Our New York Letter.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 951, 23 May 1890, Page 9

Our New York Letter.

This week Columbia College unveiled a magnificent memorial window in its Library Hall, dedicated to its first female graduate. No honour so distinguished has been paid to any Jay member since its foundation, over a hundred years ago. Karo indeed are the women like Mary Parsons Hankey ; such a splendid combination of qualities is scarcely guaranteed to one in a hundred millions.

| She not only possessed the power of triumph- : ing over all obstacles that stood in the way ! of her advancement, but she accomplished the most difficult tasks without any apparent effort ; and entering Columbia College under protest from the faculty, having hardly a friend in its administration except the late President Barnard, she lived long enough to see all prejudice vanish, and when at the head of her class she stood before the assembled thousands to receive the reward of her years of patient toil and study, there was no heartier yell ever heard from the assembled students than the Rah, Rah, Rah, C-o-l-u-m-b i-a which greeted her. She stood first in Greek, Latin, Mathemaiics, Philosophy, Languages and the Natural Sciences. She spoke and wrote with fluency French, German, Italian and Spanish, She was a splendid musican and thorough in drawing and painting, besides being proficient in mechanical drafting, in which she captured several prizes. She was blessed with excellent health and a sweetness of temper that never deserted her under the most try. ing circumstauces. Nor was shs one of those dry pedants who is constantly poring over books, and who frowns down the slightest amusement or relaxation as light and frivolous. She was a live girl full of fun ; the life and the light of every 7 company she was in. She loved walking, running, riding, and romping just as well as any one, aud was never so happy as when she had a party of her young friends around her having a good time. She was a thorough housekeeper iu all its details. She was the joy of her parents, the light of her home, and the idol of her friends, and her untimely death by accident, shortly after her graduation, left a blank that will scarcely be fil ed in this generation. For such an assemblage of the beatitudes there was no earthly honour that could ho added except that of canonization and this Columbian College conferred on their dead saint this week by placing in their library the memorial window which shall record the story of her virtue and fame to generations yet unborn. It is a hopeful sign for women everywhere, that one after another the barriers are being broken down which ignorance and prejudice for ages have leared against her advancement. The battle has been bitter and long, bnt the right is sure to win at last, and let us hope that the day is not far distant when we shall have confidence enough in onr mothers, our sisters, our daughters, and our wives to trust them with that inestimable jewel the franchise, which we now give freely to native rascals who barter it for rum or pelf, or to the refuse hordes of foreign nations who would sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. How do you like Chicago for the World’s Fair? I expect you are all dying to ask. Well, my friend, if I must tell the truth, we are not going into ecstaeies over it. Chicago is a very nice place—a very nice place, but it is a thousand miles from New York. It will be the first time in the history of World’s Fairs, Philadelphia alone excepted, that a World’s Fair has been held anywhere except at the metropolis of the nation. I do not say the capital, but the great metropolis which New York is. In the case of Philadelphia the exhibition was exceptional. The Congress that proclaimed our indepen. dence was convened there, and there was the old hall where the Congress sat. There was the old bell that proelaimed liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof, and then it was only one hour and forty minutes from New York. However, if the thing is fixed irrevocably New York will do her share. It may not be quite as grand as it would have been if the fair had been held here, but there will be enough to make people remember that there is only one New York, Lent is or ought to be a season of spiritual purgation and repentance, but from the signs, as a general thing, I regret to say,, that the Gospel seed has not fallen on fallow ground. The theatres are filled to overflow ; they are marrying and being given in marriage. Balls, dances, and concerts are crowded every night. Afternoon teas and literary matinfies all tend to banish from our thoughts the season of sackcloth and ashes. As an exception to this general carnival of sin, I am happy in being able to state there has been such a rattling among the dry bones of Wall-street as hath not been seen in this

