Doesticks, What He Says Part 7

I was so much affected by the services of the Church, had my feelings so much excited, and all my benevolent and charitable nature so thoroughly aroused by the sermon, that I felt an irresistible desire to rush out and give somebody something.

For I know that I am charitable; I feel it in my bones, like rheumatism.

I always give money to the begwoman, who has such a large family at home; and to the whiny boy, with a club-foot, who asks charity on behalf of his sick mother.

True, I have seen the old lady when she was evidently inebriated, and apparently disposed to harangue the crowd in high Dutch--but then she was in excellent company; n.o.ble-looking men, with stars on their bosoms--and I have discovered that the club-footed boy changes all his money into cents, and gambles it away, playing "pitchpenny" in Theatre-alley; still, I keep on giving.

But it is also a fact that I am not always able to comply with the demands upon my purse. Twice have I been invited to "calico" parties, and at the bottom of each note was a modest request that I would make my appearance arrayed in such apparel only, as I would be willing to donate next day to the Five-Points Mission.

Could have done like the others--bought a ready-made coat and vest and given _them_ with the greatest pleasure--but the hint in the invitation seemed to include the entire wardrobe brought into requisition on the occasion, and when I thought of a Five-Points darkey in my ruffled s.h.i.+rt and gold studs, I was "suddenly indisposed," and sent my "regrets."

But I did go to a ball for the benefit of the poor--a two-dollar commingling of "upper-tendom" with "lower-twentydom"--an avalanche of exclusiveness, in a torrent of mobocracy--where the crowd was so great that faces lost their ident.i.ty, and I was only conscious of a hustling ma.s.s of dressed up humanity--a forest of broadcloth wrecked in an ocean of calico. I barely escaped with life, and reached home in a state of collapse.

Afterward, went to a concert in behalf of the poor--where I sat all the evening in a hard seat with a number on the back to see a woman make faces at a well-dressed audience, and sing music which I could not understand--the people all applauded when she screamed, and threw bouquets at her when she made a noise like a swamp-blackbird.

But after listening to the stirring address before alluded to, I felt that I had not done enough; so, obedient to the promptings of my impulsive nature, I determined to give something more, and being so far _cityfied_ in my habits that I desired to combine amus.e.m.e.nt with charity, and only give my money to the needy after I had received its worth in dancing, got its full value in foreign music at a high price, or eaten its equivalent in oysters and ice-cream at some kind of a pseudo-charitable gathering, I looked about me for some fitting opportunity to bestow my charity on the deserving poor, after making it previously pay for some delectation for myself.

It did not take me long to find out that there was soon to be a ladies'

fair, in aid of the poor, given by the benevolent ladies of the Church of the Holy Poker.

Damphool (who can't give up city a.s.sociations, and who wouldn't read his Bible if it wasn't printed in New York) had sent to me from his rural solitude to procure him a dressing-gown, a pair of slippers, and a crocheted worsted comforter.

Thought I couldn't have a better opportunity to purchase these, and so I went to the fair.

Got to the hall, paid my twenty-five cents at the door, went in--saw plenty of long tables, with ladies behind them playing "keep store"--tables covered with mysterious articles of baby linen, and complicated pieces of female harness, designed for uses to me unknown, and also all sorts of impracticable unnecessaries intended for gentlemen.

Slippers that you couldn't get on; smoking caps that could never, by any possibility, fit anybody (shaped like a Chinese paG.o.da, and full of tinsel and spangles to make them p.r.i.c.kly); cigar cases, that you couldn't get a cigar into without breaking both ends off (perhaps they expect us to smoke "stubs," like the newsboys); pin-cus.h.i.+ons, stuffed so hard they would turn the point of a marlin-spike; watch cases, just big enough to hold a three cent piece; pen wipers, that fill the point of a pen full of wool--and divers other nonsensical inconveniences fabricated by speculating females, the patterns being always very short, and the st.i.tches very long (I suppose they think we don't know the difference), to palm off upon victimized gentlemen; and these latter resignedly submit to a price so exorbitant, that if a Chatham-street Israelite had the impudence to ask it they'd straighten out his fish-hook nose like a darning needle.

