Constitutional Whig

BALTIMORE.

From the National Gazette.

During a late visit to Baltimore, we were struck with the increase, solid and ornamental, of that beautiful city. It seemed to us, that the number of substantial and neat brick dwellings either about to be completed or recently built there, could not be much less, proportionably to the population, than it is, either in Philadelphia or New York.—An activity prevails in this kind of improvement, which bespeaks a diffusive capital among the classes of mechanics and merchants, who are chiefly engaged in it, and which evinces the importance of the inland trade. The higher parts of Baltimore, to the west, are unrivalled as sites for town residence. Here the best houses are erected, and handsome streets formed, which are open to the country air, and command, from the upper stories, fine prospects, equally extensive and diversified.

The body of the great Washington monument is completed; the battle monument, a structure which would adorn any metropolis, is nearly executed in all its parts. We admire particularly the spirit which has been displayed in the erection of a spacious and splendid stone edifice as an Athenaeum. It is placed in one of the handsomest streets, and will soon be ready for all the useful purposes to which it is to be applied. We have not room for a particular account of its plan, dimensions, and appearance; but they deserve to be described in detail, as well as those of the new Hotel, larger than any other in the United States, which is in rapid progress, near to the Battle Monument. This establishment will be conducted by Mr. Barnum, and is likely to afford accommodations to travellers not inferior to any of the sort in the country. Added to these fabrics, the Churches, the Hospitals, the new Infirmary, the Exchange, the Fountains, &c., attract and reward the attention of a stranger. The stores appear to be replenished with goods of every description; they are in fact very richly supplied and satisfactorily frequented: on and near the wharves of the town,—the mart of the bay and coasting vessels,—there is no little bustle and hum of business which we suppose to be lucrative. We could have wished to see more stir at Fell's Point, formerly the scene of so much commercial movement; and where so many tall masts attested an extraordinary intercourse with foreign ports; but if the foreign trade has dwindled, from accidental causes, it may be restored by the same enterprise which created it in great part; and it is in a degree compensated by the enlargement of other sources of wealth and intelligence. On the whole, we observed, almost on every side, indications of greater prosperity than we expected to find, and a confirmation of the sentiment which we have often expressed that Baltimore would certainly flourish in the end, whatever might be the effect for a time, of the peculiar reverses which she experienced.