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Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
Foreign
A letter from Germany says Jenny Lind Goldsmith recently volunteered to play the melodeon in the English Church at Carlsbad which she was attending unrecognized. She appeared to be a woman of 50 or upward, with nothing about her to attract attention, and was dressed with great plainness and simplicity, without ornament of any kind. Her countenance, no longer beautiful, seemed marked by sorrow, sadness and care.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 30, 1875
The rage for short dresses
A song which Mme. La Mode is at present much engaged in singing is:
"If your foot is pretty, show it".
[OK I can’t resist sharing one verse of this wonderful 1857 ditty "sung by W.N. Smith, the great bone-player of Bailey’s Circus"
If your foot is pretty, show it,
No matter where, or when;
Let all fair maidens know it:
The foot takes all the men:
The face, so fair and lovely,
May charm the gazer’s eye,
But if the foot is homely,
He’ll quickly pass you by,
He’ll quickly,--He’ll quickly,
He’ll quickly pass you by.
See the rest of the lyrics at the Library of Congress’s American Memory site].
Dresses are growing shorter and shorter in front; to that extent it is almost as impossible not to know what sort of hose a lady wears. I cannot speak enthusiastically of this fashion. A woman’s charms are hightened [i.e. heightened] by their partial concealment, not their full exposure, and the poet who sang of a lady whose name I forget:
"Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice stole in and out"
or words there or thereabouts, would perhaps have considered the lady’s feet regular full grown rats if he’d had a square look at them. [;-) ] And modesty - how about that? I remember at the time the short skirts, disclosing the very tops of boots, were worn in Paris. Eugenie, the lovely Empress, and Napoleon III went to pay a state visit to the sovereigns of Austria.
When Napoleon and Eugenie arrived at Vienna, they found Franz Joseph and the beautiful Empress Elizabeth awaiting them at the railway depot. Eugenia wore a delicious little short costume, in which she looked "ravissante", of course, but the Empress Elizabeth, unaffected by the latest French mode, wore the usual long dress of women. Eugenie sprang into the imperial carriage, making a display so lavish and beautiful of sky-hued hose of symmetrical proportions that such another would have secured an engagement to any ballet dancer on the spot, and then the lovely Elizabeth gathered up her skirts and placed her feet upon the carriage step.
Instantly Franz Joseph drew her drapery from her hand, and passing it closely about her, exclaimed "Take care, your Majesty, you might show your feet". Rather a smart speech, but I have often wondered whether such underhanded or underfooted slaps at guests were considered the correct thing in the Viennese code of gentility.
There’s no telling what Franz Joseph would say if he could see some of the women who prance up and down Long Branch piazzas. Might show their feet indeed! They do. And more. The first glance at these women with skirts so curiously short in front gives one an erroneous impression. Who says there’s danger of the American population fading out before the foreign cohorts’ prolific hosts, when __? Oh, no, quite the wrong tack - that’s the way they wear the dresses now. pardon, Madame! (Olive Logan’s Long Branch Letter).
The Rev. John C. Edgar will deliver a lecture in the Town Hall at Heath Center on Thurs at 7 o'clock. Subject, The Battle of Bala Clava [Battle of Balaclava] in which will be given a vivid description of the Charge of the Light Brigade which has been immortalized by Tennyson. Price of admission, 25 cents. Mr. Edgar has served 8 years in the Light Brigade...At the close of the lecture, the ladies of the Congregational Society will hold a peach festival, to which all are respectfully invited. The bill of fare will not only consist of peaches, but of the many good things which the ladies of Heath know full well how to prepare for such an occasion. Tickets 50 cents each.
[See Wikipedia for more information on the Battle].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 30, 1875
D.L. Moody
The Franklin County Association of Congregational ministers has for some time entertained the project of holding a kind of picnic reception at Lake Pleasant in honor of Mr. Moody's return to America after his triumphant career in Europe. Correspondence in reference to the matter was commenced before Mr. Moody came home. He now positively declines to participate in any such demonstration to the regret of our local clergy.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 30, 1875
Foreign
According to present arrangements the Prince of Wales will, after remaining in Bombay for a short time, go on to Ceylon and thence to Madras. From Madras the Prince goes by sea to Calcutta, and as it has been arranged that he is to arrive there on Christmas Day, there will be a considerable interval to dispose of in the neighborhood of Madras. Probably Bangalore will be visited and Mysore elephants hunted, and it may be that Hyderabad may be looked in upon.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 16, 1875
Find in Greece
In clearing away the refuse from the ancient silver mines of Laurium, in Greece, a large number of seeds were found, unknown to modern science, but described in the writings of Pliny. The seeds took root, budded and blossomed, bearing beautiful yellow flowers, after a burial of at least 1500 years.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 16, 1875
A voice from Sweden
American Chemists and their production appreciated by the professors at the celebrated universities in Sweden. Mr. Sachs, Sir - At your request, I have tested Hall's Vegetable Sicilian Hair Renewer, in my practice at the "Serafimer Hotel", and can say, it will restore gray hair to its original color. It is entirely harmless, and is a valuable remedy to use in such cases. P.H. Malmsten, professor of chemistry and medicine, Stockholm. [Ad says Hotel, but it is really a Hospital].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 9, 1875
A French view of Waterloo
Long article from the 8th volume of the "Correspondence de P.J. Proudhon". [See the New York Times online index of June 10, 1875. Unfortunately the scanned PDF file for this article is very poor, atypical for the NYT].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 2, 1875
A piano as it appeared to an Oriental
One of the Siamese ambassadors, on returning home from Europe, gave the following description of a piano forte [See Fortepiano in Wikipedia], or as he called it "a great trunk set upon legs". He said "A woman sits in front of this and tickling a sort of tail it has with her toes produces a variety of sounds by beating rapidly with her fingers on a number of little bits of ivory in front of it".
