own to every person in this quarter, which
I have committed to paper for your own satisfaction, and that of those
to whom you may choose to mention them. I only pray that my letter may
not go out of your own hands, lest it should get into the newspapers,
a bear-garden scene into which I have made it a point to enter on no
provocation.

I am, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCLXII.--TO DOCTOR RUSH, September 23, 1800

TO DOCTOR RUSH.

Monticello, September 23, 1800.

Dear Sir,

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of August the 22nd, and
to congratulate you on the healthiness of your city. Still Baltimore,
Norfolk, and Providence admonish us that we are not clear of our new
scourge. When great evils happen, I am in the habit of looking out for
what good may arise from them as consolations to us, and Providence has
in fact so established the order of things, as that most evils are
the means of producing some good. The yellow fever will discourage
the growth of great cities in our nation, and I view great cities as
pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man. True,
they nourish some of the elegant arts, but the useful ones can thrive
elsewhere, and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue,
and freedom, would be my choice.

I agree with you entirely, in condemning the mania of giving names to
objects of any kind after persons still living. Death alone can seal
the title of any man to this honor, by putting it out of his power to
forfeit it. There is one other mode of recording merit, which I have
often thought might be introduced, so as to gratify the living by
praising the dead. In giving, for instance, a commission of Chief
Justice to Bushrod Washington, it should be in consideration of his
integrity, and science in the laws, and of the services rendered to our
country by his illustrious relation, &c. A commission to a descendant
of Dr. Franklin, besides being in consideration of the proper
qualifications of the person, should add, that of the great services
rendered by his illustrious ancestor, Benjamin Franklin, by the
advancement of science, by inventions useful to man, &c. I am not sure
that we ought to change all our names. And, during the regal government,
sometimes indeed they were given through adulation; but often also as
the reward of the merit of the times, sometimes for services rendered
the colony. Perhaps, too, a