University of Virginia Library

ETIQUETTE OF WEDDING-CARDS.

Messrs. Editors: My friend John Smith is to be
married to Lucy Jones. She issues a card of invitation
like this:—

MR. AND MRS. JOHN SMITH
AT HOME,
No. 59 B— street, Tuesday Evening,
November 14th.

John Smith,
Lucy Jones,

Now he intends to use this for inviting to the ceremony;
but I tell him it is wrong, and can only be used
to invite to the party after the ceremony. He contends
that this is the usual form—so the engraver
tells him, etc.

Please give us the law in these matters (we can appeal
to no higher authority in matters of etiquette
and fashion); let us have the two customary forms,
for wedding and party, for the enlightenment of inexperienced
candidates who wish to follow the fashions,
and much oblige, Custom.

P. S.—We wait for your infallible decision.

Wednesday morning.

Unmarried People four times as liable to insanity
as Married People.—The “Concord Freeman,” in
a statistical article made up from hospital reports,
shows, that if a man is, perhaps, oftener out of pocket
when married, he is not so often out of his head. The
editor says: Few people are aware how much more
insanity prevails among bachelors and unmarried ladies
than among the married of both sexes. We
learn from the examination of very many reports, that
of every five of all lunatics sent to American hospitals,
three are unmarried, and only two are married, and
that almost all of them are over twenty-one years old.
On the other hand, it is pretty certain that in all the
community over twenty-one years of age, there are
more than three times as many in as out of wedlock.
If this be the case, then the unmarried are more than
four times as liable to become insane as married
people.

The Herald seems to think we have bought the
“Republic.” We are sorry that a republic is a marketable
commodity, but at any rate we have bought
nothing of that name of description. Our ambition,
somehow, does not seem to stumble upon things republican.
In this world we desire a farm, on which
we can be “monarch of all we survey,” and in the
next, we pray for a citizenship in the kingdom of
heaven.

“Up-Town” and “Down-Town.”—We see that
these names of the different halves of the city are becoming
the common language of advertisements, etc.
A person advertises in one of the papers a “Down-town
singing school,” and another a “Down-town
dancing academy.” We think our friend Billings
would better stick to “Up-town Hotel” as the better
designation of the new brick khan.

The new Sequel to Theatrical Intelligence.
—Since the bishops and deacons have taken to indicting
each other for fallings-away of which the public
like to read the Scan. Mag., we observe that the
particular column of newspapers which is devoted to
spicy news, theatricals, police incidents, etc., has
silently become the locality for brief paragraphs announcing
where distinguished preachers are to hold
forth. In the salad column of one of the papers there
is one announcement of a play followed by six announcements
of sermons! And in another paper
there are very nearly two columns of sketches of sermons,
from a specific “reporter!!”

We saw yesterday, for the first time in this country,
an equipage of full ceremonial splendor, faultless
in taste, and evidently not at all modified by any
dread of democratic prejudices. We admired the
“bravery” of the turn-out, and the courage of using
it. The ice broken, there will soon be conjured others
from the vaults in Wall street—but meantime, let
us look a little at the necessity for a promenade drive
in New York, and its probable locality.

In or near every capital of Europe there is a spot
which serves, for those who have carriages, the same
purpose which Broadway serves for promenaders on
foot. In London it is the Mayfair side of Hyde park;
in Paris it is the Champs Elisées and Bois de Boulogne;
in Florence it is the Cascine; in Rome the
Pincian hill; in Naples the Strada Nuova. In all of
these capitals the titled and wealthy avoid driving in
the crowded streets except upon errands of necessity,
and in London it is the custom to keep a plainer vehicle
with cob-horses expressly for use at night and
errands in the city. Ladies who have occasion to go
out in the morning, do so on foot and in the plainest
dress, followed invariably by a servant. They return
to lunch at one or two, and immediately after dress for
the show part of the day's out-door occupation. The
carriage comes round in full livery at the specified
hour, and, the shopping and business-errands having
been despatched in the forenoon, the equipage starts
upon the afternoon destination of ceremony or pleasure.

An hour before sunset or the dinner hour, the
principal drive is over, and the scattered equipages
meet, as upon a fashionable exchange, for a promenade
of display. This conventional assembling is relied
upon for recognition of acquaintance, for arrangements
as to the evening, for keeping advised of the
fashions, for seeing strangers, and for contests of style
in equipage and personal attire. The dandies must
be seen there, in cab or mounted; the women of “position”
must refresh there the memories of forgetful
tributaries; the new candidate for fashion must there
display that taste in “belongings” which can only be
guessed at in a ball-room; there are seen all whose
means make them eligible to expensive circles of society,
and who (by something that will and does tell,
in the equipage, or the mode of dressing for, and appearing
in, it) there make claim to fitness for, at least,
a ceremonious conversance with the haute voléc.

