PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 10,1804.
THE WAR AND THE FAIR.
TTAD it been foretold to us, only a few years
ago, that there was contained in the fu
ture a bloody civil war, shaking the Union to
its foundations, and that there was also to be
held in Philadelphia a Fair, brilliant beyond
compare, who of us could have imagined that
these two things, so foreign the one to the
other, so directly opposite, were to occur in
the self-same hour? We could not have
dreamed it. We should have supposed, most
probably, that the War and the Fair would be
wide apart, separated, the one from the other,
by a great gap of time. Our conjecture would
have been that the Fair would be held, not
during the war, but after the war, in celebra
tion, perhaps, of the return of peace.
But, as it is, the great Fair is held in the
very midst of the war, and while the fiercest,
battles of the war arc raging. Out of the
ground smoking with the warm blood of the
terrible conflict, and amidst the uproar of the
fight, flower forth these wondrous forms of a
divine humanity. Not Peace, but savage War
has caused the sacred seed to germinate and
swell; and rich in beauty and beneficence are
the fruits. While we are engaged in deadly
strife with a portion of our countrymen, all
loyal hearts are fused into one as never be
fore, and the division lines of the States and
Sections are well nigh obliterated. Undesign
edly, unconsciously, by the cver-activc, resist
less force of nature, there is forming, through
the agency of those sentiments which the war
inspires so powerfully, a new Union, a Union
which the old Union only dimly foreshadowed.
The blood that is shed—every precious drop of
it—crying out to us from the ground which it
hallows, summons into activity those generous
instincts which are laying the foundations of
a Temple of Peace that nothing shall be able
to destroy.
HOW THEY LIVE AT THE “ WATER BASE."
It may be interesting to some of the readers
of the Daily Fare, and especially to such as
have friends in the Sanitary Corps, to hear
something of the habits of life of those who
have gone to “the front,” as the term is at
home, though to those engaged in service at
“the base” of the army itself, “the front”
means something considerably beyond. White
House, the late base of General Grant’s ar
my, is about fifteen miles in the rear of the
actual scene of his most recent operations.
The “base ” is necessarily well removed from
the line of battle, and upon a navigable river
Oit e Daily Fab '-hi.
or well-protected railway. At White House
the Sanitary Commission have their headquar
ters on a boat at the wharf. Here all hands
assemble three times daily for meals, and a
motley group they arc ; mostly young men of
education, doctors, young clergymen, clerks
from their counting houses, and artisans from
their shops, arrayed in every variety of cos
tumes, not a white shirt to be seen, and scarce
ly a tall hat. At the hour appointed, these
flock from the widely scattered hospital tents
into which their duties have led them, to the
repast provided by the Sanitary.
Imagine not, gentle reader, a tastefully
spread board with damask table-cloth, a ser
vice of china and silver-plated forks, for the
Sanitary serves its rations of beef, potatoes
and dried apples on tin plates, its coffee and
tea in ordinary tin cups, the brown sugar is
stirred in with a pewter spoon, and the milk
(concentrated dissolved) is supplied from an
old-fashioned tin coffee pot with a long spout.
Let it not be thought, however, that there is
any grumbling at this table. On the contrary,
every one is happy, conversation flows freely,
and to the credit of the corps be it said, that
no one ever hears an improper word at or
around the table. A spice of female society,
albeit rather scarce as yet, gives tone to the
intercourse among those engaged in the work,
while on the soldiers it has a most favorable
effect.
VOTE EARLY AND VOTE OFTEN.
It gives us real pleasure to invoke all the
visitors to the Great Central Fair, to indulge
in a liberal practice of the above much abusfd
rule. It is one of the inestimable privileges of
the occasion. At most other elections one
vote is considered enough for one man—and
in point of fact, that is all the law allows. We
are aware that we have a class of voting pa
triots among us who do not agree with the law,
but sometimes they suffer a rather close con
finement for their attempted enlargement of
their area of freedom. But we have no such
unpleasant restrictions at the Fair, Here we
have a true realization of “universal suffrage."
Every-body may vote —man, woman and child,
provided only the poll-tax be paid, which ran
gos from Twenty-five Cents to One Dollar.
For the latter sum, you may help to give your
favorite General the $2500 sword, or say who
shall have the magnificent Silver Vase, while
for the former, you may cast your suffrage so
as to give the costly Silver Trumpet, to your
choice among our noble Fire Companies, or
say which of the Generals’ wives shall have
that love of a Leghorn Bonnet valued at one
hundred and seventy-five dollars.
At these Fair elections the motto is “vote
early and vote often,” to which we add, by
request of the election officers “vote all the
time—and all the tickets.”
JUST LIKE A WOMAN.
There is no one phrase that wc have heard
repeated more frequently, during the Fair,
than the one with which we have headed our
article. In the crowd, ns we jostle through
the door, we at once recognize the marital re
lation of the couple before us by the applica
tion of it by the man to the confiding being on
his arm. The cause of the remark is gene
rally intimated in such a gentle tone that wc
rarely catch it, and often amuse ourselves in
inquiring what the female could have done so
characteristic of her sex. We think, perhaps,
the gentle being has left the gas all burning in
the deserted mansion, or has left the dead-latch
up, or has not warned Bridget against allow
ing the baby to play on the railroad track, or,
worse than all, has forgotten to bring her Fair
ticket with her. The last atrocity, however,
generally brings out something stronger than
a general reflection; and its mildest type, is
giving the phrase a personal turn, as “ that’s
so like you.”
Brothers and sisters generally favor the last
phrase, without they have reached mature
years, when the former one is considered suffi
cient. The latter phrase has the advantage
of being susceptible of conveying a certain
amount of tenderness, when, for instance, it is
used to give the idea that “it is only pretty
Fanny's way.” In this sense it is used
among cousins, and between the sexes, when
there is no blood relationship existing. It is
rather a telling thing then, by the way, the idea
of being unlike any one else, is very gratifying
to the female mind. A man can use it safely
unless he accompanies it with an offen
sive intonation or sneer, when, of course, it
changes its character and becomes disagree
able. The phrase, however, “just like a
woman,” can never be considered, strange to
say, complimentary. Why it should not be is
certainly odd. There must have been some
expletive originally connected with it which,
in the lapse of time, has been lost—some word
or other, which, to speak grammatically, is
“understood.” Why it is, that to say to a
woman that her conduct is ‘ ‘just like a woman, ”
should be considered a sneer, is certainly mys
terious ; if said to a man it would be plain
enough, but we all prefer women who act like
women, and yet we make it a term of reproach
that they do so.
We heard a woman, speaking of her height,
say she was either five feet seven or seven feet
five, she did not recollect which, and the sen
timent was unanimous that to say that was
exactly “like a woman.” But when we speak
of women generally, its meaning can be made
to convey a degree of approbation difficult to
express. For instance, when we speak of the
devotion and self denial and untiring zeal they
have exhibited throughout this whole war, our
vocabulary enables us to say nothing higher
than “that is just like them.”