Another equally unfortunate issue is reported of a poor seamstress, who had spent the earnings of years, amounting to six or seven hundred francs, upon the chance of a prize, and drew—nothing. She, too, has lost both money and mind. The affair, however, has had the fortunate result of taming down wild expectancies, and of destroying the taste for such labor hating schemes of profit. It were devoutly to be hoped, that a little of the distaste for moneyed lotteries, would breed a distaste in the French mind for political lotteries.
As for affairs at home, they budge on in much the old fashion. The town is not over-gay—partly through fatigues of last winter, which are not yet wholly forgotten—partly through a little Wall-street depletion, [pg 420] and partly through the ugly weather, which has sown catarrhs and coughs with a very liberal hand.
Poor Jenny Lind—true to her native tenderness of heart, has yielded up the closing scenes of what would have been a glorious triumph, to the grief at a mother's death. She goes away from us mourning, and she leaves behind her a nation of mourners!
The opera is to tinkle in our ears again—with the symphony of Steffanone, Benedetti, and the rest. The town takes music quietly this winter, and the old fashion of listening has almost grown into a habit of appreciation. The town is building up into a Paris-sided company of streets; and the seven stories of freestone and marble will soon darken down Broadway into a European duskiness of hue. The street lights glimmer on such nights as the almanac tells no story of the moon; and on other nights we draggle as we may, between clouds and rain—consoling ourselves with the rich city economy, and hopeful of some future and freer dispensation—of gas.
For want of some piquancy, which our eye does not catch in the French journals, we sum up our chit-chat with this pleasant whim-wham of English flavor:
My man Davis is a bit of a character. If he's not up to a thing or two, I should like to know who is. I am often puzzled to know how a man who has seen so much of life as he has should condescend to have “no objection to the country,” and to take service with a retired linen-draper, which I am. I keep a dog-cart, and, not being much of a whip, Davis generally drives. He has some capital stories; at least I think so; but perhaps it is his manner of telling them; or perhaps I'm very easily pleased. However, here's one of them.
how mr. coper sold a horse.
“Mr. Coper, as kept the Red Lion Yard, in —— street, was the best to sell a horse I ever know'd, sir; and I know'd some good 'uns, I have; but he was the best. He'd look at you as tho' butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and his small wall-eyes seemed to have no more life in 'em than a dead whiting's. My master, Capt. ——, stood his hosses there, and, o' course, I saw a good deal of Mr. Coper. One day a gent came to look at the stable, and see if he could buy a hoss. Coper saw in a minute that he knew nothing about horseflesh, and so was uncommon civil. The first thing he showed him was a great gray coach-hoss, about seventeen hands and a inch, with a shoulder like a Erkilus.”