CHAPTER I.
Journey to Baltimore.—Arrival in the City.—Barnum’s Hotel.—The Washington Letter-writer.—His Views of Politics.—Arrival in Washington.—Street Manners of the People.—Hotels and Boarding-houses.—High Life in the Metropolis.—The Epicure House.
“Quando si parte il giuoco della zara
Colui che perde si riman dolente
Ripetendo le volte e tristo impara;
Con l’altro se ne va tutta la gente.”
Dante.
One morning, early in the month of March, I left Philadelphia in a steamer for Baltimore. It was a frosty cold day, and we were obliged to have a fire in the cabin; round which the gentlemen—the ladies occupying, as usual, a separate, more elegantly furnished room,—formed at first a small, but, in proportion as the company increased, a larger circle. The manners of the people had already a touch of the South in them: scarcely would a gentleman approach the stove before those who were already seated made room for him; an attention which, trifling as it was, marked a certain consideration for the feelings of others, which it is always gratifying to notice wherever we are. The captains of the boats from Philadelphia to Frenchtown, and from Newcastle to Baltimore,—the distance from Frenchtown to Newcastle is made on a railroad,—were noted for their civility to the passengers; and, on the whole, I do not remember having travelled more at my ease in any part of the United States.
We arrived in Baltimore early in the afternoon of the same day; and the greater part of the company putting up at Barnum’s hotel, I concluded to go thither also. On entering the spacious bar-room I at once asked for a separate room, and ordered my luggage to be taken up to it; but was told “that I must not be in a hurry,” and that no room could be given away to any gentleman without the bar-keeper having made his “calculation.” I then perceived that the gentlemen, one after the other, stepped up to him, telling him their names; which he put down on a slate, together with the number of rooms they asked for, precisely in the same manner as the burgomaster of some small town in Germany would set down the names of the officers of a regiment which is to be quartered upon it. It finally became my turn to speak.
“What’s your name, sir?” demanded the bar-keeper.
“Mr. ***,” said I, taking care to omit the “De.”
“Are you alone, sir?”
“Yes; but that is the reason I want a room by myself.”
“All single rooms are engaged long ago. I shall have to put you in a room with one or two other gentlemen.”
“Then I shall not stay here.”
“You may do as you please; but I cannot accommodate you better. We have to turn away people every day, and we must serve our old customers.”
“You had better stop here,” whispered one of the gentlemen in my ear; “you will be satisfied with the house in every other respect, and I am quite sure you will not be able to do better in Baltimore.”
“But, sir,” said I to the bar-keeper, “cannot you manage to put me into a room with only one other person?”
“I will see what I can do for you, but I cannot promise; I must first make my calculation.”
“And you will of course put me together with a gentleman?”
“Nobody stops here but gentlemen; you need not have any scruples about that,” replied the bar-keeper rather indignantly.
I thought it best to be silent if I wanted to sleep that night at all, and thus quietly awaited my sentence. At last the bar-keeper had completed the distribution of the rooms; and began to call out the names of the gentlemen, telling each the number of the room he was to occupy. When he called out my name he smiled; and turning to me with a sarcastic expression, “We have to put you in a room with one gentleman,” said he; “but, should you stay longer, we can to-morrow give you a room by yourself.” I bowed in token of acknowledgment, and betook myself at once to the quarters assigned to me.
“Also going to Washington?” demanded my chum as I entered the room.
“Yes, sir; are you going?”
“I am obliged to go,” replied he (with an air of importance); “I am always there during the session of Congress.”
“Perhaps I have the honour of addressing a senator?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Or a representative?”
“Nor that either.”
“Then you must have some business there?”
“Certainly, sir; I am a correspondent of the New York ***.”
“Oh! you write the letters from Washington for that paper?”
“Precisely so; and it is a more difficult task to write a good letter than to make a bad speech.”
“No doubt of that, sir; you may often be employed in making the best of a bad argument.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“I mean, by improving what has been said by a senator or representative.”
“Not only that, but it is we that give the cue to every argument. Our representatives take up a question as they find it stated in the papers.”
“And it is you that govern the country?”
“It’s the press, sir, and nothing but the press, which governs a free people.”
“But is not the press liable to error?”
