These peculiarities have been destroyed by the silent and gradual operation of public opinion; the spirit which arose in the new world is spreading with the same effect over the old. Freedom of opinion is asserting a just sway, and it is only now to be feared that the principle will be carried too far, that authority will lose all its influence and that reason and a just estimate of human rights will not be sufficient restraints upon the passions of men. The experiment is going on, and unless education, an early and sound moral education go on with it, which will enlighten and strengthen the public mind, it will fail of success. The feelings and passions must be placed under the charge of moral principle, or we may expect an age of licentiousness to succeed one of authority and rigid discipline. We may be said now to be in the transition state of society. Distinctions of rank among different classes of the community, a part of the old system, prevailed very much before the revolution and were preserved in the dress as well as in the forms of society. But the deference attached to robes of office and the formality of official station have all fled before the genius of our republican institutions; we look now upon the man and not upon his garments nor upon the post to which chance may have elevated him. In the circle of our little town, the lines were drawn with much strictness. The higher classes were called the _quality_, and were composed of persons not engaged in mechanic employments. We now occasionally find some old persons whose memory recurs with longing delight to the days in which these formal distinctions held uncontrolled sway. The fashionable color of clothes among this class was drab; the coats were made with large cuffs reaching to the elbows, and low collars. All classes wore breeches which had not the advantage of being kept up as in modern times by suspenders; the dandies of that day wore embroidered silk vests with long pocket flaps and ruffles over their hands. Most of those above mentioned were engaged in trade, and the means of none were sufficiently ample to enable them to live without engaging in some employment. Still the pride of their cast was maintained, and although the cloak and perhaps the wig may have been laid aside in the dust and hurry of business, they were scrupulously retained when abroad. There were many other expensive customs in that day to which the spirit of the age required implicit obedience; these demanded costly presents to be made and large expenses to be incurred at the three most important events in the history of man, his birth, marriage and death. In the latter it became particularly onerous and extended the influence of its example to the poorest classes of people, who in their show of grief, imitated, though at an immeasurable distance, the customs of the rich.