the whole country-side
received an invitation--all being needed to "heave up," at the boss
carpenter's pompous word of command, the ponderous timbers seemingly
meant to last forever. A feast followed, with contests of strength and
agility worthy of description on Homer's page.

Skating was not yet a frequent pastime, nor dancing, save in cities and
large towns. Balls every pious New Englander abhorred as sinful. The
theatre was similarly tabooed--in Massachusetts, so late as 1784, by
law. New York and Philadelphia frowned upon it then, though jolly
Baltimore already gave it patrons enough. When, in 1793, yellow fever
desolated Philadelphia, one theory ascribed the affection to the
admission of the theatre. In other cities passion for the theatre was
growing, and even Massachusetts tolerated it by an act passed in 1793.
President Washington, while in New York, oftener than many thought
proper, attended the old, sorrily furnished play-house in John Street,
the only one which the city could then boast. John Adams also went now
and again. Both were squinted at through opera-glasses, which were just
coming into use and thought by the crowd to be infinitely ridiculous.
Good hours were kept, as the play began at five.

[Illustration: Two men in a small scow with hand driven paddle-wheels.]
Fulton's First Experiment with Paddle-wheels.

All sorts of shows, games, and sports which the country could afford or
devise were immensely popular, the most so, and the roughest, in the
South. Horse-racing, cock-fighting, shooting matches, at all which
betting was high, were there fashionable, as well as most brutal
man-fights, in which ears were bitten off and eyes gouged out. President
Thomas Jefferson was exceedingly fond of menageries and circuses, his
diary abounding in such entries as: "pd for seeing a lion 21 months old
11-1/2 d.;" "pd seeing a small seal .125 ;" "pd seeing elephant .5;" "pd
seeing elk .75 ;" "pd seeing Caleb Phillips a dwarf .25;" "pd seeing a
painting .25."

Lotteries were universal, and put to uses which now seem excessively
queer. Whenever a bridge or a public edifice, as a schoolhouse, was to
be built, a street paved or a road repaired, the money was furnished
through a lottery. In the same way manufacturing companies were started,
churches aided, college treasuries replenished. It was with money
collected through a lottery that Massachusetts first encouraged cotton
spinning; that the City Hall of New Y