SOUTH AMERICA. 
253 
as much of those costumes, as is becoming to the 
female form. This, joined to their own just notions 
of dress, is what renders the New York ladies so 
elegant in their attire. The v r ay they wear the 
Leghorn hat deserves a remark or two. With us, 
the formal hand of the milliner binds dowm the brim 
to one fixed shape, and that none of the handsomest. 
The v r earer is obliged to turn her head full ninety 
degrees before she can see the person who is stand¬ 
ing by her side. But in New York the ladies have 
the brim of the hat not fettered w r ith 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 cer- 
tainlv 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 dowm by this sudden manoeuvre, 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 wearing caps. When 
one considers 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 would Canova’s 
FOURTH 
JOURNEY. 
