The Express.
London, England, 1860-10-27 00:00:00

[TWOPENCE.

rff E PIaNCE OF WALES IN NEW YORK.

THE "ay.
This great event) ou which New York is said to
have put forth all its strength, was marred by one '
or two mishaps. What happened is thus stated by
the New York Times of the 13th:

The " grand ball in honour of the Prince of Wales"
came off, we presume, this morning. It was preceded, how-
ever, last night, by a very splendid, crowded, go?geous and
glittering levee, which may well take rank with the moat
magnificent " jams" of history. In the days of our grand-
mothers, who used to have their hair dressed two days
in advance of one of these festivities, and sitbolt upright in
powder for 48 hours, it was reprded as the height of fashion
and the supreme ishes to till a house so full with em.
louidered beaux and belles that they stood upon one anther's
silken toes in the passages and stairways. Of our own days "
it may hereafter be said that the finest thing which "four
hundred select committee men " of New York could do to
entertain the Prince of Wales was to invite to the Academy
of Music exactly five hundred people more than the house
would hold, amuse them by opening a pitfall in the floor,
sod crush their toilettes into one undistinguithable mass of
splendour.
The ball at the Academy was everything but a ball. Tho
arrangements of the external and internal police, though
occasionally irritating to impetuous beauties impatient of
upper, were most exemplary. The wealth of flowers la-
vished upon corridors, galleries, box-fronte and doorways was '
tropical for variety of hue, and Arabian for odours of bea-
titude. All that music could do to enchant an aromatic
atmosphere with melody, the mart superb bands procu-
rable in America abundaatleilid. The Prince of Wales,
who apparently has Queen
.Elizabeth's passion for dancing, .
made his entree punctually at lOo'clock, armed audequipped
as the committee had kindly directed, in " full evening
dress,', with all the noblemen and gentlemeu of his suite.
The a ately Mn. Morgan, in a cloud of crape alive with
diamonds, was at her pest, prepared to open the ball as
became the queen regnant of the Empire State
with the young heir of England. And yet at midnight
the ball had not begun. Some one had blundered, pre-
cisely as some . one . bhmdesed on the Receptionday of
Thursday, and last night, as then, this same one's blunder
cheated the Prince of half his pleasure, and dashed the
festival for all with a tinge of mingled mirth and vexation.
All that we bad beard of the eialrorste and costly prepara-
tions made by the committee, Mace they began their work
in August last, seemed fully borne out by flu first aspect
of the Academy when we entered it. Just before tho
arrival of the Prince, the pareuette, domed over from lobby
to stege, draped, beset with exotica the richest and most
fragrant, was rather a parterre than a parettette—a par-
terre of living dowers, rustling, fluttering, steam-
ier/ with bright. eyes and brighter jewels. The boxes
and galleries climbed, tier above tier, into a greed tiara of
the same animated beauty, crested and glowing with lines
of the most brilliant light. Never has the Opera-house
presented a spectacle so sumptuous at once and so exquisite
as at the moment of the Prince's entrance upon the stage,
to the persuasive strains of "God Save the Queen." But
here began the miscarriages of the night. The "des" on
which the Prince was to have presented himself was no dais
at all, and he was consequently just as visible to the whole
mass of the people ea the loon, who surged and swayed to
and fro in • kind of well-bred impatience in their eagerness
to see him as if he had been Leander in the play. In-
deed, but for the national air of England, few out of the
upper boxes could have suspected hie presence within
the sacred space rather foolishly railed off for his
accommodation. A kind of fiuntic goomenade, eddying
both ways, then begirt to defile, or rather to entwine itself,
before the hero of the evening, as a preparation fur the
opening Strauss quadrille of the Haute Yoke. A more per-
plexing promenade was never, perhapspa, performed by an
anthmasstic aad well-dressed multitude, but before it bad
half developed its attractions, it was suddenly interrupted
by a stupendous crush. A momentary thrill ran through
the crowd, and • panic might perhaps, hays ensued with
the most appalling consequences, had sot a few gentlemen
in the vicinity of the Prince, conspicuous among whom was
ex-Governor Ilivh, rushed forward to reassure the house. In
fact nothing bad happened betthefallingin of a laceportion
of the floor in the "reserved quarter," and directivin front of
the Prime. Had Boole and Van Tine been at the bottom of
the bell this would have looked like • parody on Guy Faux.
Ae it was people simply stared and stammered out their
surprise. Before they could recover fmai the shock they
were 'saluted with • second. This made the matter serious.
The Prince and his party retreated to the supper-rooms,
the bends began to play all manner of waltzes, polkas, and
quadrilles in mad succession, the people began to flow ea best
they might out from the perilous panpietta into the corri-
dors, and to bud their way into the supperrems. Carpen-
ters came on the scene, and • sort of modified anvil chorus,
not in the original opera, was set up in the heart of the
hell. In this way two hours were consumed, the
lbw edge of the festivity pretty effectually taken off, and
the Prince rubbed of at least six dances. Only one good
effect can be said to have followed from the contretemps.
It killed the much-debated "first dance," over which our
ladies have been, or have been nude to appear, so elegantly
unhappy. Nobody danced the first dance with the Prince ;
and who can be jealous of nobody? Perhaps, indeed (let
the wretched floor-committee thank us for the sugges-
tion), it was a conspiracy of ladies who undermined the
pillars.
However, the fire—call it by what name we may
and find whatever fault with it we honestly
must—was an event, and is not to be forgotten.
In the details of decoration and equipment there
was scarcely anything with which the most fastidious
taste could quarrel. The supper. room, in particular, was
a wonderful success. The Crest of the Prince of Wales
blazed out in Aimee of diamond-like hell over the floating
folds of a vast tent of pink and white drapery, lined along
one side with buffet tables, singularly neat and brilliant in
service, and really attended to by a regiment of most faith- •
ful end active waiters. We may frankly say that we have
never seen a public supper served in is more inapproachable
fashion with greater discretion, or upon a more tastefully
luxurious scale The opening lime of the evening was the
more to be regretted that the Prince andhis party evidently
arrived in the highest spirits.
A little altar 12, the carpenters though "but half their
weary task WAS done," were forced to surrender their plat-
form to the openin dance. This was formed as quickly as
the crowd end ooatasiaa would permit, and was a dance,
certainly of some kind, in which the Prince of Wales ap-
=tto dame with Mrs. Morgan, and Lord Lyons with
o& Jobe Van Buren and Miss Harriman were in
SOMA way involved in the proceeding, and the deeming
Mrs. Gardner Howland, jun. seemed to be delighting the
eyes of the accomplished and Mr. Gerard, who is
new askaowledged, since his recent lecture on the personal
beauty of Abraham Lincoln, to be the Crichton of New
York.

How this saltation came to an end was not perfectly
intelligible, hut, the Prince and his write suddenly waniah-
rag, a walk began, under the bewildering su • of Mr.
R alter Cutting, Mr. Harmsen B. Field, and Mr. William
Duncan. From the gcuend appearance of things at this
juncture, what we lett the scene of action, we inferred that
the ball had contrived at last to make head against its Mf .
cultism, and that in time the carpenters would be driven
from the field. In fact, we believe they were absolutely
retiring at that moment, under the command of the majestic
Captain Leonard, of the police.