The New York herald., 1870-07-24
Our Watering Places.


Before the declaration of war between
France and Prussia the prospects of our
American watering places were as gloomy as
the extortionate charges Of sbort-sighted
landlords had made them every summer for
several years past Each steamer that left New
York for Liverpool, Havre or Breme was II
Of passengers, eager to enjoy the first impress
sions or to revive them, which Emerson,
Washington Irving and N. p. Willis used to
describe as flinging q certain romance over
the European tour Of cultivated American.
But the prospects Of our watering places have
frightened since the declaration of war.
Many family which had intended to make o
transatlantic tour has decided to pass the
summer at the old haunts of fashion in New
port, Saratoga, Lake George, Long Branch
and Cape May, or in the multitudinous new
resorts which the railway locomotive and the
steamboat have made easily. accessible.
The glowing descriptions of Adirondack
scenery by Murray and Street and Kate Field
have not, perhaps, tempted so many tourists
as usual to indulge in the dubious delights of
camping out in the woods. The scorching
heats Of summer have prevented not few
from crossing the Plains and testing
fax and Bowles on the Rocky Noun
tain views which Bierstadt has trans
ferred to his ample canvas. But for several
years there has not been such sudden
and nuaryuh hol, uoh of vyioiforo tn tho
various watering places in the Atlantic States.
The commendable reduction Of hotel prices
has augmented the number of those who gladly
escape for few weeks, or few days, from
''the populous city pent." Moreover, many of
the places of popular resort during the sum-
mer season have become something more than
gathering places for the mere butterflies Of
fashion, for matchmaking mothers and daugh-
ters, and for the idlers Of our jeunesse d0ree.
Long Branch, as well as Saratoga, will now
be favorite 'smeet" for the whole sporting
fraternity of higher and lower degree. AT these
and at other summer resorts the politicians
are now accustomed to assemble for confer
ence upon the most complicated and far
reaching plans. Foreign politics and domestic
politics are discussed in the barrooms and
dining rooms and parlors, and even the ball
rooms, of watering place hotels. The diplo-
matte corps at Washington migrates not un-
willingly from the broad, shadeless avenues of
the national capital, which fercer sun than
that of the tropics now floods with light and
feverish heat, to sheltered retreats in the
White Mountains, picturesque balconies on the
coast
President Grant Is, with his family, at
Long Branch, where all the hotels are
crowded, not only with hungry ofice-seekers,
but with thousands of citizens bent upon quiet
personal enjoyment, unalloyed by the anxieties
of petty ambition. Not only at Long Branch,
but at the Navesink Highlands and dozen
other favorite resorts, as well as at Cape May,
which Philadelphians particularly affect, the
usual number Of visitors has been quintupled
by the extraordinary facilities of reaching
those points afforded by the public-spirited
enterprise Of Admiral Fisk. Thus FIVE trips
day are regularly made by that floating
palace of hotel, the splendid steamer Ply
mouth Rock. Even the New Yorker whose
business engagements leave him but few
hours Of daily relaxation may start in the
morning and make the round trip without
landing anywhere, and yet enjoy on board the
refreshing, invigorating sea air; the luxury of
bath, the satisfaction Of well-cooked dinner
and the picturesqueness of bay finer than
that of Naples, returning to his duties on the
same day with redoubled energy.
The notables of our New York society avail
themselves freely of the opportunity of moving
at will from one to the other of our fashionable
watering places. The Belmonts and the Bar
lows, the Helmbolds, the Vanderbilts, the
Fisks and the Lum Ling Waus-in fine, all the
magnates Of the period, may be seen driving
their ,7ur-in-hands to-day at Saratoga, to-mor-
row at Newport and the next day at Long
Branch. While Mrs. Fisk, Jr., like Mrs. George
Francis Train, is contented with four-in-hand
at Newport, Fisk, Jr., himself drives skin
hand at Long Branch. There is no end to the
display of wealth at all the prosperous watering
places Of the season. The visit Of our Seventh
regiment to Cape May is to be followed this
week by the visit of the Fifth Maryland Con-
federate regiment and these visits of the crack
regiment of New York and one OF the bravest
regiments in Lees army to the same place are
suggestive of the facts that the ''cruel war" Of
1861-5 is over and that 'reunion" is now oul
watchword. General Lee, who was errone-
ously reported as having arrived at Saratoga,
is at the White Sulphur Springs, in Virginia.
Many Northerners are among the nearly two
thousand guests who are admiring the extra
ordinary beauties Of nature and breathing the
delicious mountain air at the White Sulphur
Springs. Those of us whom neither the noun
tains of Virginia nor those Of New Hampshire
can tempt from our daily tasks, and who mus
forego the pleasures of Saratoga, Lake George