ay,
is devoted to the largest liberty by the negroes, who have one grand and
extensive _saturnalia_, visit their friends and relations, make love to
the "gals" on neighboring plantations, spend the little change saved
through the year, or now and then given to them by indulgent or generous
masters, and in fact have a glorious good time! The holidays in New
Orleans, and in Louisiana generally, is _a time_, and no mistake. The
old French and Spanish families keep open house--dinners and suppers,
music, song and dance. On New Year's eve, they decorate the graves of
their friends with flowers. Lamps or lanterns are often required for
this purpose, and as you pass the silent grave-yards, it is indeed a
novel sight to see the many glimmering lights about the tombs of the
departed. In most of the South-Western towns, the day is given up to fun
and frolic. The Philadelphians have a great blow out. The streets are
filled by holiday-looking people, children with toys and "mint
sticks"--making the air resound with tin trumpets and penny whistles.
The men and boys used to load up every thing in the shape of cannons,
guns, pistols and hollow keys, and bang away from sunset until sunrise,
keeping up a racket, din and uproar, equal to the bombardment of a
citadel. The authorities stopped that, and now the civil young men kill
the night and day in dancing, feasting, and attending the amusements,
the multitude of rowdies passing their time in concocting and carrying
on street fights and running with the engines.

But the New Yorkers _bang_ the whole of them; bear witness, O ye New
Year's doings I have there seen. Visiting your friends, and your
friends' friends. Open houses every where! "Drop in and take a glass of
wine or bit of cake, if nothing else"--that's the word. Jeremy Diddlers
flourish, marriageable daughters and interesting widows set their caps
for the nice young men, the streets are noisy and full of confusion, the
theatres and show-shops generally reap an elegant harvest, and the
police reports of the second morning of the New Year swell monstrously!
Of a New Year's adventure of an innocent young acquaintance of mine, I
have a little story to tell.

Jeff. Jones was caught, at a New Year's dinner in New York, by the
fascinating grace and _cap_-tivating head-gear of a certain young widow,
who had a fine estate. Jeff. was what you might call a good boy; he had
never seen much of creation, save that lying between Pokeepsie (hi