arance. They are comely and
dress well...."

"Tinctured with the Dutch education, they manage their families
with becoming parsimony, good providence, and singular neatness.
The practice of extravagant gaming, common to the fashionable
part of the fair sex in some places, is a vice with which my
country women cannot justly be charged. There is nothing they so
generally neglect as reading, and indeed all the arts for the
improvement of the mind--in which, I confess we have set them the
example. They are modest, temperate, and charitable, naturally
sprightly, sensible, and good-humored; and, by the helps of a
more elevated education, would possess all the accomplishments
desirable in the sex."

With the coming of the Revolution, and the consequent invasion of the
city by the British, New York became far more gay than ever before; but
even then the native Dutch conservativeness so restrained social affairs
that Philadelphia was more brilliant. When, however, the capital of the
national government was located in New York then indeed did the city
shine. Foreigners spoke with astonishment at the display of luxury and
down-right extravagance. Brissot de Warville, for example, writing in
1788, declared: "If there is a town on the American continent where
English luxury displays its follies, it is New York." And James
Pintard, after attending a New Year levee, given by Mrs. Washington,
wrote his sister: "You will see no such formal bows at the Court of St.
James." If we may judge by the dress of ladies attending such
gatherings, as one described in the _New York Gazette_ of May 15, 1789,
we may safely conclude that expense was not spared in the upper classes
of society. Hear some descriptions:

"A plain celestial blue satin with a white satin petticoat. On
the neck a very large Italian gauze handkerchief with white satin
stripes. The head-dress was a puff of gauze in the form of a
globe on a foundation of white satin, having a double wing in
large plaits, with a wreath of roses twined about it. The hair
was dressed with detached curls, four each side of the neck and a
floating _chignon_ behind."

"Another was a periot made of gray Indian taffetas with dark
stripes of the same color with two collars, one white, one yellow
with blue silk fringe, having a reverse trimmed in the same
manner. Under the periot was a