We have thus travelled over some of the old avenues, ways, customs, and
things, peaceful and warlike, more or less in connection with the early
settlement, the mature town, and the gorgeous city, from 1630 to 1880;
from the period of scarcity and deprivation to that of prosperity and
abundance. The task has been delightful, and whatever may be thought of
the ways and doings, and we may almost say the undoings, of the Puritans,
the town which they planted and the principles they promulgated, rather
than the intolerance they practised, have become permanent and sure. Now,
indeed, there is neither intolerance nor scarcity; and however much our
predecessors may have suffered we are now able to supply bread and beef to
millions of people less favorably circumstanced. Perhaps nothing more
distinctly or emphatically marks the character and quality of a people
than their "ways and means" of living. It has been said that Americans are
disposed to revel in big dinners; and, in fact, undertake to accomplish
every thing with a big dinner, or at least celebrate the accomplishment of
it in that way. One writer has said, if we welcome a guest it is done with
a dinner; if we inaugurate a stock company or start a charity, it is
pretty sure to have its relations with the market and the stomach. This
may be partly so. A good dinner, social and liberal, is the reconciler,
the inspiration, the motive power of good works generally; and what it
cannot do, or at least help to do, is pretty sure not to be accomplished.
Of course, all this is understood, and almost sure to be practised, so
that, when any thing comes up, instead of going to bed to sleep on it, we
hurry off to Parker's or Young's, or it may be, if the matter is very
staid and respectable, to the old Tremont, and eat on it. The custom is
in us--in the blood; it is Saxon, and comes naturally enough from the
mother country. In England, the great diner-out, Douglas Jerrold, who
knows all about it, says, "If an earthquake were to engulf all England
to-morrow, Englishmen would manage to meet, and dine somewhere among the
rubbish," as if the occasion needed to be celebrated in that way.
There have been times, now fortunately more than a hundred years ago, when
our market could not be made to furnish a big dinner; when there was no
market; when the enemy were seizing all the sheep and cattle; when the
people were starving on salt provisions, and, in one instance at least, a
party of gentlemen were invited to dine off a roasted rat in Boston; and
again when a special request was made to the people, in consequence of the
necessities of the times, "not to have more than two dishes of meat on
their tables." But not long after this, on the 24th of January, 1793,
there was a grand festival in honor of French Liberty and Equality, when
an ox of more than a thousand weight was roasted entire, and drawn on a
car by fifteen horses, followed by other carriages with hogsheads of
punch, loaves of bread, &c., and a large procession of civil, military,
municipal officers, and citizens, through the principal streets to State
Street, where the table was spread and the dinner was served up in high
style. At the present time, it would be an easy matter to roast an ox
every day, and big dinners are regarded as of small account on the score
of rarity. Some philosopher has said, "Eating dinner is a task which,
above all others, requires the conscience pure, the mind easy, a reason
undisturbed, the senses critical, and the body and spirit perfectly at
rest." It may be said that the philosophers of the present day do not deem
eating a good dinner "a task;" and it is pretty certain the mass of the
people do not. It is to be hoped our market will never again be unprepared
to furnish a big dinner, on all reasonable occasions, supply a British
fleet, or meet the requirements of the people at home, or the necessities
of the race abroad.