“All human institutions are; but we have such abundant means of correcting and preventing it, that it is almost impossible for us to be in the wrong. In the first place, our press has the money by which (drawing himself up to his full height) it can secure the best talents; and, secondly, our people are too ‘cool’ to be easily wrought into a passion. We are a ‘calculating’ people.”
“But your papers are full of personal abuse. Do you think that an advantage?”
“Not exactly; but it is unquestionably a great help—a seasoning of dull editorials. Our people have so much ordinary conversation in the course of the day, that, if it were not for the slander contained in our newspapers, they would not be amused at all. Papers, sir, are ‘the eating, drink, and fuel’ of the Americans; and on that account they can never be too hot for them.”
“But very high seasoning marks a bad taste; I should think the best papers on what is called ‘the aristocratic side’ would scorn personal abuse.”
“Quite the reverse, sir, I assure you. It’s the only means of attracting notoriety, and of pleasing our first people. Besides, it would be useless to play the part of a gentleman in that respect, when all the rest are blackguards. We want strength, sir! strength! and nothing but strength!—none of your ‘milk and molasses’ productions, of which a man can make neither head nor tail. If we give a man a beating, we do not want him to get up again; ‘we go the whole hog.’ When we attack a man, we assail at once his moral, political, religious, and domestic relations. Every little helps, you know. ‘Give a dog a bad name, and hang him!’ says the proverb, and it is just so with our politicians.”
By this time I began to be afraid of the man, lest, if he should not “steal my purse,” he might publish me in the papers. He looked, indeed, like a desperate fellow; though his self-sufficiency was quite amusing, and the smacking of his lips and the stroking of his chin, with which he accompanied every one of his sayings, were sufficiently ludicrous to destroy the effect of the ferocious manner in which he paced the room. I therefore made no farther reply, but began to dress for supper. This untimely cessation of conversation seemed to annoy him, as it probably prevented him from showing off, and impressing me with a proper respect for his station. He therefore drew a parcel of papers from his pocket, and throwing them violently on the table—
“Here,” exclaimed he, “is the last news. I dare say you know it already. We have triumphed in every part of the country. Our State is carried ‘high and dry.’”
“I do not care much about politics,” replied I.
“You don’t?” said he. “Why, then, do you stay in the country?”
“Cannot you imagine a man to have any other business but politics?”
“Oh, certainly, sir! a man may be a merchant, a doctor, or a tradesman; but, I mean, how do you amuse yourself? I for my part should go mad if I had not politics to divert myself.” (With pride,) “I need not be a politician, thank God! I have money enough without it; but I love politics on account of the pleasure they give me. I glory in them! There is such fun in being on the side that beats. One hundred and fifty guns, sir, are to be fired from Albany to New York, and from New York back again to Albany, in honour of our last victory. Where is the pleasure to be compared to that, sir? To carry a whole State ‘smack, smooth, and no mistake!’”
“But it must be very annoying to be beaten.”
“That never occurs to me, sir. I never stay long with the beaten party. If you study our politics, you will always find that our most ‘talented men’ desert a party just before it is going to break up. We always like to be on the conquering side. That’s the way to ‘get along’ in this country, sir, if you want to be a politician. But is there no bell in this room? I’ll see how long it will take to raise a waiter.”
“What do you want, sir?” grinned a negro almost instantaneously.
“Some brandy and water and half-a-dozen cigars: I am going to write an article.”
“Then I do not wish to disturb you,” said I, grateful for an opportunity of escaping from the room.
Scarcely was I half an hour down in the reading-room before a huge bell rang for supper. I expected, as usual, a rush into the dining-hall; but was much surprised in perceiving the quiet gentlemanly manner in which every one took his seat. The supper was excellent, and, what is more, it was well served. I began to perceive that I had fallen into good hands, and was only sorry that an establishment in every respect so unexceptionable should have adopted the vexatious custom of having the roll of travellers called by the bar-keeper, in the manner of some surly sergeant, before accommodating them with a room. A great deal of unpleasant feeling arises from mere mistakes in forms, which may easily be corrected by a little attention to the usages of the world, and which, therefore, cannot be sufficiently recommended to innkeepers.
Early the next morning I found myself safely seated in one of the huge railroad cars which leave Baltimore every morning for Washington. This railroad, I believe, is one of the worst in the United States; the travelling on it being excessively tedious, the stoppages frequent, and the rate very slow. I believe we did not go faster than seven or eight miles an hour, so that we required nearly half a day to complete a journey of about forty English miles. Nothing can be more barren than the country through which the railroad is laid; and the approach to the metropolis is anything but striking, although the entrance is by the way of the Capitol.
