FATHER TAYLOR, THE SAILOR’S PREACHER.

You have never heard FATHER TAYLOR, the Boston Seaman’s preacher?

Well—you should go down to his church some Sunday. It is not at the

court-end of the town. The urchins in the neighbourhood are guiltless of

shoes or bonnets. You will see quite a sprinkling of “Police” at the

corners. Green Erin, too, is well represented: with a dash of

Africa—checked off with “dough faces.”

Let us go into the church: there are no stained-glass windows—no richly

draperied pulpit—no luxurious seats to suggest a nap to your sleepy

conscience. No odour of patchouli, or _nonpareil_, or _bouquet de

violet_ will be wafted across your patrician nose. Your satin and

broadcloth will fail to procure you the highest seat in the

synagogue—they being properly reserved for the “old salts.”

Here they come! one after another, with horny palms and bronzed faces.

It stirs my blood, like the sound of a trumpet, to see them. The seas

they have crossed! the surging billows they have breasted! the lonely,

dismal, weary nights they have kept watch!—the harpies in port who have

assailed their generous sympathies! the sullen plash of the sheeted

dead, in its vast ocean sepulchre!—what stirring thoughts and emotions

do their weather-beaten faces call into play! God bless the sailor! Here

they come; sure of a welcome—conscious that they are no intruders on

aristocratic landsmen’s soil—sure that each added face will send a

thrill of pleasure to the heart of the good old man, who folds them all,

as one family, to his patriarchal bosom.

There he is! How reverently he drops on his knee, and utters that silent

prayer. Now he is on his feet. With a quick motion he adjusts his

spectacles, and says to the tardy tar doubtful of a berth, “Room here,

brother;” pointing to a seat _in the pulpit_. Jack don’t know about

_that_! He can climb the rigging when Boreas whistles his fiercest

blast; he can swing into the long boat with a stout heart, when creaking

timbers are parting beneath him: but to mount the _pulpit_!—Jack doubts

his qualifications, and blushes through his mask of bronze. “Room enough

brother!” again reassures him; and, with a little extra fumbling at his

tarpaulin, and hitching at his waistband, he is soon as much at home as

though he were on his vessel’s deck.

The hymn is read with a _heart-tone_. There is no mistaking either the

poet’s meaning or the reader’s devotion. And now, if you have a

“scientific musical ear” (which, thank heaven, I have not), you may

criticise the singing, while I am not ashamed of the tears that steal

down my face, as I mark the effect of good _Old Hundred_ (minus trills

and flourishes) on Neptune’s honest, hearty, whole-souled sons.

—The text is announced. There follows no arrangement of dickeys, or

bracelets, or eye-glasses. You forget your ledger and the fashions, the

last prima donna, and that your neighbour is not one of the “upper ten,”

as you fix your eye on that good old man, and are swept away from

worldly moorings by the flowing tide of his simple, earnest eloquence.

You marvel that these uttered truths of his never struck your

thoughtless mind before. My pen fails to convey to you the play of

expression on that earnest face—those emphatic gestures—the starting

tear or the thrilling voice—but they all _tell_ on “Jack.”

And now an infant is presented for baptism. The pastor takes it on one

arm. Oh, surely he is himself a father, else it would not be poised so

gently. Now he holds it up, that all may view its dimpled beauty, and

says, “Is there one here who doubts, should this child die to-day, its

right among the blessed?” One murmured, spontaneous _No!_ bursts from

Jacks’ lips, as the baptismal drops lave its sinless temples. Lovingly

the little lamb is folded, with a kiss and a blessing, to the heart of

the earthly shepherd, ere the maternal arms receive it.

Jack looks on and weeps! And how can he help weeping? _He_ was once as

pure as that blessed innocent! His _mother_—the sod now covers her—often

invoked heaven’s blessing on _her_ son; and well he remembers the touch

of her gentle hand and the sound of her loving voice, as she murmured

the imploring prayer for him: and how has her sailor boy redeemed his

youthful promise? He dashes away his scalding tears, with his horny

palm; but, please God, that Sabbath—that scene—shall be a talisman upon

which memory shall ineffaceably inscribe,

“Go, and sin no more.”

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

E-Q-U-I—equi, D-O-M-E—dome, “Equidome.” Betty, hand me my dictionary.

Well, now, who would have believed that I, Fanny Fern, would have

tripped over a “stable?” That all comes of being “raised” where people

persist in calling things by their right names. I’m very certain that it

is useless for me to try to circumnavigate the globe on stilts. There’s

the “Hippodrome!” I had but just digested that humbug: my tongue kinked

all up trying to pronounce it; and then I couldn’t find out the meaning

of it; for Webster didn’t inform me that it was a place where vicious

horses broke the necks of vicious young girls for the amusement of

vicious spectators.

“Jim Brown!” What a relief. I can understand that. I never saw Jim, but

I’m positively certain that he’s a monosyllable on legs—crisp as a

cucumber. Ah! here are some more suggestive signs.

“Robert Link—Bird Fancier.” I suggest that it be changed to Bob-o’ Link;

in which opinion I shall probably be backed up by all musical people.

Here we are in Broadway junior, alias the “Bowery.” I don’t see but the

silks, and satins, and dry-goods generally, are quite equal to those in

Broadway; but, of course, Fashion turns her back upon them, for they are

only half the price.

What have we here, in this shop window? What are all those silks, and

delaines, and calicoes, ticketed up that way for?—“Superb,” “Tasty,”

“Beautiful,” “Desirable,” “Cheap for 1_s._,” “Modest,” “Unique,”

“Genteel,” “Grand,” “Gay!” It is very evident that Mr. Yardstick takes

all women for fools, or else he has had a narrow escape from being one

himself. There’s a poor, distracted gentleman in a milliner’s shop,

trying to select a bonnet for his spouse. What a _non compos_! See him

poise the airy nothings on his great clumsy hands! He is about as good a

judge of bonnets as I am of patent ploughs. See him turn, in despairing

bewilderment, from blue to pink, from pink to green, from green to

crimson, from crimson to yellow. The little witch of a milliner sees his

indecision, and resolves to make a _coup d’état_; so, perching one of

the bonnets (blue as her eyes) on her rosy little face, she walks up

sufficiently near to give him a magnetic shiver, and holding the strings

coquettishly under her pretty little chin, says:

“Now, I’m sure, you can’t say _that_ isn’t pretty!”

Of course he can’t!

So, the bonnet is bought and band-boxed, and Jonathan (who is sold with

the bonnet) takes it home to his wife, whose black face looks in it like

an overcharged thunder-cloud set in a silver lining.

Saturday evening is a busy time in the Bowery. So many little things

wanted at the close of the week. A pair of new shoes for Robert, a

tippet for Sally, a pair of gloves for Johnny, and a stick of candy to

bribe the baby to keep the peace while mamma goes to “meetin’” on

Sunday. What a heap of people! What a job it must be to take the census

in New York. Servant girls and their beaux, country folks and city

folks, big boys and little boys, ladies and women, puppies and men!

There’s a poor labouring man, with his market basket on one arm and his

wife on the other. He knows that he can get his Sunday dinner cheaper by

purchasing it late on Saturday night, when the butchers are not quite

sure that their stock will “keep” till Monday. And then it is quite a

treat for his wife, when little Johnny is asleep, to get out to catch a

bit of fresh air, and a sight of the pretty things in the shop windows,

even if she cannot have them; but the little feminine diplomatist knows

that husbands always feel clever of a Saturday night, and that then’s

the time “_just to stop and look_” at a new ribbon or collar.

See that party of country folks, going to the “National” to see “Uncle

Tom.” Those pests, the bouquet sellers, are offering them their

stereotyped, cabbage-looking bunches of flowers with,

“Please buy one for your lady, sir.”

Jonathan don’t understand dodging such appeals; beside, he would scorn

to begrudge a “quarter” for _his lady_! So he buys the nuisance, and

scraping out his hind foot, presents it, with a bow, to Araminta, who

“walks on thrones” the remainder of the evening.

There’s a hand-organ, and a poor, tired little girl, sleepily playing

the tambourine. All the little ragged urchins in the neighbourhood are

grouped on that door-step, listening. The connoisseur might criticise

the performance, but no Cathedral _Te Deum_ could be grander to that

unsophisticated little audience. There is one little girl who, spite of

her rags, is beautiful enough for a seraph. _Poor and beautiful!_ God

help her.

[Illustration]

WHOM DOES IT CONCERN?

“Stitch—stitch—stitch! Will this _never_ end?” said a young girl,

leaning her head wearily against the casement, and dropping her small

hands hopelessly in her lap. “Stitch—stitch—stitch! from dawn till dark,

and yet I scarce keep soul and body together;” and she drew her thin

shawl more closely over her shivering shoulders.

Her eye fell upon the great house opposite. There was comfort there, and

luxury, too; for the rich satin curtains were looped gracefully away

from the large windows; a black servant opens the hall door: see, there

are statues and vases and pictures there: now two young girls trip

lightly out upon the pavement, their lustrous silks, and nodding plumes,

and jewelled bracelets glistening, and quivering, and sparkling in the

bright sunlight. Now poising their silver-netted purses upon their

daintily gloved fingers, they leap lightly into the carriage in waiting,

and are whirled rapidly away.

That little seamstress is as fair as they: her eyes are as soft and

blue; her limbs as lithe and graceful; her rich, brown hair folds as

softly away over as fair a brow; her heart leaps, like theirs, to all

that is bright and joyous; it craves love and sympathy, and

companionship as much, and yet she must stitch—stitch—stitch—and droop

under summer’s heat, and shiver under winter’s cold, and walk the earth

with the skeleton starvation ever at her side, that costly pictures, and

velvet carpets, and massive chandeliers, and gay tapestry, and gold and

silver vessels may fill the house of her employer—that _his_ flaunting

equipage may roll admired along the highway, and India’s fairest fabrics

deck his purse-proud wife and daughters.

* * * * *

It was a busy scene, the ware-room of Simon Skinflint & Co. Garments of

every hue, size, and pattern, were there exposed for sale. Piles of

coarse clothing lay upon the counter, ready to be given out to the

destitute, brow-beaten applicant who would make them for the smallest

possible remuneration; piles of garments lay there, which such victims

had already toiled into the long night to finish, ticketed to bring

enormous profits into the pocket of their employer: groups of dapper

clerks stood behind the counter, discussing, in a whisper, the pedestals

of the last new _danseuse_—ogling the half-starved young girls who were

crowding in for employment, and raising a blush on the cheek of humble

innocence by the coarse joke, and free, libidinous gaze; while their

master, Mr. Simon Skinflint, sat, rosy and rotund, before a bright

Lehigh fire, rubbing his fat hands, building imaginary houses, and

felicitating himself generally, on his far-reaching financial foresight.

“If you could but allow me a trifle more for my labour,” murmured a low

voice at his side; “I have toiled hard all the week, and yet—”

“Young woman,” said Mr. Skinflint, pushing his chair several feet back,

elevating his spectacles to his forehead, and drawing his satin vest

down over his aldermanic proportions, “young woman, do you observe that

crowd of persons besieging my door for employment? Perhaps you are not

aware that we turn away scores of them every day, perhaps you don’t know

that the farmers’ daughters, who are at a loss what to do long winter

evenings, and want to earn a little dowry, will do our work for less

than we pay you? But you feminine operatives don’t seem to have the

least idea of trade. Competition is the soul of business, you see,” said

Mr. Skinflint, rubbing his hands in a congratulatory manner.

“Tut—tut—young woman; don’t quarrel with your bread and butter; however,

it is a thing that don’t concern me at all; if you _won’t_ work, there

are plenty who _will_,” and Mr. Skinflint drew out his gold repeater,

and glanced at the door.

A look of hopeless misery settled over the young girl’s face, as she

turned slowly away in the direction of home. _Home_ did I say? The word

was a bitter mockery to poor Mary. She had a home once, where she and

the little birds sang the live-long day: where flowers blossomed, and

tall trees waved, and merry voices floated out on the fragrant air, and

the golden sun went gorgeously down behind the far-off hills; where a

mother’s loving breast was her pillow, and a father’s good-night

blessing wooed her rosy slumbers. It was past now. They were all

gone—father, mother, brother, sister. Some with the blue sea for a

shifting monument; some sleeping dreamlessly in the little churchyard,

where her infant footsteps strayed, Rank grass had o’ergrown the cottage

gravel walks; weeds choked the flowers which dust-crumbled hands had

planted; the brown moss had thatched over the cottage eaves, and still

the little birds sang on as blithely as if Mary’s household gods had not

been shivered.