The prettiest looking girls are always placed where the least attractive-looking merchandise is displayed, and they ask the biggest kind of prices, trusting to the gallantry of the gentlemen "not to beat them down," flattering themselves, I suppose, that their pretty looks are "value received" for the exchange.

One consequence of this arrangement is, that every buyer spends all the money he has in his purse, taking in exchange therefor a lot of stuff so utterly useless, and so ridiculously absurd, that after having it on his table for a week or so to laugh at, he is fain to get rid of the rubbish, by giving the whole to his chamber-maid.

Sometimes your purchases will hold together till you leave the room, and sometimes not; you must show yourself a man, and "equal to either fortune."

There was a post-office; pretty girl called me; had a letter for me; bought it; paid ten cents; nothing in it--blank.

Solicitous young lady very anxious to have me give her twenty-five cents to tell me how much I weighed; paid her the money, and she told me within fifty-one pounds and a half.

Young woman wanted me to invest in the "grab bag;" gave half a dollar, and fished in; got, in three times trying, a tin whistle, half a stick of candy, and a peanut done up in tissue paper.

Went on to the auction table, where, after much compet.i.tion with a ringleted miss (who was put there to make Peter Funk bids against probable purchasers), succeeded in bidding in a China vase, which I soon discovered had a hole in the bottom, and wouldn't hold water any more than it would bake pork. If I had bought it anywhere else should have thought I had been swindled, and have demanded my money back, but here I supposed it was an exemplification of some newly discovered principle of fair dealing with which I was not yet acquainted.

Was much amused with the way they disposed of the unsold goods--certain number of articles, (things left at the tables tended by the homely girls) and for each article twenty tickets were put into a hat, whence they were drawn out singly, and the last tickets drawn were to have the prizes--should have thought it was just the same as a lottery, if I had not been acquainted with the ladies, and known they wouldn't do anything so naughty.

Came to a place where an old lady, with steel spectacles, was cutting up a loaf of cake into particularly small pieces--asked what it meant--was told there was a gold ring somewhere in the cake, and they proposed to sell each piece for a quarter of a dollar, and give the ring to the lucky buyer--wondered if it wasn't another lottery on a small scale, but supposed it couldn't be--went to the supper-room.

It is a curious metropolitan fact, that at parties, b.a.l.l.s, or wherever a refreshment-table is spread, every man seems to regard it as his duty to fill himself to the very lips with all the "delicacies of the season,"

and to accomplish it in the least time possible--as if he was a gun, and anxious to ascertain his calibre, and find out how quickly he could be loaded in case of necessity.

And the ladies are not far behind; this evening I learned how much a female _can_ eat in a charitable cause.

A pale-faced ball-room belle is a modern Sphinx--a gastronomic problem, whose solution will probably never be satisfactorily expounded.

Under the impression that she would not eat more than I had money to pay for, I invited a lady to take some refreshments, and I certainly think that, like the countryman, she imagined she was bound to eat all the bill-of-fare called for.

She ate stewed oysters--fried oysters--boiled turkey with oyster sauce, celery--oysters on the sh.e.l.l--ice cream, sponge cake, and Charlotte russe--Roman punch, two water-ices, coffee, sandwiches, cold sausage, lobster salad, oysters broiled, also stewed again, and six on the sh.e.l.l--orange jelly, grape ditto, cake; she then hinted again at oysters, but as the supply had run out, she was obliged to go hungry--paid the bill with a certified check on the Merchants' Bank, which luckily covered the amount, and greatly relieved my mind; for I feared there would be a balance which I would have to give my note for.

