New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-10-24
THE BATTLE or TIE CARDS.

The great Winters contest of the visiting
cards recommences. Suspended during the
Summer, or only renewed at Newport and
such thoroughbred and thoroughly sophisti-
Gated haunts, it will set in with fury In the
habitable regions of our city once more. Now
will the atmosphere around Fifth-ave. be
darkened (or whitened) at the appointed hour
by the shower Of pasteboard transmitted from
dainty hd-gloved hands to the cotton gloved
hands of "John," through him to reach the
perhaps gloveless hands Of some other John,
who stands obsequious In the doorway. Now
will every lady, after John has slammed the
door, drive happily on to some other door.
rearranging as she goes her display OF cards,
laid an If for game on the opposite seat
of her carriage, and dealt perhaps in four
suits-her own cards, her daughters, her hus-
bands, her Mr.. and Mrs.n cards, and who
knows how many moref With all this ammu-
milton, what very nsitraiIleass OF good society
she becomes; what an accumulation OF polite
attentions she may discharge at any door
That one weIl-appointed woman, as she sits in
her carriage, represents the total visiting
power of self, husband, daughters, and posi-
bly, son or two beside. She has all their
counterfeit presentmsnts in her hands. How
happy che Ia, and how happy will the others
be on her return, TO think that dear mamma
has disposed of 80 many dear beloved tire
some social foes that morning. It will be
three months at least, they think, before the
AS and the BIS and the C.'s will have to be
"done" again.
All, but who knows how soon these fatguing
letters of the alphabet, rallying to the de-
tense, will come, pasteboard In hand, to return
the onseti In this contest, fair ladies, there
"sre blows to take, as well az blows to give"
in tho words of the immortal Webster. Some
day, on returning, you will find half-dozen
cards on your own table that will undo all
this mornings work, and send you forth on
the war path again. Ia it not like q battles
It Ii from this subtle military analogy, doubt
less, that when gentlemen happen to quarrel,
In the very best society, they exchange cards
as preliminary to q duel; and that when French
journalists fight, all other French journalists
show their sympathy for the survivor by
sending him their cards. When we see, there
fore, these heroic ladies riding forth in the
social battles magniAcently stern array, our
hearts render them the homage due to the
brave. When we consider how complex their
military equipment has grown, we fancy zach
Of these self-devoted mothers to be an Arnold
Misunderstanding In her martyr breast
the points of q dozen different eards-and
shouting Make way for liberty !" For Is it
not liberty to have cleared of dozen calls
from your list, and found nobody at homei
II this sort of thing goes on, who can tell
where the paper warfare shall endi II ladies
may leave cards for their husbands, who are
never seen out Of Wall-st. except when they
are seen at their clubs-or for their sons, who
never forsake their billiards or their books
why can they not also leave them for their
ancestors or for their remotest posterityf Who |
knows but people may yet drop cards In the |
names of the grandchildren whom they only |
wish for, or may reconcile hereditary feuds BY |
interchanging pasteboard in behalf of two |
hostile grandparents who died half century |
agoi ...... . - !
And there is another social Observance in |
which the introduction of the card system |
attendance on fashionable churches. Already, |
It is said, o family may sometimes reconcile
devout observance with q late breakfast by
the family carriage near the church.
door-empty. Really, it would not be much
empier observance TO send the cards alone,
by the footman, and doubtless, In The
progress of civilization, we shall yet reach
that point. 1t viii have many advantages.
The S1Sts of society, as some cruel satirist has
called them, may then send their oeieoas On
pasteboard to Is stAny diAspeht churches a.
hey apyFoye, thus insaring their souls (as n /
were) at several dihsrent Offices. Church
architecture may be simpHAed fDr It Will re-
luire nothing but caSd-baslrst The clergy
man win celebrate his solemn ritual, and viii +,
hen look In that eonyenient receptacle for
he names of his low-vorshipers, a. o Hns
ady, after her "recep6on.r looks over the
,ards her footman hands her to know which
If her dssr friends she has Been welcoming.
Religious O. wen as social prophecies win
,lide smoothly over surface of glazed paata.
,osrd and It Wal be only very humble Chris.
Jams indeed who wiz do their worshipins In
,srson, and hold to the worn out and obsolete
,ractice of "No Cards.
- .,' yiJ
Tha ~ - l.