Sängerfest Grand Finale: Pic-nic and Summer-Night’s Festival for the Arion Society

     “In honor to their invited Saenger friends, ‘The Arion Society’ will hold a Pic-nic and Summer-Night’s Festival in their usual and splendid style at Falk’s Lion Park, Thursday, July 20, 1865, to commence at 4 o’clock P.M.  Tickets $1 each: admitting one gentleman and ladies, and not transferable.  To be had from members only and at the Arion’s headquarters, No. 23 3d-av.”

     “Our German friends are in trouble.  We have feared from the first that they were rushing matters with such entire recklessness of expense and prodigality of sentiment that sooner or later they would rue it.

     Our fears have proven well grounded.  The entire Teutonic population is in an agony of separation.  They find it so hard to say ‘Good Bye,’ that their farewells are adjourned prolongatively, one chaste embrace serving as an incitement for others, and each mug of lager but making the affair more heartrending.  Our city yesterday was full of ailing, not to say aleing, Festers; they wandered by twos and threes disconsolately through the Bow-wowery, visiting each place of refreshment and deluging their intestinal labyrinths with beer and wine until the local police became alarmed lest the festivity should assume the more fearful proportions of a ‘bust.’

     The tremendous fall of rain on Wednesday evening served as a quencher and sent many a tight singer to his quarters where loosest rein was given to the melodious voice, and freest vent to harmonies and song.  Not early to bed did they go, nor did they rise early on Thursday, but when up, at it they went again, determined to breed a famine in the city and a drought of lager in the Bowery.  Assembling at an early hour at

Germania Rooms

     the festive Festers sat about the well-polished mahoganies, where they sang, and shouted, and drank, and laughed, and told stories in great good-natured disorder, until noon, when they were called to order and Mr. Sheffen made a little speech.  The graces of German oratory sit lightly on the Presidential head, and he kept the assemblage in the best of moods until the close of his peroration, when the much bent mugs were again filled, frothing to the brim, and jolly German cheers greeted the retiring spokesman.

     Several red-faced individuals, who occupied the large round table in the centre of the hall, enjoyed a peculiar season.  The top of their table, well polished, was the ringiest of the lot, their internal capacities were excelled only by the cask from which the attendant drew, and the entire harmony with which each and every man filled and refilled his mug, (the one with the handle,) was equaled only by the magnificent choruses with which they favored the audience.  The heat was intense, but that seemed only to intensify the thirst.  Water couldn’t be had, wine was not the thing, but the sublimest satisfaction sat on each and every face as the head of the keg gave back a hollow sound, when rapped and found useless, ‘twas rolled far out of sight.  The king is dead – long live the king!  The kg is empty – here’s another one that’s full.  At it they went, at it they kept, until little by little, they descended the stairway to the bar-room below, where, with accustomed ease, they renewed the assurance of their distinguished regard to the man behind the railing, after which they mugged again till drawn into the street.

     There is no use in disguising the fact.  Yesterday was a grand old drink for one and all.In the afternoon, accepting the courteous invitation of the Arion Society, we went to the grand jollification at

Lion Park,

     where really a gay and delightful season was passed by an immense crowd of people, men and women.  The only difficulty about the Park is its vast distance from the City Hall.  One needs the patience of a Job and the time of a Methuselah ere he can venture often upon the trip, the mere going and coming of which demands hours and afternoons.  However, after you get there, it’s delightful.  The beautiful spot, the superb views, the great barn of a hall, the pleasant Hall de Falk, have been oft and again described in these columns.  Why then re-do it?  We won’t.

     The guests of the Arion Society were driven up in carriages, and it is fair to suppose they enjoyed the trip.  They had drank enough beer to make them sleepy, and this afforded a fair opportunity for a nap, of which they availed themselves.  Once there, they proceeded to the little round tables, concerning whose construction they evinced not the least curiosity, but rather confined themselves to the immediate, rapid and long-continued flow of lager, throatward bound.

     The atmosphere was, to say the least, hot, the dust was cloudy, and the general state of personnel uncomfortable.  This sort of thing lasted until sunset, by which time the crowd, greatly enlarged, became multitudinous and uproarious.  As the bee from flower to flower, so the Festers from mug to mug.

