fatter end of May is most generally fixed upon or the purpose. The attentive husband may judge by cer tain 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 on and go off again, without producing any farther ef fect. But if, when the husband rises in the morning, he should observe in the yard a wheel-barrow with a quantity of line 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flight: for a husband, however beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance during this season of female rage, his authority is superseded, his commission is suspended, and the very scullion, who cleans the brasses in the kitchen, becomes of more consideration and importance than him.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 kitchen, forming a dark and confused mass: for the

re-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 cellar, no place

escapes unrummaged. 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'inies now. Tremble, thou
wretch,

That hast within thee, undivulged crimes
Unwhip'd of justice !"——

"Close pent-up guilt,

Raise your concealing continents, and ask
These dreadful summoners grace!"

This ceremony completed, and the house thoroughly 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 scratch all the partitions and wainscots with rough brushes wet with soap-suds, and dipped in stonecutter's sand. The windows by no means escape the general deluge. A servant scrambles out upon the pent-house, at the riskoler neck, and with a mug in her hand, and a hacket within reach, she dashes away innumerable gallons of water against the glass panes; to the great annoyance of the pas sengers 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 determined 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 performed, 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 to gether: recollect if you can the hurry, bustle, confu. sion, 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 valua ble 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 wor thy 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 cleen, and the frame shine, it is sufficient; the rest is not worthy of consideration. An able Arithmeticianade an accurate calcu lation, founded on longperience, and has discovered, that the losses and destruction incident to two white-washings are equal to one removal, and three 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 affiicted with sore throats or sore eyes, occasioned by the caustic quality of the lime, or with severe

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colds from the exhalations of wet floors or damp walls.

I know a gentleman, who was fond of accounting for every thing in a philosophical way He considers this, which I have called a custom, a real periodical disease, peculiar to the climate. His train of reasoning is ingenuious and whimsical; but I am not at leisure to give you a detail. The result was, that he found the distemper to be incurable; but after much study he conceived he had discovered a method to divert the evil he could not subdue. For this purpose he caused a small building, about twelve feet square, to be erected in his garden, and furnished with some ordinary chairs and tables; and a few prints of the cheapest sort were hung against the walls. His hope was, that when the white-washing frenzy seized the females of his family, they might repair to this apartment, and scrub, and smear, and scour, to their heart's content: and to spend the violence of the disease in this out-post, while he enjoyed himself in quiet at head-quarters. But the experiment did not answer his expectation; it was impossible it should, since a principal part of the gratification consists in the lady having an uncontrolled right to torment her husband at least once a year, and to turn him out of doors, and take the reigns of government into her own hands.

There is a much better contrivance than this of the philosopher's; which is, to cover the walls of the house with paper: this is generally done; and, though it cannot abolish, it at least shortens the period of female dominion. The paper is decorated with flowers of various fancies, and made so ornamental, that the women have admitted the fashion without perceiving the design.

There is also another alleviation of the husband's distress; he generally has the privilege of a small room or closet for his books and papers, the key of which he is allowed to keep. This is considered as a privileged place, and stands like the land of Goshen amid the plagues of Egypt. But then he must be extremely caution, and ever on his guard; for should

he inadvertently go abroad and leave the key in his door, the housemaid, who is always on the watch for such an opportunity, immediately enters in triumph with buckets, brooms, and brushes: takes possession of the premises, and forthwith puts all his books and papers to rights-to his utter confusion, and sometimes serious detriment. For instance:

A gentleman was sued by the executors of a trades. man, on a charge found against him in the deceased's books, to the amount of 301. The defendant was strongly impressed with an idea that he had discharg ed the debt and taken a receipt; but as the transaction was of long standing, he knew not where to find the receipt. The suit went on in course, and the time approached when judgment would be obtain. ed against him. He then sat seriously down to examine a large bundle of old papers, which he had untied and displayed on a table for that pursose. In the midst of his search, he was suddenly called away on business of importance; he forgot to lock the door of his room. The housemaid, who had been long looking out for such an opportunity, immediately entered with the usual implements, and with great alacrity fell to cleaning the room, and putting things to rights. The first object that struck her eye was the confused situation of the papers on the table; these were without delay bundled together like so many dirty knives and forks; but in the action a small piece of paper fell unnoticed on the floor, which hap pened to be the very receipt in question: as it had no very respectable appearance, it was soon after swept out with the common dirt of the room, and carried in a rubbish-pan into the yard. The tradesman had neglected to enter the credit in his book; the defendant could find nothing to obviate the charge, and so judgment went against him for the debt and costs. A fortnight after the whole was settled, and the money paid, one of the children found the receipt among the rubbish in the yard.

There is also another custom peculiar to the city of Philadelphia, and nearly allied to the former. I mean that of washing the paveinent before the doors every Saturday evening. I at first took this to be a