Poor Mary! The world was dark and weary to her: the very stars, with

their serene beauty, seemed to mock her misery. She reached her little

room. Its narrow walls seemed to close about her like a tomb. She leaned

her head wearily against the little window, and looked again at the

great house opposite. How brightly, how cheerfully the lights glanced

from the windows! How like fairies glided the young girls over the

softly carpeted floors! How swiftly the carriages whirled to the door,

with their gay visitors! Life was such a rosy dream to _them_—such a

brooding nightmare to _her_! Despair laid its icy hand on her heart.

Must she _always_ drink, unmixed, the cup of sorrow? Must she weep and

sigh her youth away, while griping Avarice trampled on her

heart-strings? She could not weep—nay, worse—she could not pray. Dark

shadows came between her soul and heaven.

* * * * *

The little room is empty now. Mary toils there no longer. You will find

her in the great house opposite: her dainty limbs clad in flowing silk;

her slender fingers and dimpled arms glittering with gems: and among all

that merry group, Mary’s laugh rings out the merriest. Surely—surely,

this is better than to toil, weeping, through the long weary days in the

little darkened room.

Is it, Mary?

* * * * *

There is a ring at the door of the great house. A woman glides modestly

in; by her dress, she is a widow. She has opened a small school in the

neighbourhood, and in the search for scholars has wandered in here. She

looks about her. Her quick, womanly instinct sounds the alarm. She is

not among the good and pure of her sex. But she does not scorn them. No;

she looks upon their blighted beauty with a Christ-like pity; she says

to herself, haply some word of mine may touch their hearts. So she says

gently, “Pardon me, ladies, but I had hoped to find scholars here; you

will forgive the intrusion, I know; for, though you are not mothers, you

have all _had_ mothers.”

Why is Mary’s lip so ashen white? Why does she tremble from head to

foot, as if smitten by the hand of God? Why do the hot tears stream

through her jewelled fingers? Ah! Mary. That little dark room, with its

toil, its gloom, its _innocence_, were Heaven’s own brightness now to

your tortured spirit.

* * * * *

Pitilessly the slant rain rattled against the window panes: awnings

creaked and flapped, and the street lamps flickered in the strong blast:

full-freighted omnibuses rolled over the muddy pavements: stray

pedestrians turned up their coat-collars, grasped their umbrellas more

tightly, and made for the nearest port. A woman, half-blinded by the

long hair which the fury of the wind had driven across her face,

drenched to the skin with the pouring rain—shoeless, bonnetless,

_homeless_, leans unsteadily against a lamp-post, and in the maudlin

accents of intoxication curses the passers-by. A policeman’s strong

grasp is laid upon her arm, and she is hurried, struggling, through the

dripping streets, and pushed into the nearest “station-house.” Morning

dawns upon the wretched, forsaken outcast. She sees it not. Upon those

weary eyes only the resurrection morn shall dawn.

No more shall the stony-hearted shut, in her imploring face, the door of

hope; no more shall gilded sin, with Judas smile, say, “Eat, drink, and

be merry;” no more shall the professed followers of Him who said,

“Neither do I condemn thee,” say to the guilt-stricken one, “Stand

aside—for I am holier than thou.” No, none may tempt, none may scorn,

none may taunt her more. A pauper’s grave shall hide poor Mary and her

shame.

God speed the day when the Juggernaut wheels of Avarice shall no longer

roll over woman’s dearest hopes; when thousands of doors, now closed,

shall be opened for starving Virtue to earn her honest bread; when he

who would coin her tears and groans to rear his palaces, shall become a

hissing and a bye-word, wherever the sacred name of Mother shall be

honoured.

“WHO LOVES A RAINY DAY?”

The bored editor; who, for one millennial day, in slippered feet,

controls his arm-chair, exchanges, stove, and inkstand; who has time to

hunt up delinquent subscribers; time to decipher hieroglyphical

manuscripts; time to make a bonfire of bad poetry; time to kick out

lozenge boys and image vendors; time to settle the long-standing quarrel

between Nancy the type-setter, and Bill the foreman, and time to write

complimentary letters to himself for publication in his own paper, and

to get up a new humbug prospectus for the dear, confiding public.

Who loves a rainy day?

The little child of active limb, reprieved from bench, and book, and

ferule; between whom and the wire-drawn phiz of grim propriety, those

friendly drops have drawn a misty veil; who is now free to laugh, and

jump, and shout, and ask the puzzling question—free to bask in the sunny

smile of her, to whom no sorrow can be trivial that brings a cloud over

that sunny face, or dims the brightness of that merry eye.

Who loves a rainy day?

The crazed clergyman, who can face a sheet of paper, uninterrupted by

dyspeptic Deacon Jones, or fault-finding brother Grimes; or cautious Mr.

Smith; or the afflicted Miss Zelia Zephyr, who, for several long years,

has been “unable to find out the path of duty or the zealous old Lady

Bunce, who hopes her pastor will throw light on the precise locality

fixed upon in the future state for idiots, and those heathen who have

never seen a missionary.

Who loves a rainy day?

The disgusted clerk, who, lost in the pages of some care-beguiling

volume, forgets the petticoat destiny which relentlessly forces him to

unfurl endless yards of tinsel lace and ribbon, for lounging dames, with

empty brains and purses, whose “chief end” it seems to be to put him

through an endless catechism.

Who loves a rainy day?

The tidy little housewife, who, in neat little breakfast-cap and

dressing-gown, overlooks the short-comings of careless cook and

house-maid; explores cupboards, cellars, pantries, and closets;

disembowels old bags, old boxes, old barrels, old kegs, old firkins;

who, with her own dainty hand, prepares the favourite morsel for the

dear, absent, toiling husband, or, by the cheerful nursery fire, sews on

the missing string or button, or sings to soothing slumbers a pair of

violet eyes, whose witching counterpart once stole her girlish heart

away.

Who loves a rainy day?

_I do!_ Let the rain fall; let the wind moan; let the leafless trees

reach out their long attenuated fingers and tap against my casement;

pile on the coal; wheel up the arm-chair; all hail loose ringlets and

loose dressing-robe. Not a blessed son or daughter of Adam can get here

to-day! Unlock the old writing-desk; overlook the old letters. There is

a bunch tied with a ribbon blue as the eyes of the writer. Matrimony

quenched their brightness long time ago.

Irish _help_ (!) and crying babies,

I grieve to say, are ’mong the may-be’s!

And here is a package written by a despairing Cœlebs—once intensely

interested in the price of hemp and prussic acid; now the rotund and

jolly owner of a princely house, a queenly wife, and six rollicksome

responsibilities. Query; whether the faculty ever dissected a _man_ who

had died of a “broken heart?”

Here is another package. Let the fire purify them; never say you _know_

your friend till his tombstone is over him.

What Solomon says, “handwriting is an index of character?” Give him the

cap and bells, and show him those bold pen-marks. They were traced by no

Di Vernon! Let me sketch the writer:—A blushing, smiling, timid, loving

little fairy, as ever nestled near a true heart; with a step like the

fall of a snow-flake, and a voice like the murmur of a brook in June.

Poor little Katie! she lays her cheek now to a little cradle sleeper’s,

and starts at the distant footstep, and trembles at the muttered curse,

and reels under the brutal blow, and, woman-like—loves on!

And what have we here? A sixpence with a ribbon in it! Oh, those

Saturday and Wednesday afternoons, with their hoarded store of nuts and

candy—the broad, green meadow, with its fine old trees—the crazy old

swing, and the fragrant tumble in the grass—the wreath of oak leaves,

the bunch of wild violets, the fairy story book, the little blue jacket,

the snowy shirt-collar, the curly, black head, with its soft, blue eyes.

Oh, first love, sugar-candy, torn aprons, and kisses! where have ye

flown?

What is this? Only a pressed flower; but it tells me of a shadowy

wood—of a rippling brook—of a bird’s song—of a mossy seat—of whispered

leaf-music—of dark, soul-lit eyes—of a voice sweet, and low, and

thrilling—of a vow never broken till death chilled the lips that made

it. Little need to look at the pictured face that lies beside me. It

haunts me sleeping or waking. I shall see it again—life’s trials passed.

A CONSCIENTIOUS YOUNG MAN.

“There is no object in nature so beautiful as a conscientious young

man.”—_Exchange._

Well; I’ve seen the “Sea-Dog,” and Thackeray; and Tom Thumb and Kossuth;

the “Bearded Lady,” and Father Matthew; the whistling Canary, and

Camille Urso; the “white negro,” and Mrs. Stowe; “Chang and Eng,” and

Jenny Lind; and Miss Bremer and Madame Sontag. I have been to the top of

the State House, made the tour of the “Public Garden,” and crossed the

“Frog Pond.” I’ve seen Theodore Parker, and a locomotive. I’ve ridden in

an omnibus, heard a Fourth-of-July oration, and I once saw the sun rise;

but I never, never never saw “a conscientious young man.”

If there is such an “organization” on the periphery of this globe, I

should like to see him. If he _is_, _where_ is he? Who owns him? Where

did they raise him? What does he feed on? For whom does he vote? On what

political platform do his conscientious toes rest? Does he know the

difference between a Whig and a Democrat? between a “Hunker” and a

“Barn-burner?” between a “hard-shell” and a “soft-shell?” between a

“uniform national currency” and a “sound constitutional currency?” Does

he have chills or a fever when he sees a bonnet? Does he look at it out

of the sides of his eyes, like a bashful, barn-yard bantam, or dare he

not look at all? Does he show the “white feather,” or crow defiance?

Does he “go to roost” at sun-down? and does he rest on an aristocratic

perch? I’m all alive to see the specimen. My opera-glass is poised. Will

he be at the World’s Fair? Might I be permitted to shake hands with, and

congratulate him? I pause for a reply.

CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.

NUMBER ONE.

“Each to his taste,” somebody says: so say I: so says Gotham. Look at

that splendid house, with its massive door-way, its mammoth plate-glass

windows, its tasteful conservatory, where the snowy Orange-blossom, and

clustering Rose, and crimson Cactus, and regal Passion-flower, and

fragrant Heliotrope breathe out their little day of sweetness. See that

Gothic stable, with its faultless span of horses, and liveried coachman,

and anti-republican carriage, whose coat of arms makes our National

Eagle droop his fearless pinions. Then cast your eye on that tumble-down

wooden grocery adjoining, sending up its reeking fumes of rum, onions,

and salt fish, into patrician nostrils! Go where you will in New York,

you see the same strong contrasts. Feast your eyes on beauty, and a

skeleton startles you at its side. Lazarus sitteth ever at the Gate of

Dives.

Here is a primary school: what a host of little ragged urchins are

crowding in! Suppose I step in quietly among them. Now, they take their

places in seats terraced off one above another, so that each little face

is distinctly visible. What a pretty sight! and how Nature loves to

compensate! sending beauty to the hovel, deformity to the hall. There’s

a boy, now, in that ragged jacket, who is a study for an artist. See his

broad, ample forehead; mark how his dark eyes glow: and that little girl

at his side, whose chestnut curls droop so gracefully over her

soft-fringed eyes and dimpled shoulders. And that dream-child in yonder

corner, with blue-veined transparent temples, whose spiritual eyes even

now can see that fadeless shore to which bright angels beckon him. Deal

gently with him—he is passing away!

Here comes the teacher, brisk, angular, and sharp-voiced. Heaven pity

the children! She’s a human icicle—pasteboard-y and proper! I already

experience a mental shiver. Now she comes up and says (apologetically to

my new satin cloak), “You see, madam, these are _only_ poor children.”

