The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-06

from Our O,sn Correspondent


NEW YORK, July 8. 1869.
The churches have begun to close and the season
OF seashore pety has commenced The fashionable
saints OF the Fifth avenue houses OF worship have
packed up their metropolitan pety with their church.
toilettes, and ndoctrinated themselves with the
principles OF watering place religion. 1t Is
sary, presume, that ministers should go out OF
town like other people, but when poor devil whom
nobody cares for, sees church after church closed
during the summer solstce, he may be pardoned for
wondering whether souls are not just valuable
for salvation purposes in hot in cold weather.
Why should the populace be less pious because
it has more perspiraton? And does the minste-
rial sore throat, which always reaches its climax at
the beginning of June, totally exempt its clerical
sufferers from all responsibility over sweltering
charges2 Does the Reverend Daisy Glover, whit
has many pink notes daily sent him
as the distinguishing leading juvenile that
ever entranced a feminine matinee audience, does
he feel that he is preaching in season and out of
season, now that he has begun his three months
jaunt in Europe? Are not the metropolitan church
and stage too suggestively alike in this respect?
The season is over, the curtain is down. the foot
lights extinguished, the audience departs, the
theatre is closed, and the soubrete and the heavy
man, and the leading lady, are all on their travels,
and we poor creatures at home receive occasional
glints of their doings at London and Paris and
wherenot. So with the pulpit. There arrives time
when the congregation has an indefinite perception
the year having been scrupuousy attended to during
bleak winter and raw spring-(winter lingering in
the lap of May may be very pretty idea, but she
ought to be spanked for doing it)-may now be laid
aside with the thick dresses, and that the garment OF
praise and undergarT ents may be simultaneously
discarded. Yes belieTe me, with the watering
place season there comes watering-pace religion.
Physical and spiritual extremes meet, and the fer
ven3y OF the body generates an iciness OF the SOUL
There is something being said just now in regard
to the number Of Observation-Disclosures in this cty.:The
scandal is not without some cause. Abslnthe is
comparatively a new drink here but, once acclima-
tzed has rapidly spread its influences. Until lately
its name was almost. unknown among the lists OF
drinks and cordals printed the last pages OF
taurant billsoffare. Now the fourth-rate cafe has
its absnthe, and of course, the lower you descend
in the restaurant scale, the vier becomes this, as
every other, form of drink. Absinthe, particularly
that sold in New York, is little more than COM
pound of polsons. Wormwood, anise-seed, 1agroot,
proofspr indigo, nettles, suphate OF copper, blue
vitrol, few OF the ingredients to give the ne
cessary taste and tncture. This pale drink is said
to be daily growing in fascination here, and to be
even supplanting among opum-eaters their cher
ished drug In fact, 1t is nothing more than liquid
epilepsy, and every one who makes habit of i'm
bibing it may feel that with each dram he has
brought himself an inch nearer to that dread line
which separates sanity from hopeless insanity. Its
reactionary effect upon the brain is so poignant,
epileptics are manufactured from the abuse OF 1t
than from all other means combined. And yet few
OF the drinkers OF this fascinating amalgam OF poi
sons are fully aware OF its fatal tendencies. Not
only men, but women are among its victims women,
fair, fashionable, and in good repute. Delmonicos
If it does not exactly throng with beautiful absinthe
drinkers, has at least goodly sprinkling OF them
each fine afternoon at four O'Clock. And there is not
the same excuse for these poisonpassionate sinners
OF Fourteenth street and Fifth avenue that there is
for the handsome Circasslan who In eating arsenic
hopes to realize the smashed idea OF Madame Rachel
and to become 'beautiful forever" Absinthe has
no such embelishng power. ''Ugy forever" rather,
is the fatal edct pronounced against every belle who
thus sins against the bust the brain, the organs OF
digestion, which God has given her. For absinthe
is the very cancer among drinks whose aim only Is
to destroy. 1t creates cancer OF the spirit, which
quickly devours all the finer integuments OF the SOUL
and hurries 1t down to lOathsome DEATH And yet
these beautiful poison-swallowers are, too, sinners
in secret hiding from friend and physician, until the
last moment the vice that destroys them. The habit
forms one of the drearest isms of New York fashion
able life and should tremble were to attempt TO
compute the probable number OF those beautiful
denaturalizers OF self-these rapidly consuming
absinthe anchorites.
1t is very good thing 20 have a Fourth OF July.
AS one OF the bulwarks Of our national liberties as
a sacred inheritance handed down TO us by our fore
fathers, as the spoiled darling OF the Father OF hs
country, az tne essence OI Dun3OmDei anu tne qulu
tessence OF can't the Fourth Of July Is undoubtedly
perfeety sound on the goose. 1t is av very good
tning to think OF when you are prisoner In for
eign land, or are lost In the desert OF Saharaavery
handy thing to have in the national household pro-
vided 1t Is never taken out Plymouth Rock and the
Boston tea party, and Bunker Hill, and the battle
OF Lexington, are exquisite recolleetions
10 the Man without Country,
ana If Robinson Crusoe had been an
American he would have been glad tocome across
Niohn on which to rosin out ''Yankee Doodle"
Az shooting cracker and Roman candle reality,
however-no, thank you. There are two extremes
lnSo @ one OF which naturally wish to convert my
sell when the glorious Fourth arrives. One is the
oloiiousFourth-orator, who does his tall talking,
anu sweats ana swears quite beautifully in his self
conplacency the other is the immortal Small Boy,
with his shooting crackers, who never 'lets up"
until they are all 'let ofp
do you remember General Beum. " the real orr
gina General Boum"--he OF the blazing cheek
and the cleaning eye, and the 'pirl PAM pouf!"
which never failed in its Spontaneous ioyialty
through the whole history OF opera bo,t6e in this
country? Well, the house he draws at most now Is a
neat Little public house eyer at HObQkep. ThsEe he