The Washington critic., 1886-03-05
TOPICS OF THE DAY.


Says the Chicago Maas "Club
Man: II understand that the only at
tempt ever made at tailoring on first
class scale for ladies In Chicago has
been failure. The establishment
have in mind is that very high. priced
one in the Palmer building, where
gentlemen are charged $40, or there.
abouts, for suit and ladies 800. The
proprietor believed that there were
enough rich women here who loved
elegant dressing to support an estab
lishment gotten up as he had always
gotten up his mems clothes. On this
theory he engaged cutter for ladies
tailor made garments, and contracted
TO pay him 81, 600 year. The tailors
were engaged and women. The de-
partment has never, | am told, paid.
There are not hundred women here
who will pay 800 for tailor made
garment, and 1t takes just about one
hundred customers to support the de-
partment on the scale on which 1t was
started and has been run. There is a
most successful establishment of this
kind in New York and over one hun
dred people are employed by IT,"
~
Andrew jackson. the typical Dem.
ocrat of our country, says f. II. r. in
the Atlanta Constitution, could dis.
count the most accomplished diplomat
in Washington in the social graces
which he mastered after he was past
middle life. Nobody ever heard of
Abraham Lincoln doing an awkward
thing, and have seen Grant on more
than one occasion preserve poisc and
equanimity amid glittering social splen-
dors which would have made the scion
of the We're de Veres green with envy.
So it is with President Cleveland. He
needs no one to tell him what to do.
Though he had seen comparatively
little of high life before he came to
Washington, he knew that the men
and women he was 10 meet were of the
| same fibre as those with whom he had
associated all his life. He has mas
tered the flimsy philosophy Of
Clothes" There was a good deal of
cheap compliment to his plebeian ori-
gin and democratic habits when he was
elected One eXultant tribune of the
people declared that at last we had "a
President who would not be afraid to
sit on the White House steps in his
shirt sleeves or go into the back yard
for turn of wood" All these beau
tiful hopes have been blighted The old
White House was never so brilliant as
it has been during this Administration
1t endured reign of social stupidity
and stinginess under Hayes. Garfield
occupied it only few months. and
during that time 1t was more like q
political club house than the foremost
mansion In the country. Arthur al
ways entertained elegantly; and Demo-
cratic orators who inveighed against
the Administration in the afternoon,
in the evening crossed their legs COM
placently under its mahogany and
drowned their animosity in its wine.
President Cleveland has gone q step
further than his predecessors. His re-
ceptions are more frequent and more
gorgeous. His dinners are costlier and
adorned with achievements of artistic
cuisine before which the rarest delica.
cies of the Arthurian board pale into
insignificance. The.Prcsident is fulfill
| lilS hlb SOCtul dutiC5 Wlbh u
which Is beyond criticism. At this no
body complains, or has right to com.
plain, but people do talk about the man
ners of the Cabinet. 1t is as easy to see
any of the crowned heads of Europe as
1t Is to approach Cabinet officer in
| Washington The elevator man re-
Dukes the visitor with patronizng
stare when asked to elevate him to the
floor on which the Office of the magnatc
is situated. He encounters at the out
side door of the ante-room a dusky
| Cerberus who opens the portal with
slow disdain. On entering he is at the
mercy of fnt messenger who coldly
asks for his card. BY this time the
boldest Office seeker Is ahead of the
lamb in meekness. He seeks seat in
the corner, and after an hour or two OF
| patient waiting Is informed that he may
enter the sanctum sanctorum. There
| sense of reinsurance rescucs him from
his despondency for he beholds In the
object of all this ceremonious grandeur
only man.
~
Mr.. Alexander Colwell White ol
Brookville is another new member fol-
pennsylvania, says Washington cor
respondent of the Pittsburg Chronicle
Telegraph. He sits back near the door
and walks up and down the aisle occa
sionally, as If he found the draughts o.
air from the outside uncomfortable
He has not done anything yet, and if il
the whole session he should not say {
word he would still compare favorably
with his predecessor, Mr. Patton, as {
model of industry and Congressiona
work Patton was one of the mos
singular individuals who ever repre-
sented an unfortunate constituency
Up to the last day of the ses
sion he was not quite SURE
that he was here, and at home
always think he is wondering whethe
he was in Congress or not. He used tC
sit with his chair tilted back and hi
legs dangling down to the floor. Wher
the speeches were going on, and wher
| tho clork cOmmanppd reading rpnOrtl