The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1876-04-28
HIGH LIFE.
The ParTenu AristOcracy Of washInstOn m
CIiY.

| Ahe FarTenu ArtstOcracy of WRshinStO % n
| city.
Gath writes to the New York Graphic
The prominence given in the public
prints to the rich wardrobes of ladies and
their relative beauty has helped to en-
courage the love of display and conceit
which we see coming out in the Belknap
and other cases. In former days ladies
and men in public position were pro
tected by the discrimination between Of
fetal and mercantile life. Twenty
years ago a family of tradesmen in the
avenue did not intrude in official society,
and he who published the names or adj
dresses of persons at any of the large re-
ceptiOns never had the opportunity to
repeat the performance. Consequently
fine clothes did not enter into the rivalry
of the court.
In our day, however, persons are intro
duced to the receptions without pre-
vious acquaintance with their host, and
it is common for women from distant
cities to visit the capital accompanied by
dozens of trunks filled with wardrobes
specially prepared for Washington
season."
The example of dress on the stage of a
theater, on the public promenade, or in
money has come to be rated as too neces-
sary an element in good official society
Yet what woman will be bold enough TO
make the innovation Of dressing in the
plain way customary thirty years ago?
And who gives Washington women their
dresses? Husbands?
What we see in Washington is patent
allover the country, particularly in cities
In 1roSc bOuauar opH IN tho Toccior, for
display there are gradatiOns. If you
will select, say fifty women, in Washing
ton society, and taboo them from the
newspapers and from social consideration,
you will cut off the extravaganza.
Here, for example, is a real estate
agent, who a few years ago was dealing
in swamp lots somewhere in the west.
Now his house is furnished from Paris,
Brussels and London. The carpets were
woven to fit the rooms and the mirrors
slipped through the custom house with
out expense. Here is a patent attorney
who has worked hard all his life, and sees
no other way to distinguish his wealth |
but to build palace. Here is doctor |
who turned up from the Muskra country |
as hospital surgeon, and now appears |
in the street only behind pair of cream |
colored horses with a driver and represen-
ting in no feeble way death on pale |
horse. Here is retired army officer |
with a pOrte-cochere Mansard, pavilions,
lace curtains, and a house open to let his |
daughters be seen from morning till mid ]
night. Here is a brother-in-law of dig |
Ditarv who, not satisfied with his relative |
condition in the city of his birth, makes
an appariIion in Washington society with
great house. Here is poor German
engineer, who has been drawing sections
of boilers and ship-beams for thirty years,
now living behind PictOu stone. Here
is an instrument-maker, who furnishes
surveying tools for the land office, keep
ing his family by the year in Europe.
Here is retired tavern-keeper, with
twenty bath rooms in his house, expect
ing to be married into the first tOfiicialran
Here is a little chap who used to be a
page in congress surrounded with paint
ings, horses and laces. Here is an old
curb-stOne broker whose daughters have
got into good society at last, and their
house is in the West End covered with
zinc ornaments. Here is miller who
got rich by building a patriotic momu-
ment, and he belongs to the gentlest set
of all Here is a stOne-cutter with
bank, country villa. and a transformed
town mansion, all bristling with NINA
rets and pinnacles. Here is claim
agent, who came out of the war without
a penny. inhabiting castle made of
pressed-brick set in lampblack mortar
and resting on granite piers.
The time is approaching when cards will
be scanned before the lady of the house
comes down to receive strange callers,
and when the servant at the door will
perform the duty of asking for invita-
tions and resisting intruders.