According to the early Assembly rules, tickets for strangers were to be had on application to the managers, and were to be paid for at the rate of seven shillings and sixpence,—this for gentlemen; for ladies (such was the gallantry of the time) nothing was to be paid. This old regulation remained in force until quite recently, when, in consequence of the increasing number of guests from other cities and in simple justice to the subscribers, it was decided that guests of both sexes should be paid for at the same rates as residents. The old subscription ticket was forty shillings, which moderate sum was levied upon the gentleman, and of course included the lady who accompanied him. It covered the expenses of a series of entertainments given upon every Thursday evening from January until May. The rule was that the ball “should commence at precisely six in the evening, and not, by any means, to exceed twelve the same night.” Worthy and most moderate ancestors! Your ball ended at the hour that the Assembly of our time begins, and the fair Belindas and Myrtillas who had graced the scene were sent off to their beds in time to get, if not beauty-sleep, certainly some hours of good sleep before dawn. This was a fortunate circumstance, for those were days when mothers of families considered it one of the cardinal sins to lie abed in the morning, and if Belinda did not get her quantum of sleep at night there was little chance of making it up at high noon.
Although it was one of the regulations of the Assembly that none were to be admitted without tickets, which were received at the door by one of the directors, there appears to have been some laxity in enforcing this regulation, as, in 1771, the following notice was inserted in the Pennsylvania Journal:
“The Assembly will be opened this evening, and as the receiving money at the door has been found extremely inconvenient, the managers think it necessary to give the public notice that no person will be admitted without a ticket from the directors, which (through the application of a subscriber) may be had of either of the managers.”
As card-playing formed an important part in the entertainment of the time, rooms were provided for those who preferred cards to the dance, furnished with fire, candles, tables, cards, etc.
The dances were regulated according to very strict rules, “first come, first served.” The ladies who arrived first had places in the first set; the others were to be arranged in the order in which they arrived. The ladies were to draw for their places, which made a little pleasant excitement and raised a flutter of expectation in breasts masculine as well as feminine. The directors always had the right to reserve one place out of the set “to present to a stranger, if any, or any other lady, who was thereby entitled to lead up that set for the night.”
To break in upon the regular order of the dances seems to have been a serious offence, as, in a letter of 1782, we read of a Philadelphia belle, Miss Polly Riché, starting up a revolt against the established authorities by “standing up in a set not her own.” By drawing the other ladies and gentlemen, who formed the cotillon, into the rebellion, she precipitated a rupture between the gentlemen, Mr. Moore and Colonel Armand, and the managers of the Assembly.
Two Jewish names appear on this early list of 1749, Levy and Franks. Mr. Black, who was in Philadelphia in 1744, thus describes a Miss Levy, probably a sister of Samson Levy, whose name is enrolled among the subscribers to the Assembly:
“In the evening, in company with Mr. Lewis and Mr. Littlepage, I went to Mr. Levy’s, a Jew, and very Considerable Merch’t; he was a Widdower. And his Sister, Miss Hettie Levy, kept his House. We staid Tea, and was very agreeably Entertain’d by the Young Lady. She was of middle Stature, and very well made her Complection Black but very Comely, she had two Charming eyes full of Fire and Rolling; Eye Brows Black and well turn’d, with a Beautiful head of Hair, Coal Black which she wore a Wigg, waving in wanting curling Ringletts in her Neck; She was a lady of a great Deal of Wit, Join’d to a Good Understanding, full of Spirits, and of a Humor exceeding Jocose and Agreeable.”
Another lady who inspired even more ardent admiration in the susceptible breast of Mr. Black was Miss Mollie Stamper, who married William Bingham, and figures on the early lists of the Assembly as Mrs. Bingham.[39] Of this young lady’s charms Mr. Black says,—
“I cannot say that she was a Regular Beauty, but she was Such that few could find any Fault with what Dame Nature had done for her.... When I view’d her I thought all the Statues I ever beheld, was so much inferior to her in Beauty that she was more capable of Converting a man into a Statue, than of being Imitated by the Greatest Master of that Art, & I surely had as much delight in Surveying her as the Organs of Sight are capable of conveying to the Soul.”