1,000 to 1,500 pounds of tobacco. The parish church on Sunday was the place for general assembling to hear the news and to exchange social greetings. On the monthly court days at the county seat the men met to discuss politics, exchange news and sell tobacco. There was much revelry, drunkenness and fighting and sometimes contests in running, riding, shooting, wrestling and cudgeling. Maryland, Carolina and Georgia were similar to Virginia in the social life of the people.

were

In the Southern colonies the social life of the Seventeenth century was expanded and intensified in the next century, but remained essentially the same in its forms. In Virginia and Maryland there were social clubs for men alone," to promote innocent mirth and ingenious humor." City balls and country dances strenuous affairs. Often they began by daylight and ended with the next daylight. Wines, punches, sweetmeats and other refreshments were served and in rooms adjoining the assembly room there were cards, dice, and backgammon. Horse-racing engaged attention everywhere. English English thoroughbreds were imported into Virginia and Maryland and racing sprang up in nearly every town: There was a jockey club in Charleston, S. C., before the Revolution and it was the social centre of the city. In Virginia the racing was associated with many other diversions. One such affair in Virginia advertised 20

horses or mares to run 3 miles; a hat to be cudgelled for; 20 fiddlers to fiddle for a prize violin; 12 boys, 12 years of age, to run a race; a flag flying 30 feet high; refreshments, wrestling for buckles, dancing for shoes; singing for a a "quire of ballads."

*

Social conditions in New England were not dissimilar to those in the South, the class distinctions being drawn almost as sharply, though the force of public opinion alone separated the classes. While a certain stiffness still remained, resulting from the long reign of Puritanism, there had been a vast improvement in the social and domestic conditions of the people. The royal governors maintained a splendid style of living and formed the centre of society, which consisted of " persons in office, the rich, and those who had connections in England, of which they were very proud." Modes of life, manners, personal decoration, ability, education and, to some extent, wealth, were indications of superiority. The larger portion of the gentry adhered to the royal side of the government, and when the Revolution was impending large numbers of them left the colony. There was also what might be termed the gentry of the interior, who held considerable of the landed estates,

* Fiske, in his Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, vol. ii., pp. 1-44, gives an excellent comparison of the social conditions in Virginia and New England in the 17th century. Both Bruce and Fiske, vol. ii., p. 218 et seq., give admirable descriptions of the social customs of the times.

the North. There everything centered around the meeting house. Religion pervaded all social life or perhaps more strictly speaking, religion constituted the only social indulgence.

There were no theatres, no balls, or other entertainments, and the Sabbath services, the religious lectures and the funerals afforded the people the principal means of relief from their every day employments. Cards were abjured as an invention of the foul fiend; no musical instruments were permitted, except the drum, trumpet and jews harp; congregational singing in the churches was the acme of music; the General Court interdicted the use of liquor and tobacco; the tavern keepers were forbidden to keep shuffle-boards or to permit bowling on their premises. Funerals were the great social events. Everybody attended. The bereaved family prepared an elaborate feast for the occasion and made presents of scarfs, rings and gloves to all who were present.

After the middle of the first century there was a little more latitude, but life still continued to be dull and joyless and amusement pure and simple was frowned upon. Coaches and chaises were introduced and there was some traveling by a few of the richer folk. Horse back riding was also indulged in to a slight degree, but this was always soberly done. Judge Sewall, the Boston diarist, recites in his famous journal many instances of his attendance upon church

service, lectures and funerals, and his enjoyment of other simple pleasures. He tells of visiting his family tomb and rearranging the coffins there and reverentially speaks of this as a "Treat." On another occasion he records that he took his family to an island in Boston Bay for an outing, where they had" first, Butter, Honey, Curds and Cream. For Diners very good rost Lamb, Turkey, Fowels, aple pye. After Diner sung the 121 Psalm." These incidents are typical of the sober, religious spirit that generally infused the social life of all New England in this century.

In the second century of colonial existence social life had developed to an intensified degree, especially in the generations immediately preceding the Revolution. Much wealth had come to the people, more freedom from the material burdens which their pioneer ancestors had been compelled to carry.

