fashion of short skirts must have been invented by the French ladies
as a complete trick upon John Bull's 'woman-folk.' It was
introduced just at the time the English flocked in such crowds to
Paris. The French women, you know, are remarkable for pretty feet
and ankles, and can display them in perfect security. The English
are remarkable for the contrary. Seeing the proneness of the
English women to follow French fashions, they therefore led them
into this disastrous one, and sent them home with their petticoats
up to their knees, exhibiting such a variety of sturdy little legs
as would have afforded Hogarth an ample choice to match one of his
assemblages of queer heads. It is really a great source of
curiosity and amusement on the promenade of a watering-place to
observe the little sturdy English women, trudging about in their
stout leather shoes, and to study the various 'understandings'
betrayed to view by this mischievous fashion."

The years passed rather wearily in England. Peter continued to be an
invalid, and Washington himself, never robust, felt the pressure more and
more of the irksome and unprosperous business affairs. Of his own want
of health, however, he never complains; he maintains a patient spirit in
the ill turns of fortune, and his impatience in the business
complications is that of a man hindered from his proper career. The
times were depressing.

"In America [he writes to Brevoort] you have financial difficulties,
the embarrassments of trade, the distress of merchants, but here you
have what is far worse, the distress of the poor--not merely mental
sufferings, but the absolute miseries of nature: hunger, nakedness,
wretchedness of all kinds that the laboring people in this country
are liable to. In the best of times they do but subsist, but in