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The Paths of Inland Commerce; a chronicle of trail, road, and waterway by Archer Butler Hulbert
page 61 of 145 (42%)
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
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