HABITS AND State of Society. "Not to know what has been transacted in former times, CICERO. IT is our intention (so far as facts will enable us) to raise some conceptions of the men and things as they existed in former years, chiefly such as they were when every thing partook of colonial submission and simplicity-when we had not learnt to aspire to great things. To this end we shall here dispose our collections from "narrative old age," and show the state of the past "glimmering through the dream of things that were." Gabriel Thomas, in his account, of 1698, of the primitive state of society, speaks of great encouragements and ready pay given to all conditions of tradesmen and working men. None need stand idle. Of lawyers and physicians he remarks he will say little, save that their services were little required, as all were peaceable and healthy. Women's wages he speaks of as peculiarly high, for two reasons; the sex was not numerous, which tended to make them in demand, and therefore to raise the price. Besides, as these married by the time they were twenty years of age, they sought to procure a maid-servant for themselves in turn. Old maids were not to be met with, neither jealousy of husbands. The children were generally well favoured and beautiful to behold. He says he never knew any with the least blemish. William Penn also made the remark, on his arrival, that all the houses of the Dutch and Swedes he found every where filled with a lusty and fine looking race of children. Numerous traditionary accounts attest the fact, that there was always among the early settlers a frank and generous hospitality. Their entertainments were devoid of glare and show, but always abundant and good. Mr. Kalm, when here in 1748, expressed his great surprise at the universal freedom with which travellers were every where accustomed to leap over the hedges and take the fruit from the orchards, even while the owners were looking on, without refusal. Fine peaches, he says, were thus taken from the orchards of the poorest peasants, such as could only be enjoyed, as he said, by the nobility in his own country! What a golden age it must have appeared to him and others! William Fishbourne, in his MS. narrative of about the same time, says, "Thus providence caused the country to flourish and to increase in wealth, to the admiration of all people,-the soil being fruitful and the people industrious. For many years there subsisted a good concord and benevolent disposition among the people of all denominations, each delighting to be reciprocally helpful and kind in acts of friendship for one another." Moral as the people generally were, and well disposed to cherish a proper regard for religious principles, it became a matter of easy attainment to the celebrated Whitefield and his coadjutors, Tennant, Davenport, &c. to gain a great ascendency over the minds of many of the people. The excitements wrought among them was very considerable. He procured in Philadelphia to be built for him one of the largest churches then in the colonies, and his helper, Tennant, another. It is manifest enough now that the ardour of success generated considerable of fanaticism and its consequent reproach.* Whitefield, in 1739, preached to a crowd of 15,000 persons on Society Hill. About the same time he so far succeeded to repress the usual public amusements as that the dancing school was discontinued, and the ball and concert room were shut up, as inconsistent with the requisitions of the gospel. No less than fourteen sermons were preached on Society Hill in open air, in one week, during the session of the Presbyterian church; and the Gazette of the day, in noticing the fact, says, "The change to religion here is altogether surprising through the influence of Whitefield-no books sell but religious, and such is the general conversation." Doctor Franklin, describing the state of the people about the year 1752, says they were all loyal and submitted willingly to the government of the crown, or paid for defence cheerfully. "They were led by a thread. They not only had a respect, but an affection for Great Britain, for its laws, its customs, and its manners, and even a fondness for its fashions,-not yet subsided. Natives of Great Britain were always treated with particular regard; and, to be "an Old England man" gave a kind of rank and respect among us." The old people all testify that the young of their youth were much more reserved, and held under much more restraint in the presence of their elders and parents than now. Bashfulness and modesty in the young were then regarded as virtues; and the present freedom before the aged was not then countenanced. Young lovers then listened and took side-long glances when before their parents or elders. Mrs. Susan N who lived to be 80 years of age, told me it *This is manifest by numerous publications of the day. Rev'd. Mr. Cummings of Christ church, and Rev'd. E. Kinnersley, Professor, among others, published against them. Both Whitefield and Tennant lived long enough afterwards to make their confessions of intemperate zeal. was the custom of her early days for the young part of the family, and especially of the female part, to dress up neatly towards the close of the day and set in the street-porch. It was customary to go from porch to porch in neighbourhoods and sit and converse. Young gentlemen in passing used to affect to say that while they admired the charms of the fair who thus occupied them, they found it a severe ordeal, as they thought they might become the subject of remark. This, however, was a mere banter. Those days were really very agreeable and sociable. To be so easily gratified with a sight of the whole city population, must have been peculiarly grateful to every travelling stranger. In truth, we have never seen a citizen who remembered the former easy exhibition of families, who did not regret its present exclusive and reserved substitute. The same lady told me it was a common occurrence to see genteel men after a fall of snow shovelling it away from their several doors. She has told me the names of several who would not now suffer their children to do the same. The late aged John Warder, Esq. told me that in his younger days he never knew of more than five or six persons at most, in the whole city, who did not live on the same spot where they pursued their business, a convenience and benefit now so generally departed from by the general class of traders. Then wives and daughters very often served in the stores of their parents, and the retail dry goods business was mostly in the hands of widows or maiden ladies. Mrs. S. N. also informed me that she remembers having been at houses when tea was a rarity, and has seen the quantity measured out for the tea