name-plate and all; presumably waiting for its silent passenger. Among the womenfolk white stockings and sparkling black eyes betrayed the Latin blood. And I saw that a church lettered its notice board both in Italian and English. "Ingresso Libero," it said, which I take to mean "Everybody welcome!" The same sort of hospitality is evinced by the doctors and dentists. They all have little notices on their doors: "Walk in without knocking."

In a quaint effort to retrieve its brief escapade into shabby Bohemianism, Broad street now goes in for an exaggerated magnificence. It has a taste for ornate metal doorknobs and brass handles. (I cannot resist the thought that these mannerisms were caught from the undertakers.) Moving-picture theatres are done in a kind of Spanish stucco. Basement gratings are gilded; parlor windows are banded with strips of colored glass. The brownstone fronts are gabled and carved; cornices are fret worked. There are plaster statues in the little side gardens. It is the opposite swing of the architect's pendulum from the plain and beautiful old houses of Pine and Spruce streets, where Philadelphia expresses herself in the lovely simplicity of rich old brick and white shutters.

Apparently Broad street lost hope of gaining salvation by ornamenting its house fronts, for about Morris and Mifflin streets it turns to education and philanthropy. It puts up large hospitals,