So well established is this good character of New England stage drivers, that ladies often travel by stage for scores of miles, with no other protector. And the driver does protect them, vigilantly. Every way, however, the freedom with which females trust themselves abroad there, and in the south, is remarkably different. I have seen handsome young ladies, of refined appearance, driving in a chaise, with no male attendant, to a town seven or eight miles from their home. And such things are of every day occurrence, attracting no especial notice. This freedom arises, I believe, from several causes. It is unquestionably owing, in part, to the sober, honest, and peaceful habits of the people, and to the certainty, that any wrong or insult offered to a female, would be promptly resented and punished; as in Ireland, under the reign of Brien the Brave, a beautiful damsel, richly attired, could walk alone, safe and fearless, from end to end of the kingdom.[1] Contiguity of residences aids this effect. Then, in the country villages of the north, there are many more ladies than gentlemen, from the emigration of the latter westward, and from their resorting to the maritime cities and to the ocean, for trade and seafaring employment. Besides, New Englanders have less time for pleasure than we have; and no Virginian will deny that "to tend the fair" is a _pleasure_. But the freedom of female movements is partly attributable also to the prevalence, among the New England men, of a less tender and obsequious _manner_ at least, towards the fair sex, than southrons habitually shew. They do not practise those minute, delicate attentions--that semi-adoration--ingrained in the very constitutions of our well bred men. (Not dandies--I speak of _men_.) Indeed our claim to superiority may be pushed still further. In affability to inferiors, our northern brethren are decidedly behind us. In their middling and lower classes, nay and in the lower _tier_ of their upper classes, this short-coming is particularly discernible: and extends even to their deportment towards equals. Clowns and servants--I beg pardon--"_helps_"--seem not to expect, or to relish, the courtesy which, in the Old Dominion, every true gentleman pays to the poorest man. Soon after entering the country, I found it necessary, if I would have respect from them, to abate much of the respectful address, which habit had rendered essential to my own comfort. Can these deficiencies of manner--supposing them to exist--and _my_ belief of them is confirmed by that of others--be ascribed to the utter proscription of _duelling_--that vaunted nurse of courtesy? I should rather attribute them to three other causes. _First_--a dislike to outward displays of emotion; a hard-featured sturdiness of soul, which, content to _feel_ kindly and deeply, and to _act_ kindly too in things of solid import, forgets or disdains the petty blandishments of _manner_, as idle forms,