pot in small hand-scales. This was to apportion the strength with accuracy. In her early days if a citizen failed in business it was a cause of general and deep regret. Every man who met his neighbour spoke of his chagrin. It was a rare occurrence, because honesty and temperance in trade was then universal; and none embarked then without a previous means adapted to their business. Another lady, Mrs. H. who saw things before the war of Independence, says she is often amused with the exclamation of her young friends, as she points them now to houses of a second or third rate tradesman, and says, "in that house such and such a distinguished man held his banquets." Dinners and suppers went the round of every social circle at Christmas, and they who partook of the former were also expected to remain for the supper. Afternoon visits were made not at night as now, but at so early an hour as to permit matrons to go home and see their children put to bed. I have often heard aged citizens say that decent citizens had a universal speaking acquaintance with each other, and every body promptly recognized a stranger in the streets. A simple or idiot person was known to the whole population. Every body knew Bobby Fox, and habitually jested with him as they met him. Michael Weaders too was an aged idiot, whom all knew and esteemed; so much so, that they actually engraved his portrait as a remembrancer of his benignant and simple face. See a copy in my MS. Annals in the City Library, page 284. Doctor Franklin has said, that before the war of Independence "to be an Old England man gave a kind of rank and respect among us." I introduce this remark for the sake of observing, that for many years after that war, even till nearly down to the present day, I can remember that we seemed to concede to English gentlemen a claim, which they were not backward to arrogate, that they were a superior race of men; this too from their having been familiar at home with superior displays of grandeur, more conveniences of living, higher perfections in the arts, &c. and, above all, as having among them a renowned race of authors, poets, &c. Their assumptions in consequence were sometimes arrogant or offensive. And I remember to have felt with others some disparagement in the comparison. If it were only to speak of their grand navy, we felt diminutive when we heard big tales of their "Rogal George"-the grandeur of their "great fleet," &c.-we who had never seen more among us than a single frigate. But the time is now passing off,—we have in turn become renowned and great. Our navy has become respectable; our entertainments have become splendid and costly. I have lived withal to find that even we, who before cowered, have taken our turn of being lordly; which we manifest in the offensive deportment of a mother country to our numerous colonies in the west, &c. I only "speak what I do know" when I say I have seen Philadelphians and New Yorkers, as metropolitans assuming airs of importance at Washington city, at Pittsburg, at Cincinnati, at New Orleans, &c. Those pretensions of our vanity formerly in those places will subside and pass away already they will scarcely be observed there, and could hardly have been believed but for this remembrancer, which shows indeed the general state of rising society in this new country. The tradesmen before the Revolution (I mention these facts with all good feeling,) were an entirely different generation of men from the present. They did not then, as now, present the appearance in dress of gentlemen. Between them and what were deemed the hereditary gentlemen there was a marked difference. In truth, the aristocracy of the gentlemen was noticed if not felt, and it was to check any undue assumption of ascendency in them, that the others invented the rallying name of "the Leather Apron Club," a name with which they were familiar before Franklin's "junta" was formed and received that other name. In that day the tradesmen and their families had far less pride than now. While at their work, or in going abroad on week-days, all such as followed rough trades, such as carpenters, masons, coopers, blacksmiths, &c. universally wore a leathern apron before them, and covering all their vest. Dingy buckskin breeches, once yellow, and check shirts and a red flannel jacket was the common wear of most working men; and all men and boys from the country were seen in the streets in leather breeches and aprons, and would have been deemed out of character without them. In those days, taylors, shoemakers and hatters waited on customers to take their measures, and afterwards called with garments to fit them on before finished. One of the remarkable incidents of our republican principles of equality, is, that hirelings, who in times before the war of Independence were accustomed to accept the names of servants and to be drest according to their condition, will now no longer suffer the former appellation; and all affect the dress and the air, when abroad, of genteeler people than their business warrants. Those, therefore, who from affluence have many such dependants, find it a constant subject of perplexity to manage their pride and assumption. In the olden time all the hired women wore short-gowns and linsey woolsey or worsted petticoats. Some are still alive who used to call master and mistress who will no longer do it. These facts have been noticed by the London Quarterly Review, which instances a case highly characteristic of their high independence: A lady, who had a large gala party, having rung somewhat passionately at the bell to call a domestic, was answered by a girl opening the saloon door, saying, "the more you ring the more I wont come," and so withdrew! Now all hired girls appear abroad in the same style of dress as their ladies; for, "Excess, the scrofulous and itchy plague So true it is that every condition of society is now changed from the plain and unaffected state of our forefathers,—all are "Infected with the manners and the modes It knew not once!" Before the Revolution no hired man or woman wore any shoes so fine as calf skin; course neats leather was their every day wear. Men and women then hired by the year,-men got 16 to 20€. and a servant woman 8 to 10£. Out of that it was their custom to lay up money, to buy before their marriage a bed and bedding, silver tea spoons, and a spinning-wheel, &c. A lady of my acquaintance, Mrs. H. familiar with those things as they were before the Revolution, has thus expressed her sense of them, viz. In the olden time domestic comfort was not every day interrupted by the pride and the profligacy of servants. There were then but few hired,-black slaves, and German and Irish redemptioners made up the mass. Personal liberty is unquestionably |