Having previously procured the articles required for my friend, I immediately left--go home--got there, and proceeded to examine my purchases--found that the slippers--having been pasted together without the slightest regard to permanency, had come apart in my pocket, my comforter had ravelled out, so that I had about six inches comforter, and a wad of yarn big enough to make a horse blanket--my dressing-gown had been made of a moth-eaten remnant, and where there _was_ any sewing, every st.i.tch was as long as a railroad, but the sleeves had, I verily believe, been put in with court plaster, and the long seams closed with carpenter's glue.

Made up my mind that the objects of that feminine inst.i.tution, a Ladies'

Fair, are somewhat as follows:

Firstly, to give the ladies an opportunity to show their new clothes, and to talk with a mult.i.tude of unknown gentlemen, without any preliminary introduction.

Secondly, to beg as much money as possible from the gentlemen aforesaid, under the transparent formality of bargain and sale--which sale includes the buyer, who is really the only article fairly "sold" in the whole collection.

Thirdly, to give some money to the ostentatiously poor, if there is any left after paying expenses, and the Committee don't spend it in carriage-hire.

In New York, by a refinement in Benevolence, engendered by the hardness of the times, and the necessity of making the money go as far as it will, charity money answers a double purpose; procuring pleasure for the rich, and soup for the poor.

Thus if you pay three dollars for a ticket to the Opera or Ball, you can enjoy your Aria, or Schottische, with a double relish; and can eat oysters and turkey, and gulp down creams and ices till your stomach "strikes," in the labor of love, with the happy consciousness, that it is all for "sweet charity"--and if the three dollars, before it reach the needy, in whose behalf you gave it, dwindles to three dimes and a tip, you can, knowing you have done _your_ duty, poetically exclaim, with the n.o.ble Thane, "Thou can'st not say _I_ did it."

XVII.

Millerite Jubilee--How they didn't go up.

In company with many others of the same genus and who may be cla.s.sed under the same general cognomen, my friend Damphool lately became convinced that according to the comfortable prediction of Mr. Miller, the "end of Earth" would become speedily visible to the naked eye, as that amiable gentleman had advertised the world to burn on the nineteenth day of May, 1855. According to the programme, the entertainment was to commence with a trumpet solo by Gabriel (not the one of City Hall celebrity), to be followed by a general "gittin' up stairs," and grand ma.s.s meeting of the ill.u.s.trious defunct--after which "the elect" were to start for Paradise in special conveyances provided for their accommodation--the whole to conclude with a splendid display of fireworks in the evening.

Damphool had done nothing but sing psalms for a week. Bull Dogge, who was also a convert, had packed up his wardrobe in a hat-box, and left the city; saying that he owned forty shares in a Kentucky coal mine, and was going to take possession of his property; and he offered to bet us the drinks that if he stood on a vein of _that_ coal, he would be the last man scorched.

Damphool squared up his board bill, and paid his washerwoman, which left him dead broke; sold his watch to a "blaspheming Jew" to raise money with which to procure an ascension robe; in order to do honor to the occasion, he got one made of linen cambric; it was a trifle too long, and cut him malignantly under the arms, but he bore it like a martyr; he got shaved, took a bath, put on his robe, bid me farewell, and got ready to go up.

I discovered the place from which they were to start, and went up myself to see the operation--in a vacant lot, where there were no trees to catch their skirts in their antic.i.p.ated flight--large crowd on the ground.

One maiden lady in a long white gown, had also dressed her lap-dog in a similar manner.

Man with a family Bible in his hand, had forgotten his robe, and come in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves.

Ancient wench in a white night-gown, with red shoes, and a yellow handkerchief round her head, knelt down in a small puddle of rain water, and prayed to take her up easy, and not hurt her sore ancle.

Lady from East Broadway, came in a robe cut low in the neck, and trimmed with five flounces.

Red-haired woman made her appearance with a crying baby, to the consternation of the company, who expected to go to Heaven, and had no relish for a preliminary taste of the other place.

Careful old lady, brought her overshoes in a work-basket, to wear home in case the performance should be postponed.