The New Hampshire Gazette

OLD TIMES. and NEW.

When I was a youngster, our women
were prudent,
Our spinsters demure, and our matrons
sedate,
In economy's school ev'ry wife was a tu-
den,
And seldom contentions arose, or debate,
By her thimble side sat the good thrifty
bride,
At her rock, at her reel, at the books of
the market,
Then the family board real joys could afford,
And pleas'd the fond husband sat by to
remark it.
Then we laugh'd away, quaff'd away,
Age threw his staff away,
Health, ruddy health, on each countenance
shone,
Our girls of their beauty
Thought less than their duty,
And fathers were certain those girls were
their own.
Your quality misses, how diff'rent we find
them!
If vice was the fashion they'd all be pro-
fane;
And you, quality wives not a whit are be-
hind them
No power can their profligate humours
restrain.
From assemblies to balls, folly beckons and
calls
Hark! her summons and see how they
pant to obey it,
While no longer uxorious, their husbands,
notorious,
Gods! it drives a plain man nearly mad
to survey it,
Dash away, splash away,
Squander their cash away,
Visiting twenty score friends of a night,
With their harps, pipes and tabors,
Distracting their neighbours
Common sense stands confounded, and rea-
son takes flight.