I RETURN TO MY MUTTONS.

213

I find that among my notes. It makes no difference which
direction you take, the fact remains the same. Whether you move
north, south, east, or west, no matter : you can get up in the morning
and guess how far you have come, by noting what degree of grace
and picturesqueness is by that time lacking in the costumes of the
new passengers \—I do not mean of the women alone, but of both
sexes. It may be that carriage is at the bottom of this thing; and
I think it is; for there are plenty of ladies and gentlemen in the
provincial cities whose garments are all made by the best tailors and
dressmakers of New York; yet this has no perceptible effect upon
the grand fact: the educated eye never mistakes those people for
Mew-Yorkers. No, there is a godless grace, and snap, and ^style

THE LAND OF FULL 'GOATEES.

about a born and bred New-Yorker which mere clothing cannot
effect.
' April 19. This morning, struck into the region of full goatees—some-
times accompanied by a moustache, but only occasionally.'
It was odd to come upon this thick crop of an obsolete and un-
comely fashion; it was like running suddenly across a forgotten
acquaintance whom you had supposed dead for a generation. The
goatee extends over a wide extent of country; and is accompanied
by an iron-clad belief in Adam and the biblical history of creation,
which has not suffered from the assaults of the scientists.
* Afternoon. At the railway stations the loafers cany both hands in then*
breeches pockets; it was observable, heretofore, that one hand was sometimes
out of doors,—here, never. Tins is an important fact in geography.1