Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1878-11-04
LETTER FROM NEW YORK.
Special Correspondence.

Special Correspondence.
New YORK, Oct. 20, 1878.
A vast amount of interesting his
torical reminescence is being brought
up in the proceeding now progressing at
the military headquarters on Governors
Island down in the Harbor, where
commission of army officers has for some
time been busy investigating and re-
hearing the charges on which Gen. Fitz
JohnPorter was, sixteen years ago,
cashiered from the United States Army.
These charges have reference to Gen.
Porter's disobedience to order from his
superior officer, Gen. Pope, about the
time of the second battle of Bull Run.
The names alone of the witnesses for
the Government must awaken host of
recollections in many of your readers,
for they comprise many, the mere men
ton of which aroused breathless atten-
ton and interest as they occurred in the
kilograms, which crowded after each
other both northward and southwark
during those troublesome years. Nc
Dowell, Heintzelman, Sigel, Early, Mos
by, Pope, and Hooker-"Fighting Joe,"
as he used to be called, but who now
drags himself painfully from private
life. and almost helpless paralytic, to
tell what he knows of the manevers of
those awful days. Robert Lincoln too,
the Presidents only living son. has been
upon the stand to testify to his fathers
expressed opinion that such conduct as
that of the offending general would have
justified death sentence. Altogether
this trial is remarkable and memora-
BILE one. 1t has now continued over
three weeks and is not yet terminated.
For years. as every recent visitor to
New York knows. magnificent Catho-
lie Cathedral has been in process of
construction on upper Fifth Avenue.
How much it is costing. l won't at
tempt to state, partly because l don't
know, and partly because it is better to
let the Imagination run loose about
such grand reverend pile instead of
reducing the imposing mass to decimals.
At all events the Cathedral is fine
enough to bear comparison with many
a European celebrity of similar charac-
ter, and has swallowed up so much
money that the local Catholic hierarchy,
albeit rich and powerful organization
has been good deal put to it to get
together the funds necessary for its
completion. AS one means of securing
money. grand fair has been organized
and is now in progress in the Cathedral
itself as a sort of housewarming for the
almost finished building.
The most prominent and most prof
table feature of the fair is that form O
sancti6ed gambling known as the rattle
Pretty much everything at the scores o
richly decorated tables, over which shine
the aggregate radiance of fifteen hundred
gas jets. is disposed of in this manner
of course thus realizing prices whicl
yield to the cause about SO per cen
profit. The articles to be raff1ed 70
include all manner of luxuries AM
necessities, from the straw stuffed dol
to a magnificent carriage-not a car
riage for the straw stuffed doll. but
"real" carriage. One can try his luc
on barrel of -four, diamond ring.
passage to Europe and return. good fo
one year; dress, pair of boots,
, house and lot, horse, billiard tabl
in fact. on anything the most whiu
steal mind can suggest.
q This fair is one of the biggest thing
in its way since the SANITARY Fairs
of war times. 1t opened on Tuesda
: with great flourish of trumpets. Sue
q crowd as congregated in and aroun
the cathedral last night has rarely bee
seen in New York. Fully twenty tho,
sand tickets were taken by the gat
II keepers. From half-past seven unit
It ten o'clock not foot of unoccupit
l. ground could be found in the vast e.
q closure and the ladies in attendance {
It tables were in some cases wedged ,
is against the side of the stalls and unab
l. to move foot away without immine
1T danger of being carried along by Il
is surging stream of people. A lady
r some inches and ounces declared
IN her honor, to little knot of sympath
ut ing friends who were arranging b
p dress for her when she got out of t
e. cathedral that from the time she ent,
ht ed until she left she had not put fl
ne on ground. The receipts for admissi
on alone. it is thought, must reach S10(
n A pleasant instance of honorable a
permanent success in what is commc