EDUCATION.
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their alphabet as best they could. In later years, as before remarked, a poor English girl is generally procured to instruct them in the early branches of knowledge, curl their hair, and teach them their " steps," until the period arrives when their parents deem it necessary to send them to England, and place them at some suburban seminary. Here they are taught to sketch a landscape, complete a butterfly in Poonah painting, play some of the fashionable airs, with variations, upon a piano, speak Anglicised French, dance a quadrille, and perhaps embroider a footstool. Their education is then supposed to be completed, and they are reshipped to the West Indies, to astonish " papa and mamma," play their part upon the theatre of life, and swell the ranks of the female coterie. In the days when the militia was in being in Antigua, the ladies of these self-elected aristocrats, were very fond of alluding to the martial rank of their relatives, particularly in their visits to England—talking of " my husband, the colonel," " Capt. X , my papa," or “Lieut. Z, my brother." The gentlemen, many of them, were also very proud of wearing their uniform upon "field-day," which occurred once a month, and no doubt felt themselves, as they buckled on their glittering swords, like " Hudibras, grow valorous." The governor, as commander of the force, was allowed by the militia laws an honorary staff, which consisted of six officers, who bore the local rank of lieutenant-colonels. An anecdote is related of a gentleman of Antigua, who formed one of this cortége, and who was no little pleased with his high rank, and garnished shoulders. Business or pleasure called him to England, and he carried " home" with him his growing daughters to gather instruction, and his smart aide-de-camp's dress to reap applause. Arrived in London, and the fatigues of the voyage over, our aide-decamp arrayed himself in his gay uniform, and hiring a carriage, drove with his daughters to a fashionable seminary. His card was sent in “Lieutenant-colonel” and the lady of K 3