Now, even in ordinary times, any kind of an omnibus is a purely democratic institution, but an omnibus sleigh containing ordinarily, anywhere from fifty to a hundred and twenty people, is a most effectual leveller of aristocratic distinctions.
In this particular vehicle, a fashionably dressed Miss, had from necessity, taken her seat in the lap of a Bowery boy, who, in his anxiety to make her comfortable, had put one arm round her waist, and one hand into her muff.
An up-town merchant was carrying a washerwoman's baby, while a dandy, in patent leather boots, was holding her bundle of dirty linen.
A news-boy, stealing a ride, was smoking a Connecticut cigar, and puffing the smoke into the faces of the incongruous assembly.
A negro woman was sustaining her position on the edge of the slippery craft, by holding on with one arm round the neck of a clergyman in a blue cloak with a brass hook and eye at the neck, who had a basket of potatoes with a leg of mutton in it, which a sailor was using for a shield to protect him from the shower of snow balls, fired by the boys on the corner—naughty boys—one hit one of our ladies on the head, she made a very pretty faint, but was soon revived by a piece of ice which I slipped down her back—one blacked the driver's other eye, and a particularly and solidly unpleasant one, hit Sandie in the mouth and waked him up.
Began to be sensible of the pleasures of my situation—felt as if my boots were full of ice water, my nose a Croton water pipe, and my fingers carrot-shaped icicles. Each leg seemed a perpendicular iceberg my feet good sized snow-drifts, my head a frozen pumpkin, and the inside of me felt as if I had made my supper on a cast-iron garden-fence.
As, however, these peculiar but unpleasant sensations are inseparable from the sleigh-riding performances, I tried to warm myself by imagining volcanoes and conflagrations; and, indulging in a hope of hot brandy and water at my journey's end, endeavoured to bear my trials like a frozen martyr, as I was.
Got to the hotel at last, waiters rescued us and got us into the house, which was full of parties ahead of us. Burnt the skin off my throat trying to thaw my congealed digestive apparatus, by drinking brandy and water boiling hot; ladies imbibed hot gin sling all round "ad libitum," gentlemen ditto, and "Da Capo."
Ready for a dance; got into the ball-room, which was so full already that each cotillon had only a space about as big as a pickle-tub—"balance four" and you stepped on somebody's heels and tore off the skirt of some lady's dress—"forward two" and you poked your nose into the whiskers of the gentleman opposite, and felt his neck-tie in your eye, and "promenade all" was the signal for an animated but irregular fancy dance upon the toes of the bystanders.
But this quadrille was voted by most of our ladies to be altogether too antiquated and energetic—the truth is, city dancing is no more like a country jig than a dead march is like a hornpipe—in the one case the ladies slide about with a die-away air, as if one lively step would annihilate their delicate frames; and in the other, they dance, as if they were made of watch-springs and india rubber.