There are no steam-engines to annoy you by
filling the atmosphere full of soot and smoke; the houses have a stately
appearance; while the eye is relieved from the perpetual sameness, which is
common in most streets, by lofty and luxuriant trees.
Nothing can surpass the appearance of the American ladies when they take
their morning walk from twelve to three in Broadway. The stranger will at
once see that they have rejected the extravagant superfluities which appear
in the London and Parisian fashions, and have only retained as much of
those costumes as is becoming to the female form. This, joined to their own
just notions of dress, is what renders the New York ladies so elegant in
their attire. The way they wear the Leghorn hat deserves a remark or two.
With us the formal hand of the milliner binds down the brim to one fixed
shape, and that none of the handsomest. The wearer is obliged to turn her
head full ninety degrees before she can see the person who is standing by
her side. But in New York the ladies have the brim of the hat not fettered
with wire or tape or ribbon, but quite free and undulating; and by applying
the hand to it they can conceal or expose as much of the face as
circumstances require.
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