Of course, there is a postern of society in all cities,
through which are admitted certain classes, who keep
no equipages—those who are to amuse, instruct, or
embellish the gay world—poets, parsons, and pretty
women; but the promenade on wheels is, to all others,
the inexorable vestibule, and, as far at least as this
gate, the ordinary seekers of the heaven beyond must
come with horses. Cowper only mentioned the barest
essentials when he said,

In New York, however undesirable to the mass, this
formidable gulf is about to be sunk, between wealth
and competency. At present there is no distinction
among the upper ten thousand of the city. There is
no place where equipages are exclusively looked for.
There are five or ten thousand young men who dress
as well as the millionare's son; five or ten thousand
ladies for whom milliners and mantua-makers do their
best; ten or twenty thousand who can show as well
on foot, and walk as well without heart-burnings, in
Broadway—one as another. New York is (at this
critical moment, before the shoot of the centripetal
particles to a new nucleus) the largest republic of
“first quality” people that the world ever saw.

There is one spot which has been talked of as a
promenade drive, and we believe some endeavor has
been made to purchase it for the purpose—the beautiful
wood on the right of the Third avenue. That
charming spot would stand to New York very much
as the Cascine to Florence. We doubt, however,
whether, yet awhile at least, the object would warrant
the purchase.

The first probable promenade drive, we should say,
would be the Fifth avenue, from Washington
square to the Croton reservoir. The splendor of the
houses on this broad highway is far beyond that of
any other portion of the city; it is no thoroughfare
for omnibuses; it leads from the wealthiest neighborhood
to a prominent public work; it is on the return
route from the loveliest drives on the island; and,
should the summit of the rising ground on which the
reservoir stands be fixed upon, as proposed, for the
Washington monument, and planted and decorated,
that limit would be a convenient turning-place, and a
charming and airy spot for a sunset soirée en voiture.

A Story for your Son, Sir.—The present king
of France, one very cold evening, was riding from
Boston to Salem on the outside of the stage. He
was entirely without money to pay for a lodging that
night, and he began to make friends with the driver to
get part of his bed. After a while the driver's compassion
was aroused. “You are not a very clean
looking chap,” said he to the poor Frenchman, “but
my bed is in the harness-room, where there's a stove,
and if you'll keep your trowsers on, and sleep outside,
I don't mind!”

The Republic of Broadway.—Eyes were contrived
at some trouble; the great sun shows only the

outside of things; the present and visible (Carlyleically
speaking) is the world God adapted our senses
to; and though some people like to live the life of a
sundial under ground, we prefer to throw to-day's
shadow from whatever we do—writing about what we
see, and thinking most about what jostles our elbow.
This explained.

We have a loose slip-slop or two for the young men
about town—not as to their invisible minds and morals,
but as to their visible walking and dressing. Having
“bought our doublet in Italy, our round hose in
France, our bonnet in Germany, and our behavior
everywhere,” we may perhaps excusably scale a pedestal
to give our opinion; though the credit we take
to ourselves may be granted in the spirit of Falstaff's
to Doll Tearsheet, “We catch of you, Doll, we catch
of you!”

There is nothing so republican as a dressy population.
We are no “leveller,” but we like to see things
level themselves; and the declaration of independence
is impotent in comparison with the tailor's goose. A
young man about town slips his miniature into five
thousand eyes per diem. Fifty of the five thousand
who see him know whether his father is a mechanic
or a rich man; and it depends wholly upon his dress
and mien whether the remaining four thousand nine
hundred and fifty take him to be a rich man's son or
a mechanic's son. It is reasonable, of course, to let
the fifty who know think what pleases them, and to
dress for the very large majority who don't know.
This is apparently the tacit philosophy of the young
men of New York. There is no telling, by any difference
in dress, whether the youth going by has,
probably, a sister who is an heiress, or a sister who is
a sempstress. There is no telling the merchant from
his bookkeeper—no guessing which is the diner on
eighteen pence, and which the gourmet of Delmonico's—no
judging whether the man in the omnibus,
whom you vaguely remember to have seen somewhere,
was the tailor who tried on your coat, or your vis-à-vis last night at a ball.

