The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1876-02-25
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
SOCIAL TOPICS NEW AMUSEMENTS-A
SALE OF NEW ENGLAND CHINA.
NEW YORK, Feb. 90, 1876.

NEW 1ORk, teD. 70, 1870.
The week may be summed up thus, in
brief: weather in extremes, amusements
Unsuitable. Business wedged in between
times. With Lent already in view, the
gayeties of the season whirl faster and
faster, and there is no end to the fun
this winter, though it may not be of the
grandest kind Still there is much social
ambition to cir the last refinement in
receiving. People might very truthfully
send out invitations which would read,
''to meet the new dinner service" or to
exhibit the drawing rooms, refurnished
by Cottier, who is the fashionable high
art furnisher, for those who eat, sleep
and drink according to standard.
FASHIONABLE ENTERTAINMENTS.
The young folks, of course, belong to
a musical or dramatic society of the Sc
lectest sort, which gives excuse for doz-
ems of delightful evenings at rehearsal in
cosy private parlors, and a gratifying
dash at public applause in the name of
charity, which as of old beareth mul-
titude of sins, amateur and otherwise
Dickens parties, where everyone dresses
after some character from rhe great nov-
elist, are more elaborate than ever
The characters are more deeply studied,
and their dress, manner, and speech are
carefully taken from the pages of the
"Household, {" or the "Glo5e" editions of
the novels. The more one can look like
one of Cruikshanks designs the better.
ROSEBUD PARTIES
But for fun alive, and deepest dissipa-
ton, go to rosebud party, to which all
the ladies invited are seeing their first
season in society-that is. if you can get
a card for it. No favor dispensed by
kind and charming hostess is so coveted
as an invitation to her rosebud party,
for the compliment bears on the face of
it that she considers you one of the eli
gibles of her acquaintances. Going, you
find the drawing g-rooms-nobody says
parlors, anymore except an old-fashioned
fellow like myself, we take so closely
after the English-hung with fern, smi-
lax and Spirea, feathering from mantel
and cornice, baskets of half blown roses
on every stand, and scores of debutantes
in pink and cream color floating about,
with all the mischief they learned at
Mrs. Meares' or Madame Chegarays' at
five hundred dollars a quarter, fresh in
their pretty heads. These pretty bac-
chanals, fresh from up town boarding
schools, waltz the widest, fiirt the deep
est and sip champagne the most defiantly
of any bellies ahoat, unless we except
few of our pretty married women-and
do this with more freedom than they
will ever find at command again.
POUND PARTIES.
This form of amusement is bound to
be caught up at once for the Use of
church parties and ladies' charities, it is
SO cheap and SO diverting at once 1t
has the patronage of fashion this winter,
for it is favorite form of spending
social evening among matrons and elder
ly business men who are not above hav.
ing some fun of an evening in their good
clothes. So while the young people are
off in their pink gauze and dresscoats
for dance-say the "EIks" bail, or
that of some select and expensive regi
rooms of the cosy Madison
avenue house are thrown open to hun
dred or so friends without any special
preparation in the way of flowers or mu-
sic, but with hot sit down supper to
follow in comfort for everybody. The
guests come well-dressed but not over
dressed, for the end and aim of pound
party is to have good time. Each one
is expected to bring with him or her a
package of something or anything to
weigh exactly a pound, done up so that
nobody can tell what is in it. The fun
is to hold a parlor auction, with the
glibbest speaker as auctioneer, and the
parcels are sold to the highest bidder,
for the benefit of some charity
which the hostess has at heart.
Fun, is it? You never saw such fun as
when the pa .kages are opened, and the
Wall Street man who bid five dollars for
a tissue paper parcel finds that it con-
tains bologna sausage, bought on the
way up town by a fun loving matron, or
the stiff bachelor bids off girls powder
and rouge box. or a frisiky young married
woman finds al pound of smoking tobac-
co in hers. Not very great or high toned
like the informal coteries,
upon Park avenue, where the elect de-
eide the movements of powers and par
ties in the interval of serious flirting and
serene epigrams.
LEAP-YEAR PARTIES
Are discreetly INDUCED in, with the
name of two or three married ladies of |
he highest standing at the head of the
invitation cards, as vouchers for deco
'um, and the chic of the affair.
The centennial had nearly put it out
If peoples heads that this is leap year,
With its perils and privileges. But since
he cabinet young ladies" in Washing
on have set the example of honoring
he occasion by ball, leap year Ger
mans will vary the monotony of kettle
lrums and the glare of public balls.
KETTLEDRUM IN NEW YORK.
Did l hear a quiet old lady (not to
MENTION a young one) say that she
Tould like to know what is meant by a
ettledrum? With all the pleasure in
fe. 1t is an English custom of inviting
s.xA-