     We missed the portly person of His Honor the Mayor, but there were the mild and genial Geilfress; the smiling, jovial Steinway; the rosy, manly Bissinger; the spectacled, oratorical Sheffen; the gorgeous Detmold; the indefatigable Rose; the inventive Urner; the insinuating Burke; the wiry Kennedy; the bland Carpenter; the active Acton; the notables of various professions; the rotund and the slim; the critics and the actors; the hard-working newspaperman, and the lazy reader – ladies, gracious Heavens how many of them.  Blue eyes, and black, and gray, and brown – water-falls tremendous, and rats long and padded.  Well-dressed people and awful drabs; modest, lady-like girls, and romping, roving hoydens; all in a state of undeniable perspiration, sat about the little round tables, and drank lager.  The superb orchestra lent its charms to the scene; the grand choral efforts in no way marred by the copious swigs of beer rang through the hall and out upon the Park paths; the clink of friends’ glasses, and the chug of many mugs sent out their peculiar pleasant melodies; the children, hot and tired, cried for maternal refreshment; the young people of larger growth clamored for ‘poie’ and a mug; the decorated songsters embraced each other in a frenzy of Cecilian delight, and everything being lovely, the pile of greenbacks grew high in the money drawer.

     Song and mirthfulness characterized the entire proceedings.  For detailed description we have no room.  This closing scene in the grand festival was like its predecessors, most creditable to all concerned.  There have been a few mistakes, strange as it may seem, but they were as nothing.  The piano-forte offered by Mr. Krassner was carried off by one society, while others thought they had a better claim to it, but we don’t believe they will imitate the murderous example of the boat-racing people at Poughkeepsie.  They omitted to open their master pic-nic with the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ which would have been in eminent good taste – and, perhaps, some of our friends in their anxiety to have a good time, forgot that there was anybody else in the city beside themselves; but what are these little forgetfulnesses and mistakes in a festival extending through five mortal days?  What well-broiled committee, whose noon-day exercises were conducted beneath the intensifications of a July sun, could be expected to get through this vast crowd of preparations without stepping on a toe or two?  To the German resident belongs a vast deal of praise.  They have been generous, hospitable, enterprising and self-sacrificing; of our stranger friends we have memories only of pleasant song, perfect order and entire decorum.

     As we write the magnificent Heavens are studded with silvery stars, and over the Park hang a few floating clouds, chariots perchance of Cecilia and her intimates.  Wandering about the place are troops of shouting Festers; lounging lazily down the path are young men and maidens celebrating their souls’ delights; sitting on the grass beyond the pavilion are a score of jolly men from Philadelphia; with them are fair frauleins from this city; how cheerily they sing,

    ‘Und so finden wir uns wieder,
    In dem heitern bunten Reihn,
    Und es soll der Kranz der Lieden,
    Frisch und gruen geflochten sein.’

     in the grand hall above are seen hundreds of red-faced, loud-talking men, who clank glass to glass with women whose countenances are flushed; pale and happy Theodore Thomas stands at a table just below his orchestral band; the group with him deserves a mention.  The little man with keen eye, sharp nose and battered face, who looks as though he knew all about it and didn’t care to hear any more, is John A. Kennedy, Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police; at his side is Lafayette Harrison, the jolly proprietor of Irving Hall, a prince of good fellows, and altogether a gentleman and a scholar; at his left is a handsome, intelligent face; humor sparkles in the eye, culture softens every line – it is the editor of the Weekly Review; the tall German with gold spectacle, full beard and Stantonian manner is Carl Bergmann, the conductor, who forms a strange contrast to the little, nervous, long-haired man at his side, Mr. Pauer, the other conductor; the gentleman with two glasses of lager in his hand, is Editor Remack; he is quite gay and festive ordinarily, to-night he is radiant; Mr. C.B. Mills, the pianist, Mr. Stein, the baritone, Mr. Bellew, the artist, Mr. Geilfress, of the committee, and a little, old man who occasionally  writes for the Times, complete the group.  They are all engaged in emptying mugs.  The operation is simple.  They take the glass mug, (which is full) place it against the flesh mug (which is empty), and at the word ‘Zum Wohl’ the bottom of the first mug is elevated, the contents flow forth, the second mug is refreshed and the first one is emptied.  This, continued for an indefinite period of time, produces pleasant pulsations in the person who owns the second mug, while it has no perceptible effect on the possessor of the first – save that it bulges out his pockets.

     Thus closed the Festival.  To-day there will be great hurrying to and fro.  Fathers and mothers and immense families will be seen wending toward the railway depots with bundles, and with them will be the songsters of New-York.  They have all had a good time.  From the hour of arrival at the Park, through the joyous reception, the hospitable greeting, the wearying rehearsals, the triumphant concerts, the prodigious pic-nic, and the closing entertainment at Lion Park, they have had freest and fullest opportunity for fun and frolic and fest.  Their opportunities were improved and they have gone to their rest.”