As we said above, this is a true republic. A young
man whose appearance is four-story-housy, can very
well afford to let a few people know that he sleeps
over the shop. If he is more elegant than a rich
man's son, he gets as nearly the full value of the difference
as ordinary vanity would require. Every
young man finds means to dress to his liking, and of
course every young man starts fair, each morning,
with all of his age, for the day's competition in bright
eyes.

We shall be understood, now, in our republican effort
to add still another levelling to this of the tailor's
goose—to bring the attractions of plain men up to
those of the “aristocracy of nature.” The hints we
have to throw out will be slighted by the good-looking;
taken advantage of by the plain—thus levelling,
in another respect, upward.

The rarest thing seen in Broadway is a young man
who walks well. A stoop in the back is almost national;
and an upright, graceful, gentlemanlike gait
is as rare as it is singularly striking. If you can afford
the time to walk slowly, high-heeled boots are a
great improvement. With time enough, you drop
the foot insensibly from a high heel, like an actor
walking down the slope of the stage. Beside, it
makes the instep look high, which implies that your
father did not carry a hod.

Avoid a broadcloth shirt, in the shape of a shapeless
garment with sleeves (one of the new fashions).
It looks collicty, with the wind bellying it out in all
directions as you walk along.

Leave long cloaks to the clergy. The broad velvet
collar, turning over, diminishes your apparent breadth
of shoulders, and it should be worn with careful dramatic
propriety, not to be very awkward and inelegant.

If you are about to have an overcoat made, get a
fat friend to go and be measured for it. At any rate,
let not your diaphragm be so imprisoned, that the
first heroic sentiment will tear off a button. One of
Jenning's cutters is the apostle of a reform in this
matter—measuring you (if you request it) by a magnifying-glass,
from the waist upward.

These are not King Canute's days, when “none
under the rank of gentlemen dare presume to have a
greyhound to follow him.” The outward symbols,
once peculiar to elegance, are pretty well levelled up
to, as we said before—but, by careful observation,
you will now and then see a something that nice men
do, or do not do, which has not yet got through the
hair of the promiscuous. As an example, and in the
hope that it will not be generally understood, we will
mention, that very particular men, for the last year,
have walked the street invariably with a kind of
grieved look—very expressive and distinguishing.

We will resume this republican theme.

The Designation of the Lady Presidentess.—
If it had not been for a certain ante-expiatory “white
horse,” we should have prayed for the miraculous return
to this world of “John Tetzel, Vender of Indulgences.”
The editor of the Morning News did justice
to his Irish blood a day or two ago, by giving
back, to the loser's wife, a saddle-horse he had won
in a bet: but how, in the name of all the gallant proprieties,
can he justify himself to the ladies of the democracy
for making no distinction between their queen
and the (of course) less glorious queen of any country
on earth? The promiscuousness of two “Mrs.
P's!”

“White-House.—Among other consequences of
the election of Mr. Polk, it is said, will be to locate
in the White-house at Washington the handsomest
and perhaps the most accomplished lady that ever
presided in its stately halls. Mrs. P. has, for some
years, been remarkable not only for personal beauty,
but for that greater charm, graceful manners, and a
highly-cultivated mind.”

If, in this democratic country, one may venture to
say a word for the other “Mrs. P.,” we think that
Louis Philippe's having slept with a stagedriver in
this country (vide a late anecdote) might have procured
for his wife the easy privilege of at least one
distinguishing initial. It surely would not seriously
invade the simplicity of our court circular to add a
“J.” to the single-letter title of the lady presidentess
of fifteen millions and Texas! Be generous, gentlemen
people! Let us have some distinction in the
Queen “P.'s” of the two countries. The editor of
the Morning News will be some day minister to
France. Fancy his being called on to present “Mrs.
American P.” to “Mrs. French P.”

Overhaul of Sailing Orders.—The sails draw
—the freight sits trim in the hold—the ship minds
her helm, and the wind strengthens on the quarter
with a freshness that strains rope and spar. It is perhaps
the best moment that will occur, in the long
voyage before us, to overhaul our signals and sailing-papers,
and understand how we are to communicate
with the fleet, and go straightest and most prosperously
to our destined haven.

(Whoa, Pegasus! We have been as poetical as
will have been expected of us at one day's notice.
Drop to the ground and let us go off on a plain trot!)

