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made up in the cabin, where the heat and the confined air made me pass a restless night.

15th June. We came to Syracuse about midday. This town has the same busy, bustling, commercial appearance, as we meet with generally in the States. The manufacture of salt is the chief employment of the inhabitants.

16th June. Passed Utica early this morning, and as I had already travelled between Albany and Utica, on my way to upper Canada, the country had lost its novelty, and the time hung somewhat heavily on my hands. To make it pass more merrily away, I got my gun on deck, and amused myself by shooting at the birds on the banks of the canal. The packet stopped at Schenectady, between seven and eight P. M., and I took up my abode for the night, at an Inn close to the canal.

17th June. Started at eight a. M. by the railway for Albany; found a steam-boat at Albany ready to start; took my passage in her, and by six P. M. on the following day I landed at New York, and took up my lodgings at Mr Field's boardinghouse, in Pearl street.

CHAPTER VII.

"Is there as ye sometimes tell us,
Is there one who reigns on high?
Has he bid ye buy and sell us,

Speaking from his throne the sky?"

THIS country is said to be the paradise of women, and indeed they have managed to assume an imposing attitude, which has inverted the order of things. No man wishes more than I do, to see a proper respect paid to the ladies. As the weaker vessels, they are objects of our kindness and sympathy. Their modest demeanour commands our esteem, and their sylph-like forms, and the graces that surround them, render them the objects of our affections. The New York gentlemen, however, in the spirit of overstrained gallantry, have given them more than all this. They have bowed their

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INFLUENCE OF THE FAIR SEX.

necks beneath the female yoke.

Females here,

do not look up to man for his respect; they claim it as an homage due to them. They look like beings accustomed to command, and let you be as kind as ever you will to a female, she thinks it no more than her due.

If you are riding in a coach, and a female of the lowest class enters it, you must resign your seat to her. It is demanded as her right. Some of the Americans ridicule the English for allowing a Queen to reign over them, but they (poor henpecked creatures) are all subject to the despotism of a petticoat government. The clergy who have long seen the influence of the American ladies, have joined their cause, which has greatly strengthened it. If a political change is to brought about in the condition of the negro population, it is the combined forces of the ladies and the clergy who effect it. If intemperance is to be arrested, they are the prime movers in it. If a Methodist minister is to be acquitted, although believed guilty of murder, they can achieve it. In fact they are omnipotent.

The ladies in their persons are in general tall, thin, and lanky, with contracted chests, and little or no bustle! Their faces, when young, are very pretty indeed. If they have any blemish at all, it

is that they are too pale, but they certainly do not improve themselves by calling in art to assist nature, as they too often do, bedaubing their cheeks and necks with powdered starch, over which they occasionally put a thin coating of rouge. They are made up with hollow-breasted stays, and other nameless articles of dress, that makes it impossible for one even to guess at their shapes, so that it has been truly observed,

"Thus finished in taste while on her you gaze

You may take the dear charmer for life;
But never undress her, for out of her stays

You'll find you have lost half your wife.”

There are above 20,000 coloured people in this city, chiefly employed as servants in unloading ships, and in other menial occupations. They are said to be very depraved in their morals, which is in a great measure owing to the want of education; for although the Americans say that the negroes are inferior in intellect to themselves, yet, until the negroes receive as good an education as they do, and are allowed the privilege of mixing in society with the whites, a true estimate of their abilities cannot be formed.

I observed very few dogs on the streets of New York. On inquiring the cause, I learned that

some years ago, several dogs had gone mad, and a reward of a dollar was in consequence given, by order of the Mayor, for the head of every dog taken to the police office; and the negroes had therefore killed all they found running loose, for the sake of the reward.

Whisky is very cheap. It is sold wholesale at ten pence per gallon. A man can get himself reasonably drunk for three-half-pence, and dead drunk for two-pence, with straw for a bed into the bargain.

Tobacco is much used here. The chief method of consuming it is by chewing, and a great deal of spitting consequently takes place. From long habit many of the Americans cannot refrain from this filthy practice even in places where it is highly improper. An anecdote is told of a certain Dutch governor, who happened to visit a fine lady with a very fine drawing room, and who found, for reasons unknown to him, an elegant japanned box placed beside his chair. Seated in form, the quid began to roll, and the lady to tremble for her Brussels. The great man looked askance at the little box, and then gravely discharged his shower on the other side on the carpet. Nothing dismayed, the lady preserved her temper, and by an adroit pedes. trian movement transferred the article to what

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