EXPENCES OF HOUSEKEEPING 



shawls without being tempted to quit the field of politics as a 

 compromise with the government ; and without any breach of 

 covenants, after being suffered to escape with only a gentle 

 squeeze. 



337. Household Furniture, all cheaper than in England. 

 Mahogany timber a third part of the English price. The distance 

 shorter to bring it, and the tax next to nothing on importation. 

 The woods here, the pine, the ash, the white-oak, the walnut, the 

 tulip-tree, and many others, all excellent. The workman paid 

 high wages, but no tax. No Borough- villians to share in the 

 amount of the price. 



338. Horses, carriages, harness, all as good, as gay, and cheaper 

 than in England. I hardly ever saw a rip in this country. The 

 hackney coach horses and the coaches themselves, at New York, 

 bear no resemblance to things of the same name in London. 

 The former are all good, sound, clean, and handsome. What the 

 latter are I need describe in no other way than to say, that the 

 coaches seem fit for nothing but the fire and the horses for the 

 dogs. 



339. Domestic servants ! This is a weighty article : not in the 

 cost, however, so much as in the plague. A good man servant is 

 worth thirty pounds sterling a year ; and a good woman servant, 

 twenty pounds sterling a year. But, this is not all ; for, in the first 

 place, they will hire only by the month. This is what they, in 

 fact, do in England ; for, there they can quit at a month s tvarning. 

 The man will not wear a livery, any more than he will wear a 

 halter round his neck. This is no great matter ; for, as your 

 neighbours men are of the same taste, you expose yourself to no 

 humiliation on this score. Neither men nor women will allow 

 you to call them servants, and they will take especial care not to 

 call themselves by that name. This seems something very 

 capricious, at the least ; and, as people in such situations of life, 

 really are servants, according to even the sense which MOSES 

 gives to the word, when he forbids the working of the man servant 

 and the maid servant, the objection, the rooted aversion, to the 

 name, seems to bespeak a mixture of false pride and of insolence, 

 neither of which belong to the American character, even in the 

 lowest walks of life. I will, therefore, explain the cause of this 

 dislike to the name of servant. When this country was first 

 settled, there were no people that laboured for other people : but, 

 as man is always trying to throw the working part off his own 

 shoulders, as we see by the conduct of priests in all ages, negroes 

 were soon introduced. Englishmen, who had fled from tyranny 

 at home, were naturally shy of calling other men their slaves : 

 and, therefore, &quot;/or more grace,&quot; as Master Matthew says in the 

 play, they called their slaves servants. But, though I doubt not 

 that this device was quite efficient in quieting their own con 

 sciences, it gave rise to the notion, that slave and servant meant 

 one and the same thing, a conclusion perfectly natural and directly 