The toadying creature! Lucky for her that I’m not “a committee.” Can’t

her dull eyes recognise God’s image in lindsey-woolsey? Can she see no

genius written on yonder broad forehead? No poetry slumbering in yonder

sweet eyes? Did Franklin, Clay, and Webster study _their_ alphabet in

silk and velvet? Now she hands me a book in which visitors’ names are

inscribed, and requests me to write mine. Certainly. “Mrs. John Smith

there it is. Hope she likes it as well as I do.

Speaking of names, I read on a sign yesterday that “Richard Haas:”

to-day I saw, down street, that “John Haas.” I’m sure I’m glad of it. I

congratulate both those enterprising gentlemen. There goes a baker’s

cart, with “Ernest Flog-er” painted on the side. It is my impression

that if you do it, Ernest, “_your_ cake will be dough;” 1854 being

considered the millennium of “strong-minded women.” Here we are, almost

to the Battery. “_Fanfernot_ & Dulac:” that must be a chain-lightening

firm. Wonder if “Fanfernot” is the _silent_ partner?

Here’s a man distributing tracts. Now, if he hands me one, I’ll throw it

down. See how meekly he picks it up, and hands me another. “That’s

right, friend Colporteur. I only wanted to see if you were in earnest:

glad to see you so well employed.”

“Yes Ma’am,” he says, much relieved; “sinners here in New York need

waking up”—which sentiment I endorse, and advise him to call at the _N.

Y. Tribune_ office.

Down comes the rain: had I taken my umbrella not a drop would have

fallen. “I ’spect” I was born on a Friday; but as that can’t be helped

now, I’ll step into that book-store till the shower is over. The owner

politely gives me a chair, and then hands me, for my edification, the

_last fashion-prints_! F-a-n-n-y F-e-r-n! can it be possible that you

look so frivolous? Tracts and fashion-prints, both offered you in one

forenoon: Wonder if there’s a second-hand drab Quaker bonnet anywhere

that will subdue your “style?”

See that little minstrel in front of the store, staggering under the

weight of a hand-organ. What a crowd of little beggar-boys surround him,

petitioning “for _just one tune_.” Now, I wonder if the rough school

that boy has been in, has hardened his heart? Has he grown prematurely

worldly-wise and selfish? Will he turn, gruffly away from that

penniless, Tom Thumb audience, or will he give them a _gratuitous_ tune?

God be thanked, his childish heart yet beats warm and true under that

tattered jacket. He smiles sweetly on the eager group, and strikes up

“Lang Syne.” Other than mortal ears are listening! That deed, unnoticed

by the hurrying Broadway throng, is noted by the Recording Angel.

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have

done it unto Me.”

Sunshine again! dripping awnings and sloppy pavements. There’s a man

preaching an out-door temperance sermon: what a bungling piece of work

he makes of it! If he would lend me that _pro tem_ barrel-pulpit, I’d

astonish _him_, and take the feather out of “Miss Lucy Stone’s” bonnet.

Let us cross the Park. There’s an Irishman seated on the withered grass,

with his spade beside him, leaning wearily against that leafless tree. I

wonder is he ill? I must walk that way and speak to him. What a sudden

change comes over his rough face! it looks quite beautiful. Why do his

eyes kindle? Ah, I see: a woman approaches from yonder path; now she

seats herself beside him on the grass, and drawing the cover from a

small tin kettle, she bends over the steaming contents, and says with a

smile that is a perfect heart-warmer, “_Dear_ Dennis!” Oh, what a wealth

of love in those two simple words; what music in that voice! Who says

human nature is _all_ depravity? Who says this earth is but a

charnel-house of withered hopes? Who says the “Heart’s Ease” springs

never from the rock cleft? Who says it is only on _patrician_ soil the

finer feelings struggle into leaf, and bud and blossom? No—no—that

humble, faithful creature has travelled weary miles with needful food,

that “Dennis” may waste no unnecessary time from labour. And there they

sit, side by side, happy and blessed in each other, deaf to the

ceaseless tide of business and pleasure flowing past, blind to the

supercilious gaze of the pompous _millionaire_, the curious stare of

pampered beauty, the derisive laugh of “Young America,” and the little

romances they have set my brain a-weaving! What a pretty episode amid

all this Babel din! What a delicious little bit of nature amidst this

fossil-hearted Gotham!

How true—how beautiful the words of Holy Writ! “Better is a dinner of

herbs _where love is_, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”

* * * * *

What an immensely tall man! he looks like a barber’s pole in those

serpentine pants. Why does he make those gyrations? Why does he beckon

that short man to his side? Well, I declare! everything comical comes to

my net! He has taken out a slip of paper, and using the short man’s head

for a writing-desk, is scribbling off some directions for a porter in

waiting! The lamb-like non-resistance of the short man is only equalled

by the cool impudence of the scribe! What a picture for Hogarth!

CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.

NUMBER TWO.

The fashionables are yet yawning on their pillows. Nobody is abroad but

the workies. So much the better. Omnibus drivers begin to pick up their

early-breakfast customers. The dear little children, trustful and rosy,

are hurrying by to school. Apple women are arranging their stalls, and

slily polishing their fruit with an old stocking. The shopkeepers are

placing their goods in the most tempting light, in the store windows;

and bouquet vendors, with their delicious burdens, have already taken

their stand on the saloon and hotel steps.

Here come that de-socialized class, the New York business men, with

their hands thrust moodily into their coat pockets, their eyes buttoned

fixedly down to the side-walk, and “the almighty dollar” written legibly

all over them. If the automatons would but show _some_ sign of life;

were it only by a whistle. I’m very sure the tune would be

“I know a—_Bank_!”

See that pretty little couple yonder, crouched upon the side-walk? What

have you there, little ones? Five little, fat, roly-poly puppies, as I

live, all heads and tails, curled up in that comical old basket! And you

expect to get “a dollar a-piece” for them? Bless your dear little souls,

Broadway is full of “puppies,” who never “bring” anything but odious

cigar smoke, that ever I could find out. Puppies are at a discount, my

darlings. Peanuts are a safer investment.

Here we are at Trinity Church. I doubt if human lips within those walls

ever preached as eloquently as those century gravestones. How the sight

of them involuntarily arrests the bounding footstep, and the

half-developed plan of the scheming brain, and wakes up the slumbering

immortal in our nature. How the eye turns a questioning glance from

those moss-grown graves, inward—then upward to the soft, blue heavens

above us. How for a brief moment the callous heart grows kindly, and we

forget the mote in our brother’s eye, and cease to repulse the outspread

palm of charity, and recognise the claims of a common brotherhood; and

then how the sweeping tide comes rolling over us, and the clink of

dollars and cents drowns “the still small voice;” and Eternity recedes,

and Earth only seems tangible, and Mammon, and Avarice, and Folly rule

the never returning hours.

Now glance over the churchyard yonder into the street below. Cholera and

pestilence, what a sight! flanked on one side by the charnel-house, on

the other by houses whose basements are groggeries and markets, and at

whose every pane of glass may be seen a score of dirty faces; the middle

of the street a quagmire of jelly-mud, four inches deep, on which are

strewn, _ad infinitum_, decayed potatoes and cabbage stumps, old bones

and bonnets, mouldy bread, salt fish, and dead kittens. That pussy-cat

New York corporation should be put on a diet of peppered thunder and

gunpowder tea, and harnessed to a comet for six months. I doubt if even

then the old poppies would wake up.

Do you see that piece of antiquity playing the bagpipe? He is as much a

fixture as your country cousin. There he sits, through heat and cold,

squeezing out those horrible sounds with his skinny elbow, and keeping

time with his nervous eyewinkers. He gets up his own programme, and is

his own orchestra, door-keeper, and audience; nobody stops to listen,

nobody fees him, nobody seems to enjoy it so hugely as himself.

Who talks about wooden nutmegs in the hearing of Gotham? Does a shower

come up? Men start up as if by magic, with all-sized India rubbers for

sale, and ragged little boys nudge your elbows to purchase “cheap cotton

umbrellas.” Does the wind veer round south? A stack of palm-leaf fans

takes the place of the umbrellas. Have you the misfortune to trip upon

the side-walk? a box of Russia salve is immediately unlidded under your

nose. Do you stop to arrange your gaiter boot? whole strings of

boot-lacings are dangled before your astonished eyes. Do your loosened

waistbands remind you of the dinner hour? before your door stands a man

brandishing “patent carving knives,” warranted to dissever the toughest

old rooster that ever crowed over a hen-harem.

Speaking of hens—see that menagerie, in one of the handsomest parts of

Broadway, defaced by that blood and murder daub of a picture,

representing every animal that ever flew or trotted into Noah’s ark,

beside a few that the good old gentleman never undertook to perpetuate.

See them lashing their tails, bristling their manes, ploughing the air

and tossing high above their incensed horns, that distracted gory biped,

whose every individual hair is made to stand on end with horror, and his

coat-tail astonishingly to perpendicularize. Countrymen stand agape

while pickpockets lighten them of their purses; innocent little

children, with saucer eyes, shy to the further edge of the side-walk,

and hurry home with an embryo nightmare in their frightened craniums.

“Jonathan” pays his “quarter,” and is astonished to find upon entering a

very tame collection of innocent beasts and beastesses, guiltless of any

intention to growl, unless poked by the long pole of curiosity.

Dissatisfied, he descends to the cellar, to see the elephant, who holds

a sleepy levee, for all who feel inclined to pack his trunk with the

apples and cakes, which a shrewd stall-keeping Yankee in the corner

disinterestedly advises them to buy, “just to see how the critter eats.”

Well; two-headed calves, one-eyed buffaloes, skeleton ostriches, and

miles of serpents, are every day matters; but yonder is an announcement

that “Two Wild Men from Borneo” may be seen within. Now that interests

me. “They have the faculty of speech, but are deficient in memory.”

Bless me, you don’t mean to say that those little Hop-o’-my-Thumbs have

the temerity to call themselves “_Men_?” little humbugs, pocket

editions. But what pretty little limbs they have, and how they shiver in

this cold climate, spite of the silk and India-rubber dress they wear

under those little tights. “The youngest weighs only twenty-seven, the

oldest thirty-four pounds;” so the keeper says, who, forming a circle,

lays one hand on the head of each, and commences his stereotyped,

menagerie exordium, oblivious of commas, colons, semicolons, periods, or

breath; adding at the close, that the Wild Men will now shake hands with

any child who may be present, but will _always bite an adult_. Nothing

like a barrier to make femininity leap over. I’m bent upon having the

first “adult” shake. The keeper says, “Better not, Ma’am” (showing a

scar on his finger), “they bit that een-a-most to the bone.” Of course,

snapping at masculinity is no proof to me of their unsusceptibility to

feminine evangelization; on the contrary. So, taking a cautious patrol

around the interesting little savages, I hold out my hand. Allah be

praised! they take it, and my five digits still remain at the service of

printers and publishers!

CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.

NUMBER THREE.

What a never-ceasing bell-jingling, what a stampede of servants, what a

continuous dumping down of big trunks; what transits, what exits, what a

miniature world is a hotel! Panorama-like, the scene shifts each hour;

your _vis-a-vis_ at breakfast, supping, ten to one, in the Rocky

Mountains. How delightful your unconsciousness of what you are

fore-ordained to eat for dinner; how _nonchalantly_ in the morning you

handle tooth-brush and head-brush, certain of a cup of hot coffee

whenever you see fit to make your advent. How scientifically your fire

is made, without any unnecessary tattooing of shovel, tongs and poker.

What a chain-lightning answer to your bell summons; how oblivious is

“No. 14” of your existence; how indifferent is “No. 25” whether you

sneeze six or seven times a day; how convenient are the newspapers and

letter-stamps, obtainable at the clerk’s office; how digestible your

food; how comfortable your bed, and how never-to-be-sufficiently-enjoyed

the general let-aloneativeness.

Avaunt, ye lynx-eyed “private boarding-houses,” with your two slip-shod

Irish servants; your leaden bread, leather pies, ancient fowls, bad

gravies, omnium gatherum bread puddings, and salt fish, and

cabbage-perfumed entries; your washing-day “hashes,” your ironing-day

“stews,” and all your other “comforts of a home” (?) not _explicitly_

set forth in your advertisements.

Rat-tat, rat-tat-tat! what a fury that old gentleman seems to be in.

