Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
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| picnics; sailing parties, and in winter skating parties and long sleigh rides were favorite amusements; all classes took part eagerly in the shooting matches. The dinners were rather heavy entertainments, with much solemn toast-drinking; and they often ended with boisterous conviviality,—for most of the men drank hard, and prided themselves on their wine cellars. Christmas and New Year’s day were great festivals, the latter being observed in Dutch fashion,—the gentlemen calling at all the houses of their acquaintance, where they feasted and drank wine. Another Dutch festival of universal observance was Pinkster, held in the springide. It grew to be especially the negroes’ day, all of the blacks of the city and neighboring country gathering to celebrate it. There was a great fair, with merrymaking and games of all kinds on the Common, where the City Hall park now is; while the whites also assembled to look on, and sometimes to take part in the fun. Most of the house servants were negro slaves. |
| The people of means sometimes had their children educated at home, and sometimes sent them to the little colleges which have since become Columbia and Princeton,—colleges which were then inferior to a good English grammar school. Occasionally the very wealthy and ambitious sent their boys to Oxford or Cambridge, where the improved opportunities for learning were far more |