156 EQUALITY. 



on all occasions sedulously to give place and 

 precedence to females, and the meanest of 

 them are exempt, or I might rather say de- 

 barred, from those masculine or laborious tasks 

 which are commonly enough assigned the sex, 

 or assumed by them, in our country. For in- 

 stance, a woman employed at work in the fields 

 is nowhere to be seen, and although this with 

 us mi^ht be thought a refinement, it is at least 

 an amiable one. 



Before setting foot on the republican soil of 

 America, one supposes he is to hear broached 

 there no sentiment that does not comport with 

 a veneration for that perfect equality, upon 

 which the social compact in that country theo- 

 retically is based ; but he has not long mixed 

 in American society ere he discovers, in many 

 quarters, a strong aristocratic feeling in some 

 the pride of learning, in many the pride of 

 riches, and in not a few even the pride of fa- 

 mily. 



This feeling is easy to be perceived in the 

 portion of the States I visited, and I under- 

 stand is found much stronger in the more south- 



