Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-05-18
MANHATTAN SOCIETY.


MANHATTAN SOCIETY.
How the Failure Affects the Grants and
Keenes-Miss AstOr's Engagement -
Fashionable Barn StOrming.
Correspondence Of the Morning Meas.
NEW YORK, May 15.-HOw like sar-
casm the call published in yesterdays
papers, requesting John Jacob AstOr and
half-a-dozen other men of similar kidney
to designate the time and place for a
meeting to bring about the nomination of
President Arthur as his own successor,
reads in the light of yesterdays PANEL
The call was signed by II. b. Claflin &
Co., E. S. Jaffray & Co., Tiffany u Co.,
and hundreds of prominent business and
professional men. The signers spoke of
themselves as "among those who manage
and control the great business interests
which centre here, and involve the pros
perity of the whole country" and declared
that their sentiments should find means
of public expression but for the welfare of
the country and injustice to good Presi-
dent" The ''welfare of the country" de-
mands the continuance of the Republican
party in power, when Republican misrule
is responsible for ten years of commercial
perienced, which finally has eliminated
in the collapse Of yesterday!
Looking at it from a political stand
point, there is a silver lining to the cloud
which now OYerspreads the financial fir
mament. Out Of the nettle, panic, the
Democrats next autumn will pluck the
flower, success. Experience, at any rate,
teaches this. 1t was the panic of 1887
which defeated VanBuren when he ran
for a second term in 1910. 1t was the
panic of 1878 which in. 1876 gave to Tilden
the Presidency out of which christian
statesmen and pure patriots of the stamp
of Edmunds, the cocktail Senator"
cheated him. It was the partial revival
of business in 1880 which caused the come
mercial men of New York to unite in tn
support of Garfield, for fear that a change
of ADMINISTRATION would turn back the
financial tide.
The tide did turn without any change of
government. It's poor rule which won't
work both ways. Many OF the men who have
signed the cali for the meeting indOrsIng
President Arthur will doubtless vote next
fall to produce the change which they
dreaded four years ago. At any rate, that
is the present outlook, and that the events
of the past ten days nave done more to
elect a Democratic President than any,
thing which has yet happened,i is the opin-
ion of nearly all whom l have talked to on
the subject.
TO GO FROM PROM PANICS AND POLITICS
to things social: "a pin was found,'' an
nOune6d Mr.. Courtlandt Palmer when
the Nineteenth Century Club assembled
at his house last Tuesday evening.
ga diamond PIN" interrupted Mrs.
Palmer.
GA diamond pin was found,' repeated
Mr.. Palmer, accepting the correction,
''after the last meeting"
sit was the meeting before the last"
again interrupted Mrs. Palmer.
''The meeting before the last" con-
tinued Mr.. Palmer, (which the lady to
whom it belongs may have by claiming
it,
Only a New York woman, certainly,
after losing a diamond pin would permit
an entire month to elapse without making
some effort to find it. l doubt, indeed,
whether the owner took the trouble to
claim the pin when it had been found for
her.
John Swinton, the labor refOrmer. adj
dressed the club at the meeting which
opened with this diamond pin, discussion
on "SOcal Contrasts" The audience,
apparently, expected that he would APP
pear without coat or collar and waving
the red flag of communism, and were pro-
portiOnately disappointed at seeing him
attired in very correct evening dress-the
conventional white cravat surmOunting
the snowy shirt front, which cOntrasted
with his black swallow tail His dis
course was in character with this attire,
and he said little which was extreme
Although much that he said was original
he made the mistake of telling people, the
majority of whom had spent years abroad
when he had passed months, petty Incl
dents of his recent tours IN England and
France, and described things and places
with which even those who have not been
abroad are familiar. He made, in addi-
ton, some startling assertions; for eX-
ample, he SAID that family morality had a
stronger hold in France than any country
which he had ever Visited
While there may not be, as is some |
times said, one law for the rich and an /
other for the poor in New York the police |
certainly are respectors Of persons in re-
gard to the law requiring the saloons to !
be closed on Sunday. The prOprietOrs of /
the 'swell'' drinking places are permitted |
to openly violate it with impunity, while |
the keepers of the smaller saloons are
forced to assume a virtue which they have |
not and pretend to observe the law in the /
very act of violating it, / was struck |
with this fact last Sunday, when wishing
to show friend from out of town Bou-
guereau's famous pictures Of the Satyr
and Nymphs, l visited Ed. Stokes bar
room in the Hoffman House. Had we
gone TO saloon on Third or Sixth avenue,
we would have been obliged to enter,
were we admitted at all, through a side
or back door, ana everything about the
place would have indicated an outward
observance of the Sunday law. There
was no such regard paid to appearances
at the Hoffman House. The doors of the
barrOOm opening on the street were closed,
to be sure, but the inside doors were open,
and traveller registering his name on the
hotel blOtter could easily see men drink
ing in the adjoining barrOOm, while a
nearer view disclosed the bartenders mix
ing their decoctions. The only acknowledge
ment paid to the law was in complying
with the requirement that customers
should seat themselves at tables before
they could be served. This put them in
the position of "guests" of the hotel. and
as such they were entitled to the privi-
lege of drinking on Sunday. The bar,
however, was exposed, although the law
requires it to be covered.
Bouguereau's picture merits much that
has been said in its praise. The figures
stand out from the painting as if they
were real and endowed with life. AS the
four nymphs who have seized the Satyr
are nude, the effect is startling to say the
least. This Illusion, however. my friend.
who was fresh from Paris, said was only
q trick, which nearly every French
painter of the nude possesses, The ma
lorlty of the paintings in the present col
lection at the Paris Salon are equal in