230 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

of ordinary cloth run upon a string. Clocks were rare, and most families marked their time by the hour-glass,—the great eight-day clock, which we sometimes see as heir-looms in our oldest families, being first introduced in this country about 1720. Earthenware, during the Dutch dynasty, and for some twenty years thereafter, was not used in the ordinary table service, wooden and pewter being then universally in use by all classes. The few articles of china, kept by some for display upon the cupboard, were rarely used on the table; and, though earthenware came into partial use about 1680, pewter was still the most common up to the period of the Revolution. Among the wealthy, blue and white china and porcelain, curiously ornamented with Chinese pictures, were used “for company.” The teacups were very diminutive in size, for tea was then an article of the highest luxury, and was sipped in small quantities alternately with a bite from the lump of loaf-sugar which was laid beside each guest's plate. Silverware, in the form of tankards, beakers, porringers, spoons, snuffers, candlesticks, etc., was a favorite form of display among the Dutch, inasmuch as it served as an index of the owner's wealth, and was the safest and most convenient form of investment for any surplus funds. Of books our ancestors had but few, and these were mostly Bibles, Testaments, and Psalm-Books. The former, many of which still exist among the old families, were quaint specimens of early Dutch printing, with thick covers, and massive brass, and sometimes silver, corner-pieces and clasps. The Psalm-Books were also adorned with silver edgings and clasps, and when hung by chains of the same material to the girdle of matrons and maidens fair, were undoubtedly valued by their owners quite as much for the display which they made as for their intrinsic value. It is an interesting fact, that the merchants who kept school-books, psalm-books, etc., as a part of their stock, about the middle of the last century, were provided with about an equal number of books in the Dutch and English language; showing that, even at that late period after the termination of the Dutch power, the greater part of the children of Dutch descent continued to be educated in the Ianguage of the Fatherland. Spinning-wheels were to be found in every family, many having four or five—some for spinning flax and others for wool. A Dutch matron, indeed, took great pride in her large stock