Whoever occupies No. 40, must either be deaf or without nerves. Rat-tat!

what an obstinate human; there he goes again! ah, now the door opens,

and a harmless-looking clergyman glides past him, down the stairs. Too

late—too late, papa,—the knot is tied; no use in making a fuss. Just see

that pretty little bride, blushing, crying, and clinging to her

boy-husband. Just remember the time, sir, when the “auld wife” at home

made _you_ thrill to the toes of your boots; remember how perfectly

oblivious you were of guide-boards or milestones, when you went to see

her; you how you used to hug and kiss her little brother Jim, though he

was the ugliest, mischievous est little snipe in Christendom; how you

used to read books for hours upside down, and how you wondered what

people meant by calling the moon “cold;” how you wound up your watch

half-a-dozen times a-day, and hadn’t the slightest idea whether you were

eating geese or grindstones for dinner; how affectionately you nodded to

Mr. Brown, of whom her father bought his groceries; how complacently you

sat out the minister’s seventh-lie by her side at church; how wolfy you

felt if any other piece of broadcloth approached her; how devoutly you

wished you were that little bit of blue ribbon round her throat; and

how, one moonlight night, when she laid her head against your vest

pattern, you——didn’t care a mint julep whether the tailor ever got paid

for it or not! Now, just imagine her papa, stepping in and deliberately

turning all _that_ cream to vinegar; wouldn’t _you_ have effervesced?

Certainly.

See that little army of boots in the entry outside the doors. May I need

a pair of spectacles, if one of their owners has a neat foot! No. 20

turns his toes in, No. 30 treads over at the side; No. 40 has a pedestal

like an elephant. Stay!—there’s a pair now—Jupiter what a high instep!

what a temper that man has! wonder if those! are married boots? Heaven

help _Mrs._ Boots, when her husband finds a button missing! It strikes

me that I should like to _mis-mate_ all those boots, and view, at a

respectful distance, the young tornado in the entry, when the gong

sounds!

Oh, you cunning little curly-headed, fairy-footed, dimple-limbed pet!

Who is blessed enough to own you? Did you know, you little human

blossom, that I was aunt to all the children in creation? Your eyes are

as blue as the violets, and your little pouting lip might tempt a bee

from a rose. Did mamma make you that dainty little kirtle? and papa find

you that horsewhip?

“Papa is dead, and mamma is dead, too. Mamma can’t see Charley any

more.”

God bless your sweet helplessness! creep into my arms, Charley. My

darling, you are never alone!—mamma’s sweet, tender eyes look lovingly

on Charley out of Heaven; mamma’s bright angel wings ever overshadow

little Charley’s head; mamma and the holy stars keep watch over

Charley’s slumbers. Mamma sings a sweeter song when little Charley says

a prayer. Going?—well, then, one kiss; for sure I am, the angels will

want you before long.

What is that? A sick gentleman, borne in on a litter, from shipboard.

Poor fellow! how sunken are his great dark eyes! how emaciated his

limbs! What can ail him? Nobody knows; not a word of English can he

speak; and the captain is already off, too happy to rid himself of all

responsibility. Lucky for the poor invalid that our gallant host has a

heart warm and true. How tenderly he lifts the invalid to his room; how

expeditiously he despatches his orders for a Spanish doctor and nurse;

how imploringly the sufferer’s speaking eyes are fastened upon his face.

Ah! Death glides in at yonder door with the sick man; his grasp is

already on his heart; the doctor stands aside and folds his

hands—there’s no work for _him_ to do; dark shadows gather round the

dying stranger’s eyes; he presses feebly the hand of his humane host,

and gasps out the last fluttering breath on that manly heart. Strange

hands are busy closing his eyes; strange hands straighten his limbs; a

strange priest comes all too late to shrive the sick man’s soul; strange

eyes gaze carelessly upon the features, one glimpse of which were worth

Golconda’s mines to far-off kindred. Now the undertaker comes with the

coffin. Touch him gently, man of business; lay those dark locks tenderly

on the satin pillow; hear you not a far-off wail from sunny Spain, as

the merry song at the vintage feast dies upon the lip of the

stricken-hearted?

CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.

NUMBER FOUR—BARNUM’S POULTRY SHOW.

Defend my ears! Do you suppose Noah had to put up with such a cackling

and crowing as this in his ark? I trust ear-trumpets are cheap, for I

stand a chance of becoming as deaf as a husband, when his wife asks him

for money.

I have always hated a rooster; whether from his perch, before daylight,

he shrilly, spitefully, and unnecessarily, recalled me from rosy dreams

to stupid realities; or when strolling at the head of his hang-dog

looking seraglio of hens, he stood poised on one foot, gazing back at

the meek procession with an air that said, as plain as towering crests

and tail feathers could say it, “Stir a foot if you dare, till I give

you the signal!”—at which demonstration I looked instinctively about,

for a big stone, to take the nonsense out of him!

Save us, what a crowd! There are more onions here than patchouli, more

worsted wrappers than Brummel neck-ties, and more brogans than patent

leather. Most of the visitors gaze at the perches through barn-yard

spectacles. For myself, I don’t care an egg-shell, whether that old

“Shanghai” knew who her grandfather was or not, or whether those

“Dorkings” were ever imprudent enough to let their young affections rove

from their native roost. Yankee eyes were made to be used, and the first

observation mine take is, that those gentlemen fowls seem to have

reversed the order of things here in New York, being very superior in

point of beauty to the feminines. Of course they know it. See them

strut! There never was a masculine yet whom you could enlighten on such

a point.

Now, were I a hen (which, thank the parish register, I am not), I would

cross my claws, succumb to that tall Polander, with his crested helmet

of black and white feathers, and share his demonstrative perch.

Oh, you pretty little “carrier doves!” I _could_ find a use for _you_.

Do you ever tap-tap at the wrong window, you little snow-flakes? Have

you learned the secret of soaring above the heads of your enemies? Are

you impregnable to bribes, in the shape of food?

There’s an eagle, fierce as a Hospodar. Bird of Jove! that _you_ should

stay caged in the tantalizing vicinity of those little fat bantams! Try

the strength of your pinions, grim old fellow; call no man jailer; turn

your back on Barnum, and stare the sun out of countenance!

Observe with what aristocratic _nonchalance_ those salmon-coloured

pigeons sit their perch! See that ruffle of feathers about their

dignified Elizabethan throats. I am not at all sure that I should have

intruded into their regal presence, without being heralded by a court

page.

Do you call those two moving bales of wool, sheep? Hurrah for “Ayrshire”

farming! Fleece six inches deep, and the animals not half grown.

Comfortable looking January-defiers, may your shearing be mercifully

postponed till the dog days.

Pigs, too? petite, white and frisky; two hundred dollars a pair!

P-h-e-w! and such pretty little gaiter boots to be had in Broadway!

Disgusting little porkers, don’t wink your pink eyes at my Jewish

resolution.

Puppies for sale? long-eared and short-eared, shaggy and shaven,

bobtailed—curtailed—and to be re-tailed! Spaniel terrier and embryo

Newfoundland. Ho! ye unappropriated spinsters, with a superfluity of

long evenings—ye forlorn bachelors, weary of solitude and boot-jacks,

listen to these yelping applicants for your yearning affections, and

“down with the dust.”

“Nelly for sale, at twenty dollars.” Poor little antelope! The gods send

your soft, dark eyes an appreciative purchaser. I look into their

human-like depths, and invoke for you the velvety, flower-bestrewn lawn,

the silver lake, in which your graceful limbs are mirrored as you stoop

to drink, the leafy shade of fret-work leaves in the panting none-tide

heat, and the watchful eye and caressing hand of some bright young

creature, to whom the earth is one glad anthem, and whose sweet young

life (like yours) is innocent and pure.

Avaunt, pretentious peacocks, flaunting your gaudy plumage before our

sated eyes. See that beautiful “Golden Pheasant,” on whose plump little

body, clad in royal crimson, the sunlight lingers so lovingly. See the

silky fall of those flossy, golden feathers about his arching neck.

Glorious pheasant! do you know that “a thing of beauty is a joy for

ever?” Make your home with me, and feast my pen-weary eyes: flit before

me when the sunlight of happiness is clouded in, and the gray, leaden

clouds of sorrow overcast my sky; perch upon my finger; lay your soft

neck to my cheek; bring me visions of a happier shore, where love is

written on the rainbow’s arch, heard in the silver-tripping stream, seen

in the blossom-laden bough and bended blade, quivering under the weight

of dewy gems, and hymned by the quiet stars, whose ever-moving harmony

is unmarred by the discord of envy, hate, or soul-blasting

uncharitableness. Beautiful pheasant! come, bring thoughts of beauty and

peace to me!

—Loving Jenny Lind smiles upon us from yonder canvas. Would that we

might hear her little Swedish chicken-peep! Not a semiquaver careth the

mother-bird for the homage of the Old World or New. The artless clapping

of little Otto’s joyous hands drowns all the ringing plaudits wafted

across the ocean. A Dead Sea apple is fame, dear Jenny, to a true

woman’s heart. Happy to have hung thy laurel wreath on Otto’s little

cradle.

TWO PICTURES.

You will always see Mrs. Judkins in her place at the sunrise

prayer-meeting. She is secretary to the “Moral Reform,” “Abolition,”

“Branch Colporteur and Foreign Mission” Societies. She is tract

distributor, manager of an “Infant School,” cuts out all the work for

the Brown Steeple Sewing Circle; belongs to the “Select Female Prayer

Meeting!” goes to the Friday night church meeting, Tuesday evening

lecture, and the Saturday night Bible Class, and attends three services

on Sunday, Everybody says, “What an eminent Christian is Mrs. Judkins!”

Mrs. Judkins’ house and servants take care of themselves. Her little

boys run through the neighbourhood, peeping into grocery and provision

stores, loitering at the street corners, and throwing stones at the

passers-by. Her husband comes home to a disorderly house, eats

indigestible dinners, and returns to his gloomy counting-room, sighing

that his hard earnings are wasted, and his children neglected; and

sneering at the _religion_ which brings forth such questionable fruits.

* * * * *

Mrs. Brown is a church-member. Mrs. Judkins has called upon her, and

brought the tears into her mild blue eyes, by telling her that she in

particular, and the church in general, have been pained to notice Mrs.

Brown’s absence from the various religious gatherings and societies

above mentioned; that it is a matter of great grief to them that she is

so lukewarm; and does not enjoy religion as much as they do.

Mrs. Brown has a sickly infant; her husband (owing to sad reverses) is

in but indifferent circumstances; they have but one inexperienced

servant. All the household outgoings and incomings must be carefully

watched and looked after. The little wailing infant is never out of the

maternal arms, save when its short slumbers give her a momentary

reprieve. Still, the little house is in perfect order. The table

tasteful and tempting, although the bill of fare is unostententatious;

the children are obedient, respectful, happy and well cared for. Morning

and evening, amid her varied and pressing cares, she bends the knee in

secret, to Him whom her maternal heart recognizes as “My Lord and my

God.” No mantle of dust shrouds the “Holy Book.” The sacred _household_

altar flame never dies out. Little dimpled hands are reverently folded;

little lips lisping say, “Our Father.” Half a day on each returning

Sabbath finds the patient mother in her accustomed place in the

sanctuary. At her hearth and by her board the holy man of God hath

smiling welcome. “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband

also, and he praiseth her;” while on high, the recording angel hath

written, “_She hath done what she could_.”

FEMININE WAITERS AT HOTELS.

“Some of our leading hotel-keepers are considering the policy of

employing female waiters.”

Good news for you, poor pale-faced seamstresses! Throw your thimbles at

the heads of your penurious employers; put on your neatest and

_plainest_ dress; see that your feet and fingers are immaculate, and

then rush _en masse_ for the situation, ousting every white jacket in

Yankeedom. Stipulate with your employers for leave to carry in the

pocket of your French apron a pistol loaded with cranberry sauce, to

plaster up the mouth of the first coxcomb who considers it necessary to

preface his request for an omelette with “_My dear_.” It is my opinion

that one such hint will be sufficient; if not, you can vary the order of

exercises, by anointing him with a “HASTY plate of soup” at dinner.

