Having previously procured the articles required for my friend, I immediately left—go home—got there, and proceeded to examine my purchases—found that the slippers—having been pasted together without the slightest regard to permanency, had come apart in my pocket, my comforter had ravelled out, so that I had about six inches comforter, and a wad of yarn big enough to make a horse blanket—my dressing-gown had been made of a moth-eaten remnant, and where there was any sewing, every stitch was as long as a railroad, but the sleeves had, I verily believe, been put in with court plaster, and the long seams closed with carpenter's glue.
Made up my mind that the objects of that feminine institution, a Ladies' Fair, are somewhat as follows:
Firstly, to give the ladies an opportunity to show their new clothes, and to talk with a multitude of unknown gentlemen, without any preliminary introduction.
Secondly, to beg as much money as possible from the gentlemen aforesaid, under the transparent formality of bargain and sale—which sale includes the buyer, who is really the only article fairly "sold" in the whole collection.
Thirdly, to give some money to the ostentatiously poor, if there is any left after paying expenses, and the Committee don't spend it in carriage-hire.
In New York, by a refinement in Benevolence, engendered by the hardness of the times, and the necessity of making the money go as far as it will, charity money answers a double purpose; procuring pleasure for the rich, and soup for the poor.
Thus if you pay three dollars for a ticket to the Opera or Ball, you can enjoy your Aria, or Schottische, with a double relish; and can eat oysters and turkey, and gulp down creams and ices till your stomach "strikes," in the labor of love, with the happy consciousness, that it is all for "sweet charity"—and if the three dollars, before it reach the needy, in whose behalf you gave it, dwindles to three dimes and a tip, you can, knowing you have done your duty, poetically exclaim, with the noble Thane, "Thou can'st not say I did it."
XVII.
Millerite Jubilee—How they didn't go up.
In company with many others of the same genus and who may be classed under the same general cognomen, my friend Damphool lately became convinced that according to the comfortable prediction of Mr. Miller, the "end of Earth" would become speedily visible to the naked eye, as that amiable gentleman had advertised the world to burn on the nineteenth day of May, 1855. According to the programme, the entertainment was to commence with a trumpet solo by Gabriel (not the one of City Hall celebrity), to be followed by a general "gittin' up stairs," and grand mass meeting of the illustrious defunct—after which "the elect" were to start for Paradise in special conveyances provided for their accommodation—the whole to conclude with a splendid display of fireworks in the evening.