Bull Dogge tried to convince me, that one half the people present, thought that Fifth avenue runs straight into Heaven, and that their through tickets are insured, their front seats reserved, and that when they are obliged to leave this world, they will find a coach and four, and two servants in livery, ready to take them right through to the other side of Jordan.
XVI.
Benevolence Run Mad—Charitable Cheating.
I was so much affected by the services of the Church, had my feelings so much excited, and all my benevolent and charitable nature so thoroughly aroused by the sermon, that I felt an irresistible desire to rush out and give somebody something.
For I know that I am charitable; I feel it in my bones, like rheumatism. I always give money to the begwoman, who has such a large family at home; and to the whiny boy, with a club-foot, who asks charity on behalf of his sick mother.
True, I have seen the old lady when she was evidently inebriated, and apparently disposed to harangue the crowd in high Dutch—but then she was in excellent company; noble-looking men, with stars on their bosoms—and I have discovered that the club-footed boy changes all his money into cents, and gambles it away, playing "pitchpenny" in Theatre-alley; still, I keep on giving.
But it is also a fact that I am not always able to comply with the demands upon my purse. Twice have I been invited to "calico" parties, and at the bottom of each note was a modest request that I would make my appearance arrayed in such apparel only, as I would be willing to donate next day to the Five-Points Mission.
Could have done like the others—bought a ready-made coat and vest and given them with the greatest pleasure—but the hint in the invitation seemed to include the entire wardrobe brought into requisition on the occasion, and when I thought of a Five-Points darkey in my ruffled shirt and gold studs, I was "suddenly indisposed," and sent my "regrets."
But I did go to a ball for the benefit of the poor—a two-dollar commingling of "upper-tendom" with "lower-twentydom"—an avalanche of exclusiveness, in a torrent of mobocracy—where the crowd was so great that faces lost their identity, and I was only conscious of a hustling mass of dressed up humanity—a forest of broadcloth wrecked in an ocean of calico. I barely escaped with life, and reached home in a state of collapse.
Afterward, went to a concert in behalf of the poor—where I sat all the evening in a hard seat with a number on the back to see a woman make faces at a well-dressed audience, and sing music which I could not understand—the people all applauded when she screamed, and threw bouquets at her when she made a noise like a swamp-blackbird.