Always make a moustache wait twice as long as you do a man who wears a

clean, presentable lip. Should he undertake to expedite your slippers by

“a fee,” tell him that hotel bills are _generally_ settled at the

clerk’s office, except by _very_ verdant travellers.

Should you see a woman at the table, digging down to the bottom of the

salt cellar, as if the top stratum were two plebeian; or ordering

ninety-nine messes (turning aside from each with affected airs of

disgust), or rolling up the whites of her eyes, declaring that she never

sat down to a dinner-table before minus “finger glasses,” you may be

sure that her aristocratic blood is nourished, _at home_, on herrings

and brown bread. When a masculine comes in with a white vest, flashy

neck-tie, extraordinary looking plaid trousers, several yards of gold

chain festooned over his vest, and a mammoth seal ring on his little

finger, you may be sure that his tailor and his laundress are both on

the anxious seat; and whenever you see travellers of _either_ sex

peregrinating the country in their “best bib and tucker,” you can set

them down for unmitigated’ “snobs,” for high-bred people can’t afford to

be so extravagant!

I dare say you’ll get sick of so much pretension and humbug. Never mind;

it is better than to be stitching yourselves into a consumption over

sixpenny shirts; you’ll have your fun out of it. This would be a

horribly stupid world if everybody were sensible. I thank my stars every

day for the share of fools a kind Providence sends in my way.

LETTER TO THE EMPRESS EUGENIA.

A PARIS LETTER says:—Lady Montijo has left Paris for Spain. She was

extremely desirous of remaining and living in the reflection of her

daughter’s grandeur, but Louis Napoleon, who shares in the general

prejudice against step-mothers, gave her plainly to understand, that

because he had married Eugenia, she must not suppose he had married

her whole family. She was allowed to linger six weeks, to have the

_entrée_ of the Tuileries, and to see her movements chronicled in the

_Pays_. She has at last left us, and the telegraph mentions her

arrival at Orleans, on her way to the Peninsula.

There Teba! did not I say you would need all those two-thousand-franc

pocket-handkerchiefs before your orange wreath had begun to give signs

of wilting? Why did you let your mamma go, you little simpleton? Before

Nappy secured your neck in the matrimonial noose, you should have had it

put down, in black and white, that Madame Montijo was to live with you

till—the next revolution, if you chose to have her. Now you have struck

your colours, of course everything will “go by the board.” I tell you,

Teba, that a fool is the most unmanageable of all beings. He is as

dogged and perverse as a broken-down donkey. You can neither goad nor

coax him into doing anything he should do, or prevent his doing what he

should not do. You will have to leave Nappy and come over here;—and then

everybody will nudge somebody’s elbow and say, “That is Mrs. Teba

Napoleon, who does not live with her husband.” And some will say it is

your fault; and others will say ’tis his; and all will tell you a world

more about it, than _you_ can tell _them_.

Then, Mrs. Samuel Snip (who has the next room to yours, who murders the

queen’s English most ruthlessly, and is not quite certain whether Barnum

or Christopher Columbus discovered America) will have her Paul Pry ear

to the key-hole of your door about every other minute (except when her

husband is on duty) to find out if you are properly employed;—and no

matter what Mrs. Snip learns, or even if she does not learn anything,

she will be pretty certain to report, that, in her opinion, you are “no

better than you should be.” If you dress well (with your splendid form

and carriage you could not but seem well-dressed) she will “wonder how

you got the means to do it;” prefacing her remark with the self-evident

truth that, “to be sure, it is none of her business.”

If you let your little Napoleon get out of your sight a minute, somebody

will have him by the pinafore and put him through a catechism about his

mamma’s mode of living, and how she spends her time. If you go to

church, it will be “to show yourself;” if you stay at home, “you are a

publican and a sinner.” Do what you will, it will all be wrong: if you

do nothing, it will be still worse. Our gentlemen (so called) knowing

that you are defenceless, and taking it for granted that your name is

“Barkis,” will all stare at you; and the women will dislike and abuse

you just in proportion as the opposite sex admire you. Of course you

will sweep past them all, with that magnificent figure of yours, and

your regal chin up in the air, quietly attending to your own business,

and entirely unconscious of their pigmy existence.

MUSIC IN THE NATURAL WAY.

How often, when wedged in a heated concert room, annoyed by the creaking

of myriad fans, and tortured optically by the glare of gas-light, have

I, with a gipsy longing, wished that the four walls might be razed,

leaving only the blue sky over my head, that the tide of music might

unfettered flow over my soul.

How often, when dumb with delight, in the midst of some scene of

surpassing natural beauty, have I silently echoed the poet’s words:—

“Give me music, or I die.”

My dream was all realized at a promenade concert at Castle Garden last

night. Shall I ever forget it? That glorious expanse of sea, glittering

in the moonbeams; the little boats gliding smoothly over its polished

surface; the cool, evening zephyr, fanning the brow wooingly; the

music—soothing—thrilling—then quickening the pulse and stirring the

blood, like the sound of a trumpet; then, that rare boon, a companion,

who had the good taste to be _dumb_, and not disturb my trance.

There was one drawback. After the doxology, I noticed some

matter-of-fact wretches devouring ice-creams. May no priests be found to

give them absolution. I include, also, in this anathema, those

ever-to-be-avoided masculines, who, then and there, puffed cigar smoke

in my face, and the moon’s.

FOR LADIES THAT “GO SHOPPING.”

Matrimony and the toothache _may_ be survived, but of all the evils

feminity is heir to, defend me from a shopping excursion. But, alas!

bonnets, shoes and hose will wear out, and shopkeepers will chuckle over

the sad necessity that places the unhappy owners within their dry-goods

clutches. Felicitous Mrs. Figleaf! why taste that paradisaical apple?

Some victimised females frequent the stores where soiled and damaged

goods are skilfully announced as selling at an “immense sacrifice,” by

their public-spirited and disinterested owners. Some courageously

venture into more elegant establishments, where the claim of the

applicant to notice is measured by the costliness of her apparel, and

where clerks poise their eye-glass at any plebeian shopperess bold

enough to inquire for silk under six dollars a yard. Others, still, are

tortured at the counter of some fussy old bachelor, who always ties up,

with distressing deliberation, every parcel he takes down for

inspection, before he can open another, and moves round to execute your

orders as if Mount Atlas were fastened to his heels; or perhaps get

petrified at the store of some snap-dragon old maid, whose victims serve

as escape-valves for long years of bile, engendered by Cupid’s

oversights. Meanwhile, the vexed question is still unsolved, Where can

the penance of shopping be performed with the least possible wear and

tear of patience and prunella? The answer seems to me to be contained in

six letters—“Stewart’s.”

“_Stewart’s?_” I think I hear some old lady exclaim, dropping her

knitting and peering over her spectacles; “Stewart’s! Yes, if you have

the mines of California to back you.” Now I have a profound respect

for old ladies, as I stand self-pledged to join that respectable body

on the advent of my very first gray hair; still, with due deference to

their catnip and pennyroyal experience, I conscientiously

repeat—“_Stewart’s_.”

You may stroll through his rooms free to gaze and admire, without being

annoyed by an impertinent clerk dogging your footsteps; you can take up

a fabric and examine it, without being bored by a statement of its

immense superiority over every article of the kind in the market, or

without being deafened by a detailed account of the enormous sums that

the mushroom aristocracy have considered themselves but _too_ happy to

expend, in order to secure a dress from that very desirable, and

altogether unsurpassed, and unsurpassable, piece of goods!

You can independently say that an article does not exactly suit you,

though your husband may not stand by you with a drawn sword. You will

encounter no ogling, no impertinent cross-questioning, no tittering

whispers from the quiet, well-bred clerks, who attend to their own

business, and allow you to attend to yours.

’Tis true that you may see at Stewart’s cobweb laces an inch or two

wide, for fifty or one hundred dollars a yard, which many a brainless

butterfly of fashion is supremely happy in sporting: but at the very

next counter you may suit yourself, or your country cousin, to a

sixpenny calico or a shilling delaine; and, what is better, be quite as

sure that her verdant queries will be as respectfully answered as if a

liveried Pompey stood waiting at the door to hand her to her carriage.

You can go into the silk department, where, by a soft descending light

you will see dinner dresses that remind you of a shivered rainbow, for

_passé_ married ladies who long since ceased to celebrate their

birth-days, and who keep their budding daughters carefully immured in

the nursery; or, at the same counter, you can select a modest silk for

your minister’s wife at six shillings a yard, that will cause no

heart-burnings in the most Argus-eyed of Paul Pry parishes.

Then if you patronise those ever-to-be-abominated and

always-to-be-shunned nuisances called Parties, where fools of both sexes

gather to criticise their host and hostess, and cut up characters and

confectionery, you can step into that little room from which daylight is

excluded, and select an evening dress, _by gas-light_, upon the effect

of which you can, of course, depend, and to which artistic arrangement

many a New York belle has probably owed that much prized possession—her

“last conquest.”

Now, if you please, you can go into the upholstery-room, and furnish

your nursery windows with a cheap set of plain linen curtains; or you

can expend a small fortune in regal crimson, or soft blue damask

drapery, for your drawing-room; and without troubling yourself to thread

the never-ending streets of Gotham for an upholsteress, can have them

made by competent persons in the upper loft of the building, who will

also drape them faultlessly about your windows, should you so desire.

Now you can peep into the cloak room, and bear away on your graceful

shoulders a six, twenty, thirty, or four hundred dollar cloak, as the

length of your husband’s purse, or your own fancy (which in these

degenerate days amounts to pretty much the same thing) may suggest.

Then there is the wholesale department, where you will see shawls,

hosiery, flannels, calicoes, and delaines, sufficient to stock all the

nondescript country stores, to say nothing of city consumption.

Now, if you are not weary, you can descend (under ground) into the

carpet department, from whence you can hear the incessant roll of

full-freighted omnibuses, the ceaseless tramp of myriad restless feet,

and all the busy train of out-door life made audible in all the dialects

of Babel. Here you can see every variety of carpet, from the homespun,

unpretending straw, oil cloth, and Kidderminster, to the gorgeous

Brussels and tapestry (above whose traceried buds and flowers the

daintiest foot might well poise itself, loth to crush), up to the regal

Axminster, of Scottish manufacture, woven without seam, and warranted,

in these days of late suppers and tobacco smoking, to _last a

life-time_.

Emerging from this subterranean region, you will ascend into daylight;

and reflecting first upon all this immense outlay, and then upon the

frequent and devastating conflagrations in New York, inquire with

solicitude, Are you _insured_? and regret to learn that there is too

much risk to effect an _entire_ insurance, although Argus-eyed watchmen

keep up a night-and-day patrol throughout the handsome building.

THE OLD MERCHANT WANTS A SITUATION.

“An elderly gentleman, formerly a well-known merchant, wishes a

situation; he will engage in any respectable employment not too

laborious.”—_New York Daily Paper._

I don’t know the old man. I never saw him on ‘change, in a fine suit of

broadcloth, leaning on his gold-headed cane; while brokers, and

insurance officers, and presidents of banks raised their hats

deferentially, and the crowd respectfully made way for him. I never kept

account of the enormous taxes he annually paid the city, or saw his

gallant ships ploughing the blue ocean with their costly freight, to

foreign ports. I never saw him in his luxurious home, taking his quiet

siesta, lulled by the liquid voice of his fairy daughter. No: nor did I

hear the auctioneer’s hammer in that home, nor see the red flag

floating, like a signal of distress, before the door. I didn’t read the

letter that recalled his only boy from college, or see the humbled

family, as they passed, shrinking, over the threshold into poor

lodgings, whose landlord coarsely stipulated for “a week’s rent in

advance.”

