The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1864-04-08
Correspondence for the Transcript
EAST BosroN, March 81. 1864.

EAST BosToN, March 81, 1864
Editors Transcript
Having been favored with
copy of your paper, ! thought perhaps
letter from this region might be ac-
coptablo to your readers, and will give
few items of information that might
not reach you through the Boston
JoupaL
March is like the March of old,
with bleak winds, occasionally dash of
snow and then a warm sunny day, Civ
ing promise Of spring.
With the exception of few cold
snaps, the winter was very mild. Our
young people had very little skating
and not one sleigh ride. But the pla-
ces of amusement have been crowded
One would think, to read the notices
Of the museum, theatres, concerts and /
balls, that Boston people lived for |
nothing else but pleasure and nightly
revels
Went one evening to see the famous
Forest perform and must confess he
really acted like an angry old man;
but the scenery representing the forest.
made me sigh to wander once more in
the grand old woods of Vermont and
New Hampshire as i'll the days Of child
hood.
The Italian Opera have just closed
a successful engagement at the Boston
Theatre, where the ladies have dis
played their fine dresses and jewelry
with great satisfaction. / am told by
one who has been behind the scenes,
that Miss Harris who has Just made
her debut in Boston, with great favor,
keeps bird in her dressing room at
the theater, and between the acts lis
tens to it's warbling, initiates its notes,
and practices in that manner till called
to go on the stage.
Some of the opera company receive
seventeen hundred dollars per month,
but it requires a fortune to educate
for that profession, and the life of ex-
element and uncertainty they lead
cannot be desired by any rational, well
balanced mind If they do not re-
ceive the accustomed applause, they
exclaim, like disappointed children,
"Why don't they clap? why don't they
clap p and when called for by the au-
dience, drag one another on the stage,
bowling and laughing i'll a most ludi-
crous manner.
For the benefit of those who may de
sire to come to Boston, with the idea
of improving their condition in life, |
will mention some of the prices paid
for labor.
Women who make overalls and frocks,
if expert in the use of the needle, can
earn nearly two cents per hour; coat
! baisters, about three cents per hour;
washer-women, ten cents; girls who
tend in the shops, from two to five dol
lars per week, without board; servant
+ girls in families, one dollar and &
c half; ballet girls in theatres, four dol
lars a week; school teachers from
= eight to ten dollars week, but rs
/ there are several hundred well educated
= girls in Boston, waiting for situation
/ as teacher, book-keeper OF goyemess
= a lady must have influential friends tc
a assist her or her case is hopeless. First
o class machinists obtain two dollars anC
u fifty cents per day, but as coal is tel
e dollars per ton, flour ten dollars PEI
= barrel and on the rise, sugar from
> fourteen to twenty cents per pound
! butter fifty cents per pound, calico
: twenty cents per yard-unless people
q adopt the diet of the poor whites II
e the South and live on corn bread anC
Is bacon. / don't know how we are to es
g cape bankruptcy.
Is / will close my rambling epistle b,
} simply remarking, that while slavery
N being demolished, if some means coul'
Is be devised by the moral portion o
e community, to restrain the speculator
~ and liquor dealers from preying upol
IL mankind; we could then see, withou
he research or argument, that the worl'
still moves, that the state Of man
progressive; and that the good tim
coming exists not only in the imagi
~ nation of the poet, but will actually b
n realized by coming generations