Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1874-06-19
Correspondence.
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.

Oth NEW HONh LETTER.
ONE GOOD RICH WOMAN-wHAT SIZE DOES
WITH HER MONEY-DULL TIMEs-TIE
SUMMER - MIGRATION - BIDDY - THE
WEATHER.
NEW YORK, June 16, 1874.
ONE GOOD RICH WOMAN
We read in Holy Writ that it shall De
easier for camel to pass through the eye
of a needle than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom Of heaven. / presume this ap-
plies to women as well, and / am in no
mood this morning to dispute the assertion.
The care OF my estate so worries me that |
am seldom in a Christian frame of mind.
Nobody knows the anXieties attendant
upon great wealth. Mr.. Vanderbilt and
L weep over il hours together.
But there is one exception to this rule.
L know of one woman who has great wealth,
who will, when Azrael waves his dark
pinions over her head, go straight to hea-
ven, and by the shortest possible route
and her name is Stokes, the wife of Anson
Phelps Stokes, Of the great house of Dodge
! & Co.
Mrs. Stokes has the enjoyment of exceed
ing great wealth. She might, if she chose,
be the finest and most useless woman in
New York she could dawdle in purple
and fine linen she could loll in carriages
she could cover herself with diamonds
she could live from day to day in luxurious
self-inGulgence, and die, finally, leaving no
soul behind to mourn her going. All this
is being done by thousands of fine ladies in
the circles in which she moves and adorns
But Mrs. Stokes does not happen to be
one Of that kind, and l fervehtly thank
Heaven for it. She is 4 strong, active wo-
man, full of the noblest impulses and the
broadest love for her kind. She has mag
nificent house uptown, and more mag
nificent residence on that gem of the sea,
! Staten Island. On that island she has had
an immense building erected, which is in
its way sort of an asylum. Now see
| what one good woman can do with money.
The charities of New York shelter and har-
Dor thousands upon thousands of homeless
orphan children, and during the summer
they suffer in their necessarily close quar-
| tcrs. Mrs. Stokes takes seventy of these
waits ut time down to her home on the
Island-this being the capacity Of the build
| ing-and keeps them there a week. They
have the freshest and best fruits, milk from
her own cows, and the best of everything
| that the market can furnish. On the ex-
tensive grounds swings are erected, play
grounds are arranged, and the children en-
| joy not only the pure air of heaven and the
best Of food, but all sorts and kinds Of in
nocent and healthful pleasure. Their weeks
u2, they are returned, and another seventy
are taken down, all at her own expense.
And this thing goes on from the time hot
weather beings till the cold autumn makes
it unnecessary, this good, kind woman
experimenting it all.
Would that wealth always fell into such
hands Would tina. there more such rich
women in New York, and everywhere else
Would there were more women who could
so honestly wear the title ''lady." Talk
about position making the first lady,
Thousands of poor neglected children will
in the days to come rise up and say ''blesss-
ed" of this woman, whose goodness was
their first ray of sunshine.
DULLNESS.
The city is dull TO degree never known
before. There is no business, positively
none. There is no buying, no selling, for
the reason that the farmer has no money
to pay the country dealer; the country
dealer has no money to buy of the jobbers,
and the jobbers' goods consequently lie on
their shelves or remain hidden in boxes.
The hotels were never so empty, and hotel
proprietors never looked so blue. Indeed
it has come to point where hotel clerk
will actually give the weary traveller who
seeks rest civil word. by this you may
imagine how much they want to see people.
And the trouble is, no one can prOphesy as
to the duration of this state of things.
"When will business revive ~ is the query,
the answer always being, The Lord only
knows" No human can tell for there was
no apparent cause for its beginning. The
country was strong and sound in Septem-
Der last, yet in n week panic swept over
the country like a tornado, prOstrating the
trongest houses, unrUoting the most firmly
established credits, and with It's long
fingers reaching down to the most humble
people. For it has affected the most hum
ble With the suspension of business every
thing suspended. There is no building,
and the builders are out of work The
consumption of every thing that goes into
the bowels Except wiskey) is lesseneG, and
the cOopers are idle. Men wear their boots
longer, and the shoemakers are on their
oars in short, it is distress, and nothing
but distress. 1t goes even to the beggars.
One placid looking, old blind beggar who
has a sea! on Fulton St., told me yesterday
that the panic had ruined him. His COL
lectIOns he said with whine, had dropped
to So per day, but he would't care so much
about that, but rents had fallen 80 per
cent, and he had two houses and three
stores empty, even at this reduction. The
old fellow has sat on a sidewalk, and had
enough pennies dropped into his hat to
make fortune, which, by iudioious in
vestment, has swelled to fortune.
THE SUMMER.
Summer is on us at last The sun is