Daily National Intelligencer

CITY AFFAIRS.

The following Communication from a Member of the Corporation, we hope will be the last we shall receive on this subject; or, out of our numerous patrons, we apprehend there are very few who will be either instructed or amused by such unprofitable controversies.

TO THE EDITORS.
Gentlemen,

In your paper of the 19th inst. I have just seen a piece addressed to the Corporation of Washington, under the signature of "A Friend to the City." This scribbler for want of better employment finds great fault with the practice of holding Sunday Markets at the Centre Market in this City, and apparently manifests great zeal for the morals and reputation of our City. But in the very same breath or sentence, that he cries out "violations of the Sabbath," "deity," "morals, religion," &c. he is guilty of telling the most unwarrantable falsehoods--no doubt wishing to impress them on the minds of our citizens as facts, by urging them under such sacred language and virtuous pretexts. The scenes of drunkenness, profane swearing, card playing, &c. &c. as represented, are fictions of this writer's own bewildered imagination, and are not tolerated in our Corporation. Our police, although not as perfect as could be wished, yet is daily improving, and much is doing and has been done towards it the present year. If this pretended friend to the City (who has really told a story sufficient to alarm any stranger who may wish to enter it) will be at the trouble to read the acts of the Corporation lately passed and published in your paper last week--he will perceive that the Corporation is exerting itself as well for the morals as the general prosperity of the City. Our city is yet in its infancy, and although much has been done, I am willing to admit much remains to be done --perfection in the complex affairs of an extensive city is not the work of a day or year--we are in a progressive state. But your correspondent says, "In no city of the United States is the practice of selling in market on Sunday permitted." Pardon me for contradicting this holy one--this stickler for morals, &c. In Philadelphia, New York, Richmond, &c. markets are held on Sunday. But it is probable this friend to our City has not travelled as far. Yet if he had been at the trouble of enquiring of any old woman in the streets, he would have been told of an instance nearer home-- nay in this very district. For it is a fact, that Sunday Markets are held in Alexandria. But he wishes to correct the alleged evil, by holding Markets on Saturday Evenings at the Capitol Hill. Here, reader, the intrigue is discovered. You must know that an attempt has been made to establish a Market on the Capitol Hill. It has proved abortive. These Saturday Evening Markets on the Capitol Hill are intended as a substitute for the Sunday Markets at the Centre Market--and this pretended friend to the morals of our City, with no other view but to injure the Centre Market, and endeavor to build up the one on the Capitol Hill --regardless of truth, under the most sacred language, has grossly vilified and shamefully abused the whole corporation. Every person who has witnessed the effects of an evening market--(besides the inconveniency of attending it, without breaking in upon the business of the day, knows that the tendency of such to the destruction of morals is infinitely greater than Sunday markets--inasmuch so, that in some cities of the United States, where they have been attempted, they have been abandoned. If your knowing and virtuous correspondent will be at the trouble to inform himself, he will find that markets are established by law and that the days fixed for the Capitol Hill, are Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Therefore he only betrays his want of information when he speaks of Messrs. Little and Young establishing Saturday evening market on the Hill. His next proposition, I presume, will be to re-enact the Blue Laws of Connecticut here--and a man will then be subjected to fine and imprisonment for kissing his wife on the Sabbath.

A Friend to Truth and Justice.
Nov. 22, 1813.