CHAP. IX.] MARRIAGES. 127 



understandings, while the fathers, husbands, and brothers are 

 summing up accounts, attending to the minute details of business, 

 or driving bargains. 



The impress of the strict morals of the Puritan founders of the 

 New England commonwealths on the manners of their descend 

 ants, is still very marked. Swearing is seldom heard, and duel 

 ing has been successfully discountenanced, although they are in 

 constant communication with the southern states, where both 

 these practices are common, though much less so than formerly. 



The facility of getting on in the world, and marrying young, 

 is, upon the whole, most favorable to the morals of the commu 

 nity, although it sometimes leads to uncongenial and unhappy 

 unions. But, as a set-off to this evil, it should be stated, that 

 nowhere is there so much free choice in forming matrimonial 

 connections without regard to equality of fortune. It is un 

 avoidable that the aristocracy of taste, manners, and education 

 should create barriers, which can not be set at naught without 

 violence to the feelings ; but we had good opportunities of know 

 ing that parents would be thought far more unreasonable here 

 than in England, and in some other states of the Union, if they 

 discouraged alliances on the mere ground of one of the parties 

 being without fortune. 



The most eminent medical men in Boston make, I am told, 

 about 9500 dollars (2000/.) a year, and their early career is one 

 of hard striving and small profits. The incomes made by the 

 first lawyers are much more considerable, and I hear that, when 

 a leading practitioner was invited to transfer his business from 

 Boston to New York, because he might be employed there by a 

 population of 400,000 souls, he declined, saying, that his clients 

 were drawn from a population nearly equal in numbers and ave 

 rage wealth, although not a fourth part of them were resident in 

 the city of Boston. 



Bankruptcies are rarer than in any other mercantile community 

 in the Union of equal extent, and, when they do occur, larger 

 dividends are paid to the creditor. As most of the rich private 

 citizens live within their income, so the State is frugal, and al 

 though its credit stands so high that it could borrow largely, it 