generation. Wall-street is not prolific of saints, but sinners do much abound, and the crop ia great. The nearest the Gospel ever got to Wall-street wa3 Johu-street, and that is several blocks away. There was a church once on the corner of Pine and Nassaustreets, but the Government took it many years ago for a poat-ofiice, and now it is covered by the splendid palace of the .New York Mutual Life Insurance Company. Only one church has been able to hold its own among the bulls and the bears—old orthodox Trinity, the Vatican of the Episcopal Church iu America. As it is one of the oldest Episcopal Churches in thadand,so it is by far the wealthiest. WhatTts revenues are is known only to the Board of Trustees, aud to this day no official or political plummet has ever been able to sound them. It stands in stately magnificence at the head of Wall-street, and looks down in solemn grandeur on the money, changers. All the week the Stock Board and the banks have been in a ferment—trembling as a reed shaken by the wind at the voice of a new evangelist; nob new to the Church, nor new to the religious world ; but entirely new to Wall-street. For Boston knows him as well as the old South spire. Phillips Brooks has been calling sinners to repentance all the week', and if we may judge by the way they have crowded old Trinity day after day. the Gospel seed which he has sown has hot b»-en blown from the rocks nor devoured by the fowls of the air. Grave old bankers, chipper clerks, blase brokers, who are ofrener seen at a dog fight or a scrapping match than a prayer meeting, have for the time dropped ail kinds of business to listen to the words of this great preacher. So might Paul have roused the multitude' at the foot of Mars Hill, or John have stirred to frenzy the seekers after truth by the waters of theJordan. Time alone can tell what will be the spiritual aftermath ; hut for the time at least Brother Brooks has done great good. 1 did not see Mr Gould, nor Russian Sage, nor Addison Commack, nor even as orthodox aChristian as Cyrus Field, among the crowd. Mr Brocks gave the public to understand that the services were intonded for sinners, and that was possibly the reason that this plutocratic quartet kept away they wanted to give the sinners a chance. Notwithstanding their absence, there were thousands there who will see the camel pass through the needle’s eye before they get by. St. Peter at the gate. It is a wicked thought. I-know, hut sometimes I wish I was one of those fellows for whom St. Peter is constantly keeping his weather eye open. News cornea to us from across the sea that Scovillo, the tenor, who married Pnggy Rosevelt, has developed into a plunger at Monto Carlo, and has busted all the banks, some say for sixty thousand dollars and others for a quarter of a million. I remember Scovifie several years ago as the favourite tenor of a fashionable up-town Episcopal church, at which the late Judge Rosevelt was a regular attendant, and, if I 1 mistake not, one of the vestry’. His only daughter, Puegy, as she was affectionately called, was not blessed with wbat the wo,rid calls beauty, but she had many lacs of rupees, which more than compensated for the absence of feminine attractions. Scoville was one of those church singers who, having a fine voice and an agreeable presence, travelled on hia shape. Puggy fell desperately in love with him, and he fell desperately in love with Puggy’s millions. They went to Europe ostensibly to perfect Scoville’s musical education, but if the late accounts be true, he is more likely to distinguish himself as a gambler than a tenor. Mrs Scoville, nee Miss Rosevelt, is a good wife and an affectionate mother, devoted to her two really beautiful children. Let us hope that the reports are not true. Mr Scoville has money enough and has no need to gamble. If he has done so, the best thing he can do is to cry a halt. Few men ever get rich at gambling, and if they do, it is always at the price of somebody elsa’s rain. To the right about-face, Mr- Scoville ; let Monto Carlo alone, and devote yourself to the cultivation of your voice, to your wife and your babies. You may not win fame as a plunger that way, but you will live and die an honest man, which you never can do by bucking the tiger at Monto Carlo. Last week in Brooklyn a widow by the name of Bolles, fat, fair, and fifty-six, was married to a youth who is serving on the scboolship, aged nineteen. 'No sooner was it known abroad that the marriage had actually taken place than the whole neighbourhood was in an uproar. Gossips, with their hands rolled under their aprons, stood on the corners of the streets and canvassed the matter as if a cyclone had swept the. town, cr a dam had bursted ; men congregated in the saloons, and over their beer and whisky grew indignant at what they were pleased to call an outrage. It is true that the gay widow had two sons oiler than her husband, and that the sons were going to kick up a row about it, but what of that? She loved her sailor boy and he loved her. There was not only a slight discrepancy of thirty-seven years in their ages, but quite a difference in their avoirdupois, she tipping the beam at two hundred and thirty-five, and he at one hundred and twenty.six, but Mrs Bolles says he has not yet got his growth ; let us hope so. that at least this difference may be equalized. It is only a few months ago since one of the wealthiest merchants in this city, aged sixty-four, led to the altar a charming young bride, whose age wis eighteen. Sitting in the pews were three of hi 3 daughters, the eldest thirty and the youngest twenty-five, and a son thirtvsix, with four grandchildren. Nobody kicked up a row there. The girl’s father gave her away, and her brothers and Bisters wished her God-speed, and everybody appeared to think that she had done exceedingly well, for he was rich and she was poor, but her face was her fortune. That was a clear case of bargain and sale. If the man had not had money and position and a fine house, the girl would not have looked at him. But Mrs Bolles’ was a genuine love match. When Mr Bolles was on his way to the happy hunting grounds ten years ago, as the end drew near, he looked up and said, ‘ Tilly, do you love me ?’ And she, like the affectionate wife that she was, replied, ‘John, you jest bet I do!’ John was past all betting, but he accepted her assurance aud

said, ‘ Tilly, darling, you've been a good wife to me ; and if, when I’m gone, you kin make any other feller as happy as you’ve made me, you jest go an’ do it, will you, Til V With her voice choking with emotion, she replied, as she wiped her eyeß with the corner of her apron, ‘ You jest bet I will, John. Have you auy objection of he’s youug ?’ she answered. ‘ Not in the least,’ he gasped. ‘Go it, Til, go it.’ And she did. Aud that’s all there is of it. Broadbrim. 1