ancient Europe." In those days of few newspapers, the tavern
everywhere in America was the center of information; in fact, it was a
common practice for travelers in the interior, after signing their names
in the register, to add on the same page any news of local interest
which they brought with them. The tavern habitues, Baily remarks, did
not sit and drink after meals but "wasted" their time at billiards and
cards. The passion for billiards was notorious, and taverns in the
most out-of-the-way places, though they lacked the most ordinary
conveniences, were nevertheless provided with billiard tables. This
custom seems to have been especially true in the South; and it is
significant that the first taxes in Tennessee levied before the
beginning of the nineteenth century were the poll tax and taxes on
billiard tables and studhorses!

From Norfolk Baily passed northward to Baltimore, paying a fare of ten
dollars, and from there he went on to Philadelphia, paying six dollars
more. On the way his stagecoach stuck fast in a bog and the passengers
were compelled to leave it until the next morning. This sixty-mile road
out of Baltimore was evidently one of the worst in the East. Ten years
prior to this date, Brissot, a keen French journalist, mentions the
great ruts in its heavy clay soil, the overturned trees which blocked
the way, and the unexampled skilfulness of the stage drivers. All
travelers in America, though differing on almost every other subject,
invariably praise the ability of these sturdy, weather-beaten American
drivers, their kindness to their horses, and their attention to their
passengers. Harriet Martineau stated that, in her experience, American
drivers as a class were marked by the merciful temper which accompanies
genius, and their perfection in their art, their fertility of resource,
and the gentleness with which they treated female fears and fretfulness,
were exemplary.

In the City of Brotherly Love Baily notes the geniality of the people,
who by many travelers are called aristocratic, and comments on Quaker
opposition to the theater and the inconsequence of the Peale Museum,
which travelers a generation later highly praise. Proceeding to New York
at a cost of six dollars, he is struck by the uncouthness of the public
buildings, churches excepted, the widespread passion for music, dancing,
and the theater, the craze for sleighing, and the promise which the
harbor gave of becoming the finest in America