[jQuery] jQuery stripping HTML tags from Ajax response

Hi,

Here's what I'm working with (#thing is a table):

$.get("/applications/stuff.php",
{ '_request':'thing', 'id':id, 'otherid':$('#otherid').val() },
function(data) {
$('#thing').append(data);
}
$("#thing").show();
});

The PHP file returns a table row:

<tr>
<td><a href="something">1234</a></td>
<td>Thing Name</td>
</tr>

When I add 'alert(data);' to my return function it shows that whole
HTML thing with tr's & td's.

But what gets appended is:

<a href="something">1234</a>Thing Name

So all the HTML tags are gone.

Anyone know why?

Thanks.