Year: 1877

he knows will never be taken; and
yet he were indeed an unfaithful
chronicler of passing event: who
failed to note the present wild ex.
travagance of our people, or ask
himself the question, Where are
we drifting?


write from city where forty or
fifty thousand able-bodied men are
unemployed, and wandering about
the streets; where women and
children with famine cleaning from
their eyes stop you oD the highway
at all hours Of the day and night,
and point to their tattered misery
and rags while soliciting the aims
that may possibly save them from
present starvation.


Scarcely in this generation have
there been SO many houses to let
on all the great thoroughfares as
there are at the present time.
Business houses that withstood the
shock of l836-40 and 81 have sue
cumbed to inevitable fate since De
cember last, and ship-loads of peo-
pie, III hopes of lettering their con-
dltion, are making tie circuit of
half the globe, and are actually en-
igrating from New York to Aus
tralia. Few kinds of business have
escaped disaster, and exhibit their
usual activity; and yet, if you walk
Broadway or the Fifth Avenue these
pleasant spring afternoons, one
would think that the wealth Of
Cresus had been poured in upon us,
and that Cphir and Golconda were
at our very doors.


It was considered a wild stretch
of extravaganza when a besotted
Roman emperor quartered his ia
yorite horse in palace Of marble
and gold; but l doubt if Rome,
in its maddest saturnalia, ever had
its highways swept with rare and
costly silks, or its filthy cutters
sopped up with priceless laces, ri
valing the spiders web in the ex-
qulsiteness oflts film, and surpass-
ing in the beauty of their conception
the marvellous fret-wCrk Of the
Frost-King on the glass. Yet here
in New York, you can see all this.
The Haunting courtesans of the
aenaimonde give fashions to our
wives and daughters, and instead
of the decent and quiet republican
ism which characterized our people
forty or fifty years ago, we amaze
and shock with our thoughtles8
folly even the foreigners whose
fashions we were once so anxious to
initiate.


At fashionable restaurant few
weeks ago a party of twenty gen
tlemen were entertained by dis
tinguj5hed foreigner, and the charge
was one hundred dollars a plate
The room was transformed into a
fairy bower; rare perfumes were
throw offfrom miniature fountains;
distinguished singers, and celebra-
ted instrumental players added to
the interest of the feast, and as the
host planked down his two thou
sand dollars he declared that it was
the cheapest entertainment that he
ever heard of in his life. A fort
night ago young couple was mar
ried on Murray Hill, and the floral
decorations cost thirty-fve hundred
dollars marriage bell of ca
mellias and tuberoses six feet in di-
amcter, being one of the bridal
gifts.


I stepped into Tifany's and took
a look at his big case. l saw a nice
looking stone, and | thought if |
could find one to match it l would
have them mounted for pair of
sleeve buttons. | lost one Of mine
last week that cost me fifty cents at
the Centennial. | inquired the
price of a nice young man who
parted his hair in the middle, and
he politely informed me that the
particular stone | required was
worth twelve thousand FIVE hundred
dollars. l did not buy it; but
stepping out on the street encount-
cred an amateur jeweler with tray
around his neck and invested ten
cents IN a pair of solid gold sleeve
buttons which are now doing me
most excellent service. | recol-
lected that divine motto-"Economy
is wealth, i am waiting to realize
the last part of it.


The extravaganza I allude to is