The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-30 00:00:00

TR.

'PRINCE'S VISIT TO THE UNITED
STA TES.

(1 poira the Special Correspondent of the Daily News.)
NEW YORK, OCT. 14.
N:ew York is mourning in sackcloth and ashes over
the. *tail'are of the great ball. Certainly, as a fete so
loin talked about, so long preparing, and which it
was 'asserted was intended to eclipse all other dis-
play s of the kind, ancient and modern, it was rather
a fa'dure: When I went there it was past 1 o'clock
in the morning, and even at that time, though many
bad left, it was too much crowded to make moving
about either easy or comfortable. I then heard that
the floor of the ballroom, which had been boarded
over the pit at about three feet from the ground, had
Bunk so much in the centre as to form a large hole
and necessitate the introduction of carpenters to
restore it before the dancing could be commenced.
Some exaggerated the contretemps into a perfect
catastrophe, others pooh-poohed it as a thing not
worth notice. I could get no reliable information
pro or con., and as the mail closed in two or three
hours from that time I came to the most prudent
determination that I could arrive at under the cir-
cumstances—that of saying nothing abcut it till I
was sure of what really had occurred. I have since
found that it is quite true, however, that some 30
feet square of the floor did sink in the centre of
the parterre about three feet, forming a kind of
wooden pond in the very space set apart for such
dancing as the crush permitted. The whole thing,
however, though indicating a good deal of miscal-
culation on the part of those in charge of the
carpentering portion of the details, was, after all,
more a ridiculous incident than anything else,
and certainly by no means justified the "sensa-
tion " notices of it in some of the journals on
tho following day, in which what I am told was an
almost noiseless bend was spoken of as a " tre-
mendous crash," and so on. Nobody was alarmed
—half the people in the house did not know of it—
and a few carpenters repaired the whole damage in
an hour. The cause of the whole mishap was that
in the hurry with which at last the floor was con-
structed, a space of the sized square I have already
mentioned was put up without a centre crossbeam
—its main support. Even without this beam it
would have been equal to the ordinary exigencies
of dancing, only that it happened, of course, that
this was in the very centre of the floor, where
everybody collected in a dense mass to see the
Prince as he came in. Under this unusual pressure
the planks gradually bent in, and, though every-
body scrambled off them as fast as they could, the
mischief was done. The ends of all the planks
were started ; two or three, I was informed, were
broken, on which some gentlemen and ladies were
standing, apparently immersed up to the waist in
the floor of the room. There was not the least
alarm, for, as I said, half the people in the place
did not know it had occurred, while those who did
had ocular demonstration that if the whole floor
Rent they would only have some three feet to fall.
Very few could help laughing at the affair, always
excepting the Committee of Management, who were
perfectly crest-fallen and seemed bitterly annoyed.
New York will never forgive them or forget this
mishap, though really it was only an item, and
comparatively speaking a very slight item, in the
causes which made the fete a failure, and led to its
anfavourable contrast with similar festivals in the
Canadian provinces. 'Without anything like rigid
formality there was still in all the visitors an ap-
pearance of too much constraint and want of ease
for general enjoyment. The preparations had been
profuse, and all that lavish expenditure could do to
secure success was applied, but notwithstanding the
grand surroundings and the real magnificence and
suggestiveness of the scene the spirit of festivity
seemed to be absent. Only the most eminent citi-
zens of New York had tickets, and even here a man
does not attain to eminence till 40, after which age
ho never attains to eminence in a ballroom. The
result of this was that the very life-blood of these
fetes—young gentlemen and young ladies—were in
a manner excluded. In fact, there were scarcely any
young men there, and far too small a proportion of
young belles. Perhaps, too, the whole effort was
too great for the occasion. The spontaneous and
unexpected outpouring of the masses of citizens on
the day of the Prince's arrival was an event of in-
finitely greater interest and magnitude than the
colossal entertainment in which the gay excite-
ment of the tour was here to have culminated. I
should judge, moreover, that the tastes and feelings
of the people of New York are not well adapted to
a celebration of this kind. The very cautious man-
ner in which it was arranged gives evidence of this.
A number of merchants, men of much wealth and
occupying the highest social position, assumed the
management of the ball. In order to insure the re-
spectability of the company it was arranged that
the names of all holders of tickets should be sub-
mitted for approval of a committee, a proceeding
never adopted in Canada. A singular circumstance
connected with the disposal of the tickets was the
distribution at the same time of admonitory notes,
describing minutely the style of dress in which
gentlemen were to appear. This occasioned some
merriment ; but in spite of the public assurances to
the contrary, it is by no means certain that the
suggestion was wholly needless. What is called
"the best society" in New York is composed of very
diverse and inharmonious elements. The standard
of aristocracy is wealth, and wealth is here so sud-
denly gained and lost, that the citizen who to-day
holds the humblest station may to-morrow lead his
social coterie. The merchant who until yesterday
was ready to scoff at frivolities of fashion may to-
morrow be startled into the necessity of yielding to
its most imperious laws. And so the scrupulous
committee, bent at least upon exterior elegance and
symmetry, thought it wisest to forestall all possible
ignorance upon the subject of dress—no insignifi-
cant consideration upon an occasion CO showy as
that they had in charge. In this guarded manner
they consummated all their plans, acting under the
natural belief that with every condition of decorous
adornment and external requirement properly sup-
plied the first and most important step to ultimate
success would be achieved.
The ballroom, filled with its throngs of guests—of
whom, by the way, there wore at least a third too
many—was undoubtedly as brilliant a picture as
any the Royal party had witnessed. The regulation
as to dress was gracefully submitted to, not always
to the advantage of individuals, but greatly to the
benefit of the mass. The apparel of the ladies pre-
sent Was, I might almost say, recklessly magnificent.
The only jewels generally worn were diamonds, and
these were in such profusion that the floor and the
galleries sparkled like dew-laden banks of flowers
in a bright sunlight, The room itself—a very
large and gaudii f
re,
embellishments scoed theatre, about one-fourth
less in size than G
Yewes hung about with such
aa
gether the scene seas more taste justified, and alto-
dazzling than any which
the Canadian ballroomosrperesented, always with the
single exception of tlid-t at Montreal.
The Prince and suite Were announced at half-past
10 o clo'ck. The assemblage then jammed in a
solid mass near the platformhcd was
in
flooring
for the
guests. Indeed, all over the artificial erected
people above the stage and parquet the were so
closely clustered that motion of any kind
was
im
possible. His Royal Highness
Was greeted with-a-
little sensation and a murmur of
welcome, which
were immediately lost in the burst of "God save the
Queen" from the orchestras. During the American
national melody which followed an attempt Was
made in the centre of the room to open a space for
promenading, but without the slightest avail
When the music ceased there was an awkward
silence, which lasted without an attempt at inter-
ruption for a few minutes, everybody perceiving
the utter impossibility of action at the time. The re-
lief, however, to this monotony, which was getting
uncommonly dull, came in a most unexpected way.
With a hollow crackling sound the centre of the
Boor sunk abruptly some three feet. The fall was
slight, but the chief danger to be apprehended was
from sudden panic. The company, however, lam
told, displayed the 'most perfect coolness and pre-
sence of mind—there was not the least sign of terror,
hardly of discomposure. The people withdrew from
the sides of the hall as rapidly as possible. and the
few under whom the floor had bent too suddenly to
eionlavbcitieZthem_ to get out quietly extricated them-
'l the Whole affair was a thing of course,