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to the management of servants. Owing to this indifference, they are 

 total strangers to the advantages of that order, neatness, and pro- 

 priety, which reign in an EngUsh family ; their time at home is 

 mostly occupied in sewing, embroidery, and lace-making. Another 

 circumstance repugnant to delicacy is, that they have no mantua- 

 makers of their own sex ; all articles of female dress here are made 

 by tailors. An almost universal debility prevails among them^ 

 which is partly attributable to their abstemious living, but chiefly 

 to want of exercise, and to the frequent warm-bathings in which 

 they indulge. They are extremely attentive to every means of 

 improving the delicacy of their persons, perhaps to the injury of 

 their health. 



The men in general, especially those of the higher rank, officers, and 

 others, dress superbly ; in company they are very polite and attentive, 

 and shew every disposition to oblige ; they are great talkers and 

 prone to conviviality. The lower ranks, compared with those of 

 other colonial towns, are in a very advanced state of civilization. 

 It were to be wished that some reform were instituted in their system 

 of education ; the children of slaves are brought up during their 

 early days with those of their masters ; they are play-mates and 

 companions, and thus a familiar equality is established between 

 them, which has to be forcibly abolished when they arrive at that 

 age, at which one must command and live at his ease, while the 

 other must labour and obey. It has been said, that by thus at- 

 taching the slave to his master, in early youth, they ensure his 

 future fidelity, but the custom seems fraught with many disadvan- 

 tages, and ought at least to be so modified as to render the yoke of 

 bondage less galling by the recollection of former liberty. 



The religious processions here are very splendid, grand, and so- 

 lemn ; they have a striking effect, by reason of the profound vene- 

 ration and enthusiastic zeal manifested by the populace. On par- 

 ticular occasions of this kind all the inhabitants of the city attend, 

 and the throng is frequently increased by numbers of the neigh- 



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