Washington is, indeed, a city sui generis, of which no European who has not actually seen it can form an adequate idea. Mr. Serullier, formerly minister of France, used to call it “a city of magnificent distances;” but, though this be true, I should rather call it “a city without streets.” The Capitol, a magnificent palace, situated on an eminence called Capitol-hill, and the White-house, the dwelling of the President, are the only two specimens of architecture in the whole town; the rest being mere hovels, and even the public buildings, such as the Treasury, War and Navy Departments, and the General Post-office, little superior to the most ordinary dwelling-houses in Europe. The whole town is, in fact, but an appendix to those two public buildings, a sort of ante-chamber either to the Capitol or to the house of the chief magistrate. If such a town were situated in Europe, one would imagine those buildings to be the residences of princes, and the rest the humble dwellings of their dependants.
The only thing that approaches a street in Washington is Pennsylvania Avenue, a sometimes single, sometimes double row of houses, leading from the Capitol to the White-house. In this street are the two principal hotels of the city, and a considerable number of boarding-houses. The former are two large barracks, capable of holding each from one hundred and fifty to two hundred people; the latter are, for the most part, mean insignificant-looking dens, in which a man finds the worst accommodations at the most exorbitant prices, and must often be glad to be accommodated at all.
The most aristocratic inn in Washington is Gadsby’s, though I consider this “to be a mere matter of taste;” the pretensions to aristocracy resting on four clean walls, and a triple row of galleries in the court, which render the distribution of the rooms convenient, and the rooms themselves agreeable and airy. In every other respect I found no difference between Gadsby’s and Brown’s, or even Fuller’s, which is further up towards the President’s house; and, in comparison to other first-rate hotels in the United States, the fare and accommodations in all of them are altogether beneath mediocrity. Gadsby, by the by, keeps an excellent assortment of wines, and he is himself a very gentlemanly and agreeable man.
Among the boarding-houses there is, I believe, a good deal of aristocratic classification, owing to the different sets of senators and representatives who establish their clubs in them. Some also there are whose pretensions to gentility are principally founded on the landladies being descended from some ancient family, or on their being related to some distinguished members of Congress. In short, every boarding-house marks a particular shade of aristocracy; the Southern (those for Southern members) being the most refined, and each of them, in spite of the bad living, the focus of a particular coterie.
There is also a hotel in Pennsylvania Avenue, called “The Native American;” probably for the accommodation of such members of Congress and their friends as think themselves entitled to worse fare than can be obtained at other places, for having the aristocratic preference of birth—no matter where, and of whom, in the United States,—over every unfortunate stranger directly descended from Europe. I am not disposed to quarrel with any American for enjoying his birth; though I cannot but think that the American Indians are much more entitled to be called “Native Americans” than any descendant from an English, Scotch, Irish, German, French, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, or Portuguese family that happens to be born in the Union.
The first thing that struck me in Washington was the unusual number of persons perambulating the streets without any apparent occupation, of which every other American city, with the exception of Philadelphia, seems to be entirely drained. If there be poor and idle persons walking the streets of New York, Boston, or Baltimore, it is, I am sorry to say, generally owing to some late arrival from Europe,—some of the steerage passengers being yet left without employment. Washington, however, is a city of American idlers,—a set of gentlemen of such peculiar merit as well to deserve a public comment. They live in what is called “elegant style,” rise in the morning at eight or nine, have breakfast in their own rooms, then smoke five or six cigars until twelve, at which time they dress for the Senate; few gentlemen ever honouring the House of Representatives with their presence, except just before leaving the Capitol.
The Senate of the United States is, indeed, the finest drawing-room in Washington; for it is there the young women of fashion resort for the purpose of exhibiting their attractions. The Capitol is, in point of fashion, the opera-house of the city; the House of Representatives being the crush-room. In the absence of a decent theatre, the Capitol furnishes a tolerable place of rendezvous, and is on that account frequented during the whole season—from December until April or May—by every lounger in the place, and by every belle that wishes to become the fashion.
