COMING OPERA SEASON.

IN visit to town which we made-(like a cook's look into the oven)-in August, we used our one evening among the bricks, for the enjoyment of what is not found among the green leaves-an Opera. Tedesco at the Broadway was, for that time of year, like woodcock out of season, most inviting; and, (whether from the rarity, or from its being the only luxury we could think of within municipal limits, or from the excellence of the Havanese Dudu, or from the verdant freshness of interest with which we sat down to it,) we never enjoyed Opera more-no, not in Paris or London. Those delicious low notes of Tedesco's, certainly sweep and air the seldom visited apartments of the soul's ear most deliciously. We are not bent now, however, upon writing a criticism. We say nothing of orchestra or chorus. The spirit which troubles the Bethesda of our inkstand at present, is a small two-line notice which we saw upon the bill of the play, that evening, and of which we have lost the precise words, though the following was the meaning-It notified the public, that, at this Opera, there were no exclusive seats, nor other privileged arrangements likely to give offence. However phrased, it was meant to draw a distinction between this Opera and the Opera which had been the scene

HOSTILITY TO WHITE GLOVES.

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of the riot, and was, of course, a popular appeal to what is thought to be an existing feeling on the subject.

Now, like love, disease, fire and war, the beginnings of popular discontents are small, and may be quelled or diverted if taken early. Obsta principiis is an old Latin rule with which a man might almost govern the world. It really seems to us worth while to enquire, (Astor-Place Riot and the subsequent expressions of public feeling considered,) whether there is not, now growing, in the popular feeling, a needless and unreasonable hostility to the wealthier class, and whether its accidental causes had not better be analyzed-explained by the press-and removed, as far as possible, in the arrangements of public places.

We speak of a needless hostility, for we are yet to learn that, though this is a free country as to religion and franchise, it is not free as to dress, equipage, or display. We are yet to learn that envy is so rank a weed in republics that a man must conceal his wealth to escape persecution. We are yet to learn that, in liberal America, a citizen is not free to spend his money as he pleases, glove himself to his fancy, wear his beard to his liking, choose whom he likes, or whom he can, for friends and acquaintances, and purchase whatever is for sale in the way of opportunities for public amusement. And yet, to show how such matters may be, see how it was in England, only a hundred and fifty years ago! Reresby, in his Historical Memoranda, and under date of 1685, says:

"Gentlemen were now in a most unprecedented manner assaulted in the very streets; one had a powder thrown into his eyes which deprived him of sight; another had his throat cut by two men, though neither of these gentlemen had given the least visible provocation or offense to the aggressors."

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PRIVILEGED SEATS.

Civilization is too far advanced, and, we repeat, America too liberal, to allow of any proscription of a class, high or low, for reasons not connected with law or morals. Were it otherwise, the country would very soon feel it, for a man would stay here but to make a fortune, and go to a more refined and liberal land to enjoy it. Still, however, there are offences of one class against another of the rich by the poor and of the poor by the rich—and as these occur principally in public places, where people should meet upon a common footing as to purchase and privilege, the Managers are bound to see that the arrangements are republican and inoffensive. "Exclusiveness," unpopular as it is, is a republican right, subject to nothing but ridicule, when exercised in a man's house, equipage and personal acquaintance; but any privilege given, in a place of amusement, to one man above another, for fashionable pre-eminence merely and without competition of purchase, is un-republican and wrong, and, with that, we think, the public have a right to be discontented.

The New York public is not silly enough, of course, to make war, otherwise than by expression of opinion, upon the trifles against which so many paragraphs have been latterly aimed, such as "white gloves," "liveried servants," "moustaches" and "opera-glasses"—a citizen having as much right to indulge in any of these as a Puseyite to wear a straight collar, or a "Mose" to carry his coat on his arm-but these are, notwithstanding, intensitives, and though they would be sufficiently tolerated by themselves, they aggravate the offensiveness of any real ground of complaint against the class whose peculiarities they are, and can only be made innocent by the removal of the small offence which they intensify. The nut-shell which contains it all, at present,

OFFENCE TO BE AVOIDED.

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seems to be the privileged seats held for the Opera season by subscribers.

It is our own opinion, that, though seats for the season are great conveniences (for easy finding by acquaintances, for cushioning to suit invalids, and for saving of nightly trouble to secure places)—yet, if the whole class of occasional comers to the Opera, and strangers in town, are thereby excluded from the best seats, and offended, they should not be permitted in the arrangements. The subscribers, and the best seats, are but few. The occasional visitors and strangers are many. We will not stop to show how this is good policy, for the success of the Opera, but we will add that we think it also a proper concession of feeling. In a republic there must be mutual yielding, as far as possible, to the prejudices of classes; and editors and managers, with this principle in their minds, may suggest and arrange remedies for all present likelihoods of discord. With a charming example of this spirit, in our heroic and common-sense President himself, we close these hasty comments on a matter which we should have liked the opportunity to discuss more at our leisure.

SUGGESTIONS OF MAY-DAY IN NEW YORK.

WE have had many a Maying frolic in the country, where, with half a score of bright-faced laughing girls, we have "prevented the dawning of the morning," and brushed the dew from acres of flowering meadows, to gather the fresh-peeping violets, and "make roses grow in our cheeks." Blessed days! we would not cease to remember them, for an untouched section of Californiafor there is a gleam of sunshine in every such remembrance, which has power to chase away the shadows of years, and make us quite a child again. But-May-day in New York-was ever a contrast so irreconcilable? Who would not cry with Job"let it not come into the number of the months?" It is a day which concentrates, in its single brief cycle, the dust, the labour, the burdens, the miseries, the disappointments, the vexations of two years the remembered evils of the past, and the anticipated troubles of the coming. As if "quarter day," and the hard face of a querulous landlord were not enough to season one day's trial, it is four quarter-days in one, and moving-washing-scrubbing— scouring-house-cleaning-and-putting-to-rights-day, to boot. On that single day, half the houses in New York are turned up-sidedown and inside out, and emptied, with all their living and moveable contents into the other half, which, at the same time, are