THE DOLLS' RECEPTION.
This beautiful engraving will give our little readers an idea of an entertainment which is now being held in Republican Hall, Thirty-third Street, New York city, where, instead of grown people or children being the important personages, three hundred dollies are dressed up in magnificent toilets, waiting to receive the visits and admiration of their friends.
The dollies do not talk, with the exception of a few who say "Papa" and "Mamma"; but they are all arranged in groups representing beautiful pictures. Some of these have backgrounds of painted scenery, and all have appropriate surroundings to perfect the tableaux.
There are a "model school," with dormitory, school-room, and play-ground; a christening, with the minister and baby and a party of friends; a kitchen, with a whole family of darkies; a dozen children "coasting"; a real log-cabin, to be used as a baby-house; and last, and prettiest of all, the heroes and heroines of every nursery: Mother Goose and her children, dressed in costumes which the modern picture-books have made popular; Red Riding-hood, Polly Flinders, Bobby Shaftoe and the little lady he left behind him, Little Bopeep, Mistress Mary, Tom Tucker, Willy Boz, Tom, Tom, the Piper's son, and his audience, and a great many others.
Among such a vast number of dollies there are of course a great many babies. These are all placed in the "Nursery," where they are waited upon and attended by full-grown dolls, dressed neatly, and with pretty little nurses' caps. Everything is provided in the way of cradles, rattles, and baby-jumpers for these very little folks, and they are so well cared for and amused that their papas and mammas, who are busy taking part in the tableaux, need have no concern about them.
Taking it altogether, the exhibition is a pleasant place to visit. The dolls are all well dressed, and will be sold at prices which, by comparison, are not unreasonable; but they will not be removed from their places in the tableaux until after the exhibition is concluded.
And now for the object. Several years ago a half-dozen young ladies set to work to raise three thousand dollars to build a little cottage somewhere on the sea-shore, which might afford a comfortable summer home to such of the children as were able to bear removal from the Children's Hospital, on Thirty-fourth Street and Ninth Avenue. This institution is managed by the Sisters of St. Mary, an Episcopal sisterhood, and so well managed that the ladies wished to place the little summer home also in their care.
The three thousand dollars was raised long ago; but the project grew, as such things will, and the house which was built last spring cost, with the land, about nine thousand dollars. It is situated on Rockaway Beach, between the large new hotel and Far Rockaway, and will accommodate about forty children. Some of those who are taken from the hospital will remain all summer; others will go for ten days or two weeks. In this way the ladies hope to give health and pleasure to a great many poor little children, who must otherwise suffer in tenement-houses all summer.
The home will be called "St. Mary's by the Sea." It will be opened early next summer, and the inmates will be very glad to receive a visit from any of their friends who are interested in the work.