Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1878-12-18
wsanesaug EyenlnE. Dc. Is. Is7s.
social Life in Washington.


Social Life in WashingtOn.
Cor, Brooklyn Eagle.l
This session is to be a dull one,
from the fact hat people are boarding
who hitherto kept house, and board
ing, too, in private houses, where be-
fore they frequented hotels. In Mrs.
Madison time, possibly the most de-
lightful in many respects that Wash
ington has ever known, there was less
show and more social pleasure than
has been known since. She set the
example as wife Of a cabinet officer of
great hospitality, and the people about
her followed her course. She gave
dinners that were so bountiful that
the younger members Of the British
embassy called them harvest-home
suppers, and she carried her Virginia
style so far as to give a great many of
them, and kept what would now be
looked upon as a free hotel for her
friends. People j%ourneyed to Wash
ington to see her from all parts of the
country, and the outlay that it cost
her to entertain was not missed, be-
cause there was nothing like the ex-
trayigance in dress that is now the
rule, and society people did not visit
her to make her house a showroom.
Boarding houses were rare, and every
body who could do so lived in their
own house. The foreigners in Wash
ington rejoiced wei the comfortable
entertainments they attended, and
many published letters of the times
are filed with accounts of the hearty
hospitality offered. In those days the
residents Of Washington had local
pride, and they did all in their power
to make a strangers visit agreeable.
Now the reverse is true. The old resi-
dents of the city, they whose forefath-
ers settled in Washington In Its earli-
est era have nothing to do with the
transient population of the city. There
is a society there wholly and apart
from the ofhee-holders' circle, and into
its exclusive domain not many strang-
ers ever enter. 1t is composed of peo-
pie who have seen SO many admins.
trations come and go; so many sessions
of congress meet and dissolve, that il
is a matter of mere Indifference as Il
who fills the place to-day that will be
occupied BY some one else next yeal
or 0 But Of the official life al
Washington, outsiders hear the mos
and have knowledge Of no other. Il
is never of the old families or The
households Of the descendants of ia.
nous patriots Of the earlier period o.
the cOuntry's history, who live il
Washington, that the public hears
1t has been the fashion. of late year
to hear a great deal of them, but thu
hard, cold grip of financial priyatioI
is upon so many that the probability
is that there will be less work fol
jenkins this year than ever before
The hotels and beautiful houses abov,
Pennsylvania avenue will not know
the faces they have known in the past
and the clearinghouse on 4 and
streets and in the region east of tn
patent Office will be more peopled wit
them than before. The members O
congress that will represent their con
stituents in the hotel will be thos
whose families are left behind, an.
they will not be many, for in thes
days of easy transit the wife an
daughters Of the congressman are a
intent upon seeing Washington as the
are Of being returned there eac
election.
1t is something to spend a gay sea
son there, for no other cityin the worl
is there such a representation. Fol
eigners from all countries queer PEI
pie and people Of learning, wise an
fippant sensible and silly rich, poo
high and low, all the classes tn.
would be met with elsewhere, VII
the additional honors Of official,
semi-oticial titles. Every congress
mans wife is Mrs. Senator or Nh
with NJ. G. attacked TO her nam
And one winter, when shoddy W
supreme in Washington, the rage {
titles descended to the lower graz
positions, and it was not an unusu
thing TO hear women mentioned
Mrs. Auditor, Mrs. Secretary al
Mrs. Treasury Agent so and so.
was a busy time when people had
be explicit and exhibit their badges
Office promptly or be ostracized. T.
like of hat time will not return, al
this year finds us on the opposite 81
of fortunes wheel. Now the MAJOR
of the government officials are pc
and are not getting rich off their sal
ries; the congressman are sour /
cause of the expense the %electio
we're to them, and the ladies are clu
bling to make carriages carry four DC
sons on a round of visits where on
each lady wanted and generally b
her own equipage. Cards will be t
most indispensable article that will
required by many ladies, and no dou
the women themselves will be glad
this, for entertaining. unless und
easy circumstances, is a thankless ia
in a city like Washington, where 0
is not supposed to know any one W.
but everybody well enough to VI
formally.