One, very fashionable
in appearance, with a handsome cane, happened to stop by me and lift up
his foot, and I noticed that the sole of his boot (which was exquisitely
polished) was all worn out. I apprehend that some such minor
deficiencies might have been detected in the general showiness of most of
them. There were girls, too, but not pretty ones, nor, on the whole,
such good imitations of gentility as the young men. There were as many
people as are usually collected at a muster, or on similar occasions,
lounging about, without any apparent enjoyment; but the observation of
this may serve me to make a sketch of the mode of spending the Sabbath by
the majority of unmarried, young, middling-class people, near a great
town. Most of the people had smart canes and bosom-pins.
Crossing the ferry into Boston, we went to the City Tavern, where the
bar-room presented a Sabbath scene of repose,--stage-folk lounging in
chairs half asleep, smoking cigars, generally with clean linen and other
niceties of apparel, to mark the day. The doors and blinds of an oyster
and refreshment shop across the street were closed, but I saw people
enter it.
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