The daily gazette., 1878-01-01
W ASHINGTON LETTER.


ICAL WHEELS WITH
IN. WHEELS THE NEW YORK
SOCIABLE-LADiES AND DRESS
ES- BRUTAL CANDOR = STATE
EXUTICS AT THE CAPITAL.
[Prom Our Regular Correspondenf]
WARRINGTON, Dec 81.
Old things are passing away, but all
things are not made new. The old and
the new are 80 blended that it is impos.
sible to tell where the one ends, or where
the other begins. The are many courses
from the egg to the apple, and there is
a hazy frontier where vice fades into
virtue. Reve lations no longer burst up
on our unprepared senses, but rather
dawn upon our expectant understand
ings. hope you will not think your
correspondent has not been drinking
egg nogg, for all this platitude is not that
ordinary Christmas inspiration, but
merely prelude to letter upon the de-
cline and fall of the political machine,
beneath its ruins; for, you know, the
! orator said: 1.-THE day that her gallant
ship goes down, our little boat sinks in
the vortex" The "little boat" Is the So
cial machine, but this is simply truism
and narrow one at that, Jr all life in
tertwines.
Last night I went to the first New
York State sociable of the season, and
was disappoi nted in not seeing as many
| beautiful ladies as l had expected to see.
OF course il is ungallant and brutal to
blurt this truth out, but I paid for my
ticket; do not write for the Washington
papers, and it is not necessary for you,
Mr.. Editor, to hatter the ladies of this
city, you have doubtless enough of
that to do in your own district, and no
man should torture his conscience with
out an object From the accounts pub
| lished in the morning papers here Of the
"brilliant affair" "t6e superb dresses"
and the styles Of particular ladies, dis
guised in such exquisite rhetoric, that
could the sentences be materialized inte
fair womanhood, their own mothers
would not know them, it is evident that
the local press knows its business, and is
not making any new departure in this
sweet branch of Journalism. To molly
the envy of any woman who may read
the account in Washington paper, /
will say, on the authority OF an expert,
that there was but one costume worth as
much as 5000, and that was worn by a
lady of odious complexion, scraggy arms
and heavy features And this was the
New York sociable,that, in former times
was, If not all that the local journals
said, at least something more than
sparse attendance OF Department clerks
of both sexes, for. the immense hall used
TO be crowded with Senators and MEM
bers of the Lower House, and not un-
frequently the President add cabinet
were present. There is net much in the
decadence of this social institution, ex-
cept as it Is symptomatic of the decline
of something more important. For years
the residents from different States have
maintained their respective State soci-
ables at the capitol, and they have been
miniature courts of the respective States.
and intimately connected with their po-
litical campaign organizations. The
New York organization while it
was formally dissolved at the order of
the President, as a political machine,
encouraged by the defiance of Senator
Conkling, has made desperate effort to
live in social guise with a half closed
eye on politics, waiting for what may
turn up. Its effort to live l believe, a
failure, and its death is an episode In the
progress of reform. Reform, in its ety.
| us hope that the change, or reform, will
not be for the worse.
A remark heard very often In Wash
ington is "Society here Is very pecu-
| liar. 1t is not as it is in other places y
Those who take a superficial view of
the subject, attribute certain social phe-
nomena to what theyI vaguely term the
depravity of Washington society but
society here, as elsewhere, is the result
of natural, artificial, and Psychological
forces, and is not essentially different
from the society of any capital, or from
the society OF the various localiues which
compose it. We have here the govern
ment clerk from Name, Tenn, s. O., and
every other State. AS a rule / do not
think they are as well informed. as easv
and simple in their manners or as taste
full in their dress as the average salesman
or clerk in other cities but they are, in
the worst sense. excellent pohtieians.
They have lived long in fear of an Off
cial axe that never ceases to menace the
thread of their tenure. A long state of
dependence and vassalage has under
mined their manliness aud stimulated
the arts of servility and cunning. 1t is
the constant study of the clerk to please
the Chief of his Bereau, not so much by
attention to his clerical work as by some
personal favor or work of homage. He
knows by instinct the observation of
Chesterfield "that princes are more fiat
tered by personal attachment than by a
political servi ces" and the Chief of the
Bereau is his prince. The Bareaucrat is
In turn servile aud ndleunning, for his prince
is cabinet officerof some powerful poll
tician patron. And this it is through all
the depths and shoals of political and of
eial life. Titled men, generals and judges
of soft muscle and mediocre ability, have
their ambition soothed with sinecures,
and the silvery rythm of regular pay
With such men and such motives it will
be inferred that society at the CAPITOL, so
far as it is effected by departmental otf1-
cial life, has not in its organism the prom
ise of power and perfection. But depart
mental, Official and clerical, society is
two other classes in Washington would
call a lower strata. True, some of It's in
dividuals are cultured, as they say in
Boston, and many others have progress
ed so far as to say "either" and neither
with the II sound on the first syllable, or,
If through force of habit and better
education they inadvertently give those
words the sound, they repeat and cor
rect themselves as Judge Davis did on
the same words in his first speech in the
Senate. Big men, mean big in the way
of beet and adipose do puerile things
sometimes. But to return to the subject
The higher strata of society is composed
of naval and military officers and their
families. The way they elevate their
aristocIatic noses, ape foreign manners
and fashions, repel an ordina y member