Show New Years Day In Old New York I Julia Ward Howe in the Atlantic Monthly Among tie festivities of old New York the observance of New Years day held an important place In every house of any pretension the ladies la-dies of the family sat In their drawing rooms arrayed in their best dresses and the gentlemen of their acquaintance acquain-tance made short visits during which I wine and rich cakes were offered It was allowable to call as early as 10 i oclock in the morning but the visitor 1 did little than I sometimes lte more appear and disappear hastily muttering something some-thing about the compliments of the V season The gentlemen prided themselves them-selves upon the number of visits paid the ladies upon the number received V V Girls at school vexed each other with emulative boasting day We had fifty callers on New Years i dayOh VV Oh But we had sixtyfive This perfunctory performance grew ver tedious by the time that the call ing hours were ended but apart from this the day was one on which the fa1ie were greeted by distant relatives rela-tives rarely seen while old friends met I and revived their pleasant memories In our house the rooms were all thrown open and bright fires burned in the I grates I recall a New Years day early in the 30s on which a yellow chariot stopped before our door A stout elderly gentleman descended from it and came in to pay his compliments ments to my father This gentleman was John Jacob Astor who was already a ready known to be possessed of great wealth The pleasant custom just described was said to have originated vith the Dutch settlers of the olden time A the city grew in size it became difficult gew I and well nigh impossible for gentlemen gentle-men to make the necessary number of visits Finally a number of young men of the city took i upon themselves to call in squads at houses which they had no right to molest consuming the refreshments re-freshments provided for other gUests and making themselves disagreeable in various ways This offense against good manners led to the discontinuance receptions by common consent of the New Years |