First impressions of the New World on two travellers from the Old, in the autumn of 1858Trotter, Isabella Strange
History
First impressions of the New World on two travellers from the Old, in the autumn of 1858
Trotter, Isabella Strange
Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
The part of the town where he resides beyond the Miami Canal, which
divides it into two portions, is known by the name of "Over the Rhine,"
and is inhabited almost entirely by Germans, of whom there are no less
than 60,000 in the town. Mr. Raschig's own family consists of nine sons
and one daughter, the youngest child being a fortnight old. We went to
see them before we left the place, and found the mother as excellent and
agreeable as himself, with her fine little baby in her arms. She said
that boys were much easier disposed of than girls in this country, and
their three eldest sons are already getting their livelihood, the eldest
of all being married. We saw the third son, a very intelligent youth,
who is a teacher in one of the schools in the town, and the daughter, a
pleasing girl of fourteen, sung to us. She promises to have a good
voice, though it will never equal her cousin's.
On the evening of the 28th we went by invitation to Mr. and Mrs.
King's. He is a lawyer, and they are connected by marriage with the
Neils of Columbus and with the Longworths. The Andersons were there, and
we again had a liberal supply of ices. The following evening, the 29th,
we went to the Andersons, where there was a large party consisting of
the Directors of the Ohio and Mississippi Railway, with whom, by the
bye, I had dined that day at the hotel, there being ten gentlemen and
myself, the only lady, at table. The party at the Andersons was also an
assemblage of some of the beau monde of Cincinnati. The ladies were all
dressed in high silk dresses remarkably well made, and looking as if
they all had come straight from Paris. I never saw a large party of
prettier or better chosen toilettes. The dresses were generally of rich
brocaded silk, but there was nothing to criticise, and all were in
perfect taste. We assembled in a long drawing-room carpeted, and
sufficiently supplied with chairs, but there being neither tables nor
curtains, the room had rather a bare appearance, though it was well
lighted and looked brilliant. Towards ten o'clock we were handed into
the dining-room, where there was a standing supper of oysters,--the
"institution" of oysters as they justly call it,--hot quails, ham, ices,
and most copious supplies of their beloved Catawba champagne, which we
do not love, for it tastes, to our uninitiated palates, little better
than cider. It was served in a large red punch-bowl of Bohemian glass in
the form of Catawba cobbler, which I thought improved it; but between
the wine and the quails, which, from over hospitable kindness, were
forced on poor papa, he awoke the next morning with a bad headache, and
did not get rid of it all day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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