Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1857-09-26

bors and trials they we're the housewives, spin
ners and weavers, tailors nurses and doctors of
New England; they were dairy-maids and
cooks, rs well as friends and sweethearts, ain the
good old colony times" They kept the gardens
where beds Of herbs ripened "for sickness"
where roses and hoyhocks opened for beauty.
They studied the weather and the almanac, and
were wise to predict that il the moons horns
dipped, we should have,rain. Ifthe moon chan
ged on Friday it would rain on Sunday. But
the weather went its way then as now, and the
best of signs often failed.
In New England women we're never made
the slaves or interiors of men; they were CO.
equal in social life, and held position superior
to that held by them in England. Society did
not then, however, recognize their political
rights, and it does not yet, there or elsewhere;
their right to own property is now generally al
lowed.
There were few books in New England once,
and women got knowledge by word of mouth;
they do it still. There seems to have existed
surprising and unnatural development of that
peculiar and delightful organ-the tongue for
we find included in the earliest and most mpor-
tant laws in Rhode Island and other colonies,
this one : at is ordered, common scods shall
be punished bv the Duckng Stoole.'
We can only infer, that there were women
then who were public nuisance, and are lost
in wonder; the historian commends the fact to
the notice of those who are regretting that they
do not live in those "good old times"
Young unmarried women, however beautiful
or accomplished, were known under the singular
generic name of gals" and it is yet common
title. 1t seems to be a corruption of the word
girl. and singu.arly inveterate one. Fathers
were in the habit Of saving, my gals''-and
sweethearts spoke Of blushing maidens in the
same way as 'my gal" 1t certainly fails to i'm
press one in this day as elegant or necessary.
We know (for the New England records tell
US how Hannel Bosworth's daughter was fined
five shngs for wearing silky tina, brocades rus
tied then as finely as they do now, that hoops
amplifed the lower parts, and tina, stays made
strange work with the bodies of women; and we
also know that some deacons wives were as bad
as any other.
The high tone and godly intent OF the first
planters fell off and was bitterly lamented by
some, and at large in "Od Mems Tears for their
own Declensions."
"What is become of the primitive zeal, piety
and holy heat ?" he asks. "Their daily care OF
reading and nsiructing their families from the
Scriptures, their strict keeping of Sabbsths, their
charity and boreLs to each other alas alas
ter God and his ways, metamorphosed into land
and trade breathings." Their old Puritan grab,
lost and ridiculed into strange and fantastic fash
ions and attire. Naked backs and bare breasts
and fore-h head, if not of the whorish woman, yet
so like unto it. The virgins dress and matron's
veil showing their power on the head, because
of the holy angels, turned into powdered FORE
tops and top-gallants attire, not becoming the
Christian but the comedian assembly, not the
church but the stage play where the devil sits re-
gent in bis dominion" To that pass had the peo-
Pile came in the year of our Lord Iceland no
woman could escape
The voice of love, too, was heard in New Eng
erly and quiantly.
Minister Clapp, in his private diary, speaks Of
his wife as fellows:
"She exceeded all persons TINT ever saw, il
a most serene, pleasant and excellent temper ana
disposition, which rendered her very agreeable
and lovely to me, and all that we're acquainted
with her. / lived with her in the house neal
eleven years, and she was my wife almost nine
and | never once saw her in any unpleasant tenn
per.
Indeed, took great pleasure in pleasing hel
in everything which thought conviently could
and if she erred in anything of that nature, il
was sometimes in not insisting upon her own in
cnation so much as a wife may modestly do"
When she died, he mourned for her sincerely
and in his diary is copy Of verses from DIR.
Watts, full of tenderness and love. A sigle verse
is:
~ all love, and she was all delight
Let back to seasons past
All fowery days when first she charmed my sight,
But roses will not always last"
LIJ;otf's J;etor,, nj Ns,, EpoIopI