The representatives of two widely-circulated dailies narrowly escaped being sent home with broken necks.
Evenings at the hotels were passed in reviving the "sky-larking" of school-boy days.

These scenes were amusing to participants and spectators.

Sober, dignified men, the majority of them heads of families, occupied themselves in devising plans for the general amusement.
One mode of enjoyment was to assemble in a certain large room, and throw at each other every portable article at hand, until exhaustion ensued.

Every thing that could be thrown or tossed was made use of.
Pillows, overcoats, blankets, valises, saddle-bags, bridles, satchels, towels, books, stove-wood, bed-clothing, chairs, window-curtains, and, ultimately, the fragments of the bedsteads, were transformed into missiles.

I doubt if that house ever before, or since, knew so much noise in the same time.