Volume I Part 35 (1/2)

[869] Weld, i, 199.

[870] Schoepf, ii, 34. This strange phenomenon was witnessed everywhere, even in a place then so far remote as Maine. ”Elegant women come out of log or deal huts [in Maine] all wearing fas.h.i.+onable hats and head dresses with feathers, handsome cloaks and the rest of their dress suitable to this.” (La Rochefoucauld, ii, 314.)

[871] _Ib._, 89; and Weld, i, 199, 236. The reports of all travelers as to the want of fresh meat in the Valley are most curious. That region was noted, even in those early days, for its abundance of cattle.

[872] _Ib._, 144.

[873] ”Notes on Virginia”: Jefferson; _Works_: Ford, iv, 69; and see Weld, i, 114, for similar diet in Pennsylvania.

[874] _Ib._, 183-84.

[875] Weld, i, 206. ”Sigars and whiskey satisfy these good people who thus spend in a quarter of an hour in the evening, the earnings of a whole day. The landlord of the Inn has also a distillery of whiskey,”

writes La Rochefoucauld, in 1797, of the mountain people of Virginia. He thus describes the houses and people living in the valley towards Staunton: ”The habitations are in this district more numerous than on the other side of the Blue Mountains, but the houses are miserable; mean, small log houses, inhabited by families which swarm with children.

There exists here the same appearance of misery as in the back parts of Pennsylvania.” (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 173-76.)

[876] ”It took a good deal of New England rum to launch a 75 ton schooner ... to raise a barn ... or to ordain a regular minister....

Workingmen in the fields, in the woods, in the mills and handling logs and lumber on the river were supplied with regular rations of spirits.”

(Maine Hist. Soc. Col. (2d Series), vi, 367-68.)

The rich people of Boston loved picnic parties in the near-by country, at which was served ”Punch, warm and cold, before dinner; excellent beef, Spanish and Bordeaux wines, cover their tables ... Spruce beer, excellent cyder, and Philadelphia porter precede the wines.” (De Warville, 58.) This inquiring Frenchman called on Hanc.o.c.k, but found that he had a ”marvelous gout which dispenses him from all attentions and forbids the access to his house.” (_Ib._, 66.) As to New England country stores, ”you find in the same shop, hats, nails, liquors.”

(_Ib._, 127.)

[877] La Rochefoucauld, iv, 577.

[878] Was.h.i.+ngton to Green (an employee) March 31, 1789; _Writings_: Ford, xi, 377.

[879] _Memoirs of Talleyrand_: Broglie's ed., i, footnote to 181; and see Talleyrand's description of a brandy-drinking bout at this house in which he partic.i.p.ated.

[880] Schoepf, ii, 47.

[881] Watson, 252.

[882] Chastellux, 224; see also 243.

[883] La Rochefoucauld, iv, 119.

[884] _Ib._, 590.

[885] See _infra_, II, chap. II.

[886] De Warville, 262.

[887] Watson, 261-62. ”The indolence and dissipation of the middling and lower cla.s.ses of white inhabitants in Virginia are such as to give pain.... Horse-racing, c.o.c.k-fighting, and boxing-matches are standing amus.e.m.e.nts, for which they neglect all business.” (_Ib._; and see Chastellux, 292, translator's note. Also see Chastellux's comments on the economic conditions of the Virginians, 291-93.) For habits of Virginians nearly twenty years after Watson wrote, see La Rochefoucauld, iii, 75-79.

[888] ”The session a.s.sembles here, besides the neighboring judges, lawyers, and parties whose causes are to be tried, numbers of idle people who come less from desire to learn what is going forward than to drink together,” says La Rochefoucauld; and see his picturesque description of his arrival at the close of court day at Goochland Court-House. (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 126-29.)

[889] One man to every five men, women, and children, which is a high estimate.