After speaking and talking is over in the Senate, the idlers commence the regular performance of eating, which is no sort of amusement to any one in America who is obliged to dine at an ordinary. For this reason they club together in numbers from four to six, to dine at their rooms; single dinners being too expensive, and the people who have the means of entertaining in Washington being not sufficiently numerous to secure every dandy a place at a private gentleman’s table.
The routs in Washington, in spite of the small rooms and the economy of refreshments, are delightful, lasting generally from nine in the evening until two in the morning; after which the élégants, wholly exhausted from the uncommon exertion of being agreeable four or five hours in succession, repair to some cellar or beef-shop, not quite so well furnished as the common resorts of cabmen and omnibus drivers in London, but which the aristocratic taste of the young men elevates into “refectories.”
It is in these cellars that a stranger may become acquainted with “real life in Washington.” In the best part of the season, when speeches are plenty and cash flush, the idlers’ “refectories” keep open the whole night; the regular eating and drinking, and, as I was informed, also the gambling, never commencing until twelve o’clock.
One of these establishments,—the best of the kind I believe in the metropolis,—“the Epicure House,” as it is termed, was recommended to me as doing canvass-back ducks in the neatest style, and being always the resort of the most fashionable company. This recommendation, joined to the fact that nothing can be obtained at an inn after the hour of eleven,—a practice which adds much to the convenience of the innkeepers,—induced me to try the skill of a coloured cook, and to have a peep at the young men that were called “the first” in the law-giving city.
On inquiring the way, I was pointed to a house forming the corner opposite to Gadsby’s hotel, to which was attached a lamp which gave exactly as much light as was necessary in order not to break one’s neck in descending the staircase which led to the entrance, but left the establishment itself in precisely that sort of obscurity which is always desirable for a place serving as a rendezvous for comme-il-faut people. On entering it,—it being only a little after eleven,—I found the room, which was divided into boxes after the manner of a common English eating-house, nearly empty; a few persons only eating scolloped oysters or drinking punch, but a number of black imps slinking about in evident expectation of better business. I hesitated at first whether I should take a seat, the appearance of the table-cloths, cruets, &c. being far from inviting; though the bar was stocked with bottles bearing the inscriptions—“Sillery champaign,” “Klause Johannisberger,” “Marcobrunner,” “Hermitage,” &c.
The bar-keeper, perceiving my want of resolution, came forward, and accosted me in the most polite terms.
“You wish, perhaps, for a private room, sir? If you do not want it longer than after midnight, I can give you the one adjoining. At twelve I expect a party who may want it until three or four in the morning.”
“Thank you; I do not like to take possession of a room which I am obliged to give up in three quarters of an hour. Have you none other?”
“I have yet another room up stairs; but it is occupied by a dinner-party, which is not likely to break up till two or three in the morning.”
“You keep very late hours, then?”
“Why, sir, we commence late. If you stop here till two o’clock, you will see this room crowded. This evening all the gentlemen are at Mrs. ***’s, who gives nothing but tea and cakes; which, as you may imagine, is not precisely the thing for young men that are dancing the whole evening. Many of them are yet growing, and, as is usually the case with such gentlemen, have an excellent appetite.”
“And so they come here to sup?”
“They do me that honour, sir; and I do my best to accommodate them.”
(What a polite publican, thought I, if he were not a mulatto!) “And what have you fit to eat?” demanded I.
“Fine canvass-back ducks, oysters, and venison. Canvass-back ducks are prime; just the season. Shall I show you into the other room?”
“No, I would rather take a duck here; but you must give me a clean table-cloth.”
“Certainly, sir. What sort of wine will you take? hock, champaign, claret, madeira, or sherry? I have got some first-rate Johannisberger and some of Lynch’s claret.”
“Have you champaign in pint bottles?”
“At your service, sir.—John! put a clean table-cloth at No. 3. Do you want the papers in the mean while?”
In less than fifteen minutes one of the best specimens of that inestimable bird, the canvass-back duck, for which the Americans might justly be envied by European princes, was placed before me, “with the usual trimmings,” consisting of jelly, butter, beets, and pickles, together with a small bottle of the Napoleon brand champaign. The whole was served in good order; and I could not but wonder that in a place of so mean and unfashionable an appearance a person should find such excellent accommodations. What would Mr. Stuart have said if his good fortune had led him to the Epicure House in Washington? I can assure him that in no other place in the United States could he have eaten canvass-back ducks more deserving of praise and comment.
