The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-10
N Il VIZ o Krs M s.


Yesterday morning a gang of workmen COM
menced enclosing the ground for
The New Post Oaice.
The stakes only were driven; the work of eXca-
vation is to be begun next week. As Mr.. Null
lett, the supervising architect, has allowed two
years for the completion of the Post Office this
initiatory delay counts for nothing. The line
for the new building has been laid out by Mr.
Mclean, the city surveyor, and will occupy 300
feet on Broadway 800 on Park Row. and 15O of
the semi-circle at the southern end of the Park
When the basin, where the fountain disports
itself, is removed, it will pass into the hands Of
the city; and if the city representatives could
only wash their hands therein, and effect a
moral ablution, the new City Hall would be the
last monument to fraud that we should have.
The Tnilors of New York,
their numbers swollen by deputaton of three
hundred from Newark, held a mass meeting yes
terday morning in the Park. A stand for the
accommodation of speakers was run up, and
there were bands of music and Haunting flags.
The latter were adorned with such mottoes as,
mo slavery in a free country "Strhc for our
rights" Everything is lovely and the goose
hangs high, "A tailor is ten-tenths of a man.
| etc. Every small crowd in City Hall Park in
| simultaneously becomes the nucleus of large
one. In the present you might have imagined
| alta distance that the Cubans, who, for so many
| months, have been embellishing with their pre-
| sence the fronts of our hotels, were holding an
| indignation meeting, and that Oakley Hall was
| presiding. Speeches were made, and shears-I
should say cheers-rentt the air. After the speeches
were over the tailors formed into line andmarched
| through the principal streets, reaching early in
| the afternoon, their headquarters in Avenue A,
near Houston street. A false rumor that last
| evening they were going to have a ball was
started, but in truth they are too seriously dis
posed for dissipation. They declare that the
| present outbreak is only the natural climax of
| long-endured evils, that they have been work
ing at starvation rates. and that their condition
| was but little better than that of the Southern
slaves before the war. 1t may take ten tailors
| to make a man. but after that man is made there
is a good deal of wear and tear in him, as the
sentiments frantically applauded at yesterdays
demonstration proved. In speaking of their
employers, to use an elegant slangism they
| "laid EN- out dirty "
There is in this city an association of elegant
and fashionable young men of all ages between
eighteen and eight-and-twcnty, who style them
selves
The Wandering NIinstrcs,
and whose principal accomplishment consists in
whistlng OF course there are all sorts and
degrees of voices, from the wheezy whistle of
the sallow cOnsumptive to the sibilant mellilu-
business of the deep-chested siX-footer, sound in
wind and limb, and worthy to be one of the
Harvard -Four. Solos, duOs, trios, quartettes,
and so on to an indefinite extent among the
tettes, are producble by this Gideon's Band
| and when they are in full blast their favorte
entertainment is known as Frog Pond"
every one stationing himself at some designated
locality, and initiating the sound of the frog ere
he plunges beneath the wave. The headquarters
of this singular club is private and unsuspi-
cious-looking clubhouse in West Sixteenth
street.
We all know that virtue is not hereditary, for
Adam and Eve, those old sinners, had none to
bequeath us when they quilted Paradise. Such
germs of it as survive in the hearts of impecu-
nous young men of to-day, Il
Benevolent Association Devoted TO City Mis-
| siOns
is trying to fastcn. The society has had rough
experience however. 1t has been hard lines
with them, indeed, although now the lines have
begun to fall in pleasant places. 1t has estab-
lished several free reading-rooms in different
quarters of the city-a fact very little known
here and not known at all outside the city.
Virtue is here made attractive to young men at
the small initiation fee of ten cents, and some
times at no initiation fee at all. Sad as it is,
however, young men would rather pay large
initiation fee to vice than nothing at all to vir.
tue Wisdom's ways may be pleasant, but they
are decidedly ''slow."
To return to the free reading-rooms
however, although there must be half-a-dozen o.
them in the city, they are slimly attended, and
the young men who attend are for the most par
those for whom they were not especially meant
and for whom the Intoxicating bowl and the
, vortex of dissipation would never have pre-
sented supreme attractions. The benevOlen
society before mentioned, however, seems tt
think it has accomplished great results, and who
would throw a damper upon it? That would bC
quiet as unllind as to discourage the getterS-uI
of the Midnight Mission movement, because
nine-tenths of the Magdalens who attend the
= meetings are iwetreyably lost creatures, owe
Z whom all the waves and pillows have long ago
| passed. ALI BABA.