us; but neither the French nor the English use habitually as good clothes as we; nor are the clothes generally as well made.  You are not, however, to suppose from this that the Americans are a well-dressed people; on the contrary, we are greatly behind the English in this particular, nor are our men, usually, as well attired as those of Paris.  This is a consequence of a want of servants, negligent habits, greediness of gain, which monopolizes so much of our time as to leave little for relaxation, and the high prices of articles, which prevent our making as frequent calls on the tailor, as is the practice here.  My clothes have cost me more in Europe, however, than they did at home, for I am compelled to have a greater variety, and to change them oftener.

[Footnote 17:  In New York, the writer has a house with two drawing-rooms, a dining-room, eight bed-rooms, dressing-rooms, four good servants’ rooms, with excellent cellars, cisterns, wells, baths, water-closets, etc. for the same money that he had an apartment in Paris, of one drawing-room, a cabinet, four small and inferior bed-rooms, dining-room, and ante-chamber; the kitchens, offices, cellars, etc. being altogether in favour of the New York residence.  In Paris, water was bought in addition, and a tax of forty dollars a year was paid for inhabiting an apartment or a certain amount of rent; a tax that was quite independent of the taxes on the house, doors, and windows, which in both cases were paid by the landlord.]

Our women do not know what high dress is, and consequently they escape many demands on the purse, to which those of Paris are compelled to submit.  It would not do, moreover, for a French belle to appear every other night for a whole season in the same robe, and that too looking bedraggled, and as jaded as its pretty wearer.  Silks and the commoner articles of female attire are perhaps as cheap in our own shops, as in those of Paris:  but when it comes to the multitude of little elegances that ornament the person, the salon, or the boudoir, in this country, they are either wholly unknown in America, or are only to be obtained by paying treble and quadruple the prices at which they may be had here.  We absolutely want the caste of shopkeepers as it exists in Europe.  By shopkeepers, I mean that humble class of traders who are content with moderate profits, looking forward to little more than a respectable livelihood, and the means of placing their children in situations as comfortable as their own.  This is a consequence of the upward tendency of things in a young and vigorous community, in which society has no artificial restrictions, or as few as will at all comport with civilization, and the buoyancy of hope that is its concomitant.  The want of the class, notwithstanding, deprives the Americans of many elegancies and some comforts, which would be offered to them at as low rates as they are sold in the countries in which they are made, were