

R USTIC DRESS HORSES CATTLE. 183 



blue or white in color, the skirts reaching below the knee, very 

 short waists, a kind of broad epaulette, or cape, gathered in, 

 boddice fashion, before and behind, loose shirt-like sleeves, and 

 the whole profusely covered with needle-work. I suppose this is 

 the original smock-frock. An uglier garment could not well be 

 contrived, for it makes every man who wears it appear to have a 

 spare, pinched-up, narrow-chested, hump-backed figure. The 

 women generally wore printed calico jackets, gathered at the 

 waist, with a few inches only of skirt, and blue or gray worsted 

 stuff petticoats, falling to within a few inches of the ankle a 

 picturesque, comfortable, and serviceable habit, making them 

 appear more as if they were accustomed to walk and to work, 

 and were not ashamed of it, than women generally do. Most 

 incongruously, as a topping off to this sensible costume, a number 

 of women had crowded their heads into that ultima thule of 

 absurd invention, a stiff, narrow-brimmed, high-crowned, cylin- 

 drical fur hat. What they did with their hair, and how they 

 managed to keep the thing on their heads, I cannot explain. 

 They did do it, notwithstanding something of a breeze, as well as 

 the most practiced man, and without showing evidence of any 

 particular suffering. 



There were, perhaps, a hundred horses offered for sale ; among 

 them one pair only of fine carriage-horses, one large and fine 

 thorough bred cart-horse, and a few pretty ponies. All the rest 

 were very ordinary stout working-horses, much like our Pennsyl- 

 vania horses. The average price of them was but a trifle over 

 $100, about what they would bring at New York. 



There were still fewer cattle, and they were all comprised in 

 three breeds and their intermixtures : first, Hereford, which 

 predominated; second, Welsh, small, low, black beasts, with 

 large heads and white faces, black muzzles and long spreading 

 horns ; third, Smutty Pates, an old Welsh breed hardly to be 



