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I have been told though I cannot say that I have heard it myself but I am told, there have been people from the eastward among us of late years, who affect to call "Hell-Gate," "Hurl-Gate," or "Whirl-Gate," or by some other such sentimental, whirl-a-gig name; and these are the gentry who would wish to alter "Satanstoe" into "Dibbleton!"
He has got half-a-dozen of the more sentimental part of our society to call the neck Dibbleton; but the attempt is not likely to succeed in the long run, as we are not a people much given to altering the language, any more than the customs of our ancestors.
One hour after he left Satanstoe I do love that venerable name, and hope all the Yankees in Christendom will not be able to alter it to Dibbleton but, one hour after the negro was off, I followed him myself, intending to sleep at the well-known inn at Kingsbridge, and not present myself at the Bush, until the proper hour next morning.
I doubt if all this craving for change has not more of selfishness in it than either of expediency or of philosophy; and I could wish, at least, that Satanstoe should never be frittered away into so sneaking a substitute as Dibbleton.
I indignantly repel this supposition; though, I do believe, that Dibbleton is only a sneaking mode of pronouncing Devilton; as, I admit, I have heard the old people laughingly term the Neck. This belongs to the "Gaul darn ye" school, and it is not to my taste. I say the ignorant and vulgar, for this is just the class to be squeamish on such subjects.
I regret to say, that ever since the appearance of Jason Newcome among us, there has been a disposition among the ignorant and vulgar, to call the Neck, Dibbleton; under the pretence I have already mentioned, that it once belonged to the family of Dibblees; or, as some think, as a pious diminutive of Devil's-Town.
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