g. And there are other chroniclers of the times.
Lossing, the historian, quotes an anonymous friend as follows:

"We thought there was a goodly display of wealth and
diamonds in those days, but, God bless my soul, when I hear
of the millions amassed by the Vanderbilts, Goulds, Millses,
Villards and others of that sort, I realise what a poor
little doughnut of a place New York was at that early
period!"

He goes on to speak of dinner at three--a formal dinner party at four.
The first private carriage was almost mobbed on Broadway. Mrs. Jacob
Little had "a very showy carriage lined with rose colour and a darky
coachman in blue livery."

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Brevoort's house stood on the corner of Fifth
Avenue and Ninth Street--it is now occupied by the Charles de Rhams.
And it chanced to be the scene of a certain very pretty little romance
which can scarcely be passed over here.

New York, as a matter of course, copied her fashionable standards from
older lands. While Manhattan society was by no means a supine and
merely imitative affair, the country was too new not to cling a bit to
English and French formalities. The great ladies of the day made
something of a point of their "imported amusements" as having a
specific claim on fashionable favour. So it came about that the
fascinating innovation of the masked ball struck the fancy of
fashionable New York. There was something very daring about the
notion; it smacked of Latin skies and manners and suggested
possibilities of romance both licensed and not which charmed the
ladies, even as it abashed them. There were those who found it a
project scarcely in good taste; it is said indeed that there was no
end of a flutter concerning it. But be that as it may, the masked ball
was given,--the first that New York had ever known, and, it may be
mentioned, the very last it was to know for many a long, discreet
year!

Haswell says that in this year there was a "fancy" ball given by Mr.
and Mrs. Henry Brevoort and that the date was February 24th. It
certainly was the same one, but he adds that it was generally
pronounced "most successful." This one may doubt, since the results
made masked balls so severely thought of that there was, a bit later,
a fine of $1,000 imposed on anyone who should give one,--one-half to
be deducted if you told on yourself!

Nevertheless, George S. Hellman says that Mrs. Brevoort's ball,
February 24, 1840,--was "the most s