“Any occupation not _too laborious_.” How mournfully the old man’s words

fall upon the ear! Life to commence anew, with the silver head, and bent

form, and faltering step, and palsied hand of age! With the first ray of

morning light, that hoary head must be lifted from an unquiet pillow, to

encounter the drenching rain, and driving sleet, and piercing cold. No

reprieve from that wearisome ledger, for the throbbing brow and dimmed

eye. Beardless clerks make a jest of “the old boy;” superciliously

repeating, in his sensitive ear, their mutual master’s orders. With them

he meekly receives his weekly pittance; sighing, as he counts it over,

to think of the few comforts it will bring to the drooping hearts at

home. Foot-weary, he travels through the crowded streets; his threadbare

coat, and napless hat, and dejected face, all unnoticed by the thriving

young merchant, whom the old man helped to his present prosperous

business position. The birth-days of his delicate daughter come and go,

all unmarked by the joy-bestowing gift. With trouble and exposure,

sickness comes at last; then the tardy foot, and careless, professional

touch of the callous-hearted dispensary doctor; then the poor man’s

hearse stands before the door; then winds unheeded through busy streets,

to the “Potter’s field,” while his former cotemporaries take up the

daily paper, and sipping their wine, say carelessly, as if _they_ had a

quit-claim from sorrow, “Well, Old Smith, the broken-down millionaire,

is dead.”

Ah, there are tragedies of which editors and printers little dream,

woven in their daily advertising sheets; the office boy feeds the fire

with many a tear-blotted manuscript, penned by trembling fingers, all

unused to toil.

A MOVING TALE.

The Smiths have just been moving. They always move “for the last time,”

on the first of May. “Horrid custom!” exclaims Smith, wiping the

perspiration from his brow, and pulling up his depressed dickey. “How my

blood curdles and my bones ache at the thought!” It was on Tuesday, the

third of May, that the afflicting rite was celebrated. Cartmen—four of

them—were engaged the Saturday previous, to be on hand at six o’clock on

Tuesday morning, to transport the household goods from the habitation of

’52–3 to that of ’53–4. Smith was to pay them three dollars each—twelve

dollars in all. They would not come for a mill less; Smith tried them

thoroughly.

On Monday, Smith’s house is turned into a sort of bedlam, minus the

beds. They are tied up, ready for the next morning’s Hegira; the Smiths

sleeping on the floor on Monday night. Smith can’t sleep on the floor;

he grows restless; he receives constant reminders from Mrs. Smith to

take his elbow out of the baby’s face; he has horrid visions, and rolls

about; therefore, he is not at all surprised, on waking at cock-crow, to

find his head in the fire-place, and his hair powdered with soot. The

occasion of his waking at that time, was a dream of an unpleasant

nature. He dreamed that he had rolled off the world backwards, and

lodged in a thorn-bush. Of course, such a thing was slightly improbable;

but how could Smith be responsible for a dream?

On Tuesday morning the Smiths are up with the dawn. The household being

mustered, it is found that the servant girl, who had often averred that,

“she lived out just for a little exercise,” had deserted her colours.

The grocer at the corner politely informs Smith (whom Mrs. S. had sent

on an errand of inquiry), that, on the night previous, the servant left

with him a message for her employers, to the effect that “she didn’t

consider moving the genteel thing at all; and that a proper regard for

her character and position in society had induced her to get a situation

in the family of a gentleman who owned the house he lived in.”

This is severe: Smith feels it keenly; Mrs. Smith leans her head against

her husband’s vest pattern, and says “She is quite crushed,” and

“wonders how Smith can have the heart to whistle. But it is always so,”

she remarks. “Woman is the weaker vessel, and man delights to trample on

her.” Smith indignantly denies this sweeping assertion, and says “he

tramples on nothing;” when Mrs. Smith points to a bandbox containing her

best bonnet, which he has just put his foot through. Smith is silent.

The cartmen were to be on the premises at six o’clock. Six o’clock

comes—half-past six—seven o’clock—but no cartmen. Here is a dilemma! The

successors to the Smiths are to be on the ground at eight o’clock; and

being on the ground, they will naturally wish to get into the house;

which they cannot well do, unless the Smiths are out of it.

Smith takes a survey of his furniture, with a feeling of intense

disgust. He wishes his cumbrous goods were reduced to the capacity of a

carpet-bag, which he could pick up and walk away with. The mirrors and

pianoforte are his especial aversion. The latter is a fine instrument,

with an Eolian attachment. He wishes it had a sheriff’s attachment; in

fact, he would have been obliged to any officer who should, at that

wretched moment, have sold out the whole establishment, at the most

“ruinous sacrifice” ever imagined by an auctioneer’s fertile

“marvellousness.”

—Half-past seven, and no cartmen yet. What is to be done? Ah! here they

come, at last. Smith is at a loss to know what excuse they will make.

Verdant Smith! _They make no excuse._ They simply tell him, with an air

which demands his congratulations, that they “picked up a nice job by

the way, and stopped to do it.” “You see,” says the principal, “we goes

in for all we can get, these times, and there’s no use of anybody’s

grumbling. Kase, you see, if one don’t want us, another will; and it’s

no favour for anybody to employ us a week either side the first of May.”

The rascal grins as he says this; and Smith, perceiving the strength of

the cartman’s position, wisely makes no reply.

They begin to load. Just as they get fairly at work, the Browns (the

Smiths’ successors) arrive, with an appalling display of stock. Brown is

a vulgar fellow, who has suddenly become rich, and whose ideas of

manliness all centre in brutality. He is furious because the Smiths are

not “clean gone.” He “can’t wait there, all day, in the street.” He

orders his men to “carry the things into the house,” and heads the

column himself with a costly rocking-chair in his arms. As Brown comes

up with his rocking-chair, Smith, at the head of his men, descends, with

a bureau, from the second floor.

“They met, ’twas in a crowd”—

on the stairs, and Smith

“Thought that Brown would shun him,”

—but he didn’t! The consequence was, they came in collision: or, rather,

Smith’s bureau and Brown’s rocking-chair came in collision. Now, said

bureau was an old-fashioned, hardwood affair, made for service, while

Brown’s rocking-chair was a flimsy, showy fabric, of modern make. The

meeting on the stairs occasions some squeezing, and more stumbling, and

Brown suddenly finds himself and chair under the bureau, to the great

injury of his person and his furniture. (Brown has since recovered, but

the case of the rocking-chair is considered hopeless.) This discomfiture

incenses the Browns to a high degree, and they determine to be as

annoying as possible; so they persist in bringing their furniture into

the house, and upstairs, as the Smiths are carrying theirs out of the

house, and down stairs. Collisions are, of course, the order of the day;

but the Smiths do not mind this much, as they have a great advantage,

_viz.: their furniture is not half so good as Brown’s_. After a few

smashes, Brown receives light on this point, and orders his forces to

remain quiet, while the foe evacuates the premises; so the Smiths retire

in peace—and much of their furniture in pieces.

The four carts form quite a respectable procession; but there is no

disguising the fact that the furniture looks very shabby (and whose

furniture does not look shabby, piled on carts?); so the Smiths

prudently take a back street, that no one may accuse them of owning it.

Smith has to carry the baby and a large mirror, which Mrs. S. was afraid

to trust to the cartmen, there being no insurance on either. It being a

windy day, both the mirror and Smith’s hat veer to all points of the

compass, while the baby grows very red in the face at not being able to

possess himself of them. Between the wind, the mirror, his hat and the

baby, Smith has an unpleasant walk of it.

About ten o’clock, they arrive at their new residence, and find, to

their horror, that their predecessors have not begun to move. They

inquire the reason. The feminine head of the family informs them, with

tears in her eyes, that her husband (Mr. Jonas Jenkins) has been sick in

Washington for five weeks; that, in consequence of his affliction, they

have not been able to provide a new tenement; that she is quite unwell,

and that one of her children (she has six) is ill, also; that she don’t

know what is to become of them, &c., &c. Smith sets his hat on the back

of his head, gives a faint tug at his neck-tie, and confesses

himself—quenched! His furniture looks more odious every minute. He once

felt much pride it, but he feels none now: he feels only disgust. The

cartmen begin to growl out that they “can’t stand here all day,” and

request to be informed “where we shall drop the big traps.” Hereupon,

Smith ventures, with a ghastly attempt at a smile, to inquire of Mrs.

Jenkins why she didn’t tell him, when he called, on Saturday, of her

inability to procure a house? To which that lady innocently replies that

she “didn’t wish to give him any unnecessary trouble!” which reply

satisfies him as to Mrs. Jenkins’ claim to force of intellect.

At this juncture Smith falls into a profound reverie. He thinks that,

after all, Fourier is right—“that the Solidarity of the human race is an

entity;” that “nobody can be happy until everybody is happy.” He agrees

with the great philosopher, that the “series distributes the harmonies.”

He realizes that “society is organized (or rather disorganized) on a

wrong basis;” that it is an “amorphous condition,” whereas it should be

“crystallized.” With our celebrated “down east” poet, Ethan Spike, Esq.,

he begins to think that,

“The etarnal bung is loose,”

and that, unless it be soon tightened, there is danger that

“All natur’ will be spilt.”

He comes to the conclusion, finally, that “something must be done,” and

that speedily, to “secure a home for every family.”

At this point he is aroused by his tormentors, the cartmen, who inform

him that they are in a “Barkis” state of mind (willin’) to receive their

twelve dollars. Smith pays the money, and turns to examine the premises.

He finds that Mrs. Jenkins has packed all her things in the back

basement and the second-floor sitting-room. Poor thing! she has done her

best, after all. She is in ill health; her husband is sick, and away

from home; and her children are not well. God pity the unfortunate who

live in cities, especially in the “moving season.” But Smith is a

kind-hearted man. With a few exceptions, the Smiths are a kind-hearted

race—and that’s probably the reason they are so numerous.

Smith puts on a cheerful countenance, and busies himself in arranging

his furniture. Mrs. Smith, kind soul, forgets the destruction of her

bandbox and bonnet, and cares not how long or how loud Smith whistles.

Suddenly the prospect brightens! Mrs. Jenkins’ brother-in-law appears,

and announces that he has found rooms for her, a little higher up town.

Cartmen are soon at the door, and the Jenkinses are on their “winding

way” to their new residence.

—But the Smiths’ troubles are not yet over. The painters, who were to

have had the house all painted the day before, have done nothing but

leave their paint-pots in the hall, and a little Smithling, being of an

investigating turn of mind, and hungry withal, attempts to make a late

breakfast off the contents of one of them. He succeeds in eating enough

to disgust him with his bill of fare, and frighten his mamma into

hysterics. A doctor is sent for: he soon arrives, and, after attending

to the mother, gives the young adventurer a facetious chuck under the

chin, and pronounces him perfectly safe. The parents are greatly

relieved, for Willy is a pet; and they confidently believe him destined

to be President of the United States, if they can only keep paint-pots

out of his way.

It takes the Smiths some ten days to get “to rights.” The particulars of

their further annoyances—how the carpets didn’t fit; how the cartmen

“lost the pieces;” how the sofas couldn’t be made to look natural; how

the pianoforte was too large to stand behind the parlour door, and too

small to stand between the front windows; how the ceiling was too low,

and the book-case too high; how a bottle of indelible ink got into the

bureau by mistake and “marked” all Mrs. Smith’s best dresses—I forbear

to inflict on the reader. Suffice it to say, the Smiths are in “a

settled state;” although their apartments give signs of the recent

manifestation of a strong disturbing force—reminding one, somewhat, of a

“settlement” slowly recovering from the visitation of an earthquake.

Still, they are thankful for present peace, and are determined,

_positively_, not to move again—until next May.

THIS SIDE AND THAT.

I am weary of this hollow show and glitter—weary of fashion’s

stereotyped lay-figures—weary of smirking fops and brainless belles,

exchanging their small coin of flattery and their endless genuflexions:

let us go out of Broadway—somewhere, anywhere. Turn round the wheel,

Dame Fortune, and show up the other side.

“The Tombs!”—we never thought to be there! nevertheless, we are not to

be frightened by a grated door or a stone wall, so we pass in; leaving

behind the soft wind of this Indian summer day, to lift the autumn

leaves as gently as does a loving nurse her drooping child.

We gaze into the narrow cells, and draw a long breath. Poor creatures,

tempted and tried. How many to whom the world now pays its homage, who

sit in high places, _should_ be in their stead? God knoweth. See them,

with their pale faces pressed up against the grated windows, or pacing

up and down their stone floors, like chained beasts. There is a little

boy not more than ten years old; what has _he_ done?

“Stolen a pair of shoes!”

Poor child! he never heard of “Swartout.” How should he know that he was

put in there not for _stealing, but for doing it on so small a scale_?