Class distinctions had

sprung up, and the richer and the official families maintained a social life which in refinement and elegance did not fall far, if at all, behind what was then the best usage on the other side of the Atlantic.

In New England, life still had its strong religious flavor, especially among the country folk and the people of the middle class in the cities. But worldliness had already begun to creep in. The theocracy which had controlled Massachusetts and influenced the rest of New England in matters of religious, civil and

social life had lost its power and with that departure had come more elasticity of existence. No longer was pleasure quite as sinful as it had been seventy-five or a hundred years before. Music was no longer confined to psalm singing and its indulgence in homes as well as in churches was common. Virginalls or spinnets were brought from Europe early in this century, and just prior to the breaking out of the Revolution the first one made in this country was constructed in Boston. In the cities and larger towns the afternoon tea was the fashionable social gathering, and so continued until the feminine patriotism of the pre-Revolutionary period placed a ban upon that beverage. To these tea-sipping parties each lady carried her own china cup and saucer. In the middle of the century the first dancing assembly was started in Boston. It was not looked upon with much favor but it gradually grew in popularity and was taken up in other centres of the New England colonies. The militia training days called out all the people for miles around.

But the weekly religious lecture or, "the Great Thursday" as it was called, was most observed. Attendance upon these became such a dissipation, leading people to neglect their work, that the General Court felt impelled to place restrictions upon them. There were a few clubs and social libraries, and, in Boston, some play acting, the actors being

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mostly British army officers.* Fashionable weddings ended with dances. At one in Norwich, Conn., there were 92 guests and they danced 92 jigs, 52 contra dances, 45 minuets and 17 hornpipes. In the autumn, harvest festivals, apple parings and corn huskings were the common neighborhood assemblies in the country regions. Singing schools were begun and were popular for the next hundred years. Just before the Revolution, first in 1766, the women ganized a patriotic society, "Daughters of Liberty," which extended all through New England. These societies met in spinning matches to spin native wool and to encourage the opposition to tea importing and drinking.

or

eral tone of life varied from sedate to gloomy, very rarely from light to boisterous. Drunkenness was less prevalent than in the other colonies, and excesses in gambling and other forms of dissipation were rare.

In the Middle colonies the social distinctions were not quite so well defined, although the Dutch landowners of New York were acknowledged aristocrats. The servile classes were comparatively insignificant in number; trade occupied a more exalted position, it not being considered at all degrading to work behind the desk or the counter, in the shop or in the field, and slaves were few in number as compared with the South. The laws against negroes were harsh but the slaves were kindly treated; there were also many indented servants especially in Pennsylvania, and stringent laws for the regulation of these servants were enacted. There were very few paupers or beggars among the lowest and poorest classes, but at the other extreme of society were many immense fortunes. The old Dutch families such as the Courtlandts, Van Rensselaers, and the Livingstons who occupied vast estates along the Hudson were haughty and overbearing, renting out their lands to tenant-farmers, over whom they ruled in princely fashion. The gulf between these Dutch aristocrats and the small freeholders and tradesmen was deeper and wider than it was between between the landed gentry of Pennsylvania and Delaware.

and the merchants and freeholders of those States; while in New Jersey, the distinction was scarcely noticeable although the gentlemen farmers were given a slight recognition of social superiority.

The Dutch for many years continued to constitute almost entirely the landed class, the English and other nationalities congregating in the cities where they were engaged in trade.

In New York there still remained some of the Dutch manners and customs, although English and French tastes predominated. Albany retained much more of its Dutch flavor than New York. The architecture was like that of Delft and Leyden; the houses stood with their angular zigzag gables turned to the street, with long projecting gutter-pipes, which, like those of the towns of continental Europe, discharged their contents on the heads of the unwary passers-by. The stoops or porches were furnished with side-seats, where the inmates met in the evening for gossip. The interior of the dwellings were widely known for their cleanliness; the brass and pewter vessels were highly burnished, and from morning until night the women were engaged in work of purification. Exemplary sobriety characterized their daily life, and their food was of the plainest, though substantial. But while they were thrifty, sober, contented and industrious, they were also ignorant, superstitious and grasping. Stoves at that