Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-09-26
GALL rs VANITY"
Preacheth ssGath," After His Brief
Sojourn in Newport
L0ndOnized Pharisees, Impenitent
Pnbiicans and Unrc-enerated
Walters. Cottage Carts and
Polo Playing---The Bill
to Foot.

Il
port, R. I. This is perhaps the supplies,
place of reputation along the sea coast OF
the United States. Nature has done every
thing to make it beautiful. Snobbery and
stupidity have sacrificed its beauties and
turned into sounding formality what might
have been a common meeting place of New
York and Boston and the cosmopolitan
world
No town has had so much written about it
as Newport, and none so completely stupefes
not only visitors, but apparently its residents
also. There IS but one hotel in the town with
any assumption of being first class, and it
stands just on the edge of the cottage or villa
| district, and also removed from the business
| and citizen quarter, and here a block or two
of stores have been put up containing such
matters as the cottagers may want, such as
confectionery, bakeries, trimmings, a drug
store and four or five shops for bric-a-brac,
china and contemporary characterization to
suit the present day. Along this block or two
the visitor wanders, peeping into the same
stores again and again, and he finally comes
TO the conclusion that nearly all the people
in the town are dead, and that they are al
/ lowed to break their spell about an hour in
the afternoons and come forth coTpSes and
| ride around until they get their signal some
way or other, and then glide back into their
| graves, and 50 must expiate in the present
! the sins of the summer season in the weird
! past. It has been remarked that the faces of
! these people as they ride are screwed up into
| deathlike solemnity. In the extravaganza eff
forts to make perfect imitation of the latest
English pronunciation and at the same time
| TO hold their eye glasses in the socket Of their
eyes, they seem to exercise all their permitted
vitality during the times when they are al
lowed to walk abroad. As they pass the
Ocean house, the principal hotel, they turn
more corpselike than ever, as if some special
curse lay in wait for them there A CLASSY
film comes over their eyes, their chins
lengthen out, they look neither to the left nor
right, and the word seems to pass along the
dead line: 'Yonder is publican sitting on
the hotel porch; thank God We are not as
he isn
On the other hand, the publicans are ex-
tremely miserable, as can be noticed when
you look through the dining groom at the list
less waters, all negroes, who seem to have
become Supplied at the sight of those daily
corpses going past, and they have reached the
extreme height of forgetfulness in darkey
waiter. Ever since the close Of the war the
negro has been losing his memory Fifteen
years ago he could bring you an order of five
dishes He sided back until it was beyond
his power to remember more than three
dishes of the same order, and saw the stu
pendOus performance at Newport of a waiter
at supper actually forgetting an order of one
dish. Being told to bring cold roast beef he
brought cold corn beet, and when sent back
returned with cold chicken. The head
l.
have been, seemed to me to be wholly outside
of his wits. People would complain at the
table of imperfect serving; that they got
nothing that they ordered, and not much that
they did not order; the assistant head waiter
would walk to the sill Of the kitchen, look in
with his mouth open as if he were afraid to
enter, walk back few steps and look tinor-
orQusly at the offended guests, then walk up
the room and confer with the head waiter,
and so the solemn ceremonial seemed to be
going on during the two days 1 stayed there.
l could attribute all this absence of mind to
nothing but highly artificial conditions in the !
atmosphere Whatever nature has put j. IN
the mind Of man to do nobody at Newport
mustdo. Nature has maze there two excel
lent beaches, one in particular as good as
ever saw, with a fine hard bottom, splendid
surf, and no undertow; but when you go to
the beach you see beggarly array of servant
girls and excursionists from Providence put
ting on bathing suits for which they charge
from ID cents to 25 cents, as if in the yawn- !
ing chasm between Democracy and aristo- !
cracy at Newport nobody outside of the high
world dared charge enough for any thing
On the other hand, the Newport high .ofned
people seem to spend their davc-~S,;I-i,,c.
wagons which no respectable n ~ 6yo,elt,,1
to the light American wage, >[ro,,1J he soo,,
conducting. You viii observe some yonrg
fellow with high ,c%o-wheeled cart which
seems to be l.fti6g the horse off his front legs
iloSC - a1e tins desperately endeavoring to
eve his> ~tady up Bellevue avenue, and
Attls ftInky, overdressed in buckslins and
yellow cloths, will be solemnly sticking on
behind, all of them looking as if there were
invisible moses around their necks and they
were presently going to be swung up like
Major Andre when the cart is pulled away
from underther. Those who do not haYe
high carts ride in what appear to be Var
nished dry goods boxes, suspended low to the
ground, and likewise two-whseled. These
things they call cottage-carts. and you can
see two women trying to Lendonize it with
Il LHelI LIiSnt, tAnOF0dSty gong UeHLHu SoIlie
little mare or pony and aping the MOTORS of
buying carrot or half a cabbage at some of
the small stores IN the town.
Now and then you see woman endeavor-
ing to drive pair of horses and the agony
on her countenance is wonderful to behold.
She has been told that all high-bred women
graduate by driving pair, and you can see
the grooms and others come out to near the
edge of the little lanes as madam turns into
the great avenue, to watch her Off, and she,
with that corpse-like countenance | have
mentioned, made somewhat more pallid by
human fear, proceeds sort of zig-zag down
the avenue, the horses themselves somewhat
awed by wondering what they have got
behind them and why it is SO. Undoubtedly
the air at Newport is as fine as one can get
it at the seaside in this country, but even
lambent and genial air, with 10 sociability
in it, soon becomes foreign air, and every
body that breathes it seems to be in exile in
his own country. That the vices do not
depart from Newport because Of the extent
of the style there is evident in the evenings,
when, by pairs, you will find what look to
be the nursemaids of these exclusive famil-
les stealing through the town on a SLY street
walk, resolved even at the expense of virtue
to break through the yoke of affection which
weighs on them all day.