Doctor Chanceller and the Rev. Mr. Duché were the first persons in Philadelphia who were ever seen to wear umbrellas to keep off the rain. They were of oiled linen, very coarse and clumsy, with ratan sticks. Before their time, some doctors and ministers used an oiled linen cape hooked round their shoulders, looking not unlike the big coat-capes now in use, and then called a roquelaue. It was only used for severe storms. About the year 1771, the first efforts were made in Philadelphia to introduce the use of umbrellas in summer as a defence from the sun. They were then scouted in the public Gazettes as a ridiculous effeminacy. On the other hand, the physicians recommended them to keep off vertigoes, epilepsies, sore eyes, fevers, &c. Finally, as the doctors were their chief patrons, Doctor Chanceller and Doctor Morgan, with the Rev. Parson Duché, were the first persons who had the hardihood to be so singular as to wear umbrellas in sun-shine. Mr. Bingham, when he returned from the West Indies, where he had amassed a great fortune in the Revolution, appeared abroad in the streets attended by a mulatto boy bearing his umbrella. But his example did not take, and he desisted from its use. In the old time, shagreen-cased watches, of turtle shell and pinchbeck, were the earliest kind seen; but watches of any kind were much more rare then. When they began to come into use, they were so far deemed a matter of pride and show, that men are living who have heard public Friends express their concern at seeing their youth in the show of watches or watch chains. It was so rare to find watches in common use that it was quite an annoyance at the watch makers to be so repeatedly called on by streetpassengers for the hour of the day. Mr. Duffield, therefore, first set up an out-door clock to give the time of day to people in the street. Gold chains would have been a wonder then; silver and i steel chains and seals were the mode, and regarded good enough. The best gentlemen of the country were content with silver watches, although gold ones were occasionally used. Gold watches for ladies was a rare occurrence, and when worn were kept without display for domestic use. The men of former days never saw such things as our Mahomedan whiskers on Christian men. The use of boots have come in since the war of Independence; they were first with black tops, after the military, strapped up in union with the knee bands; afterwards bright tops were introduced. The leggings to these latter were made of buckskin, for some extreme beaux, for the sake of close fitting a well turned leg. It having been the object of these pages to notice the change of fashions in the habiliments of men and women from the olden to the modern time, it may be necessary to say, that no attempt has been made to note the quick succession of modern changes,-precisely because they are too rapid and evanescent for any useful record. The subject, however, leads me to the general remark, that the general character of our dress is always ill adapted to our climate; and this fact arises from our national predilection as English. As English colonists we early introduced the modes of our British ancestors. They derived their notions of dress from France; and we, even now, take all annual fashions from the ton of England,-a circumstance which leads us into many unseasonable and injurious imitations, very ill adapted to either our hotter or colder climate. Here we have the extremes of heat and cold. There they are moderate. The loose and light habits of the East, or of southern Europe, would be better adapted to the ardour of our mid-summers; and the close and warm apparel of the north of Europe might furnish us better examples for our severe winters. But in these matters (while enduring the profuse sweating of 90 degrees of heat) we fashion after the modes of England, which are adapted to a climate of but 70 degrees! Instead, therefore, of the broad slouched hat of southern Europe, we have the narrow brim, a stiff stock or starched-buckram collar for the neck, a coat so close and tight as if glued to our skins, and boots so closely set over our insteps and ancles, as if over the lasts on which they were made! Our ladies have as many ill adapted dresses and hats, and sadly their healths are impaired in our rigorous winters, by their thin stuff-shoes and transparent and light draperies, affording but slight defence for tender frames against the cold. FURNITURE AND EQUIPAGE. "Dismiss a real elegance a little used For monstrous novelty and strange disguise." THE tide of fashion which overwhelms every thing in its onward course, has almost effaced every trace of what our forefathers possessed or used in the way of household furniture, or travelling equipage. Since the year 1800 the introduction of foreign luxury, caused by the influx of wealth, has been yearly effecting successive changes in those articles, so much so, that the former simple articles which contented, as they equally served the purposes of our forefathers, could hardly be conceived. Such as they were, they descended acceptably unchanged from father to son and son's son, and presenting at the era of our Independence, precisely the same family picture which had been seen in the earliest annals of the town. Formerly there were no side-boards, and when they were first introduced after the Revolution, they were much smaller and less expensive than now. Formerly they had couches of worsted damask, and only in very affluent families, in lieu of what we now call sophas or lounges. Plain people used settees and settles,—the latter had a bed concealed in the seat, and by folding the top of it outwards to the front, it exposed the bed and widened the place for the bed to be spread upon it. This, homely as it might now be regarded, was a common sitting room appendage, and was a proof of more attention to comfort than display. It had, as well as the settee, a very high back of plain boards, and the whole was of white pine, generally unpainted and whitened well with unsparing scrubbing. Such was in the poet's eyes when pleading for his sopha, "But restless was the seat, the back erect They were a very common article in very good houses, and were generally the proper property of the oldest members of the family-unless occasionally used to stretch the weary length of tired