Whatever Difficulties They, Or Their Ancestors, Struggled Formerly With, Are Now Over; Their Lands Are Cleared, And In The Bosom

Of a fine country, with a sure market for every article of produce they can possibly raise, and entirely out

Of the reach of the most desperate predatory excursions of the savages.

They enjoy a happy state of mediocrity[Footnote: The quakers in particular. I have seen at a meeting in West Jersey, in a very small town, upwards of two hundred carriages, one horse chairs, and light waggons, which are machines peculiar to this country, and well adapted to the sandy soil of the state of New Jersey; they are covered like a caravan, and will hold eight persons; the benches are removable at pleasure, and they are also used to convey the produce of the country to market.], between riches and poverty, perhaps the most enviable of all situations. When the boys of this family are numerous, those the father cannot provide for at home, and who prefer a planter's life to a trade, or profession, are, when married, presented with two or three hundred acres of uncultivated land, which their parents purchase for them as near home as possible. The young couple are supplied with stock, and supported till they have a sufficient quantity of land cleared to provide for themselves.

If unsuccessful through want of industry, &c., they often sell off, and emigrate to Kentucky, or some other new country seven or eight hundred miles to the S.W., and begin the world again as back settlers.

The daughters are brought up in habits of virtue and industry; the strict notions of female delicacy, instilled into their minds from their earliest infancy, never entirely forsake them. Even when one of these girls is decoyed from the peaceful dwelling of her parents, and left by her infamous seducer a prey to poverty and prostitution in a _brothel_ at Philadelphia, her whole appearance is neat, and breathes an air of modesty: you see nothing in her dress, language, or behaviour, that could give you any reason to guess at her unfortunate situation; (how unlike her unhappy sisters so circumstanced in England!) she by no means gives over the idea of a husband, she is seldom disappointed: and, I am informed, often makes an excellent wife.

The chief amusement of the country girls in winter is sleighing, of which they are passionately fond, as indeed are the whole sex in this country. I never heard a woman speak of this diversion but with rapture. You have doubtless read a description of a _sleigh_, or sledge, as it is common in all northern countries, and can only be used on the snow. In British America this amusement may be followed nearly all the winter; but so far to the south as Pennsylvania, the snow seldom lies on the ground more than seven or eight days together. The consequence is, that every moment that will admit of sleighing is seized on with avidity.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 16 of 66
Words from 8266 to 8767 of 35016