WANDERINGS IN 



shape, and that none of the handsomest. The wearer 

 is obhged to turn her head full ninety degrees before she 

 can see the person who is standing by her side. But in 

 New York the ladies have the brim of the hat not fet- 

 tered with wire, or tape, or riband, but quite free and 

 undulating; and by applying the hand to it, they can 

 conceal or expose as much of the face as circumstances 

 require. This hiding and exposing of the face, by the 

 by, is certainly a dangerous movement, and often fatal 

 to the passing swain. I am convinced in my own mind, 

 that many a determined and unsuspecting bachelor, has 

 been shot dovm by this sudden manrcuvre, before he was 

 aware that he was within reach of the battery. 



The American ladies seem to have an abhorrence (and 

 a very just one too,) of Avearing caps. When one con- 

 siders for a moment, that women wear the hair long, 

 which nature has given them both for an ornament and 

 to keep the head warm, one is apt to wonder, by what 

 perversion of good taste, they can be induced to enclose 

 it in a cap. A mob cap, a lace cap, a low cap, a high 

 cap, a flat cap, a cap with ribands dangling loose, a cap 

 with ribands tied under the chin, a peak cap, an angular 

 cap, a round cap, and a pyramid cap ! How Avould 

 Canova's Venus look in a mob cap ? If there be any 

 ornament to the head in wearing a cap, it must surely 

 be a false ornament. The American ladies are persuaded 

 that the head can be ornamented without a cap. A 



