OF THE
TWENTIETH NATIONAL
BOSTON:
J. B. YERRINTON & SON, PRINTERS
1854.
The brightness of the New Year of 1854 did not fallwithout its shadows on the community of which we make apart. The storm of the 28th and 29th of December,unprecedented in severity, for many years, had brought tosome homes actual bereavement or severe pecuniary loss, tomany, serious annoyance, inconvenience and anxiety, andto all, that subduing, saddening influence which is experienced,however temporarily, when any “great outragesof weather” unsettle the thoughtless security as to life andsafety, that usually pervades the public mind. For severaldays, the mails were stopped, and almost all communicationwith the environs of Boston cut off. When tidings couldarrive, and nearly every hour brought fresh intelligence ofperil, disaster or shipwreck, and the very aspect of natureherself seemed redolent of melancholy suggestion, it certainlywould not be unnatural if, in some minds, the wholecoloring of thought assumed a graver and more sober hue.This has been the case with ourselves. The Bazaar of 1853has closed with what we are entitled, in our circumstances,to estimate as brilliant success, the receipts being four thousandtwo hundred and fifty-six dollars; and yet we feel impelledto a more thoughtful and serious train of remarkthan may, at first view, appear natural or appropriate.To the minds of most persons, the mention of a Ladies’Bazaar suggests ideas of a purely gay and festal character;of an occasion, where it is well if the gaiety and festivity donot degenerate into mere thoughtlessness and frivolity. Howit may be in Bazaars designed for the support of popularcharities, we are unable to say; but, when we are speakingof one whose funds are devoted to the sustentation ofthe American Anti-Slavery Society, we assure all who arewilling to listen, that ours is grave work, performed in anybut a thoughtless and irresponsible spirit.
Let us recal, for a moment, the written records of thoughtand feeling that accompany the exquisite and beautiful donationsof which the Bazaar is made up. These latter suggestonly ideas of taste, and skill, and elegant leisure, andabundant wealth; and the looker-on can hardly do else thanassociate such brightness of coloring and harmony of tint,with the glow of health and happiness. But with thesesuggestions, do the facts accord? Far from it. From thehomes of actual poverty, from young girls painfully earningtheir own bread, and yet saving something to purchase thematerial that shall be fashioned into the gay clothing, neverto be worn for their own decoration, from the chambers ofsickness and languor, and hopeless disease, from Asylumsfor the Blind, from schools that charity has established forthe help of the wholly indigent,—it is from sources likethese, that very great and valuable assistance is obtained.True, the gifts of the happy and the prosperous are herealso; the glittering ornament, that has graced many a gaypageant; the exquisite picture, in which the painter hasmade real his happiest conception, or recalled some favoritescene; the admired and successful volume, fresh from thehands of its author. The minister of religion, the philosopher,the artist, and the poet, have given us of their best,have freely contributed that spiritual and ideal wealth, whoseprice is above rubies. But all these gifts, however diversetheir