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Page:Nye's History of the USA.djvu/143

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CONTRASTS WITH THE PRESENT DAY.
139

New York gets her Santa Claus, her doughnuts, crullers, cookies, and many of her odors, from the Dutch. The New York matron ran to fine linen and a polished door-knocker, while the New England housewife spun linsey-woolsey and knit "yarn mittens" for those she loved.

Philadelphia was the largest city in the United States, and was noted for its cleanliness and generally sterling qualities of mind and heart, its Sabbath trance and clean white door-steps.

The Southern Colonies were quite different from those of the North. In place of thickly-settled towns there were large plantations with African villages near the house of the owner. The proprietor was a sort of country squire, living in considerable comfort for those days. He fed and clothed everybody, black or white, who lived on the estate, and waited patiently for the colored people to do his work and keep well, so that they would be more valuable. The colored people were blessed with children at a great rate, so that at this writing, though voteless, they send a large number of members to Congress. This cheers the Southern heart and partially recoups him for his chickens. (See Appendix.)

The South then, as now, cured immense quantities of tobæco, while the North tried to cure those who used it.

Washington was a Virginian. He packed his