The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1876-05-11
WASHINGTON HIGH LIFE.

"Gath" writes to the N. Y. Graphic
regarding the luxurious living and
dressing in Washington:
The prominence given in the public
prints to the rich wardrobes of ladies
and their relative beauty has helped
to encourage the love of display and
conceit which we see coming out in
the Belknap and other cases. In for
mer days ladies and men in public po-
sition were protected by the discrim-
ination between official and mercan-
tile life. Twenty years ago a family
of tradesmen in the Avenue did not
intruae in official society, and he who
published the names or addresses of
persons at any of the large receptions
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 in
troduced to the receptions without a
previous acquaintance with their host,
and it is common for women from
distant cities to visit the Capital ac-
companied by dozens Of trunks filled
with wardrobes specially prepared for
a "Washington season."
The example of dress on the stage
of a theater, ON the public promenade,
or in drawing-room is infectious, and
mere money has come to be rated as
too necessary an element in good Off
cial society. Yet what woman will
be bold enough to make the innova-
tion of dressing in the plain way GUS
tomary thirty years ago2 And who
gives Washington women their dress
es? Husbands3
What we see Washington is patent
all over the country, parcicalarly in
the cities. In dress, however, and in
the passion Tor display there are gra-
dations. If you will select, say fifty
women, in Washington 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 Il few years ago was deal
ing in swamp lots somewhere in the
West. Now his house is furnished
from Paris, Brussels and London. The
carpets were woven to ht the rooms
and the mirrors slipped through the
Custom house without expense. Here
is patent attorney who has worked
hard all his life, and sees no other
way to distinguish his wealth but to
build a palace. Here is doctor who
turned up from the Muskrat country
as a hospital surgeon, and now appears
iii the street emily behind a pair of
cream colored horses with driver,
and representing in no feeble way
death OH pale horse. Here is re-
tired army officer with a porte-cocAeye
Mansard, pavilions, lace curtains, and
a house open to let his daughters be
seen from morning till midnight.
Here is brOther-in-law of a digni-
tary who, not satisfied with his rela-
tive condition in the city of his birth,
makes an apparition in Washington
society with a great house. Here is
poor German engineer, who has been
drawing sections of boilers and ship
beams for thirty years, now living be-
hind Pictou stone. Here is an instru-
ment-maker, who furnishes surveying
tools for the Land Office, keeping his
family by the year in Europe. Here
is retired tavern-keeper, with twenty
bathrooms in his house, expecting to
be married into the first official rank.
Here is little chap who used to be
page in Congress surrounded with
paintings, horses and laces. Here is
an old curb-stone broker whose
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