126 EDUCATION OF LADIES. [CHAP. IX. 



Some of their vehicles are fitted up with India-rubber tubes, to 

 enable those inside to communicate with the coachman without 

 letting down the glass, which, during a severe New England 

 frost, or a snow storm, must be no unmeaning luxury. 



They who can not afford to live in the metropolis, reside with 

 their families at places often twenty-five miles distant, such as 

 Ipswich, and go into their shops and counting-houses every morn 

 ing, paying 100 dollars (or twenty guineas), for an annual ticket 

 on the railway, and being less than an hour at a time on the 

 road. 



The usual hours of breakfasting and dining here are much earlier 

 than in London ; yet evening parties in the most fashionable 

 society do not begin till nine, and often ten o clock, which appears 

 a senseless imitation of foreign manners, and calculated, if not 

 intended, to draw a line between those who can afford to turn 

 night into day. and those who can not. 



In some houses the gentlemen go up after dinner with the 

 ladies, as in France, to the drawing-room ; but it is more com 

 mon, as in England, to stay a while and talk together. There 

 is very little drinking, and I scarcely ever heard any conversation 

 in which the women might not have joined with propriety. 

 Bachelor dinners are more frequent than in the highest circles 

 in London ; but there is beginning to be a change in this respect, 

 and certainly the ladies are well able to play their part, for no 

 care or expense is spared to give them, not only every female 

 accomplishment, but a solid education. The incomes made by 

 some men of superior scholarship and general knowledge, who 

 devote themselves entirely to the teaching of young ladies, and, 

 still more, the station held by these teachers in society, is a char 

 acteristic of Boston highly deserving of praise and imitation. 



The influence of cultivated women in elevating and refining 

 the tone of society and the national mind, may nowhere be ren 

 dered more effective than where a large proportion of the men 

 are engaged in mercantile business, and belong to a class who 

 have too truly been said &quot; to live in counting-houses that they 

 may sleep in palaces.&quot; Their wives and daughters have leisure 

 to acquire literary and scientific tastes, and to improve their 



