The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1880-01-07
WASHINGTON LETTER.
New-Yeara, CaIIs-Thc Opening
Of The Fashionable Season
! How they Amuse Themselves
SON With the Dance"
From Our Regular Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Jan. Sd, 1880.

riats " 4AItANA.AA NAst $3.50 -fN-1 -N-SI'
The only event since the adjourn
meat Of Congress has been the LIST Of
January 1880: II was marked by
the usual receptions-of official, non
Official Diplomatic, and military
Every nan arrayed himself in his
clothes and called on the ladies
wherever they were prepared to re-
ceiyel The ladies were all dressed
most exqusitely, and many of them
stood under gas-lighted chandeliers,
withthe binds oftbeir parlors clos
ed. instantaneous photographs of
the tableaux Of presentation on that
day would he. interesting to those
who delight to study modern man.
ners, and whodiscern in bows, and
smiles and dress, and attitude, the
material that is the basis of so much
psychological dissemination in the
| moderisip pes $50.
With ttis beginning5of the New
Year, theIsocial season, as it is call
ed, will be fairly openedin Washing
ton. Many members of Congress,
who have been home during the hol-
idays, will return with their families,
and many others, unconnected with
official or public life, but to whom
wealth lends means, will come from
distant city and town to enjoy the
gaiety and excitement that season
at the Capital affords; and which will
continue, from the first of the New
Year until the commencement Of
Lent.
Our way of pretending to enjoy
ourselves is not peculiarly American,
but, like Jacques melancholy, "acom-
pound of many simples." French,
English, German and heathen-of
which dancing is the chief. In
Washington, nearly everybody and
her husband dances, in spite of age,
dignitics, and rheumatism. General
Grant, during his presidency, was
seen on more than one occasion to
tread measure with ease and grace.
General Banks went through the
square dances with gait half mill
tary, but with technical skill that
has for its explanation the fact that
long before he was Goyernorof Massa-
chusetts, Speaker of the House of
Representatives., or General in the
Army, he was teacher of the Ter
peschorran art. General Sherman,
bearing slight rheumatism, which
gives him q peculiar jerking gait,
may be seen in the ovolutions of the
ball room, 5and-always with a. young
and pretty partner. am told chat
he is also proficient in those round
dances against which Mrs. Sherman
welded her pen; but in the matter Of
round dances do not speak from OBJ.
servation. 1t must not be supposed,
however, that there are no dignifed
exceptions. There are some who do
not dance, at least not publicly. !
never heard of Mr.. Evarts dancing.
Judge Senator David Davis is too
i1savy to dance; but Speaker Ran
dali is not. I believe the American
habit of dancilg comes from a pass
ionate love of the amusement, but is
persisted in because no great leaders
oftOn have the genius toinvent cry
thing better to do. Among the elite
in European cities the men are ac-
complished, while the women are do
nestle and only slightly accomplish
ed. With us, women have all the &C.
complishments, and men, as a rule,
are valued only for their capacity to
make money. The result is that in
every social circle while the ladies
may be able to contribute music and
to talk intelligently, and even bril-
liantly, on a variety of subjects, the
gentlemen, with their exclusively
utilitarian education, are unable to
hold the foil upon which all real con-
versation depends. The dancer is a
man or woman of action rather than
of ideas, and dancing is a common
democratic plane to which the ether
tally minded condescend, and on
which the heavy witted find coarse
stimulent to that aesthetic life
which is not quite extinct in even
the grossest of men and women.
G. AS.
The usual list of murders ord