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 2, 1875
Shelburne
Deacon David Fiske, who died Thurs. aft., age 84 years, was born in Shelburne, and married Laura Severance, daughter of Martin Severance, one of the earliest settlers of the town. He established the first manufacturies at the Falls, building and controlling a woolen mill, grist mill and saw mill. In 1832 he removed with is family to Ohio, and settled near Cleveland, building the first framed house in that direction from the town for a long distance.
He afterward removed to Michigan, and was shaken out of the West by fever and ague. About 1847 he returned to Shelburne, and finally purchased the house in which his 8 oldest children were born, and where his life's companion died in 1870. Since that time he has lived with his children and his brother, in a hale, cheerful and beautiful old age. "Uncle David" and wife had a large family, and were the parents of Rev. Samuel Fiske [Samuel Wheelock Fiske], better known as "Dunn Browne", whose spicy letters from Europe and the Holy Land, and later from the army and Libby prison, interested so many in this vicinity.
Rev. A.S. Fiske of Rochester, N.Y., D.O. Fiske, a prominent Shelburne farmer, and Mrs. Rev. Burdett Hart of New Haven, Ct. are also members of this family. Deacon Fiske was a man of sterling sense, the brightest honor and most consistent piety. He possessed a wealth of dry, quiet humor, and was a most social, lovable man. He attained a comfortable independence, but never sought wealth by scheming or speculation.
No one lives who can recall an instance of selfishness or meanness in Uncle David's life, and many a poor fellow will mourn the loss of an unostentatious benefactor in his death. His last days were spent in peace and comfort among friends or relatives. He was the picture of a ripened Christian man who had fought the good fight, kept the faith, and calmly waited the fulfillment of the divine promises which had for so many long and hard years been his abundant solace and support.
He attended church the Sunday before his death, in the rain, and caught a cold which terminated fatally in pneumonia and congestion of the lungs. Brief hours of pain gave him entrance to the glory that awaited him. The funeral services were conducted at the church, by Rev. A.F. Marsh, who preached a good sermon from the Scripture account of the journey to Emmaus, the text being "Abide with us for it is now evening and the day is far spent". The topic considered was "Evening".
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 2, 1875
Foreign
Foreign gossip says, the young Marquis of Lorne has a forlorn time of it among his royal wife's relatives. The young princes snub him as a subject, and his German brother-in-law, the heir to the Kaiser's crown, does likewise. On a recent visit to this prince, while his wife was admitted to the imperial circle of Berlin, poor Lorne was "left to cool his heels among the nobility outside"; and at a recent garden party in London, he was peremptorily directed by an equerry of his brother-in-law, the heir apparent, to leave the royal tent, which he had entered without special invitation.
[See John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll, in Wikipedia]
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 2, 1875
The English are the first
The English is [i.e. are] the first of foreign nations to break ground at Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, for the erection of the buildings for the use of their commissioners during the centennial. Japan, Sweden and Morocco are preparing to follow suit, and the other commissions will soon be similarly engaged, the whole making a lively and very picturesque scene. Austria’s requisition for space, which has just been received, calls for 32,000 square feet of the main building and over 21,000 in the art gallery, an increase of 1/3 over the original reservation for that nation. [See Centennial Exhibition in Wikipedia].
Two Germans, brothers, who had stolen some money in Lubeck, went to Christiania, Norway, and had a terrible quarrel in their room at a hotel, in which the elder murdered the younger and then killed himself.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, July 12, 1875
Turners Falls
D.M. Randall has purchased the lot on Avenue A. opposite that of Starbuck and intends to commence, in a month or two, the erection of a three story brick house, 40 x 50 ft.; the lower story contains two stores and the upper ones to be fitted up as a hotel, which is to kept by Mr. Randall on the European plan.
At a recent bullfight in Madrid 8 bulls, 12 horses and 2 men were killed. A singular circumstance connected with this affair is that it was organized for the benefit of a society for assisting widows and orphans.
The ancient city of Caetebriga, in Portugal, submerged by the sea with all its inhabitants in the 5th century of our era, is to be disentombed. The sea has within some years receded, and left the buildings covered with sand, but free from its irruptions. The city was first Phoenician, then Carthaginian, then Roman, and excavation is expected to reveal remains contemporary with Dido. [Tried to trace this one, without success].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, July 5, 1875
A curious chapter
Some historian has told us that when Peter the Great of Russia paid his visit to King Christian of Denmark, he was invited by the Dane to one of his castles which stood on the brink of a deep, wild gorge, into which it is impossible to look without a shudder. While the monarchs were standing on the battlements overlooking the chasm, their conversation turned upon the systems of government they represented, and the power they respectively wielded. Finally the Czar asked the Danish monarch if he would like to have an illustration of the unquestioning obedience he enacted from his subjects, and was told that the illustration would not be unwelcome.
Thereupon the czar called to his side an officer attached to his suite, pointed over the battlement into the terrible gulf below and said "Jump!" The officer turned pale, looked wonderingly up at his sovereign, who only waved his hand and repeated in a more imperious tone, "Jump! sir, jump!" Without another word the unfortunate man sprang from the wall, and was dashed to pieces on the rocks below
[The very long article goes on to state that there still exists almost as much servile compliance in the military and naval services, especially in the British army. Also discusses the great mutiny in Admiral Buckner’s fleet in 1797].
- Fri, Feb 13, 2009
