232 SPOFFORD 



The houses of the town were all crowded by visitors from 

 Georgetown, Alexandria, Baltimore and the whole country 

 around. The best of manners prevailed and no disorder nor 

 intoxication was tolerated. 



The second theater in the United States was opened at Anna- 

 polis in 1752, by an excellent troupe, known as ' the Company 

 of Comedians from Virginia,' where they had played at Williams- 

 burg the same year, and who played at Annapolis and Upper 

 Marlborough for more than twenty years. New York had 

 plays only two years earlier, in 1750, and Philadelphia in 1749. 

 The French abbe Robin, who travelled in Maryland in 1781, 

 records that there was "more wealth and luxury in Annapolis 

 than in any other city which I have visited in America." 

 Indeed, the style of living among prosperous citizens was of a 

 kind which may be characterized as generous and even profuse. 

 The gentlemen wore velvet coats, knee-breeches, swords, lace 

 ruffles, wigs, cocked hats laced with gold or silver, and snuff- 

 boxes. The ladies were dressed in silks, satins, lace and bro- 

 cade ; they frizzed and rouged, and both sexes wore powdered 

 hair. Brissot, the French traveller, in 1790 tells us that the 

 ladies' dress was "of the most brilliant silks, gauzes, hats and 

 borrowed hair." On their heads were pyramids of towering 

 turbans, to which the odious and sometimes intolerable theater 

 hat of to-day, with its fortification of an aviary or conservatory, 

 destructive of human vision and peace of mind, presents a too 

 close analogy. But few jewels were worn, for they were not 

 common in that age. In the country, women wore bonnets 

 called 'calashes,' the front stiffened with cane, and projecting 

 twelve or fifteen inches from the face horizontally. These were 

 described, no doubt correctly, as the height of ugliness. 



In those days, horse-races abounded, and cock-fights were 

 common diversions, while fine old Virginia gentlemen some- 

 times staked their negroes on the result. Everybody was fond 

 of field sports, and even the clergy joined in the chase. Horses 

 were so common that no one ever thought of walking to any 

 distance. Most roads were merely bridle-paths. Ladies rode 

 to the chase or to church on horseback, and went to balls in the 

 evenings, mounted on side-saddles, with scarlet riding habits 