Hist! Do you see that figure seated in the further corner of that cell,

with his hands crossed on his knees? His whole air and dress are those

of a gentleman. How came such a man as that here?

“For murder?” How sad! Ah! somewhere in the length and breadth of the

land a mother’s heart is aching because she spared the rod to spoil the

child.

There is a coffin, untenanted as yet, but kept on hand; for Death laughs

at bolts and fetters, and many a poor wretch is borne struggling within

these gloomy walls, only to be carried to his last home, while none but

God may ever know at whose fireside stands his vacant chair.

And here is a woman’s cell. There are two or three faded dresses hanging

against the walls, and a bonnet, for which she has little use. Her

friends have brought her some bits of carpeting, which she has spread

over the stone floor, with her womanly love of order (poor thing), to

make the place look _home-like_. And there is a crucifix in the corner.

See, she kneels before it! May the Holy Virgin’s blessed Son, who said

to the sinning one, “Neither do I condemn thee,” send into her stricken

heart the balm of holy peace.

Who is that? No! it _cannot_ be—but, yes, it is he—and what a wreck!

See, he shrinks away, and a bright flush chases the marble paleness from

his check. God bless me! That R—— should come to this! Still,

Intemperance, with her thousand voices, crieth. “Give! give!” and still,

alas! it is the gifted, and generous, and warm-hearted, who oftenest

answer the summons.

More cells?—but there is no bed in them; only a wooden platform, raised

over the stone floor. It is for gutter drunkards—too foul, too loathsome

to be placed upon a bed—turned in here like swine, to wallow in the same

slough. Oh, how few, who, festively sipping the rosy wine, say “_my_

mountain stands strong,” e’er dream of such an end as this.

Look there! tread softly: angels are near us. Through the grated window

the light streams faintly upon a little pallet, where, sweet as a dream

of heaven, lies a sleeping babe! Over its cherub face a smile is

flitting. The cell has no other occupant; angels only watch the slumbers

of the prison-cradled. The place is holy. I stoop to kiss its forehead.

From the crowd of women pacing up and down the guarded gallery, one

slides gently to my side, saying, half proudly, half sadly, “’Tis _my_

babe.”

“It is _so_ sweet, and pure, and holy,” said I.

The mother’s lip quivers; wiping away a tear with her apron, she says in

a choking voice:

“Ah, it is little the likes of you, ma’am, know how hard it is for us to

get the honest bread!”

God be thanked, thought I, that there is one who “judgeth _not_ as man

judgeth;” who holdeth evenly the scales of justice; who weigheth against

our sins the _whirlpool_ of our temptations; who forgetteth never the

countless struggles for the victory, ere the desponding, weary heart

shuts out the light of Heaven.

MRS. ZEBEDEE SMITH’S PHILOSOPHY.

Dear me! how expensive it is to be poor. Every time I go out, my best

bib and tucker has to go on. If Zebedee were worth a cool million, I

might wear a coal-hod on my head, if I chose, with perfect impunity.

There was that old nabob’s wife at the lecture, the other night, in a

dress that might have been made for Noah’s great grandmother. She can

afford it! Now, if it rains knives and forks, I must sport a ten dollar

hat, a forty-dollar dress, and a hundred dollar shawl. If I go to a

concert, I must take the highest priced seat, and ride there and back,

just to let “Tom, Dick, and Harry” see that I can afford it. Then we

must hire the most expensive pew in the broad-aisle of a tip-top church,

and give orders to the sexton not to admit any strangers into it who

look snobbish! Then my little children, Napoleon Bonaparte and Donna

Maria Smith, can’t go to a public school, because, you know, we

shouldn’t have to pay anything.

Then if I go shopping, to buy a paper of needles, I have to get a little

chap to bring them home, because it wouldn’t answer for me to be seen

carrying a bundle through the streets. We have to keep three servants

where one might do; and Zebedee’s coats have to be sent to the tailor

when they want a button sewed on, for the look of the thing.

Then if I go to the sea-shore in summer, I can’t take my comfort, as

rich people do, in gingham dresses, loose shoes, and cambric

sun-bonnets. No! I have to be done up by ten o’clock in a Swiss-muslin

dress and a French cap; and my Napoleon Bonaparte and Donna Maria can’t

go off the piazza, because the big rocks and little pebbles cut their

toes so badly through their patent kid slippers.

Then if Zebedee goes a fishing, he dare not put on a linen coat for the

price of his reputation. No, indeed! Why, he never goes to the barn-yard

without drawing on his white kids. Then he orders the most ruinous wines

at dinner, and fees those white jackets till his purse is as empty as an

egg-shell. I declare it is abominably expensive. I don’t believe rich

people have the least idea how much it costs poor people to live!

A LANCE COUCHED FOR THE CHILDREN.

You have a pretty, attractive child; she is warm-hearted and

affectionate, but vivacious and full of life. With judicious management,

and a firm, steady rein, she is a very loveable one. You take her with

you on a visit, or to make a call. You are busy, talking with the friend

you went to see. A gentleman comes in and throws himself indolently on

the sofa. His eye falls upon little Kitty. He is just in the mood to be

amused, and makes up his mind to banter her a little, for the sake of

drawing her out. So he says—

“Jemima, dear—come here!”

The child blushes, and regards him as if uncertain whether he intended

to address her. He repeats his request, with a laugh. She replies, “My

name is Kitty, not Jemima,” which her tormentor contradicts. Kitty looks

puzzled (just as he intended she should), but it is only for a moment.

She sees he is quizzing her. Well, Miss Kitty likes a frolic, if that is

what he wants; so she gives him a pert answer—he laughs uproariously,

and rattles fun round her little ears like a hail storm; Kitty has

plenty of answers ready for him, and he enjoys the sport amazingly.

By-and-by, he gets weary, and says,—“There—run away now, I’m going to

read the newspaper;” but Kitty is wide awake, and has no idea of being

cut short in that summary way; so she continues her Lilliputian attacks,

till finally he gets up and beats a despairing retreat, muttering, “what

a very _disagreeable_ child.”

Mamma sees it all from a distance; she does not interfere—no—for she

believes in “Children’s Rights.” Kitty was quiet, well behaved and

respectful—till the visitor undertook to quiz, and teaze her, for his

own amusement. He wanted a frolic—and he has had it: they _who play with

children must take children’s play_.

A CHAPTER ON HOUSEKEEPING.

I never could see the reason why your smart housekeepers must, of

necessity, be Xantippes. I once had the misfortune to be domesticated

during the summer months with one of this genus.

I should like to have seen the adventurous spider that would have dared

to ply his cunning trade in Mrs. Carrot’s premises! Nobody was allowed

to sleep a wink after daylight, beneath her roof. Even her old rooster

crowed one hour earlier than any of her neighbours’. “Go ahead,” was

written on every broomstick in the establishment.

She gave her husband his breakfast, buttoned up his overcoat, and put

him out of the front door, with his face in the direction of the store,

in less time than I have taken to tell it. Then she snatched up the six

little Carrots; scrubbed their faces, up and down, without regard to

feelings or noses, till they shone like a row of milk pans.

“Clear the track,” was her motto, on washing and ironing days. She never

drew a long breath till the wash-tubs were turned bottom upwards again,

and every article of wearing apparel sprinkled, folded, ironed, and

replaced on the backs of their respective owners. It gave me a stitch in

the side to look at her!

As to her “cleaning days,” I never had courage to witness one. I used to

lie under an apple-tree in the orchard, till she was through. A whole

platoon of soldiers wouldn’t have frightened me so much as that virago

and her mop.

You should have seen her in her glory on “baking days;” her sleeves

rolled up to her arm-pits, and a long, check apron swathed around her

bolster-like figure. The great oven glowing, blazing, and sparkling, in

a manner very suggestive, to a lazy sinner like myself. The interminable

rows of greased pie-plates; the pans of rough and ready gingerbread; the

pots of pork and beans, in an edifying state of progression; and the

immense embryo loaves of brown and wheaten bread. To my innocent

inquiry, whether she thought the latter would “rise,” she set her skinny

arms akimbo, marched up within kissing distance of my face, cocked her

head on one side, and asked “if I thought she looked like a woman to be

trifled with by a loaf of bread!” The way I settled down into my

slippers, without a reply, probably convinced her that I was no longer

sceptical on that point.

Saturday evening she employed in winding up everything that was unwound

in the house—the old entry clock included. From that time till Monday

morning, she devoted to her husband and Sabbatical exercises. All I have

to say is, it is to be hoped she carried some of the fervour of her

secular employment into those halcyon hours.

[Illustration]

A FERN REVERIE.

Dear me, I must go shopping. Shopping is a nuisance; clerks are

impertinent; feminity is victimized. Miserable day, too; mud plastered

an inch thick on the side-walk. Well, if we drop our skirts, gentlemen

cry “Ugh!” and if we lift them from the mud, they level their

eye-glasses at our ankles. The true definition of a gentleman (not found

in incomplete Webster) is—a biped, who, of a muddy day is perfectly

oblivious of anything but the shop signs.

_Vive la France!_ Ingenious Parisians, send us over your clever

invention—a chain suspended from the girdle, at the end of which is a

gold _hand_ to clasp up the superfluous length of our promenading robes;

thus releasing our human digits, and leaving them at liberty to wrestle

with rude Boreas for the possession of the detestable little sham

bonnets, which the milliners persist in hanging on the backs of our

necks.

Well, here we are at Call and Ketchum’s dry-goods store. Now comes the

tug of war; let Job’s mantle fall on my feminine shoulders.

“Have you _blue_ silk?”

Yardstick, entirely ignorant of colours, after fifteen minutes of

snail-like research, hands me down a silk that is as _green_ as himself.

Oh! away with these stupid masculine clerks, and give us _women_, who

know by intuition what we want, to the immense saving of our lungs and

leather.

Here’s Mr. Timothy Tape’s establishment.

“Have you lace collars (in points), Mr. Tape?”

Mr. Tape looks beneficent, and shows me some _rounded_ collars. I repeat

my request in the most pointed manner for _pointed_ collars. Mr. Tape

replies, with a patronizing grin:—

“Points is going out, Ma’am.”

“So am I.”

Dear me, how tired my feet are! nevertheless, I must have some merino.

So I open the door of Mr. Henry Humbug’s dry-goods store, which is about

half a mile in length, and inquire for the desired article. Young

Yardstick directs me to the counter at the _extreme_ end of the store. I

commence my travels thither-ward through a file of gaping clerks, and

arrive there just ten minutes before two by my repeater; when I am told

“they are quite out of merinos; but won’t Lyonnese cloth do just as

well?” pulling down a pile of the same. I rush out in a high state of

frenzy, and, taking refuge in the next-door neighbour’s, inquire for

some stockings. Whereupon the clerk inquires (of the wrong customer),

“What price I wish to pay?” Of course, I am not so verdant as to be

caught in that trap; and, teetotally disgusted with the entire

institution of shopping, I drag my weary limbs into Taylor’s new saloon

to rest.

Bless me! what a display of gilding, and girls, and gingerbread! what a

heap of mirrors! There’s more than one FANNY FERN in the world. I found

that out since I came in.

“What will you be pleased to have?” J-u-l-i-u-s C-æ-s-a-r! look at that

white aproned waiter pulling out his snuff-box and taking a pinch of

snuff right over that bowl of white sugar, that will be handed me in

five minutes to sweeten my tea! And there’s another combing his hair

with a pocket-comb over that dish of oysters.

“What will I have?” Starve me if I’ll have anything till I can find a

cleaner place than this to eat in.

Shade of old Paul Pry Boston! what do I hear? Two—well I declare, I am

not sure whether they are ladies or women; I don’t understand these New

York femininities. At any rate, they wear bonnets, and are telling the

waiter to bring them “a bottle of Maraschino de Zara, some sponge-cake,

and some brandy drops!” See them sip the cordial in their glasses, with

the gusto of old topers. See their eyes sparkle and their cheeks flush,

and just hear their emancipated little tongues go. Wonder if their

husbands know that they—but of course they don’t. However, it is six of

one and half-a-dozen of the other. They are probably turning down

sherry-cobblers, and eating oysters, at Florence’s; and their poor

hungry children (while their parents are dainty-izing) are coming home

hungry from school, to eat a fragmentary dinner picked up at home by a

lazy set of servants.

