SILLY EXHIBITION OF WEALTH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 272, 19 July 1878, Page 19

SILLY EXHIBITION OF WEALTH.

The most interesting feature of the New York Seventh Regiment's reception in the Academy of Music, last May, was the appearance of the Diamond Lady. Her bodice flamed with costly jewels. She wore a satin dress with a point lace ovorskirt. The train was fully six feet long, and was literally sewn with diamonds. At least a pint of these precious jewels were sprinkled over the glossy fabric. The Diamond Lady's waist was spanned by a zone of blazing brilliants, that sparkled like the belt of Orion. It was three inches wide. A roseate wreath showered with precious gems was looped obliquely around her skirt, and a diamond crucifix resembling the glowing stars of the Southern Cross was suspended from a necklace of solitaires as large as filberts. The dress of the Diamond Lady was cut pompadour. Its folds seemed resplendent with seeds of light. Pale fires flashed from her jewelled bracelets, and the richest precious stones twinkled on her fingers. Cinctures of magnificent diamonds clasped her white arms above the elbows. She wore a glittering coronet. Its centre stone blazed like ade Sancy. Prismatic rays of light shot from nests of jewels half hidden in her hair, and pendants of a delicious water swung from her ears. The Princess Badralbadour fresh from her boudoir would not have attracted more attention. But no Alladdin or Oriental magician danced "attendance upon the Diamond Lady. They would not, however, have been out of place, for she was so loaded with precious stone 3 that she seemed to move about with difficulty. A gallant captain of the Seventh estimated the weight of her diamonds, laces, and satins at fifty pounds, and her jewels alone are said to have been valued all the way from 150,000d015. to 200,000d015. Fr6m her box in the balcony the Diamond Lady gazed at the whirlpool of humanity below like a constellation of stars of the first magnitude. Her jewels twinkled in harmony with the strains of Strauss's music, and flashed over' the movements of the dancers. When she swept from the Academy the gaslights seemed to shine with a subdued brilliancy, and the members of the famous Seventh, with their attendant police officers, drew a long breath of relief.—Exchange.