e shrewd merchant
was careful to exact his cent per cent, the prices asked were little
heeded by the purchaser who was as ignorant of the value of the
commodities offered as he was delighted with their novelty and
apparent usefulness.

DRESS.

The subject of dress is approached with reluctance and its description
diffidently essayed. But the task has seemed mandatory as the manners
of a people can not otherwise be fully understood. The stately,
ceremonious intercourse of the sexes, the stiff and elaborate walk of
Loudoun men and women of Colonial and post-Revolutionary times is
traceable almost solely to the costuming of that period. How could
ladies dance anything but the stately minuet, when their heads were
veritable pyramids of pasted hair surmounted by turbans, when their
jeweled stomachers and tight-laced stays held their bodies as tightly
as would a vise, when their high-heeled shoes were as unyielding as if
made of wood, and their trails of taffeta, often as much as fifteen
yards long, and great feathered head-dresses compelled them to turn
round as slowly as strutting peacocks? How could the men, with their
buckram-stiffened coat-shirts, execute any other dance, when their
elaborate powdered wigs compelled them to carry their hats under their
arms, and their swords concurrently required dexterous management for
the avoidance of tripping and mortifying falls?

Children were laced in stays and made to wear chin supports, gaps, and
pads so as to give them the graceful carriage necessary to the wearing
of all this weight of stiff and elaborate costume, which was all of a
piece with the character of the assemblies and other evening
entertainments, the games of cards--basset, loo, piquet, and
whist--with the dancing, the ceremonious public life of nearly every
class of society, with even the elaborate funeral ceremonies, and the
sedulousness with which "persons of quality" thought it incumbent upon
themselves to maintain the distinctions of rank as symbolized in
costume.

The tie-wig, bob-wig, bag-wig, night-cap-wig, and riding-wig were
worn by the gentleman of quality as occasion required. At times he
wore, also, a small three-cornered cocked hat, felt or beaver,
elaborately laced with gold or silver galloon. If he walked, as to
church or court, he carried, in addition to his sword, a gold or
ivory-headed cane, at least five feet long, and wore square-toed,
"low-quartered" shoes with paste or silver buckles.