Every man who could hire or buy a transient interest in a string of bells and a horse, jackass or big dog, went in for an independent ride on his own hook--and those who could not compass this luxury, piled pell-mell into the stage sleighs, a hundred in a heap, each bound to have a sixpence-worth of slushy, slippery, horse locomotion. At this crisis, Sandie proposed to me to join a company who were going to undertake an evening's pleasure, calculating to ride through the city, see the sights, go out of town to a ball, and dance till morning. Agreed to go, put on my tightest boots, and got ready--time came, sleigh arrived, got in, received a promiscuous introduction to seventeen young ladies, by the light of a street lamp. Couldn't of course distinguish their faces so as to tell them apart, and so was continually calling Miss Jones, Miss Snifkins; Miss Loodle, Miss Vanderpants; and addressing Miss Faubob and Miss Wiggins by each other's names; which, as they were ready to scratch each other's eyes out for jealousy, and hadn't been on speaking terms for a year and a half, made the matter decidedly pleasant. Found a place for my feet among the miscellaneous pedal assortment at the bottom--sat down, held on with both hands, and prepared to enjoy myself. After a great deal of whipping of the spirited horses, and some curiously emphatic observations by the driver, we got under way. Driver (an enthusiastic Hibernian with one black eye) took the middle of the street, resolved to give the road to nothing--met a young gent in a cutter, _he_ didn't turn out, _we_ didn't turn out, collision ensued, young man got the worst, his hat was smashed, and his delicate person left in a snow-bank--his horse started, hit against a lamp-post, then ran away, distributing the ruins of the cutter all along the road, leaving a piece at every corner and telegraph pole, until there wasn't enough left in any one spot to make a rat-trap--finally dashing through the show window of a confectioner's shop and being brought to a stand-still by the shafts sticking in a soda fountain. Met a charcoal cart, run against us and distributed a shower of pulverized nigritude over the company, to the great damage of the clean linen of the gentlemen, and the adornments generally of the ladies, especially those little white rosettes which they had tied on the backs of their heads, and dignified with the fabulous title of bonnets. Met a stage sleigh, got jammed with us--and during the three minutes preceding our violent extrication, I had leisure to take particular notice of the inmates. Now, even in ordinary times, any kind of an omnibus is a purely democratic institution, but an omnibus sleigh containing ordinarily, anywhere from fifty to a hundred and twenty people, is a most effectual leveller of aristocratic distinctions.