The best old furniture which is to be found in the United States is of this period, which was succeeded by what may be denominated the black-walnut age, the chief characteristic of which was abundant coarse carving. Our cabinet-makers were very successful in their treatment of mahogany, both solid and veneered. The latter work has never been excelled, and shows its perfection by the good condition in which much of this furniture, seventy and eighty years old, is found to-day.

The smaller affairs of life which go to make up the sum of necessaries were woefully wanting in the households of pioneers who battled with the Ameriean wilderness. The importance of the iron pot, weighing thirty or forty pounds, which descended by will through three or four generations, has already been pointed out. Pewter and brass ware were equally esteemed, and pewter, while by no means expensive, was not so plentiful but that many people managed with a small supply. Pewter spoons bent and broke, and a substitute, at least in the Connecticut Valley, was a small clam-shell set in a cleft stick. However much pewter was owned, whenever the Revolutionary heroes called for bullets, what there was was cheerfully run into those missiles of war, and there were many "bees ' held all through the Colonies where bullets were run, and wooden trenchers were whittled out by the young lads to take the place of the sacrificed pewter. This wooden ware later was smoothed down by the women of the household with broken glass, and polished with sand made of powdered limestone.

Some of these wooden articles, made of maple, poplar or apple-wood, have descended to show with what simple appliances our ancestors were content. How simple were their pleasures the records of the time show. In fact, anything so enlivening as a hanging was looked upon as sport for a holiday. The first State's prison was opened in 1797 at the foot of Tenth Street, New York city. It was in use for thirty years, till the structure at Sing Sing superseded it. Grant Thor-burn, referring to a man who was reprieved through the efforts of the Society of Friends, writes as follows:

"One day I went up to the park to see a man hung. After gazing two hours at the gallows, the sheriff announced a reprieve. I must own I was disappointed."

Though amusements and pleasures were few, even such as came along could not well be enjoyed if the weather were stormy, and in Washington's diary the entry for November 29, 1789, is, "Being very snowy, not a single person appeared at the Levee." Clothes could not be risked; they were too valuable to be subjected to bad weather. Romalls, amens, casserillias, and ribdilures were high-sounding but perishable. Even while luxury was considered, health was neglected in many ways, such valuable adjuncts as tooth-brushes not being in use until about 1782.

Many advertisements appear in the papers of men who combined several vocations, dentistry being one of them, and in 1789 General Washington, after much pain during the summer, went into the hands of John Greenwood, dentist, of 56 William Street, New York, who made him a set of "sea-horse teeth". This had been a very trying summer, and one newspaper has it that "raw rum has been found exceeding pernicious in this extreme," and something lighter, like a "Bishop" or "Lawn sleeves" was recommended, and study of a book published in England called "Oxford Night-caps" was suggested as furnishing recipes for various healthful beverages though it was added that the rum had better be omitted," as it is very intoxicating, and therefore pernicious."

The President's guests could choose from among Madeira, claret, champagne, sherry, arrack, spirits, brandy, cordials, porter, beer, and cider, yet, with it all, unseemly intoxication seems to have been the exception.

Domestic discipline in New York was enforced on servants, whether bound or free, by means of an official who was stationed at the calaboose on the common, and who, for a fee of one shilling, gave a thorough whipping.

Education was fostered and colleges throve. By 1760 the records state that the " King's College (Columbia) buildings were so far completed that the officers and students began to lodge and mess therein."

This was in accordance with the terms of the charter, which further provided that the students were to wear caps and gowns and to be within the gates at a certain hour. The plan of education, like our belongings, was copied from England, and our college was, in the most material parts, to be like Queen's College, Oxford. The tuition fee when General Washington entered his step-son, John Parke Custis, there, was five pounds per annum, with room-rent four pounds, and board at the rate of eleven shillings weekly.

The late Andrew P. Peabody, writing of college life at Harvard in 1820, says:

"Coal, just then coming into use, had hardly found its way into college. The student's rooms, several of the recitation-rooms as well were heated by open fires. Friction matches, which according to Faraday were the most useful invention in our age, were not yet."

He says that the feather-bed was a valuable asset (this article had held its own for centuries), but that ten dollars would have covered the other contents of a student's room. It had no carpet, and a pine bedstead, a washstand, table and desk, and three or four chairs were all it contained, besides a cannon-ball to be heated on extra-cold nights, and rolled down stairs on warm ones, "at such time as might most nearly bisect a proctor's night's sleep."

Our maternal great-great-grandmothers must have had little leisure to spare from the duties that occupied their time. Yet many of them had still-rooms where they not only compounded the medicaments whereby many a family was raised from infancy, but where they made extracts and essences as well. They made, too, from the flowers and herbs that grew in their gardens, pomander-balls, which were used instead of vinaigrettes, the outer case being of silver or gold, and often as large as an orange.

Those whose stock of trinkets did not boast one of these metal cases used the rind of an orange, the inside being carefully extracted, and a sponge with vinegar and spices being inserted in its place. Rose-balls made of leaves beaten to pulp, mixed with sweet spices, and rolled into a ball, soon became hard, resembling the rosaries made in the south of France. When held in the hand they became very fragrant from its warmth. Simpler than any of these was a rosy apple stuck full of cloves and giving out a fragrance years after the apple had lost all appearance or consistency of being a fruit, and awakening in the mind an image of her who made it in some quiet garden long ago. Like an antique spice-ball, all this old furniture that, we have passed in review has an aroma of its own compounded by the hand that built it, the person that owned it, and the scenes that it has lived through.

Many a sober old chair could discourse of experiences ranging from grave to gay, from lively to severe, and every one of these antiques, whether a treasured heirloom or a reclaimed derelict, has a charm that is not easily excelled.