AMERICAN EXTRAVAGANCE.

Evening Star, Issue 3826, 29 May 1875, Page 3

AMERICAN EXTRAVAGANCE.

If the times are hard in New York, there appears to be plenty of money in the hands of some people, at least, and they know how to spend. On Thanksgiving Day the sum of 47,000d01. was spent in amusements alone. Of this great sum, Barnum’s Hippodrome got nearly 10,000dol. and Wallack’s Theatre some 4,000d0L The twenty places of amusement were all full. Walking on Broadway, or going into Stewart’s great store, it seems as if the wealthy classes never dressed so extravagantly before as they do now. The most costly furs, and seal skin, sable, mink, otter, and silver fox, are never worn as before. A few days since, Mrs Benjamin Wood, wife of the editor of the 1 Daily News,’ paid 1,300d01. for a sable muff and boa. A fur store on Broadway has an order from the wife of a Fifth-avenue millionaire for a crown Russian sable cloak, which will cost 4,000d01. For an ostrich skin robe the modest sum of 1,000 dol. is asked ! Fur trimming for ladies’ dresses, made of silver fox, sells for twelve dollars a yard, and is very fashionable. The strip of skin to which the fur is attacked is less than an inch wide.' While there is a general cutting down of the prices of labor all over the city, and a discharge of employes, the prices of the necessaries of life remain at war figures, and luxury and extraxaganoe run riot. It remains to be seen how long this state of things will continue in New York, or in any part of the country. If we escape bread riots, bank suspensions, violence, incendiarism, and pestilence during the loug, cold winter at hand, we shall be fortunate, and may thank Providence.