boys. They were placed before the fire-places in the winter to keep the back guarded from wind and cold. Formerly there were no windsor chairs, and fancy chairs are still more modern. Their chairs of the genteelest kind, were of mahogany or red walnut, (once a great substitute for mahogany in all kinds of furniture, tables, &c.) or else they were of rush bottoms, and made of maple posts and slats, with high backs and perpendicular. Instead of japanned waiters as now, they had mahogany tea boards and round tea tables, which, being turned on an axle underneath the centre, stood upright, like an expanded fan or palm leaf, in the corner. Another corner was occupied by a beaufet, which was a corner closet with a glass door, in which all the china of the family and the plate were intended to be displayed for ornament as well as use. A conspicuous article in the collection was always a great china punch bowl, which furnished a frequent and grateful beverage, for wine drinking was then much less in vogue. China tea cups and saucers were about half their present size; and china tea pots and coffee pots with silver nozles was a mark of superior finery. The sham of plated ware was not then known; and all who showed a silver surface had the massive metal too. This occurred in the wealthy families in little coffee and tea pots, and a silver tankard for good sugared toddy, was above vulgar entertainment. Where we now use earthen-ware, they then used delfware imported from England, and instead of queens-ware (then unknown) pewter platters and porringers, made to shine along a "dresser," were universal. Some, and especially the country people, ate their meals from wooden trenchers. Gilded lookingglasses and picture frames of golden glare were unknown, and both, much smaller than now, were used. Small pictures painted on glass with black mouldings for frames, with a scanty touch of gold-leaf in the corners, was the adornment of a parlour. The looking-glasses in two plates, if large, had either glass frames, figured with flowers engraved thereon, or was of scalloped mahogany, or of Dutch wood scalloped-painted white or black with here and there some touches of gold: Every householder in that day deemed it essential to his convenience and comfort to have an ample chest of drawers in his parlour or sitting room, in which the linen and clothes of the family were always of ready access. It was no sin to rummage them before company! These drawers were sometimes nearly as high as the ceiling. At other times they had a writing desk about the centre with a falling lid to write upon when let down. A great high clock-case, reaching to the ceiling, occupied another corner, and a fourth corner was appropriated to the chimney place. They then had no carpets on their floors, and no paper on their walls. The silver-sand on the floor was drawn into a variety of fanciful figures and twirls with the sweeping brush, and much skill and even pride was displayed therein in the devices and arrangement. They had then no argand or other lamps in parlours, but dipt candles, in brass or copper candlesticks, was usually good enough for common use; and those who occasionally used mould candles, made them at home, in little tin frames, casting four to six candles in each. A glass lanthern *The first which ever came to this country is in my possession-originally a present from Thomas Jefferson to Charles Thomson. with square sides furnished the entry lights in the houses of the affluent. Bedsteads then were made, if fine, of carved mahogany, of slender dimensions; but, for common purposes, or for the families of good tradesmen, they were of poplar and always painted green. It was a matter of universal concern to have them low enough to answer the purpose of repose for sick or dying persons—a provision so necessary for such possible events, now so little regarded by the modern practice of ascending to a bed by steps, like clambering up to a hay mow. A lady, giving me the reminiscences of her early life, thus speaks of things as they were before the war of Independence: Marble mantels and folding doors were not then known, and well enough we enjoyed ourselves without sophas, carpets, or girandoles. white floor sprinkled with clean white sand, large tables and heavy high back chairs of walnut or mahogany, decorated a parlour genteelly enough for any body. Sometimes a carpet, not, however, covering the whole floor, was seen upon the dining room. This was a show-parlour up stairs, not used but upon gala occasions, and then not to dine in. Pewter plates and dishes were in general China on dinner tables was a great rarity. Plate, more or less, was seen in most families of easy circumstances, not indeed in all the various shapes that have since been invented, but in massive silver waiters, bowls, tankards, cans, &c. Glass tumblers were scarcely seen. Punch, the most common beverage, was drunk by the company from one large bowl of silver or china; and beer from a tankard of silver. use. The rarity of carpets, now deemed so indispensable to comfort, may be judged of by the fact, that T. Matlack, Esq. now aged 95, told me he had a distinct recollection of meeting with the first carpet he had ever seen, about the year 1750, at the house of Owen Jones, at the corner of Spruce and Second street. Mrs. S. Shoemaker, an aged Friend of the same age, told me she had received as a rare present from England a Scotch carpet; it was but twelve feet square, and was deemed quite a novelty then, say 60 years ago. When carpets afterwards came into general use they only covered the floor in front of the chairs and tables. The covering of the whole floor is a thing of modern use. Many are the anecdotes which could be told of the carpets and the country bumpkins. There are many families who can remember that soon after their carpets were laid, they have been visited by clownish persons, who showed strong signs of distress at being obliged to walk over them; and when urged to come in, have stole in close to the sides of the room tip-toed, instinctively, to avoid sullying them! It was mentioned before that the papering of the walls of houses was not much introduced till after the year 1800. All the houses which I remember to have seen in my youth were white-washed only; there may have been some rare exceptions. As early as the |