The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1884-09-20
OUR LETTER FROM BRoADsRlM.

OUR LETTER FROM BROADBRlM.
New York's Wonderful Changes-Dude-
dom and Its King-Lawless Excursion
lists = Woman's Mysterious Devotion
The All Absorbing Question.
new York, September 13. 1884.
EDITOR CHIEF:
/ don't know what may come after us 'or
what revolution the next twenty years
may bring forth, but one thing is certain,
that the last twenty years have made u
greater change in New York city than the
preceding hundred. It is not simply that
the city has enlarged, it is SO completely
changed in everything that Rip Van
Wrinkle who went to sleep twenty years ago
waking up to-day would scarcely recognize
the city in which he went to sleep. There
are few places which remain unchanged
in the lower wards of the city, but in few
years even these will be swept away and
not an acient landmark will be left. The
New Yorker who remembers the Battery of
fifty years ago remembers it as the great
promenade of the lovers of those days, and
there were lovers then and plenty of them
not dudes who walked along the street
sucking the end of an attenuated walking
stick, but manly, stalwart young fellows
who could fight for their girls if occasion
required, and who when they went to work
in their stores and shops were not ashamed
to put on paper cap and an apron and
sweep off the sidewalk Or do any other
necessary duty. Work was not then con-
sidered disgrace and boys were brought
up to believe that the gods help those who
help themselves, and that mans proudest
boast should be that he was able to earn
his own living. regret to say that this
noble ambition to appear independent is
dying out and the highest aspiration of the
modern New York dude is to have the world
believe that somebody else is making his
living for him. It seems wonderful that
any sane young man in this somewhat
practical age of ours, should aspire to out
dude all the dudes of dudedom, yet on
Broadway any sunny afternoon you can see
Barry Wall, the acknowledged King of the
Dudes. Don't figure to yourself thin,
pale, consumptive individual that summer
zephyr would leave hopeless wreck; moth
ing could be further from the truth. Barry
Wall is like Fred Gebhardt, Mrs. Langtry's
particular friend, a trained athlete who
could put on the gloves with Billy Edwards
or Mitchell and not get badly knocked
out.
The young gentlemen in the country who
start in for dudes and think that all that is
necessary to make frst-class article is to
have consumptive chest and thin pair
of legs, had better not come to New York.
The New York dude may part his hair in
the middle and his pants may fit him like
an eelskin, but he can walk ten miles be-
fore breakfast, throw himself over hori-
zontal bar, and box with Sullivan accord
ing to the Marquis of Queensberry rules,
but he won't follow any useful occupation
if he can help it, or if he does he won't let
anybody know it. Barry Wall had money
left him by an industrious father, and he
started in early to enjoy life after his FASH
ion, and he may be called success, if
clothes and notoriety can make it, for there
is not young man in New York more
talked about to-day. He seldom wears the
same suit more than two or three hours,
and some of his changes are even more
frequent than that; but no matter how he
changes he still out-dudes all the other
dudes of New York. The set of his pants is
unapproachabIe, the knot of his necktie
Immaculate, the curl of his hat superb, the
width of the rim astounding. He has an
army of humble followers who look up to
him with awe and reverence, feeling the
hopelessness Of ever arriving at his stun
ming perfection. Forty years ago one of the
celebrated characters of New York was
Dandy Marks, a famous beau in his day,
something more than Beau Hickman and
less than Beau Brummel; but Dandy Marks
would have committed suicide If he had
ever caught sight of Barry Wall. He can
hold q big round glass in one eye longer
than any other fellow in New York, and to
do, that well with your mouth open on one
side as if you we're having 9 tooth pulled is
an accomplishment which is not to be
sneezed at. tt is q melancholy exhibition