File:Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries- Volume 3, page 19, November 6, 1851.jpg

Transcription:

Cherry Street, ycleped the Croton Mills. The owners thereof having gotten a prize at the World’s Fair for the best manufactured flour, had by way of advertisement thrown open their building from cellar to roof, issuing cards of invitation to respectability in general. Everything was marvellously clean, and pleasant to look upon, and a contrast to the mill of some [Geoffrey] Chaucerian sung wight in its multiform complexity of detail. There was also a cottation whereat the people did crowd and devour most unceasingly. Many comely women I noted, and the sex ate so heartily that one might fancy Othello’s exclamation

“That we can call these delicate creatures ours

And not their appetites”

might have been produced by envy of Desdemona’s good digestion. Men were [words crossed out] jocosely wolfish. To the Office after with Holbrook, got wood blocks. Morey came, and I with him in an hours time (he calling for me;) to Tripler Hall, there to hear Jenny Lind rival as the newspapers phrase it, Catherine Hayes. There I met de Bougars, the old vinous-faced Gaul, and the little Irishman who abode in Robinson Street, next room to mine, and who got drunk more than once. He was here officiating as a usher. Catherine Hayes has a fine deep voice, sang “John Anderson my Joe” well