We have always looked upon the gentlemen of the
daily press as among the enviably unlabelled potentates
of this country of King Everybody-nobody—

enviably as having enormous power and little responsibility
as to the using of it. The power will doubtless
remain as large and the responsibility as small. “A
free press” is the lesser of two evils. In the perpetuation
of this state of things, however, lies our future
vocation, and—while we have it yet in our power to
“make a clean breast,” and avow what we have objected
to in the exercise, by others, of the spells by
which we are to conjure—let us name at least the one
blot which most smirches the forward face of the profession.

It were of little use for one editor to declare that he
would make war freely upon opinions—never upon
persons. And the disadvantage is not merely that of
throwing away the dagger in battle, because the sword
is more gentlemanly—not merely a lessening of one's
formidableness to an opponent. The evil is in the
greater curiosity to watch the stabber, felt by the lookers-on.
The temptation to be personally abusive lies
in the diseased appetite of the crowd that will follow
the abuser—leaving the scrupulous man alone with
his decency. Living as editors do, by the favor of
the crowd, if many are willing to minister to this diseased
appetite, decency in the few is a kind of slow,
business-suicide.

It would almost require a Utopian fancy to picture
the beauty of a press from which personalities and
illwilled abuse were wholly excluded. No personalities
in literature, and none in politics—the author,
editor, and statesman, alike intrenched in

—how completely the envy of malignant mediocrity
would be deprived of its now easy sting, and how
completely ruffianism and brutality would be confined
to the bully-club and dram-shop! Scholars would
wait on public opinion, at the editor's table, busied
only with embellishing, and not engrossed with defending
their fair fame; and gentlemen of sensitive
honor, who are now appalled at the calumnious gauntlet
of politics, would come forward to serve their
country at the small posts occupied now only by men
senseless to defamation.

To the coming about of this paradise of letters,
editorial consent is alone wanting. No one man could
live long, the only calumniator of the press. No one
man would dare to hold the only pen deficient in
courtesy and gentlemanlike regard to private character.
Complete silence from the rest of the press
toward the one offender, after a unanimous publication
of his disgrace—refusal, without exception, to
exchange papers with him from that time forward—
any combination, in short, which should make the ostracism
of such an individual, by his brethren of the
press, universally known—would suffice to purge the
press of him. One year of such united self-censorship
would so purify the public habit of news-reading,
that an offence against propriety would at least
startle and alarm the public sense; and, arrived at that
point, a very moderate apostleship might complete the
reform.

We do not anticipate this. Oh, no! We are

but, at the risk of being the “grave of our deserving,”
we shall do the leaning of one to the better side.
We shall have harder work for it. Nothing is easier
than to be popular by habitual ill will. Trashy minds
write most readable satire, and, with the mood on or
off—the industry willing or reluctant—fault-finding is
fecund production. But if good nature can be spiced
—if courteous treatment of our brother editors,
brother authors, and all nameable men, can be made
palatable to the public—if a paper wholly incapable
of an unkindness, but capable of all things pleasurable
else, can be fairly tested—we trust to do without the
price of giving pain, and we trust that the money so
turned out of our hand will not be like the lost oil of
the tomb of Belus—irreplaceable.

The Cost of Fashion.—From a pamphlet sent us,
we learn that five hundred millions of dollars are spent
annually in the United States for such articles of
dress as are subject to the fluctuations of fashion.
Of this sum, it is computed that sixteen millions are
spent for hats, probably about twenty millions for caps
and bonnets, and for other articles of dress not less
than four hundred millions!

So that not far from a million and a half dollars are
spent daily for clothing; of which, if the calls of
fashion claim but ten per cent. (but probably she receives
double that sum), one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars are sacrificed daily at the footstool of the
fickle goddess, by the enlightened citizens of the
United States!

Is it not time that some standard of national dress
was established? We certainly have had sufficient
experience to know what kinds of clothing are the
most convenient, and one good reason can not be produced
for the unmeaning changes which are every
day taking place.

It is not to be expected that in a free country, where
it is proverbial that “every man is at liberty to wear
shoes or go without,” an association to fix upon
a general standard of dress would lead all to adopt it.
No—there would be those still found who, lacking
other points to recommend them to public notice,
would act the cameleon still. But no small portion
of the community would recommend that course
which would most evidently be for the public good.

The number, if large and respectable, would exert
a sufficient influence by their example to prevent the
standard fashion from ever appearing out of date.
The ladies' bonnets would then be new at the end of
three years, instead of being old-fashioned at the end
of one. The gentlemen's hats would be fashionable
until worn out; and the wedding coat, which is saved
for holyday occasions, might descend from father to
son, a fashionable garment.