The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1854-02-22
RICHMOND, VA
MORNING. FEBRUARY q, 1867.
FANCY BALLS.

FANCY BALLS.
Fancy dress balls are the feature of the
present season. Since the success which at
tended a recent brilliant ball given in this
city at one of our most hospitable private
they have become the rage. White
waistcoats, black dress coats and pantaloons,
are decidedly below par, whilst red velvet,
scarlet flannel, uniform coats, and stage ap-
parel and costumes, have gone up like real
estate. The Oldest and not the most recent
fashion plates are now eagerly studied. We
are all more careful in examining the faded
brocades and dilapidated small clothes of our
ancestors, maternal and paternal, than we
are the last fashions that adorn the windows
of our leading mantua-makers and tailors'
Happy is the woman who possesses the ward
robe of her great grandmother, and thrice
blessed is the man whose legs suit the silk
stockings of his forefathers. Costumes are
in demand, and the man milliner who can get
up Chevalier of the days of Charles the Sc
cond. is in far greater request than the
Knight of the needle and goose who deals
in cassimeres and broadcloths. A shop for
the manufacture of HAIDEs, GULNARES, Row
ENAs, ,REBEcCAs, and otherpopular but thread
bare characters, would do great business.
whilst nothing short of steam could meet the
demand for peasant girls, flower girls and
gipsies. The announcement of fancy ball
produces a run upon the property ward
robe' of theatre, like the frantic rush of
creditors upon doubtful bank, or tottering
partnership. Peaceable clerks don the for
midable armor of MACBETH, mild physicians
assume the sable robe of HAMLET, and quiet
gentlemen in the dry goods line are trans
formed into clinical Mephistophiles, or con-
vert the yard stick into the sword of CoRTEz.
Fancy balls are, beyond all question, doubt
or demur, amusing. Their grotesqueness,
odd !jumblefo costumes, ludicrous miscon-
ceptions of character, and exquisitely funny
amalgamatien ofinconsistencies make them,
when most successful most absurd. Your
friends, however ludicrous you may feel un-
der the heavy honors of your new costume,
keep you company. However oddly you may
be dressed, however fiagrantly you may yio-
late the laws of taste in the arrangement of
the colors of your costume, at fancy ball
you are certain of having violated no estab-
lished law. The utmost license is allowed,
and although JEWS may eat pork, HAMLETs
dance the polka, HERMITs eat chicken salad,
REBEccAs fiirt with peasants of Normandy,
dukes take champagne with yankee clock
makers, British officers swear allegiance to
American beauties, French dancing masters
take wine with MEPHIsToPHILEs, or back
woods politician dance with a queen, and
help a lady abbess to ice cream, yet you re-
cognize the appropriateness of every unnat-
ural occurrence.
The only unfortunate, unlucky human be-
ing at a fancy bali, is the first arr7pal.'
When some plain, hum drum, common place
man lays asidehi familiar frock coat and grey
trousers, arrays himself in all the gorgeous.
brilliant rainbow colors of a Chevalier, and
enters the yet empty rooms which have been
lighted 70, the ball, his position is ludicrous
and appalling. The attending servants eve him
with ILL suppressed grins, filters from private
the miscellaneous rabble in the streets un-
nerve the strongest man. He is ushered into
magnificent rooms, and every mirror reflects
the full length and enormity of his folly. He
does not recognize his own legs in the white
silk stockings that encase them, and his very
skull in its vast plenitude of wig and ringlets,
strikes him as the property of somebody else.
The first companion in misfortune who enters
he ever afterwards regards as friend who
came TO his assistance in time of peril, and as
the rooms fill with people dressed as absurdly
and grotesquely as himself, he breathes more
and more freely
The experiment of fancy ball in private
house is one of great danger-for crowded
fancy ball is never successful or entertaining.
In the Northern cities we have witnessed the
most ludicrous failures in consequence of the
guests being packed in rooms of moderate
dimensions, as if they were Smyrna figs.
Our readers can well imagine the exquisitely
funny effect of a regiment of unappreciated
CLEoPATRas, RowENAs, and other ne elected
characters, drawn up in long, dismal and
solemn files against the walls, loe king more
dismal than well drenched turkeys, or groups
of character of ancient or of modern times.
clustering like bees, humid from excessive
heat, and ferocious at the arrangement and
destruction of their costumes. Language
utterly fails to depict the serio-comic effect
of this close blending, in disconsolate heated
circles. of the representatives of every age,
costume and character. To ensure the silc.
cess of fancy ball, the rooms should he
large, well ventilated, and ample promenade
room, space for lady to sport the hoop of
the eighteenth century, and to manage grace.
fully the most elaborate train
THE ERIcsoN CALoRIc SiIIp.-Capt Ericson,s
hot air ship lett New York on Friday ON a private
trial trip. The intention was that she should re-
main out three or four days, but her cylinders
proving defective, she returned the same evening
The Journal of Commerce makes the following mo-
tice of the trip:
The public were taken by surprise yesterday. on
seeing the Ericsson" moving around the waters Of
the Bay. None beside Capt Ericsson. the owners
and others immediately interested, was on board
but we learn that the performances OF the shin
were such TO afford the highest degree Of safis