Of Paper Credit. It is Impossible for government to circumseride or fix the extent of paper credit, which must of course fluctuate. Government may as well pretend to lay down rules for the operations, or the confidence of every individual in the course of his trade. Any seeming temporary evil arising must naturally work its own cure. AUMOROUS ACCOUNT OF A CUSTOM AMONG THE AMERICANS, ENTITLED WHITE-WASHING. Attributed to the Pen of Dr. Franklin ALTHOUGH the following article has not yet appear ed in any collection of the works of this great philo sopher, we are inclined to receive the general opinion, (from the plainness of the style, and the humour which characterizes it) to be the performance of Dr. Franklin. My wish is to give you some account of the peo ple of these new States, but I am far from being qualified for the purpose, having as yet seen little more than the cities of New York and Philadelphia. I have discovered but few national singularities among them. Their customs and manners are nearly the same with those of England, which they have long been used to copy. For, previous to the Revolution, the Americans were from their infancy taught to look up to the English as patternsof perfection in all things. I have observed, however, one custom, which, for aught I know, is peculiar to this country; an account of it will serve to fill up the remainder of this sheet, and may afford you some amusement. When a young couple are about to euter into the matrimonial state, a never-failing article in the mar riage treaty is, that the lady shail have and enjoy the free and unmolested exercise of the rights of whitewashing, with all its ceremonials, privileges and appurtenances. A young woman would forego th most advantageous connexion, and even disappoint the warmest wish of her heart, rather than resign the resign invaluable right. You would wonder what this privilege of white-washing is: I will endeavor to give you some idea of the ceremony, as I have seen it perforined. There is no season of the year in which the lads may not claim her privilege, if she pleases; but the latter end of May is most generally fixed upon for the purpose. The attentive husband may judge by certair prognostics when the storm is nigh at hand. When the lady is unusually fretful, finds faults with the servants, is discontented with the children, and complains much of the filthiness of every thing about her, these are signs which ought not to be neglected; yet they are not decisive, as they sometimes come o and go off again, without producing any farther ef fect. But if, when the husband rises in the mornng, he should observe in the yard a wheel-barrow with a quantity of lime in it, or should see certain buckets with lime dissolved in water, there is then no time to be lost; he immediately locks up the apartment or closet where his papers or his private property is kept, and putting the key in his pocket, betakes himself to flight for a husband, however beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance during this season of female rage, his authority is superseded, his commission is suspended, and the very scullion, who cleans the brasses in the kitchen, becomes of more consideration and importance than him. He has nothing for it but to abdicate, and run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify. *The husband gone, the ceremony begins. The walls are in a few minutes stripped of their furniture; paintings, prints, and looking-glasses, lie in a huddled heap about the floors; the curtains are torn from the testers, the beds crammed into the windows; chairs and tables, bedsteads and cradles, crowd the yard; and the garden-fence bends beneath the weight of carpets, blankets, cloth cloaks, old coats, and ragged breeches. Here may be seen the lumber of the kit chen, forming a dark and confused mass: for the ore-ground of the picture, gridirons and frying pans, rusty shovels and broken tongs, spits and pots, and the fractured remains of rush-bottomed chairs. There a closet has disgorged its bowels, cracked tumblers, broken wine-glasses, phials of forgotten physic, papers of unknown powders, seeds and dried herbs, handfuls of old corks, tops of tea-pots, and stoppers of departed decanters; from the rag-hole in the garret to the rat-hole in the celiar. no place escapes curummaged. It would seem as if the day of general doom was come, and the utensils of the house were dragged forth to judgment. In this tempest the words of Lear naturally present themselves, and might, with some alteration, be made strictly applicable: "Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads, Find out their en'mies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee, undivulged crimes -"Close pent-up guilt, Raise your concealing continents, and ask This ceremony completed, and the house tho roughly evacuated, the next operation is to smear the walls and ceilings of every room and closet with brushes dipped in a solution of lime called whitewash to pour buckets of water over every floor, and scraton all the partitions and wainscots with rough brushes wet with soap-suds, and dipped in stone cutter's sand. The windows by no means escapo the general deluge. A servant scrambles out upon the pent-house, at the risk of her neck, and with a mug in her hand, and a bucket within reach, she dashes away innumerable gallons of water agains the glass panes; to the great annoyance of the pas engers in the street. I have been told that an action at law was once brought against one of these water-nymphs by a per son who had a new suit of clothes spoiled by this operation; but after long argument, it was determin ed by the whole court, that the action would not lie, inasmuch as the defendant was in the exercise of a legal right, and not answerable for the consequences; and so the poor gentleman was doubly non suited for he lost not only his suit of clothes, but his suit at law. These smearings and scratchings, washings and dashings, being duly penorined, the next ceremonial is to cleanse and replace the distracted furniture. You may have seen a house raising, or a ship-launch, when all the hands within reach are collected together: recollect if you can the hurry, bustle, confusion, and noise of such a scene, and you will have some idea of this cleaning match. The misfortune is, that the sole object is to make things clean; it matters not how many useful, ornamental, or valuable articles are mutilated, or suffer death under the operation; a mahogany chair and carved frame undergo the same discipline; they are to be made clean at all events; but their preservation is not worthy of attention. For instance a fine large engraving is laid flat upon the floor; smaller prints are piled upon it, and the superincumbent weight cracks the glasses of the lower tier; but this is of no consequence. A valuable picture is placed leaning against the sharp corner of a table; others are made to lean against that, until the pressure of the whole forces the corner of the table through the canvass of the first. The frame and glass of a fine print are to be cleaned; the spirit and oil used on this occasion are suffered to leak through and spoil the engraving; no matter, if the glass is clean, and the frame sline, it is sufficient; the rest is not worthy of consideration. An able Arithmetician has made an accurate calculation, founded on long experience, and has discovered, that the losses and destruction mcident to two white-washings are equal to one removal, and threa removals equal to one fire. The cleaning frolic over, matters begin to resume their pristine appearance. The storm abates, and all would be well again, but it is impossible that so great a convulsion, in so small a community, should not produce some farther effects. For two or three weeks after the operation the family are usually afflicted with sore throats or sore eyes, occasioned by the caustic quality of the lime, or with sevece 3 |