Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

TIT FOR TAT,

Or, more about Goose-traps.

Mr. Fenno,

I HAVE noticed a paragraph in your paper respecting the new Insurance Company, or Companies if you please; for though I have not seen the scheme of more than one, yet I am an advocate for both, if both are wanted ; and I have heard several of our most respectable gentlemen in trade say, that the existence of several companies, by reducing the present high prices of insurance, would prove generally beneficial to our country.

I have also heard it said that a gentleman, not far from 160 Chestnut-street, has joined the opposition to the proposed additional company or companies, and that the ludicrous story of a Goose-trap in the Philadelphia Gazette, was told by him before it appeared in that paper,—in application to new Bank and Insurance Companies, " wherever there were others already sufficient for all the purposes of business. " It was the Hon. Mr. Harper, I think, who told us it was dangerous for those to throw stones who reside in glass-houses-such was the observation of a gentleman at the Coffee-house, last Saturday evening, while the Goose-trap story was in circulation, when the following " Goose-traps" (the gentleman must excuse me, 'tis an appellation of his own fixing) originated by him, were enumerated in a circle of friends:

The Union Bank of the state of Massachusetts.

The Insurance Co. of North America.

The Bank of Columbia at George-Town.

The Bridge over the Potomac at ditto.

One Federal City Lottery, drawn.

One ditto not drawn.

One Bridge or this city, over Schuylkill, not yet built.

Add to this the universal charge against this most eminent Goose-trap maker, of having been most instrumental in turning the public attention and also in aiding to obtain, by overstrained representations, the several grants of Congress towards that most ridiculous of all ridiculous Goose-traps, the City of Washington.

As I do not mean to be severe on the gentleman, but merely to remind him of his own glass-houses and goose-traps, I will now proceed to a point of more importance.

If more public institutions, like those of Insurance Companies and Banks, are really wanted, let a petition go forward to open, on a given day, a public subscription, that all who choose to adventure may have an equal chance with the original trap-makers, and let there be a stipulation that part of the money so raised shall be employed for bringing water into the city, and for the sake of this last object only will I subscribe my mite.