The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1863-09-16
THE GATE CITY.
A Mammoth Pic-Nic.

a Mammoth FLEMING r.
IF prouf was desired of the extent tt
which New York enterprise carries out it.
purpose, the witnesses of picnic excur'
sion of the employees of j. W. Bradley
hoop skirt factories on Friday last, to
Dudley's Grove, few miles above Yon-
kers, on the east side Of the Hudson, had
satisfactorily demonstrated it, Nearly
100 girls and 800 young men all en-
ployed 10 the establishment, the one with
their lovers and the others with their
sSeethearts, mum bering nearly 5000 per-
sons. To carry this crowd, nearly all
young ana full Of fun and frollc, three of
the largcst batges in our harbor were re-
CURED, snd two steamers were needed to
do the towing. By o'clock the whole
party had nassed at the foot of Spring
street. North river. and amid the playing
Of Waiace's band numbering thirty
pieces, and the active movements dis
played in $50 quadrllle sets, the barges
swung out into the stream and moved up
the North river. At 123 O'Clock the
boats reached nudley's Grove, where
party aud provender were landed and ac-
cordngly as personal tastes, utilization, or
relationship dictated, the immense crowd
divided into little circles of from half
about 800 knots of people scattered over
about so acres of land embraced in the
grove. Tablecloths were quickly spread,
eatables were displayed, only to rapidly
vanish, and then walks, talks, quadrilles,
waltzes, polkas, soups and races, and the
usual hiiarity of pic.nics followed. The
band divided itself into three-one for
each dancing platform, and the dancing
continued without Interruption during the
entire afternoon. One pic ME is very
much like another picnic in its general
characteristics. This. however, from the
fact that 1000 of those who participated
in it were the employees of one industrial
establishment, and 100 of them girls OF
from Is years Of age upward-al we'll
dressed, many attired in silks apd laces,
scrupulously neat in their appearance aud
each one enjoying the satisfaction of a
material independence by means of an
honorable pursuit, and each one we may
dNd 10 DSL ~ dii ISlioi hdOlt
in these days, steel clad (for it is not to
be presumed that they make hoop skirts
without wearing them. and invulnerable
except to the light artillery of love, and
all bent on hasing jolly time. The
Messrs Vests and Bradley, the proprie-
tors, accompanied the party. They for
got their mercantile dignity and shared
the general hilarity OF their employees
At half pasr SIX the party again went on
board Of the bar1es and dancing was re,
sumed until dark, when singing became
the order Of the evening, which was con,
tiaued until the barges reached the dock
at 10 O'Clock Our reporter (his modest
pencil blus es as he records the fact at
tempted by an atilhmetital calculation,
mind YOU, to get at the amount Of crino
line that was concealed under the drapery
Of that crowd OF girlish gayety. As the
result of his computation. he has come to
the conclusion that ii all the crinollue on
that excursion were put in continuous
wire it would make lue of nearly forty
miles in length The rise ofJ. ". Bad
ley's skirt factory is remarkable. Every
body knows that about eight years ago.
when Mrs. Louis Napoleon Bouaparte re-
vamped hoor skirts alter they had been in
dsuse for thrce-qusrters of century, the
female world was seized with an irrepres-
sible desire to tie coopered. Yankee genius
set itself to work to make Improvements,
and increased demand followed improve
men,s in quality and increased facilities
of manufacture j. w BradIey's factory
was begun in 1859. with six employees,
against coop now employed. SIX thou
sand skirts are daily manufactured, III
which leo miles of steel wire is used
and all this because an empress for per
sonal reasons, took it into her head thai
one pe,ticoat, If il could be made to give
a much spread, was better than ha,fa
Dozen Nav York Paper.
"A mouse made its way into desl
in the refreshments rooms at Danbury, n
H., and stole one hundred dollars in eur
rency, of which it made a nest, regard