60 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



posts diagonally alternate at the side of the footway, 

 but the lanterns are sparingly distributed and have no 

 reflectors. The streets are kept clean and in good order 

 by the householders themselves. Water and filth from 

 the streets are carried off through conduits to the river. 

 Appointed night-watchmen call out the hours and the 

 state of the weather. Behind each house is a little 

 court or garden, where usually are the necessaries, and 

 so this often evil-smelling convenience of our European 

 houses is missed here, but space and better arrange- 

 ment are gained. The kitchen, stable, &c. are all placed 

 in buildings at the side or behind, kitchens often under- 

 ground. Vaults I do not remember seeing in any 

 house. The attempt is made to avoid everything detri- 

 mental to the -convenience or cleanliness of dwelling- 

 houses. In the matter of interior decorations the Eng- 

 lish style is imitated here as throughout America. The 

 furniture, tables, bureaux, bedsteads &c. are commonly 

 of mahogany, at least in the best houses. Carpets, 

 Scottish and Turkish, are much used, and indeed are 

 necessities where the houses are so lightly built ; stairs 

 and rooms are laid with them. The houses are seldom 

 without paper tapestries, the vestibule especially being 

 so treated. The taste generally is for living in a cleanly 

 and orderly manner, without the continual scrubbing of 

 the Hollanders or the frippery and gilt of the French. 

 The rooms are in general built with open fire-places but 

 the German inhabitants, partly from preference and old 

 custom, partly from economy, have introduced iron or 

 tin-plate draught-stoves which are used more and more 

 by English families (as a result of the increasing dear- 

 ness of wood) both in living-rooms and in work-rooms. 

 Here especially there are seen Franklins (named in 



