The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-08-23
The Watering Places.

|
The Watering Places.
The summer season of 1868 at or fashion
able watering places and country retreats
having reached its eliminating point, we are
enabled to pronounce upon it, and it may be
pronounced a genuine success. From the lakes
of Maine and the mountains of New Hamp-
shire to Newport, and from Newport to Cape
Mays from the Highlands of the Hudson
to the highlands and lowlands of the Jersey
coast; from the Saratoga Springs to the famous
white sulphur and red sulphur and blue sui
phur and Bath alum and warm and hot springs
of the mountains of Virginia, and from Niagara
Falls to the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky-at
all our summer resorts the rush of summer
travellers has been and is Unexpectedly and in
many cases unprecedentedly heavy. In the
beginning, from the lateness of the actual
opening of the summer, the prospect was
somewhat dscouraging; but the cheated
term" of July fairly sent the town flying to the
country, the mountains, the lakes, the springs
and the seashore.
Last summer the world absorbing attractions
OF the worlds Industrial and fashionable expo
stion at Paris and the recent battle fields of
Germany and Italy and the regeneration of old
Venice drew off to Europe such extraordinary
shipments of our summer birds of passage from
this country that the loss was felt at our summer
retreats from the Canadian border down into
the heart of the unreconstructed States This
season there has been no special European
attraction to divert our fashionable circles
| over the water, and, moreover, their European
| expenditures of last year have operated to
shortening of sail and shorter cruises for
year or two. Again, as the year of Presi-
Dental contest, from it's absorbing political
| excitement, nterferes with business and fore
warns our business classes of a comparatively
| dull season for trade, it gives them the oppor-
tunity for little more of their summer recrea-
lions. These are among the causes which
have contributed to fill our fashionable summer
caravansaries from the lakes of Maine to the
mountains of West Virginia. We understand,
however, that, comparatively, the extra contri-
buttons of visitors at all these places have
been much less this season than during the
preceded our financial reactions of 1887 and
1857. Experience is the mother Of wisdom.
In the 90 old times of ''the Union as it
was, when the law of Southern slavery was
paramount and cotton was king, Saratoga, for
example, reaped its largest summer profits
from the tobacco, rice, sugar and cotton lords
of the South Their power in Congress Hall
at Saratoga was as commanding and overshad
owing as in Congress Hall at Washington.
Now mark the change resulting from the rash
experiment of an Independent Southern con.
federacy. The Southern white master, with
his retinue of black slaves, is no longer seen at
''the springs" and but few of the F. F. VS.
| are registered in the books of Saratoga, Lake
George or Newport On the other hand we
| have a report, August 81, from the Greenbrier
White Sulphur, of the presence there of Gene
| raj Robert E. Lee, Ex-Governor Pickens, Of
South Carolina; ex- Governor Letcher of Vir-
| ginia; A. H. II. Stuart, Of the late rebel Con-
gress, and the rebel Generals Beauregard,
| Echols and Anderson and other Confederate
notabilities, with the announcement that
Alexander H. Stephens and Generals Ewell
and Longstreet will arrive tomorrow night.
This is suggestive Southern social gathering
suggestive of sectional, political and social diff
ferences still unhealed, and of the comprehen-
sive issues involved in this Presidential con-
test The wounds of this late terrible war will
only disappear with the existing generation, If
so soon; but still we say, with General Grant,
'et us have peace"
Long Branch has within few years risen to
the first in rank among our most popular sea-
side summer resorts; but with few very sim
pie reforms and innovations its highest regis
tered list of summer guests might be doubled.
Reduce the passenger fare from and to New
York one-half, establish some comfortable
houses on the European plan, cut down the
hotel prices generally and prices Of goods re-
tailed at the stores to New York retail figures,
make the place attractive to quiet people as
well as noisy people, and to people Of mode
rate means and wants, and substantial city
may take the place of the few shops which
flank the present widely scattered settlement of
a dozen hotels. With this hint, freely given
for the benefit of all concerned, we close. And
thus endeth our fourth chapter.
THE CHINESE EMBASSY IN BOsToN. The
Chinese Embassy has shaken Bosting by the
hand for exactly one hour" has seen Faneuil
Hall crowded to its utmost capacity" and has
been greeted with ''deafenng applause" and
lived through it, Nay, it has endured ban
quet from the members Of the city govern
ment, and has heard Boston discuss the pro-
priety of being polite to China, not for any
good reason, but on account of her respectable
antiquity; for Boston is turnkey at heart.