NEW YORK FLIRTING PARTIES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 124, 13 September 1876, Page 2

NEW YORK FLIRTING PARTIES.

New York does not afford the sami aspect of a marriage fair as does a London season ; it is a refinement of aristocratic civilisation that has not yet entirely pervaded the count-y, that the sole aim and object, the raison d'etre of a girl's existence, is to make a great match, to which end she must train every woi'd aiil look. But, then, these things come lj nature to a certain extent. Marriage is an inevitable law, and its preliminaries, though enacted under different systeiw,

are apt to assimilate all themselves. The most seductive of entertainments, the dinner en petite coniite, is the chief Lenten penance here, and it is managed as well as tact and arrangement can suggest. It is not on the usual plan of asking a certain number of people to whom invitations are owing, and then endeavoring to pair them as well as possible ; it is matter of mutual arrangement,, and the real object of all entertainment is carefully followed out, of giving as much pleasure as possible to the guests. Premising that there are such things in New York as mothers who object to their daughters going out without them, yet the following plan is very general:—A lady, probably a young married one, asks three or four girls if they will dine on a certain night; that settled, the next question is, what men they would respectively like ? When that momentous question is answered, the

said men are straightway invited. The young ladies come with their maids, but without their mothers ; they go into dinner with the respective man whom they themselves virtually have invited, and when dinner is over they scatter in Ute-a-t6tes on sofas or ottomans, or contiguous cbairs, each couple somehow or other managing to get a considerable distance from every other couple. Of course rooms en suite,} bay windows curtained and commodious,conservatories with playing fountains and luxuriant foliage, do not conflict with this object ; but, on the whole, conduce to the peculiar delectation of the evening. Now and then an abortive attempt at general

amusement in the way of music or a game is made, only to meet at once with the failure it deserves. The hostess chaperons the party ; that is to say, she throws into the little plan any man she likes, takead him in to dinner, and flirts with him the ; rest of the evening. Of course this very nice, charming, delightful; and r -as-a-J natural consequence, while in y nine girls out of ten a <linnei:a|| horrible bore; all gir^