Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1881-01-03
LETTER FROM NEW YORK. .
Especial Correspondence of the Monitor.1
New YORK, Dec. q, 1880.

one of his readers. Such lovely wealth
er for shopping was never before seen,
at such convenient season, nor were
there ever more beautiful things to be
shopped for. The streets of New York
are picture in such times. Money
flows like water, and the air quivers
with the charming babbling of bellies
with the most coquettish costumes and
brightest of holiday faces. The stores
are filled with things of beauty, and the
very windows have this year been dec
grated with wonderful elaborateness of
artistic display. Some of the combina-
lions would do credit to the not renown-
ed scenic artists. One establishment,
for instance, has an enormous model of
Niagara Falls, with hacks, visitors, &C.,
moving about in the most natural style,
and water flowing too. Another has
three enormous windows each forming
scene in the yearly adventures Of
Santa Claus. In one the good old gen.
tleman, with frosty pow and simmering
heart, is disclosed in his workshop,
packing up the results of his long years
labors to delight the good little ones.
In another, he is discovered in full Ca
reer, urging on the traditional reindeer
to where light curl of smoke betrays
cottage half buried in snow. In yet
another, is lifelike scene of little au-
donations discovering the treasures left
by the saint. Great, ever-changing
crowds are attracted by these devices,
and the sample of what is to be seen in
side draws the majority inward, and
then they buy-with vengeance. The
main streets are lined with vendors each
with basketful of some one toy each
more attractive than the last seen, and
all SO cheap that nickels and quarters
are irresistibly impelled to part COM
pany with their quondam owners in ex-
change for them.
Nor is charity forgotten. The great
fairs of churches are thronged, and
purses melt like ices before the fascina-
tions of the fair salesladies with their
winning ways. At one Hebrew bazaar
not less than $4,000 was realized in a
single night. And the hospitals are tc
have two hospital days. this year,
when the casual penny may find it,
way into boxes set up everywhere
One day brought $4,000 last year
when the idea was new and little under
stood. 1t wouldn't surprise me if $1OO.
900 should be gathered in in the two
days this time.
The staid Puritans of New England
and their kin from Ohio. have been go
ing off their base with the most rollick
ing abandonment. They have beer
bound to have good time and to fol-
low the old political precept in the day
when politicians played tricks-hov
long is that ago ?-and if they DON
} vote early and often, 60 in for early ant
frequent banquets. They have got tn
start of Xmas with Forefathers' Day
and this year had two Forefathers
Days, the new Brooklyn New Englan'
Association claiming that, by some new
ly discovered evidence, Plymouth Roc
f was picked UPS that correct 2-.nauti
calIy or otherwise. day earlier tina
= has generally been held. So they lie
off with an immense affair in the Brook
| Ign Academy, with Grant, Hayes, Shel
man, Sheridan, Beecher, and prett
nearly everybody else and all his rela
lions, when speech and song and stor
) kept the rafters ringing with mirth til
, almost daybreak. The next evenin
= was the New York celebration, an
Grant made speeches which very niue
surprised and delighted those VIII
? thought of the old-time reticence Of tina
5 once very silent man. Hayes, too, ha
J previously put in good days work
flirting with the girls at Packer Inst
tute, actually kissing two of them Oil
: tie ones). and then metaphorically pa
r ting several hundred boys on the hea
r at the Polytechnic, winding up his &c
5 ucational jaunt with a confab with til
8 mixed classes at the Central Gramma
S School, and then refreshing the inne
S man, in company with a select crowd
/ stupendous bigwigs, at a comfortabl
: little spread given by A. A. Low, tn
q China merchant, whose board groane
t under royol service of pure gold, Will
: band played, and Illuminated col
: servatories threw their tropical fir
GRANGE on the brilliant scene, which W;
rivalled by the bouquet of the pricele
Il wines which were brought forth in hol
{ or of the occasion. 1t was indeed
notable feast.
g George Eliot, the famous authores
7. wrote with a golden pen. For b
l. "Middlemarch" she is said to have r
d ceived $4,000 on the delivery of Il