I Am Afraid It Was Not A Profitable Entertainment, For The Men Seemed To Have Business Elsewhere, But The Ladies About The Tables Made Charming Groups In The Lighted Grove.

Man is a stupid animal at best, or he would not make it so difficult for the womenkind to scrape together a little money for charitable purposes.

But probably the women like this method of raising money better than the direct one.

The evening gayety of the town was well distributed. When we descended to the Court-House Square, a great crowd had collected, black, white, and yellow, about a high platform, upon which four glaring torches lighted up the novel scene, and those who could read might decipher this legend on a standard at the back of the stage:

HAPPY JOHN. ONE OF THE SLAVES OF WADE HAMPTON. COME AND SEE HIM!

Happy John, who occupied the platform with Mary, a "bright" yellow girl, took the comical view of his race, which was greatly enjoyed by his audience. His face was blackened to the proper color of the stage-darky, and he wore a flaming suit of calico, the trousers and coat striped longitudinally according to Punch's idea of "Uncle Sam," the coat a swallow-tail bound and faced with scarlet, and a bell-crowned white hat. This conceit of a colored Yankee seemed to tickle all colors in the audience amazingly. Mary, the "bright" woman (this is the universal designation of the light mulatto), was a pleasing but bold yellow girl, who wore a natty cap trimmed with scarlet, and had the assured or pert manner of all traveling sawdust performers.

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