Title: Walt Whitman to the Editors of The Daily Crescent, 4 August 1848
Date: August 4, 1848
Whitman Archive ID: med.00959
Source: The location of the original manuscript is unknown. Whitman's letters to Alexander Hamilton Hayes (1806–1866) and John Eliot McClure (ca. 1809–1869)—the editors of The Daily Crescent (New Orleans, Louisiana)—were published in that newspaper. The transcription presented here is derived from The Daily Crescent (14 August 1848): [3]. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schoeberlein, Zachary Turpin, Stephanie Blalock, Jeff Hill, and Amanda J. Axley
NEW YORK,
August 4, 1848.
A considerable portion of "society," has after all, gone, out of town, to ruralize and fashionize, and achieve for themselves more annoyance from the change of habits, living, and every thing else that conduces to comfort, than if they had staid in the city. Many persons go, merely because it is "the fashion." In reality, however, New York, with the myriad channels of communicating with pleasant spots not distant—with Brooklyn, Staten Island, Hoboken, and other delectable retreats within sight—affords about as comfortable quarters as any other place; as good, even, as many fashionable summer resorts. Every body knows that there is just as much hot weather at those resorts as in town. Such is the philosophy with which we, who have to stay in New York, console ourselves, and make out the case in our own favor. The members of the Common Council, do not seem to coincide in this view of the case. Those safe grave men have decided to take a month's suspension from their labors. The great steamer, (her name is to be "the New World,") mentioned in one of my late letters, could not be induced to "slide," yesterday—to which time her launch had been postponed. She was to have been pulled afloat to-day, and probably has, by this time. She is a tremendous craft, the largest on our waters. Thousands were disappointed here yesterday from her not going off.
Among the peculiarities of the season, here, may be mentioned the numerous public pic-nics. Every pleasant day, there are more or less of these. Sunday Schools, Temperance Societies, "Unions," and all sorts of associations, have them. Some go by water, and some by land. Very many are catchpenny affairs; some are crowded to suffocation—as much money being made as possible, and tickets sold without any proportion to the accommodations engaged. It is wonderful that the steamboats hired for these occasions, are not more often the fields of terrible accidents and life-losing. You see these boats, of a morning, with children, women, and men, all clustered over like bees in a swarm—a black mass of humanity, without room to turn about. When they arrive at the appointed place, ten to one but something very important to the general comfort has been neglected. I went on one the other day, crowded in the manner just described, and not a drop of cold water to drink, on board! which, when you consider that two-thirds the passengers were juveniles and females, you may well conceive the awkwardness of. But then the bar-keeper made a capital job out of it. The weather has been warm and dry for the last few days. Some of the journals publish statements of the potato rot, but it is not generally thought, yet, that there is any reason for alarm. All the other crops continue to do well, and to turn out well.
It has got to be quite the fashion among certain of our New York bachelors, to forego the old and pleasant custom of courtship, before matrimony, and seek for a wife by newspaper advertisement. Here, for instance, is a specimen, from this morning's Herald:
1. For this advertisement, see "Matrimony," The New York Herald (August 4, 1848), [3]. [back]
2. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]