he snares to which their wives are exposed, it may be
imagined that men of sense and refinement would rather bear with any
domestic inconvenience from the uncertainty and bad quality of help,
than give up housekeeping."

If such is the case in boarding-houses, what must it be in hotels, where
the male company is ever changing. It is one constant life of scandal,
flirting, eating, drinking, and living in public; the sense of delicacy
is destroyed, and the women remind you of the flowers that have been
breathed upon till they have lost their perfume.

Miss M observes:--

"I can only say, that I unavoidably knew of more eases of lapse in
highly respectable families in one State than ever came to my knowledge
at home; and that they were got over with a disgrace far more temporary
and superficial than they could have been visited with in England."

If this observation is correct, it must, in my opinion, be considered as
referring to that portion of the sex who live in _hotels_, certainly not
to the mass, for reasons which I shall hereafter point out.

Indeed, what I have seen at some of the large hotels fully bears out her
assertion. Miss M talks of young ladies being _taken_ to the piano in a
promiscuous company. I have seen them go to the piano without being
taken there, sit down and sing with all the energy of peacocks, before
total strangers, and very often without accompaniment. In the hotels,
the private apartments of the boarders seldom consist of more than a
large bed-room, and although company are admitted into it, still it is
natural that the major portion of the women's time should be passed down
below in the general receiving room. In the evening, especially in the
large western cities, they have balls almost every night; indeed it is a
life of idleness and vacuity of outward pretence, but of no real good
feeling.

Scandal rages--every one is busy with watching her neighbour's affairs;
those who have boarded there longest take the lead, and every newcomer
or stranger is canvassed with the most severe scrutiny; their histories
are ascertained, and they are very often sent to Coventry, for little
better reason than the will of those who, as residents, lay down the
law.

Indeed, I never witnessed a more ridiculous compound of pretended
modesty, and real want of delicacy, than is to be found with this class
of sojourners on the highway. Should any of their own sex arrive, of
whom some little scandal has