Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1878-11-07
Communication.
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Our New York Letter.

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Reminder of War Times-The
Catholic Cathedral and Fair
Sanctified Gambling.
New YORK, Oct. %, 1873.
To the Editor Of the Observer:
A vast amount of interesting
historical reminiscence is being
brought up in the proceedings
now progressing at the military
headquarters on Governors Is
land down in the Harbor, where
a commission of army officers
has for some time been busy in
vestigating and rehearing the
charges OH which Gen. Fitz
John Porter was, sixteen years
ago, cashiered from the United
States Army. These charges
have reference to Gen. Porters
disobedience to orders from his
superior officer Gen. Pope, about
the time Of the second battle
of Bull Run. The names alone
of the witnesses for the Gov
ernment must awaken q host of
recollections in many of'your
readers, for they comprise many,
the mere mention of which a.
reused breathless attention and
interest as they occurred in the
kilograms, which crowded after
each other both northward and
southwark during these trouble
some years. Mcdowell, Heint-
zleman, Sigel, Early, Mosby,
Pope and Hooker-"Fighting
Joe," as he used TO be called,
but who now drags himself pain
fully from private life, and al
most helplessly paralytic, to tell
what he knows of the manGuvers
of those awful days. Robert
Lincoln too, the Presidents on
ly living son, has been upon the
stand to testify to his fathers
expressed opinion that such con-
duct as that of the offending
general would have justified a
death sentence. Altogether this
trial is a remarkable and MEM
orable one. 1t has now con-
tinued for over three weeks and
is not yet terminated.
For years, as every recent vis-
itor to New York knows, a
magnificent Catholic Cathedral
has been in process of construc-
ton on upper Fifth Avenue.
How much it is costing, | won't
attempt to state, partly because
1 don't know, and partly be-
cause it is better to let the inn
agination run loose about such
grand and reverend pile in
stead 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
character, and has swallowed
up so much money that the To-
cal Catholic hierarchy, albeit a
rich and powerful organization,
has been good deal put to it
to get together the funds neces-
sary for its completion. As one
means ofsecuringmo grand
fair has been organized and is
now in progress in the Cathe-
dral itself as a sort of house
warming for the almost finished
building.
The most prominent and most
profitable feature of the fair is
that form of sanctified gamb-
ling known as the rattle. Pret-
ty much everything at the scores
of richly decorated tables, over
which shines the aggregate ra-
dance of fifteen hundred gas
jets, is disposed Of in this man.
ner, of course thus realizing
prices which yield to the cause
about 90 per cent. profit. The
articles to be raffled for, include
all manner of luxuries and ne
cessities, from the straw stuffed
doll to a magnificent carriage
not q carriage for the straw
stuffed doll, but a "reaP car.
riage. One can try his luck OF
a barrel of -four, a diamond
ring, a passage to Europe anc
return, good for one year; 1
dress, pair of boots, a house
and lot, a horse, a billiard table
lin fact, on anything the mos
whimsical mind can suggest.
This fair is one of the bigges
things in its way since tn
"Sanitary Fairs" of war times