PENSYLVANIA 101 



the vogue in certain parts of America,* especially New 

 England, + might well give our European fair another 

 idea of western restraint. That is to say, it is a custom 

 there for young men to pay visits to their mistresses ; 

 and the young woman's good name is no ways im- 

 paired, so that the visit takes place by stealth, or after 

 they are actually betrothed ; on the contrary, the par- 

 ents are advised, and these meetings happen when the 

 pair is enamored and merely wish to know each other 

 better. The swain and the maiden spend the evening 

 and the night undisturbed by the hearth, or it may be 

 go to bed together without scruple ; in the latter case, 

 with the condition that they do not take off their clothes ; 

 and if the anxious mother has any doubt of the strict 

 virtue of her daughter, it is said she takes the precau- 

 tion of placing both the daughter's feet in one large 

 stocking, and in the morning looks to see if this 

 guardian is still properly fixed, but the inquiry is com- 

 monly superfluous, the circumstance having rarely any 

 other consequence than in regular betrothal, which is 

 the object had in view in allowing the meeting. When 

 it is said in praise of America that there are seldom 

 other consequences due to the intimate association of 

 the sexes, it must be remarked that people there gen- 

 erally marry with less forethought and earlier, and that 

 in almost every house there are negresses, slaves, who 

 count it an honor to bring a mulatto into the world. 



Philadelphia boasted once of its especially good police, 

 and knew nothing of tumultuary and mutinous gather- 



* Burnaby noticed it in Virginia. Vid. Travels through the 

 Middle Colonies of North America, p. 170. [Burnaby's note 

 is in regard to a different custom, cf. reprint, 3d ed., New 

 York 1904, p. 142] 