Heigho! Ladies sipping wine in a public saloon! Pilgrim rock! hide

yourself underground! Well, it is very shocking the number of married

women who pass their time ruining their health in these saloons,

devouring Parisian confectionery, and tainting their children’s blood

with an appetite for strong drink. Oh, what a mockery of a home must

theirs be! Heaven pity the children reared there, left to the chance

training of vicious hirelings.

A “BROWN STUDY”—SUGGESTED BY BROWN VAILS.

“Why _will_ ladies wear those ugly brown veils, which look like the

burnt edge of a buckwheat cake? We vote for green ones.”—_Exchange._

MR. CRITIC: Why don’t you hit upon something objectionable? Such as the

passion which stout ladies have for wearing immense plaids, and whole

stories of flounces! Such as thin, bolster-like looking females-wearing

narrow’ stripes! Such as brunettes, gliding round like ghosts, in pale

blue! Such as blondes blowing out like dandelions in bright yellow! Such

as short ladies swathing up their little fat necks in voluminous folds

of shawls, and _shingle_ women rejoicing in strips of mantles!

_Then the gentlemen!_

Your stout man is sure to get into a frock coat, with baggy trousers;

your May-pole, into a long-waisted body-coat, and “continuations”

unnecessarily compact; your dark man looks like an “east wind”

daguerreotyped, in a light blue neck-tie; while your pink-and-white man

looks as though he wanted a pitcher of water in his face.

Now allow _me_ to suggest. Your thin man should always close the thorax

button of his coat, and the last two at his waistband, leaving the

intermediate open, to give what he needs—more breadth of chest. Your

stout man, who has almost always a nice arm and hand, should have his

coat sleeve a _perfect fit_ from the elbow to the wrist, buttoning

_there tightly_—allowing a nice strip of a white linen wristband below

it.

I understand the architecture of a coat to a charm; know as quick as a

flash whether ’tis all right, the minute I clap my eye on it. As to

vests, I call myself a connoisseur. “_Stocks_” are only fit for Wall

Street! Get yourself some nice silk neck-ties, and ask your wife, or

somebody who knows something, to longitudinize them to your jugular.

Throw your coloured, embroidered, and ruffled shirt-bosoms overboard;

leave your cane and cigar at home; wear a pair of neat, _dark_ gloves;

sport an immaculate pocket-handkerchief and dickey—don’t say naughty

words—give us ladies the _inside_ of the walk—speak of every woman as

you would wish _your_ mother or _your_ sister spoken of, and you’ll do!

INCIDENT AT THE FIVE POINTS HOUSE OF INDUSTRY.

To be able to appreciate Mr. Pease’s toils, and sacrifices, and

self-denying labours at the Five Points House of Industry, one must

visit the locality—one must wind through those dirty streets and alleys,

and see the wrecks of humanity that meet him at every step—he must see

children so dirty and squalid that they scarcely resemble human beings,

playing in filthy gutters, and using language that would curdle his

blood to hear from _childhood’s_ lips—he should see men, “made in God’s

own image,” brutalised beyond his power to imagine—he should see women

(girls of not more than twenty years) reeling about the pavements in a

state of beastly intoxication, without a trace of feminity in their

vicious faces—he should pass the rum shops, where men and women are

quarrelling, and fighting, and swearing, while childhood listens and

_learns_!—he should pass the second-hand clothes cellars, where

hard-featured Jewish dealers swing out faded, refuse garments (pawned by

starving virtue for bread), to sell to the needy, half-naked emigrant

for his last penny—he should see decayed fruit and vegetables which the

most ravenous swine might well root twice over before devouring,

purchased as daily food by these poor creatures—he should see _gentlemen

(?)_ threading these streets, not to make all this misery less, God

knows, but to sever the last thread of hope to which many a tempted one

is despairingly clinging.

One must see all this before he can form a just idea of the magnitude

and importance of the work that Mr. Pease has single-handed and nobly

undertaken; remembering that men of wealth and influence have their own

reasons for using that wealth and influence to perpetuate this modern

Sodom.

One should spend an hour in Mr. Pease’s house, to see the constant

draughts upon his time and strength, in the shape of calls and messages,

and especially the applications for relief that _his_ slender purse,

alas! is often not able to answer;—he should see his unwearied patience

and activity, admire the kind, sympathetic heart—unaffected by the toil

or the frowns of temporizing theorists—ever warm, ever pitiful, giving

not only “the _crumbs_ from his table,” but often his own meals to the

hungry—his own wardrobe to the naked;—he should see _this_, and go away

_ashamed_ to have lived so long and done so little to help the maimed,

and sick, and lame, to Bethesda’s Pool.

I will relate an incident which occurred, some time since, at the House

of Industry, and which serves as a fair sample of daily occurrences

there.

One morning an aged lady, of respectable appearance, called at the

Mission House and inquired for Mr. Pease. She was told that he was

engaged, and asked if some one else would not do as well. She said,

respectfully, “No; my business is with him; I will wait, if you please,

till he can see me.”

Mr. Pease immediately came in, when the old lady commenced her story:—

“I come, sir,” said she, “in behalf of a poor, unfortunate woman and

three children. She is living now”—and the tears dropped over her

wrinkled face—“in a bad place in Willet Street, in a basement. There are

rum shops all around it, and many drunken people about the

neighbourhood. She has made out to pay the rent, but has had no food for

the poor little children, who have subsisted on what they could manage

to beg in the daytime. The landlord promised, when she hired the

basement, to put a lock on the door, and make it comfortable, so that

‘the Croton’ need not run in; but he got his rent and then broke his

promise, and they have not seen him since.”

“Is the woman respectable?” inquired Mr. Pease.

“Yes—no—not exactly,” said the poor old lady, violently agitated. “She

was well brought up. She has a good heart, sir, but a bad head, and then

trouble has discouraged her. Poor Mary—yes, sir, it _must_ have been the

_trouble_—for I know her _heart_ is good, sir. I,”—tears choked the old

lady’s utterance. Recovering herself, she continued:—

“She had a kind husband once. He was the father of her two little girls:

six years ago he died, and—the poor thing—oh, sir, you don’t know how

dear she is to _me_!”—and burying her aged face in her hands, she sobbed

aloud.

Mr. Pease’s kind heart interpreted the old lady’s emotion, without the

pain of an explanation. In the weeping woman before him he saw the

_mother_ of the lost one.

Yes, she was “Mary’s” mother. Poverty could not chill her love; shame

and the world’s scorn had only filled her with a God-like pity.

After a brief pause, she brushed away her tears and went on:—

“Yes, sir; Mary was a good child to me _once_; she respected religion

and religious people, and used to love to go to church; but lately, sir,

God knows she has almost broken my heart. Last spring I took her home,

and the three dear children; but she would not listen to me, and left

without telling me where she was going. I heard that there was a poor

woman living in a basement in Willet Street, with three children, and my

heart told me that that was my poor, lost Mary, and there I found her.

But, oh, sir—oh, sir”—and she sobbed as if her heart were

breaking—“_such_ a place! _My_ Mary, that I used to cradle in these arms

to sleep, that lisped her little evening prayer at _my_ knee—_my_ Mary,

_drunk_ in that terrible place!”

She was getting so agitated that Mr. Pease, wishing to turn the current

of her thoughts, asked her if she herself was a member of any church.

She said yes, of the —— Street Baptist Church. She said she was a widow,

and had had one child beside Mary—a son. And her face lighted up as she

said:—

“Oh, sir, he was such a _fine_ lad. He did all he could to make me

happy; but he thought, that if he went to California he could make

money, and when he left he said, ‘Cheer up, dear mother; I’ll come back

and give my money all to _you_, and you shall never work any more.’

“I can see him now, sir, as he stood there, with his eye kindling. Poor

lad! poor lad! He came back, but it was only to die. His last words

were, ‘God will care for you, mother—I know it—when I’m gone to Heaven.’

Oh! if I could have seen my poor _girl_ die as he did, before she became

so bad. Oh, sir, _won’t_ you take her _here_?—_won’t_ you try to make

her good?—_can’t_ you make her good, sir? I _can’t_ give Mary up. Nobody

cares for Mary now but me. Won’t you try, sir?”

Mr. Pease promised that he would do all he could, and sent a person out

with the old lady, to visit “Mary,” and obtain particulars; he soon

returned and corroborated all the old lady’s statements. Mr. Pease then

took a friend and started to see what could be done.

In Willet Street is a rickety old wooden building, filled to overflowing

with the very refuse of humanity. The basement is lighted with two small

windows half under ground; and in this wretched hole lived Mary and her

children. As Mr. Pease descended the steps into the room, he heard some

one say, “Here he comes, grandmother; he’s come—he’s come!”

The door was opened. On a pile of rags in the corner lay Mary, “my

Mary,” as the old lady tearfully called her.

God of mercy! what a wreck of beautiful womanhood! Her large blue eyes

glared with maniac wildness, under the influence of intoxication. Long

waves of auburn hair fell, in tangled masses, over a form wasted, yet

beautiful in its graceful outlines.

Poor, lost Mary!

“_Such_ a place!” as her mother had, weeping, said. Not a table or

chair, or bedstead, or article of furniture in it of any description. On

the mantel-piece stood a beer-bottle, with a half-burnt candle in its

neck. A few broken, dirty dishes stood upon the shelf, and a quantity of

filthy rags lay scattered round the floor.

The grandmother was holding by the hand a sweet child of eight years,

with large, bright eyes, and auburn hair (like poor Mary’s) falling

about her neck. An older girl of twelve, with a sweet Madonna face, that

seemed to light up even _that_ wretched place with a beam of Heaven,

stood near, bearing in her arms a babe of sixteen months, which was not

so large as one of eight months should have been. Its little hands

looked like birds’ claws, and its little bones seemed almost piercing

the skin.

The old lady went up to her daughter, saying, “Mary, dear, this is the

gentleman who is willing to take you to his house if you will try to be

good.”

“Get out of the room, you old hypocrite,” snarled the intoxicated woman,

“or I’ll——(and she clutched a hatchet beside her)—I’ll show you! You are

the worst old woman I ever knew, except the one you brought in here the

other day, and she is a fiend outright. Talk to _me_ about being

_good_!—ha—ha!”—and she laughed an idiotic laugh.

“Mother,” said the eldest child, sweetly laying her little hand upon her

arm,—“_dear_ mother, don’t, please don’t hurt grandmother. She is good

and kind to us: she only wants to get you out of this bad place, to

where you will be treated kindly.”

“Yes, dear mother,” chimed in the younger sister, bending her little

curly head over her, “mother, you said once you _would_ go. Don’t keep

us here any longer, mother. We are cold and hungry. Please get up and

take us away; we are afraid to stay here, mother dear.”

“Yes, Mary,” said the old lady, handing her down a faded, ragged gown,

“here is your dress; put it on, won’t you?”

Mary raised herself on the pile of rags on which she was lying, and

pushing the eldest child across the room, screamed out, “Get away, you

impudent little thing! you are just like your old grandmother. I tell

you _all_,” said she, raising herself on one elbow, and tossing back her

auburn hair from her broad white forehead, “I tell you all, I _never_

will go from here, _never_! I _love_ this place. So many fine people

come here, and we have such good times. There is a gentleman who takes

care of me. He brought me some candles last night, and he says that I

shan’t want for anything, if I will only get rid of these troublesome

children—_my husband’s_ children.” And she hid her face in her hands and

laughed convulsively.

“You may have _them_,” she continued, “just as soon as you like—baby and

all! but I never will go from this place. I _love_ it. A great many fine

people come here to see me.”

The poor old lady wrung her hands and wept, while the children clung

round their grandmother, with half-averted faces, trembling and silent.

Mr. Pease said to her, “Mary, you may either go with me, or I’ll send

for an officer, and have you carried to the station-house. Which will

you do?”

Mary cursed and raved, but finally put on the dress the old lady handed

her, and consented to go with them. A carriage was soon procured, and

Mary helped inside—Mr. Pease lifting in the baby and the two little

girls; and away they started for the Five Points House of Industry.