Hardly had I commenced eating, before a noisy uproarious set of men entered the premises, singing and swaggering, and calling in a stentorian voice for cheese and crackers.[17]
“What a d—d shabby party that was!” exclaimed a young man, dressed in the latest New York fashion, with dirty gloves, and his shirt-collar turned down with perspiration; “one of your regular Boston ones.[18] I believe nothing was handed round but lemonade and spunge-cake, and of that there was scarcely enough for the ladies.”
“Why did you not go up stairs?” cried another; “there were plenty of sandwiches, besides a large basin of toddy.”
“How could he have found time for that; he was all attention to Miss ***; were you not, John?” ejaculated a little creature dressed in boots.
“Ah! are you here?” cried John; “we lost you at the door; how did you get here?”
“On my legs,” replied the little fellow. “Did you expect me to pay two dollars to one of those rascally niggers for the pleasure of a ride?”[19]
“But did you wear boots at the ball?”
“Certainly not; I took them off in the entry, and put them on again as I came out. I always carry my shoes in my pocket when I go to a party.”
“That’s regular Boston fashion!” shouted the company. “How much do you make by it a year?”
“I save by it more than a hundred dollars; and ‘a dollar saved is a dollar earned,’ says Franklin.”
“But what do you do with your boots at the party?”
“I hide them as well as I can; I have only lost one pair in Boston. They were taken away by mistake; but I advertised them in the papers, and got them back again. But I say, John! how do you stand with Miss ***? All right, hem?”
“For mercy’s sake, don’t bother me now!” cried John; “I am too dry to talk.” (Turning to a bronze-faced mulatto boy, “Why, you cursed little imp, cannot you bring me the whisky punch I ordered?”) “To dance a cotillon lasting three hours! Those girls’ feet don’t seem ever to get tired.”
“And a German cotillon, too,” rejoined a tall gentlemanly figure, who appeared to be a Southerner; “if it had not been for the mazurka, which some of our ladies still object to, because there is too much whirling and dancing on the heels in it, I should not have had a moment’s rest. I wonder how the women can stand it!”
“And then the gallopade! why, that alone wears out a pair of shoes,” cried the Bostonian; “the mazurka only requires heeling.”
“They ought to make you president of the savings’ bank!” observed the Southerner.
“That is,” said John, “if he understands saving other people’s money as well as his own.”
By this time the waiter returned with the punch, a huge lump of cheese, and a basket of biscuits, which was immediately seized upon and devoured, as if the persons present were the half-starved crew of some American whaler just returned from a three years’ cruise round Cape Horn.
“I say, Jim,” said John, “did you taste the wine?”
“I did,” replied Jim; “but I could not swallow it. It was not worth three dollars a dozen.”
“I believe it was Sicily madeira.”
“Heaven knows what sort of madeira it was; I took to the toddy.
“If these ladies had not kept me going, I should have done so too.”
“That’s the pleasure of courting,” said Jim tauntingly.
“Why, a man has to come to it some time or other,” said John.
“Miss *** is certainly a pretty girl; but, if I were in your place, I should not like her flirting in Washington. Washington is the worst place for a young lady in the United States. It is altogether too European.”
“I do not like it myself,” observed the Southerner; “nor the custom of our fashionable women to bring their daughters here just as they have left the boarding-school, in order to introduce them to the beau monde.”
“And to teach them the gallopade and the mazurka, which is setting a premium on foreigners,” said John with some bitterness.
“Don’t be angry,” cried Jim. “You don’t expect to be cut out by a German or a Pole, do you?”
“You may go to —— with your insinuation,” cried John: “what I object to in the society of Washington is, that it teaches women to amuse themselves; or, rather, that it obliges us to amuse them.”
“That is rather bad,” interrupted a thin pale-looking gentleman with spectacles; “as it must necessarily interfere with our serious pursuits.”
“Such as drinking punch, and playing cards,” observed the Southerner.
“I mean literary pursuits,” said the man with spectacles.
“Oh yes! we forgot that. Mr. *** writes the on dits for the New York ***; of course he has no time to throw away upon women. ‘Time is money,’ says Franklin.—I say, George, did you win or lose at whist?”
“I won twenty dollars.”
“Then you neither lost your time nor your money.”
“If that’s the case, George must pay the punch,” shouted the company.
