What would the writer of the following have thought if he could only have seen Girton and other cognate female Colleges?
"Nobody can doubt of the use and advantage of Boarding-Schools in an immense capital like this. When a Tradesman's daughter is taught to jump a dance, to play a tune, and spit French, she is fit for any thing—but a wife."—(Times, Oct. 17, 1795.)
"An amiable great lady, though very accomplished in the English language, now and then makes some innocent mistakes. She lately asked Lady Jersey if her child would not like new milk?"—(Times, Nov. 23, 1795.)
"A Gentleman lamenting the robbery committed at Mr. Erskine's house last week, after enquiring the particulars, said, he 'hoped none of the Family were alarmed?' 'No,' replied Mr. E., 'but I wish they had.'"—(Times, Dec. 23, 1795.)
"The name of Merchant of London will be as common in London as in France. A fellow who keeps a caricature shop in Oxford-Road, has the impudence to write in large characters against his house, Caricature Merchant.
"We think the Magistrates are deficient in their duty, when they permit such a number of obscene prints to be exposed in their windows. It is well known that some of them have likewise rooms in their houses, where they expose those prints to debauch the rising generation, and have agents at the public seminaries, where they introduce them among the boys."—(Times, Dec. 25, 1795.)
"The Confectioners begin to tremble from the fear that there will not be frost enough to enable them to lay in a stock of ice sufficient for the consumption of the ensuing summer. Ice is become so much a necessary of life in this climate, that the Island has not always produced a sufficient quantity for the supply of the inhabitants, and many vessels sent to Norway have returned freighted with this new luxury. How would Queen Elizabeth's Maids of Honour have stared at iced oranges after a hot dinner? They would probably have given them the same emphatical appellation with a late English Admiral—painted snow balls."—(Times, Jan. 22, 1796.)
"The vast estate of the Duke of Portland, in Marybone, cost his ancestors, about 100 years ago, but £9000; and the estate of Mr. Berners, (all the streets about the Middlesex Hospital) now £6000 a year, were in the year 1730, at a rental of £330 a year."—(Times, Jan. 25, 1796.)
"The Balls at Southampton are exceedingly lively, and well-attended. The young Ladies are particularly favourable to a German Dance, called the Volse: for squeezing, hugging, &c., it is excellent in its kind, and more than one Lady has actually fainted in the middle of it."—(Times, Feb. 19, 1796.)
"Thirteen thousand, five hundred vessels, freighted with property, to the value of between 60, and 70, millions sterling, sailed from, and arrived at, the port of London, in the course of a year."—(Times, Aug. 29, 1796.)