comfort of the houses of the various capitals of the world. This remarkable people have absorbed the best parts of all they have seen and heard.

6

The ordinary life of New-York families is modelled on that of England: the separate house, the family habits, the love of domesticity and of comfort. But this is modified by the infusion of continental gaiety and facilities for out-door amusement. The love of dancing is universal. A favourite institution is that of sociables;' dancing clubs of young people, who in coteries of twenty or forty, belonging to a vicinity, meet at each other's family houses during the season, every fortnight, for a dance. The habit of evening visiting, surprise parties, or meetings at the house of a friend for the sake of a dance by sudden concert and without any previous intimation, are among the means by which this gay social intercourse is maintained.

These sociables afford usually exemplification of the passionate love of flowers, and the costly indulgence of that passion, which New Yorkers have borrowed from the French, and in which they surpass their original. A gigantic bouquet of flowers, costing from 31. to 51., is usually sent to the young lady of the house where the 'sociable' meets. These bouquets are of remarkable size and beauty. Flowers indeed enter very largely into all the solemnities, fêtes, and events of New-York life. The gentleman who wishes to testify his devotion to a young lady does so by daily offerings of magnificent flowers. Statesmen, orators, opera-dancers, divines, are alike accustomed to receive these floral tributes. The bride is married beneath a magnificent floral bell; the coffin is decorated with exquisite crosses, crowns, and wreaths of flowers, of which some are interred in the grave, and others preserved beneath glass as mementoes. The Rev. Mr. Ward Beecher preaches with a floral basket by his side. Mr. George Francis Train has equally floral tributes, which he waves in the course of his denunciation of British influence and the old fogies of the Bible. On the occasion of a benefit-night to a favourite actress lately, a basket of choice flowers was brought on to the stage as an offering from her admirers, which had to be carried by four men. There are gentlemen whose social reputation is built on flowers. One especially exhausts his ingenuity and lavishes his finances on floral devices of the most lavish beauty and varied novelty on all suitable occasions of happy omen to his fair friends.

The custom of making new-year's gifts and new-year's visits, which is also borrowed and exaggerated from the French, affords a great harvest to the florists of New York. Besides the more costly and solid gifts which pass between persons under obligations of relationship, affection, or affairs, there are countless gifts of flowers and bonbons. The love of sweetmeats, or candies as they are here called, is universal. French confectioners are to be found all over the city. The trade in caramels, chocolates, pralines, and all their tribe, can

be only second to that of Paris; and at the commencement of the new year the streets are thronged with purchasers of every kind of gift; from the most costly jewels, through all the gamut of small articles of luxury and utility, down to flowers and candies, which constitute the most usual and formal civility. Of course the casket containing the candies may be of the most expensive and tasteful character, or it may reduce itself to an enamelled-paper bag tied with a piece of coloured ribbon. New-year's-day is observed as the strictest kind of holiday. A custom which requires every man to call in full-dress on the ladies of his acquaintance is still in force; but it will not, I think, last much longer. This year a very large number of ladies did not receive: the gentlemen only left their cards. With the tendency to exaggeration which is often visible in New-York society, and which provokes a sometimes irrepressible smile, at some houses where the ladies did not receive,' they had suspended a silver card-basket to the bell, to receive the cards of callers, and in order to avoid the incessant appeals to the doorbell.

Peculiarities of climate are pressed into the service of gay society. During the summer the heat of the weather brings the inmates even of the most fashionable houses out on to the stoop,' or high doorsteps leading up to each house. Thus are extemporised universal outdoor meetings, friendly greetings, and an out-door neighbourly intercourse peculiar to hot climates. The 'door-stoop' takes the place of the house-top in the East. A stranger passing along the fashionable side-streets of New York on a warm summer's afternoon is surprised at the spectacle of groups of lightly and elegantly dressed ladies standing and sitting about on the door-steps, with head uncovered, attended by gentlemen smoking, laughing, talking, and exchanging greetings across the road and other side. This would be very bad manners in London or anywhere but in New York or in the East. Here it is a graceful and agreeable concession to the heat of the climate during some part of the year.

The arctic rigour of the winter is utilised for the organisation of sleighing and skating parties, with all their overflowing hilarity and exuberant fun. The mildness of such a season as the winter just past, which was so exceptionally clement as to leave but little snow on the ground and but little ice on the water about New York, was a source of social lamentation. On the first heavy fall of snow the air is musical with a thousand bells, as the graceful sleighs, drawn by gaily-caparisoned horses, glide along the avenues. The crisp freshness of the air, the rapidity and smoothness of the motion, the music of the bells, and the general spirit of gaiety which characterise sleighing, make it one of the most favourite and characteristic amusements of the city. Large public vehicles, and the general substitution of runners' for wheels, enable almost the whole popu

lation to take part in it; and the scene is often one of extraordinary animation and gaiety.

The rigour of the winter and the heat of the summer season are remarkable features of climate which modify the habits of society. From June to September fashionable New York takes refuge in Newport, Saratoga, Long Branch, White Mountains, Niagara, or starts for Europe. The eight days' trip across the Atlantic, which to our minds is a serious undertaking, is little to the American, accustomed to long distances of three or four days' travel, from one great town to another, on his own continent. He starts for Paris or London with as little preparation as for New Orleans or St. Augustine. The two months' vacation gives him between five and six weeks in Europe; and to the ladies of the family such a trip is one long holiday. To follow New York out of town would be beyond the limits of our intention at present.

The pomp

And crowns with linden ribbons wove;

Cease thou to search through wood and grove

The rose of summer late.

Only with myrtle's simple spray
I bid thee, boy, thou weave to-day;
It suits thine office, child, and mine,
As stretch'd I drink beneath this vine.

C. A. WARD.