“George is going to do no such thing,” replied the littérateur.
“Then let us toss up for it,” proposed Jim.
“That would not do,” objected John; “he, as a Yankee, would have the advantage in guessing.”
“I think it best,” said George, “for every man to pay his own reckoning.” So saying, he called the waiter, paid for his punch, and, without uttering another syllable, left the party to settle their accounts after their own manner.
“What a selfish, unsociable, stingy fellow that is,” cried Jim; “would not even toss up for it! and yet—would you believe it?—he is engaged to one of the prettiest girls in New England.”
“She probably marries him for his literary reputation. Boston women are sometimes in love with that!” said John. “But let us now toss up for the reckoning.”
“It’s all paid,” observed the waiter, pointing to the Southerner.
“Just like him; always throwing away his money!” muttered John, pocketing his piece. Jim made a bow, and swore he would be revenged: but all finally agreed to go home, visibly contented.
Scarcely had they left, before a large party of about fifteen or twenty young men, among whom there appeared to be some Europeans, entered the room, swearing that they had been done out of a regular meal, and that they were now going to make up for it. “Let us have three or four canvass-back ducks, and some of Lynch’s claret,” cried one of them; “the devil take the stuff they call toddy! I had as lief swallow prussic acid,—it has given me the cramp in my stomach.”
“If you had drunk it here,” grinned the waiter, “you would feel all the better for it; we make that article first-rate.”
“Hold your tongue!” cried the gentleman, “and do as you are bid.”
“All right, sir!” said the negro, and went to speak to the cook.
“Can we go into the other room?” demanded one of the party.
“Gentlemen are dining there,” replied the bar-keeper.
“Gambling you mean, don’t you?”
“It’s no business of mine to inquire what they are doing; they have been there ever since dinner.”
“Then they must leave soon, and we may have the room.”
“I don’t think they will,” rejoined the bar-keeper. “Whenever they come to dine, they generally stay for breakfast.”
“And the room adjoining?”
“Is already engaged. I expect the gentlemen every minute.”
The party cast an inquiring look at one another, and then gathered round a small table as well as they could, quietly awaiting the arrival of the supper.
In less than fifteen minutes from this time, it being nearly twelve o’clock, the whole room was filled to overflowing with the most motley assemblage of persons I ever beheld in my life. It was a group worthy of being preserved on canvass. Besides the party already mentioned, there were gathered round the chimney a parcel of Kentuckians, a giant race of men, full of strange oaths and tobacco-juice, discussing politics, and betting heavily on the issue of certain matters then under debate. Their language, surely, was not altogether intelligible to me; but what I did understand convinced me that they are justly reputed for their wit and humour. One of them—standing, I should judge, six feet two—was a good-natured punster, who, in spite of the serious turn their conversation had taken, kept the company in a continual roar of laughter.
Round the bar was stationed a more noisy and less original set of men; such as a person might see in any of the larger gin-shops of London on a Saturday evening. They were vulgar and “uproarious,” smoked bad cigars and spit promiscuously round the room, while the Kentuckians showed their better breeding by always hitting the same spot. A third party, evidently composed of young bucks, dressed in the latest London fashions, with perfumed hair and real French kid gloves, were discussing the merits of women; which they did con amore, using all the English slang they had collected from the newspapers, or from fashionable novels, and taking great pains to appear as outlandish as possible. The intervals between these clusters were filled up with single gentlemen, of all ages and descriptions, and in every possible state of consciousness,—from that of a perfect knowledge of “the thousand natural shocks this flesh is heir to,” to that of the most total oblivion, and triumph “o’er a’ the ills o’ life.”
What gave a peculiar character to this little pandemonium was the continual apparition and vanishing of the black, brown, and yellow waiters; all shining with perspiration, and leaving, as they passed, something not altogether unlike the odour of brimstone behind them. These exhalations, the steam of the viands, the smell of rum, brandy, and tobacco, independent of the corrupt, sultry air produced by the presence of a large number of persons in a small room, soon obliged me to quit the scene of merriment; and, in half an hour later, I found myself safely in bed at Gadsby’s.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] A small biscuit, not a firework.
[18] Parties without supper are, in Washington and the Southern States, called “Boston parties;” for what reason it is impossible to say, the Boston parties being generally renowned for their rather ostentatious suppers.
[19] “Ride” is in America constantly used for “drive.”