Manners and Customs in Colonial Days 109 



Whitsuntide, was also a period of jollification with the Dutch 

 who, at this time, let their slaves have free play. • Practical 

 jokes were always in order, and their success was the occasion 

 of ready and boisterous laughter from the bystanders. In all, 

 their amusements were the rude and simple pleasures of a 

 primitive people. 



With the better classes, the same holidays were observed 

 in a quieter manner and without horse-play. Tea parties 

 and dinners were the more dignified means of entertainment. 

 At the latter, wine of a quality not always to be found in Eu- 

 rope was served to the guests ; and it was customary for each 

 of the guests in turn to toast some admired friend. The ladies 

 toasted a gentleman, and the gentlemen toasted a lady. In 

 this way, the health of some beautiful and gracious belle was 

 drunk so often, and her popularity became so pronounced 

 among her admirers, that she would become the "toast" of the 

 season. An unbounded hospitality prevailed, and any one 

 who ranked as a gentleman had little hesitancy in calling upon 

 an acquaintance, or even upon a stranger, when travelling, 

 for a meal or lodging. Intermarriages occurred between the 

 families of the gentry, so that in time they were nearly all 

 interrelated or connected. Many of the American heiresses, 

 both of Dutch and English extraction, became the wives of 

 English officers stationed in New York, a custom which the 

 present generation still maintains with our trans-Atlantic 

 cousins. Frequently, the foreigner, delighted with the man- 

 ner of American life, took up his home here and became a citi- 

 zen of the colony, and later of the State. Many of them, of 

 whom Montgomery, Paul Jones, Gates, and Charles Lee were 

 notable examples, fought with the colonists in their revolt 

 against the mother country. 



1 See Cooper's novel of Satanstoe. 



