gentle:
ORAB. GODFREY LELAND, Chairman,
WILLIAM T. MCKEAN,
PROP. HENRY COPPIiE,
GEORGE H. BORER,
CRAIG BIDDLE,
No. 8.
THE FAIB HOVE KENT IN THE LOYAL
STATES.—No. 8.
THE METROPOLITAN FAIR.
New York, although obliged to imitate the
example, and follow in the wake of the suc
cess of these great enterprises in other places,
became at last thoroughly roused. Her imperial
pride could not brook the suggestion that she
must follow at a humble distanoe while others
led. She was accustomed to be the pioneer in
all the grand movements characteristic of the
country, and she felt it an insult to her wealth
and position when people began to murmur '
“Celt de 1’ Quest aqjonrd’hui d’ou vlent la lumiere.”
She set to work then in good earnest about
the end of December last, with the determina
tion of organizing a Fair, which should not
only be more productive than any which had
been previously held, but wbioh should bring
more money into the Treasury of the Commis
sion than all former Fairs combined. Her
ambition was to do as least as much, in propor
tion to her population, as had been done in
other cities, and that amount was ascertained
to be, with a singular uniformity in all parts of
the country, just one dollar per head for every
inhabitant. In this expectation she has not
been disappointed, as more than a million of
dollars has been paid to the Treasurer of the
Commission as the net proceeds of the Metro
politan Fair.
There were special reasons also, independent
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE:
:en.
RKY. WM. H. FURNESS,
FRANCIS WELLS,
R. MEADE BACHB,
ASA I. FISH,
CEPHAS G. CHILDS.
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, JUNE 16.
of considerations such as we have alluded to,
which called for a great effort on the part of
the friends of the soldier and the Commission
in New York. As we have had occasion to
say more than once in these papers, the funds
raised by the various Fairs in different parts
of the country did not, except to a very limited
extent, go into the central treasury for the
general purposes of the Commission. They
were retained by the looal branches for the
purchase of supplies exclusively. But these
supplies all reached the army, and were dis
tributed to the soldier by means of funds pro
vided by the central treasury. The Commis
sion, therefore, was placed in the position of
a great express eompany, with plenty of
freight offering, but no means to carry it to its
destination. The embarassment became very
great, not only because the money contributed
by California, and which had hitherto been
the main reliance of the Commission, ceased
to flow, but because a very wide-spread opinion
obtained with the public, that all the money
of all the Fairs was made available for the
general purposes of the Commission. This
opinion, no doubt, lessened very much the
ordinary steady flow both of supplies in kind,
and of contributions in money.
People seemed to forget that although the
collection and distribution of army supplies
was a most important department of the work
of the Commission, yet that it was but one of
various departments—each of vital import
ance to the soldier, and each requiring a large
ladies.
MRS. ROBERT M. HOOPER, MISS SARAH F. CUYLER,
MRS. E. S. RANDOLPH, MISS ANNA M. LEA,
MRS. WILLIAM S. PHILLIPS, MISS GRACE KIERNAN.
MRS. THOMAS P. JAMES, MISS LAURA HOOPER,
MRS. PHEBE M. CLAPP, MISS DELIMA BLAIS.
sum for its maintenance. In view of the con
dition of the general Treasury, it became a
serious question with the officers of the Com
mission whether they should drop all other
branches of their work and limit themselves to
the charge of merely distributing the supplies
which might be sent to them. This would in
volve giving up their complete system, embra
cing Sanitary inspection by medical men of
general Hospitals and of Camps; special re
lief, as it is called, with its system of homes at
various points, where,on an average, more than
twenty-three hundred men, the waifs and es
trays of the army, are cared for every day;
the Hospital Directory, containing the names
of all the soldiers in all the general Hospitals
of the country; Pension Agencies,for collecting
gratuitously money due by the Government to
the soldier or his family, and various other
modes of relief of vast importance, of which
great necessity had been shown by daily expe
rience.
The Commission and its friends were de
termined to make a great effort to keep up
these useful departments, and, thanks to the
results of the Metropolitan Fair, and to what
we may reasonably hope from our own “ Cen
tral Fair,” they can be maintained upon a sure
and permanent basis.
Operations were commenced in New York at
a meeting of two hundred ladies interested in
the general subject of relief to the soldier.
By this meeting a Board of Managers, or Ex
ecutive Committee of twenty-five members,