The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-03-19

cation; and upon the back OF each was printed
the severe injunction, - Evening Dress The
object was apparently to determine whether n
New York audience could be made to look strictly
fashionable. The result was attained. All the
wealthy elite of the city were present, arranged
in satins, silk and swallow tails. The dress was
more impressive than the music. So were some
of the people. The richest man / saw there,
VIM. B. Astor, was certainly the ugliest TO
look at. Coarse and heavy features, sandy COM
plexion and a shock of sandy hair, solid,
square. coarse-grained physique, his nose the only
thing about him that looks toward the heavens,
such. is the exterior of this lucky inheritor of
millions. Vim. b. AstOr is n man who would
seem much better placed among railroad nayvies
or California miners than among the swallow
tails of Steinway Hall. But it is uniting that
should complain. upon this particular occasion,
of his exterior, since he doubtless helped to pay
for the fine music which / then heard. Our
other richest man in New York, 4. T. Stewart,
is tall, straight, rather good looking man,
evidently one who could make the first thousand
dollars, and then multiply the same indefinitely.
Miss Reed. sister-in-laW OF Paran Stevens, who
owns the Fifth Avenue Hotel in this city was
the principal vocalist of the evening. Had she
not been 50 wealthily connected, she might have
made, she desired, long this, a success
upon the operatic stage.
The concerts given by the Church Music Asso-
ciatiOn are composed in about equal proportions
Of sacred and secular music.
Of one musical society, which, though strictly
private, is somewhat famous in social way, l
have not spoken rs yet. 1t Is the &c Eight clock
Club, SO called, possibly, from the fact that it
tn hef mir
bers sixty members, who pay yearly fee of so
apiece, besides deiraying whatever surplus of ex-
penses may occur at the end of the annual season.
The meetings are held on Thursday evenings
throughout the winter at the houses of different
members, which generally occupy very stylish
proximity to the Fifth Avenue; for the society
are nothing if not wealthy. Signor Abella is the
conductor, and the music sung is almost entirely
Italian. First the club practices the chOruses of
the opera,-Verdi, Gounod, and the rest then
it listens to solos by amateur members. Madame
D'Angri, now Madame AbelIa, the famous con-
traltO, sang at the last two meetings, displaying
the wonderful powers of voice now past its
prime, but which has been familiar for years to
opera-goers in either hemisphere,-a voice which
has firm elastic quality which can compare to
nothing but the feel of ivory. Refreshments are
served during the evening; but there is no
daucing. The last part of the evening is devoted
TO social intercourse.
In art are not doing much this winter.
The exhibition at the Academy of Design is un-
usually poor. Clarence Cooke, once the savage
art-critic of the Tribune, largely responsible
for making the Academy an unpopular place with
artists, the best Of whom now rarely rep
resented upon its walls. Cooke is now in Paris,
whence he writes uninteresting letters to the
Tribune and our artists breathe the freer for his
absence. The latest movement looking to the
establishment of an art gallery in New York is
started by Mr.. Lenox, one of our wealthest men,
who proposes to give half million dollars to the
city for the erection OF a suitable art-buiding,
and to transfer to it his sOwn large and very valu-
able collection of paintings a nucleus for
gallery that shall be worthy of capital city.
Dir. Henry Keep announced similar project two
years ago, but died before executing it. Good
Americans hope that Mr.. Lenox will do speedily
what he has in mind.
The telegraph will inform you of the reception,
at Washington, last week, by President Grant,
of Judge Allen as Minister Plenipotentiary from
the Hawaiian Court.
Henry Ward Beecher declined, yesterday, the
increase of salary lately offered him by the trus-
tees of his church. The salary is $4,000 per
annum, which they voted to increase to 900.
Mr.. Beecher's popularity continues to increase
steadily, as it has done each year during the
fifteen years that he has occupied the pulpit of
Plymouth Church. The annual sale of the pews
of this church, fortnight since, yielded so, 900.
January brings the standard drama in the
persons of two very eminent artists,-Wm. Fech-
ter and Mr. Edwin Booth. The former Is play
ing Ruy Bias, the latter Hamlet; each to crowded
houses 1t is long since there has been any
dramatic rivalry upon such a high plane as this
in New York. Fechter had the advantage OF the
utmost that favorable criticism could do for him
in advance of his American appearance; but he
does not seem likely, at present, to prove an
Overwhelming success. At the other extremity
of the scale of amusements we have the Cardiff
Giant, which attracts by virtue of the most
elaborate humbuggery that has been praeticed
since Bsrnum's palmiest days. 1t is unquestion-
ably sham but the people flock to see it.
and to see plaster copies of 1.-THE shadows of
sham. Great in New York are 1" the un-
Feracities.' CALAMus.