The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1881-10-22
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
Busy Times Among the Cabinet Makers
The Primary Elections-End of the
Mournins-The.Latest Fair Styles The
Season Of Failures Etc.
,oo,

| The Primary Electi0ns-End of the
latest Fall.< Styles The
Season Of Failures Etc.
| New YORK, October Is, 1881.
We. are busy, exceedingly busy; in
fact, we have no time to lose, as we are
engaged in Cabinet making. We are
pretty we'll satisfied in New York that
President Arthur does not know what
kind of a Cabinet he wants, SO we have
made up our minds to help him out of
his dilemma. At one time we were in
clined to advise him to retain all the
old Cabinet, and finally we--came to the
conclusion that we would give them all
the bag; then we thought we would
only keep Blaine, and then we thought
we wouldn't. Bob Lincoln was an old
friend 80 for the sake of his father we
thought we'd keep him in; but we
finally concluded that we could capture
the ponderous Davis with herring on
pin-hook, and send Secretary Robert L.
back, with flying colors, as Senator
from Illinois. Davis is said to be upon
tho fence. That is O. vile slander, for
the fence was never built that could
hold him. am at loss to tell what is
the matter with Arthur. We have fixed
up no less than seventy-two different
Cabinets in two weeks, with q hundred
and forty changes in each one, and
somehow or other, incomprelensible as
it may seem, mono of them appear to
suit him. l begin to think that Presi
dents are only human after all, or he
certainly would have seen by this time
how disinterested our advice was and
is.
Tho lively hustle of the primaries has
almost created revolution. The num-
Der of patriots loft out in the cold is
pitiful to neutrality-suspicious. so
willing to serve tho country and them
selves. Both of the thunderers, the
Times and Tribune, are fierce in their
denunciations of the machine, and if the
so-called machine should triumph (and
it certainly looks like it now), it will be
very littlo indebted to these solons of
the press. The contest In New York
and Brooklyn has been one of the Bit
terest and most acrimonious that has
taken place for many years. Civil
Service Reform was the war cry, and the
public was recently shocked at discover
ing that the Magnus Apollo of Civil
Service Reform-the disinterested gen.
tleman who never soiled his fingers in
the dirty pool of politios-had no less
than seventytwo appointments in the
New York Custom-House, and heaven
knows how many moro distributed
through the various public offices. The
next few weeks will be exclusively
devoted to settling the affairs of tho
country, and whom we have got that
job off our hands, and have elected a
new lot Of Aldermen and other officers
to fill the numerous fat Offices of the
city, we can return to the serious busi-
ness of life, in fleeing each other whom
ever the opportunity occurs.
Shakespeare has said that
"a great mans memory may outlive his
But, M sy our our lady, ho must build churches
for it,"
Never before did a saying receive so
ample verifcation as this. A little week
ago and our grief was clouded with all
the sable garniture of woe, the flags
we're half-mast, the windows and por-
ticos we're draped, on the street cars and
omnibuses hung the black emblems of
sorrow; men spoke to each other in
bated breath, for fear Of disturbing the
dead. To-day all is changed. The Grape
is removed from the door-post; the
mourning festoon is taken down, and it
is ouly here and there that some ragged
fragment f1utters in tho wind, to remind
us of the grandest funeral pageant that
the country has seon in the memory of
living men.
The mild form of insanity known as
lawn tennis is gradually disappearing
from among us. The bed-tick aud avn
ing fever, which threatened such dire
consequences to tho romantic and @stlie
tic portion of our younger female COM
munity is dying out, and the skirts
which created such a profound sensation
q fow weeks ago are being quietly trans
formed into bolstors and pillow-eases,
for which, undoubtedly, they were
originally intended.
The Fall fashions are now fairly
launched upon US, and in striving to
create sensation, it really seems as if
some of our women folks had taken
leave of their senses. have carefully
read the revised statutes and l can find
no law to prevent either man or woman
making fool of himself or herself, as
the case may be.
Only the other day l was crossing
Fulton Ferry in front of me sat an old
dowager whose avoirdupois could only
have been determined by a hog scale.
Some unfortunate wretch whose spirit
had long since escaped to the happy
hunting grounds, might have led her to
the altar Oh the day when the immortal
Lafayette was received by the corpora
tion of New York. She was old and
tough-just the right kind of person to