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Chapter XIX
Manners And Customs.
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enormous head-dresses when once fixed were not disturbed or altered for a month, until they became as intolerable to the wearer as they had long been offensive to all who drew near; when women wore scratch-backs suspended at their girdles (a pretty picture it must leave been to watch these big head-dresses bobbing about as the wearer twisted and pulled one of the scratch-backs up and down, to allay the intolerable itching on that part of the body); when pewter plates were used in place of china or delft, a miserable tallow candle, or at best a wax taper, at night alone shed a flickering uncertain light; when only the wealthy could buy books, and when the young high-born lady pored over the pages of "Tom Jones," "Joseph Andrews," or "Roderick Random," unrestrained, and the farmer, if he could read, was restricted to the almanacs, which, stitched together as the years passed by, hung suspended on a nail near the chimney-place; when the pious church-goers sat bolt upright in an uncushioned pew, and for two or three hours in midwinter remained shivering in the church without a fire, while the tedious clergyman hurled weighty sermons on doctrinal points, which he himself did not comprehend, at his unfortunate audience; when on cold mornings the fire was out, the dismal housewife gouged great pieces of flesh out of her fingers in trying to procure a spark from the flint and tinder, while men among us now of middle age can recall when they as boys sat in an out-house breaking great lumps of coal with a hammer to make it fit the stove, until they cursed the day that gave them birth.
Notwithstanding our comforts, those who follow us in a hundred years will be thankful that they have not to endure the hardships of the present age, and that they enjoy many things conducive to man's happiness which are now unknown.
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| Chapter XX
Traveling And Transportation, With An Account Of The Railroads In The County. | |||
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In these days of rapid transit, when inside of eighty days a man can "put a girdle round about the earth," it is a difficult matter to comprehend the slow journeys of the olden time, or that hardly three hundred years ago travelers had no choice but to ride on horseback or walk. Nor was that all they had to contend with, at least in this colony, for as early as Sept. 22, 1676,1 it was a law, "That if hereafter any Stranger or person unknown shall come to or Travill through any Towne or place within this Government without a Passport or Certificate from whence hee came and wither hee is bound, shall bee lyable to bee Seized upon by any Officer of the Towne or Place unto which hee comes, or through which he shall travill, there too bee Licenced untill hee can Cleare himselfe to bee a free Man, and shall defray the Charges of his Detention there, by his worke of Labour (if not otherwise able to give Satesfaction) in the best way and Manner hee shall bee found capable." | 1 Duke of York's Laws, p. 72. | ||
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Indeed, previous to the year 1700, strangers were by law forbidden to travel from place to place, and so strict was the regulation that ferrymen were compelled to enter into bond not to carry any person unknown to them, unless he could produce a traveling pass signed by a magistrate; and innkeepers were required to notify the officers of the law when strangers sought lodgings at their houses, so that the authorities might inquire into the antecedents of their guests. Under William Penn it became almost as difcult to get away from the colony as to travel in it. For the fifty-fifth law provided "that Every person intending to depart or leave the Province & Territories thereof, Shall publish his or her intention in writing, affixed to the door of the County Court, where hee or shee inhabits thirty days before his or her Departure, and Shall have a pass under the County Seal." All captains of vessels were forbidden to carry a person away unless he or she was provided with such a pass, and the violation of that injunction rendered the captain responsible for all damages any one might suffer by reason of the passenger having absconded. Similar laws were enacted in 1700 and 1705. The first mention of a pass being granted occurs at the court held in Chester, 6th of Eighth month, 1685, where it is recorded that "Robert Cloud had a pass granted him to depart the Province, dated ye 26th day of ye 9th month, 1685, his brother William Cloud, of Concord, being his security to Safe ye Country Harmless." All men then traveled by land on horseback. Ladies at that time rode on pillions (a pad or cushion attached to the hinder part of the saddle and fixed on the horse), behind some relative or servant-man, unless, like Queen Christina, of Sweden, they preferred to ride astride the animal, as men did. In the latter part of the year 1678 it is recorded in the journal of Peter Sluyter and Jasper Danekers, the Labadist missionaries, that Ephraim Herman, who accompanied the travelers from New York to New Castle, had his wife with him, and she rode all the way, excepting that part which was made in boats, on a pillion behind her husband. In the first quarter of the last century it is told of John Salkeld, the noted public Friend (who, about 1708, built the house which now stands partly in the roadway on Norris Street, above Third, South Ward, Chester), that on one occasion, during a religious visit to New Jersey, he was accompanied by his daughter, Agnes, riding on a pillion behind her father; that after meeting he rode | |||