health, and she is
forced to resort to all manner of devices to preserve her attractions.

It is a habit in New York to allow children to give large entertainments
at fashionable resorts, without the restraining presence of their elders.
Here crowds of boys and girls of a susceptible age assemble under the
intoxicating influence of music, gas-light, full dress, late suppers,
wines and liquors. Sometimes this juvenile dissipation has been carried
so far that it has been sharply rebuked by the public press.

V. A FASHIONABLE BELLE.

An English writer gives the following clever sketch of a fashionable
young lady of New York, whom he offers as a type of the "Girl of the
Period:"

"Permit me to present you to Miss Flora Van Duysen Briggs. Forget
Shakspeare's _dictum_ about a name; there is a story attached to this
name which I shall tell you by and by. Miss Flora is a typical New York
girl of the period; between sixteen and seventeen years old; a little
under the medium height; hair a golden brown; eyes a violet blue; cheeks
and lips rosy; teeth whiter and brighter than pearls; hands and feet
extremely small and well-shaped; figure _petite_ but exquisitely
proportioned; _toilette_ in the latest _mode de Paris_; but observe,
above all, that marvellous bloom upon her face, which American girls
share with the butterfly, the rose, the peach and the grape, and in which
they are unequalled by any other women in the world.

"Miss Flora's biography is by no means singular. Her father is Ezra
Briggs, Esq., a provision merchant in the city. Twenty-five years ago,
Mr. Briggs came to New York from one the Eastern States, with a
common-school education, sharp sense, and no money. He borrowed a
newspaper, found an advertisement for a light porter, applied for and
obtained the situation, rose to be clerk, head-clerk, and small partner,
and fagged along very comfortably until the Civil War broke out, and made
his fortune. His firm secured a government contract, for which they paid
dearly, and for which they made the Government pay dearer. Their pork
was bought for a song, and sold for its weight in greenbacks. Their
profits averaged 300 per cent. They were more fatal to the soldiers than
the bullets of the enemy. One consignment of their provisions bred a
cholera at Fortress Monroe, and robbed the Union of 15,000 brave men.
Their enemies declared that the final defeat of the Southerners was owing
to the capture of 10