GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK
Philadelphia, April 1850

EDITORS' TABLE.

NOVELS are now the great vehicle of public sentiment, where politics, religion, or political economy are discussed, and all new ideas, or at least the extravagant opinions of each would-be reformer, are promulgated. In this way the masses are reached, for everybody reads novels; but it is reserved for the magazines and reviews to sift these crude works, select the appropriate for their own readers, and, by giving, in original articles, a due proportion of grave and gay, useful and entertaining, to furnish a family book superior to any other popular work. Among the very new novels is one by Miss Sinclair, from which we will give an extract for the benefit of our polka-loving friends, who may be so much engaged in learning the new fashions of dancing as to have neglected this pleasant book. The person who thus gives free utterance to his opinions is an officer in the British army, an old bachelor.

"And dancing?" asked Major Ghahan, determined to plunge headlong into a subject which was rankling in his thoughts. "I have seen the Naeth girls of India and the slaves of Persia, but none of these would have danced as we see the polka at home performed by some young ladies, in a country formerly so celebrated for the modesty and propriety of its women. One small comfort is, that it never can be worse. But really more to blame than the girls, I think, are the mothers who composedly sit looking on at such a scene as baffles description. it is only fit for the houris of a Mohammedan paradise; but certainly not for Christian ladies. As Captain Macheath sings—

'I wonder any man alive would ever rear a daughter!'

and I am glad my six were never born. The worst of all is Margaret Percival; and when I saw her whirling around with Sir Fitzroy, at Lady Glentilt's last ball, her head on his shoulder, and her ringlets scattered all over his uniform, I was positively hurrying out of the room—good simple man as I am—for a glass of water, thinking she had fainted, as no woman retaining her senses would have made such an exhibition of herself, even with her own husband. And any man who dances the polka in that style with a young lady, should be bound to marry her next day; but Emily Percival is certainly the most odious style of womankind I know."

Reader, this young lady who danced the polka in such a "fast and furious" fashion, like the witches in Tam O'Shanter, was about thirty-eight years of age! It is a curious fact that married ladies, and single ones who are rather passe, are the devotees of this—dance (fill the blank to your own taste and sense of propriety), exhibiting an abandon (to use a significant French phrase) rarely seen in the youthful and beautiful. By the way, ladies who are not pretty, old and young, appear most eager to engage in these dances. Do they think thus to captivate their partners? If there is anything wrong in this style of amusement, the mothers are certainly more culpable than their young daughters.

Queen Victoria does not dance the polka, nor permit it to be exhibited in her presence. Why will not the noble matronage of America be thus queen-like?

There is still one comfort—it cannot be worse.

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THE INDIAN MOTHER.—The following beautiful sketch of the devotion of the heathen mother should bring the blush of shame to the cheek of every mother in a Christian land who does not watch over her children and keep her daughters from the temptations of fashion and frivolity as carefully as the poor Indian woman protects hers from the dangers of savage life.

"How helpless the Indian babe, born without shelter, amidst storms and ice! But fear nothing for him; God has placed near him a guardian angel that can triumph over the severities of nature—the sentinel of maternity is by his side, and, so long as his mother breathes, he is safe. The squaw loves her child with instinctive passion; and, if she does not manifest it by lively caresses, her tenderness is real, wakeful, and constant. No savage mother ever trusted her babe to a hireling nurse; no savage mother ever put away her own child to suckle that of another. To the cradle, consisting of thin pieces of light wood, and gayly ornamented with quills of the porcupine, and beads, and rattles, the nurseling is firmly attached, and carefully wrapped in furs; and the infant, thus swathed, its back to the mother's back, is borne as the topmost burden, its eye now cheerfully flashing light, now accompanying with tears the wailing which the melodies of the carrier cannot hush. Or, while the squaw toils in the field, she hangs her child, as spring does its blossoms, on the bough of a tree, that it may be rocked by the breezes from the land of souls, and soothed to sleep by the lullaby of the birds. Does the mother die, the nurseling—such is Indian compassion—shares her grave."—George Bancroft.

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FROM a long poem, by J. A. TURNER, we select a gem or two, not having room for the whole.

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INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO BRITAIN.—There has been some objection urged to this picture, which appeared in our January number—not on the score of its execution; it is allowed to be "well executed"—but its historical accuracy has been questioned. Our engraver copied the picture before him faithfully; but we are now convinced the painter thought more of the grouping of the figures than of Bede's History. The first converts to Christianity in Britain were doubtless baptized by immersion; and though we cannot allow sectarian controversy to shadow the lovely light of Christian charity we hope ever to retain as the charm of the "Lady's Book," yet we would not, on any account, intentionally give a wrong impression of an historical fact.

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TO MY BOOKS.

BY E. ANNA LEWIS.

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LADIES' CLUBS.—Gentlemen's clubs have been in vogue since the days of Shakespeare, when the famous one was established at the Mermaid Tavern, in London, of which the great dramatist was a member, also Beaumont, Fletcher, Raleigh, Selden, Donne, and others. There was another club, where Ben Jonson presided. These two clubs were both established, for literary purposes about the beginning of the seventeenth century. Since that time, two hundred and fifty years have elapsed, and clubs of all characters and kinds have been established by men, particularly Englishmen. A large proportion of the bachelor gentlemen of London may be said to live in clubs; but it has been reserved for our own glorious country to originate "Ladies' Clubs. " We are proud to say the "Lady's Book" has been the chief incentive of this new movement in society. It is for the purpose of obtaining our periodical these ladies clubs are formed. A glance at the "terms" will show that a club, by advancing ten dollars, can obtain six copies of the "Book," or twelve copies for $20; and the number of associations among ladies forming for this purpose is astonishing. We are greatly obliged to the friends who thus testify their appreciation of our work. We trust its influence will be more salutary on our ladies than the modern club mania has been on Englishmen. We hope the old literary spirit of the days of the good Queens Bess and Anne will be revived in our "green forest land," and that every lady, who unites in a club to obtain our "Book," will bear herself right royally in every good word and work, as a sovereign should do.

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TO CORRESPONDENTS.—The following articles are accepted: "To my Wife," "To the Genius of Art," "The Wanderer," "To an Eagle," "To Ruth," "The Flowing River," "The Song of the Dying Girl," "The Daguerreotype," "Vicissitudes of Fortune."

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