Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1886-05-21
VOL. g. NO.5L MEDICINE LODGE BARBER co. KAS FRID
COSTLY PASTIMES.
How Some Untrammeled New
Workers Spend Their Time.
leisure Backed by Money-AmazI1glyE Ex-
Pensive Excursions Projected BY the
Heirs of fHard-WorI<ing Mep-
An Old Merchants Chat


way the other day, as he pulled his arm
chair into a sunny corner of his office
window and placed his heels upon the
frigid steam radiator, 'are so many and
so numerous that one would think that we
had great moneyed aristocracy here,
Just as they have in London or Paris. In
point OF fact there is a leisure class, as it
is called abroad, growing in New York
CITY, and 1t is becoming larger every day.
remember the time when l knew everv
private equipage in the city of New York
by sight; at that time it was considered
rather the proper thing to be connected
with the shipping office, and every man
worked for his living in some way or an
other. Now there are hundreds of men
who consider employment of any sort as
entailing more or less disgrace, and it is
an unquestionalle fact that men who earn
their incomes, whether they he LAWYERS.
merchants or manufacturers, are con-
sidered socially beneath the little circle of
drones who do not soil their hands with
the earning of money in any way.
The papers offer the most striking IL
lustration of the vast pecuniary resources
of our leisure class. Iran over the society
columns of leading New York paper this
morning on my way down town, and there
were dozen items there that made my
plebeian and economical old soul palpiiate
with surprise. But, to begin with, before
1 began reading, 1 was obliged to halt
su ddenly on my way across Fifth avenue
to Svoid Icing run down by magnificent
coach with four thoroughbred horses. a
lot of spick and span English grooms,
and party of gayly -attired young men
ana women, bowling merrily out OF town.
The whole turnout was so magnificently
lavish and exclusive In its appointments
and its general affect, the attire of the
women was so gorgeous, and the men
seemed such superior beings that sud-
denly felt like sbrivelled up and unin-
portant old man who had no right to exis.
upon the face of the earth, whereas the
moment before had been stepping along
briskly, forgetting oil about my age and
Ihepmatism in the pleasant spring sun
shine. The coaching party went rolling on
70 the melody of a guards horn and the
laughter of the young men and women who
were perched aloft. and / crawled YEARLY
and rheumatically down Thirty fifth
street and took my place dejectedly in the
corner of car. / don't think il was envy.
1t was simply sort of oppression at the
sight OF that merry party OF butterflies ]
felt some curiosity about them, for you
know was acquainted in my youth with
most of the fathers of the leisure class of
New York, so turned the society column
Of the paper 10 see If / could find cut what
was going on. learned frcm short and
careless paragraph that one of the bes;
members of the Coaching Club had made
p party of eight friends to go on tour
NJ the old Boston turnpike and through
the eastern country wherever it might
happen TO strike their fancy, just to enioy
the good old sport of coaching, with an
accidental little picnic thrown in. They
were to he gone ten days. There were
twelve horses sent ahead for RELAYS, and
the baggage of the party, where it was
too volumnous to be packed with the
coach, was sent along by special express.
All of which is a clever and pleasant little
scheme, but imagine the tremendous out
lay. fell to computing it in my senile
and cumbersome way in the corner of the
car until it got so far up into the thou
sands that my poor old-fashioned head
began to ache.
1.-The gentleman who was giving this
little excursion was the son of a dear old
friend OF mine. There never was a man in
the general produce business in New York
who was more steadfa,t and honest bus
mess man than he. His method of curing
hams is still unrivaled. though it is forty
odd years old. He is dead now, and his
fortune, which is very large, is being taken
care of by his son.
~ returned to the society column of the
paper and saw that another m'lionaire's
son was having his yacht put into commits
sion for trip 10 Madagascar and back.
That's all, you know; just running over to
Madagascar with a crew of thirty or 70 ty
men and a boat full of guests at an ex-
pense of seven or eight hundred dollars
day. The trip would probably last the
greater part of a year, with the time taken
for short visit to London, Paris and
Rome. For moment it seemed impossi-
BILE to me that there could be men in New
ork who could afford TO go off for years
pleasure and leave their interest at home,
but the careless and commonplace way in
which the paragraph written indicates
that our leisure class has many members
who think nothing of going of for a jam
boree of year in length.
"These little things do not excite any
particular comment, apparently, and yet
to US more ordinary mortals they seem to
be events of extraordinary magnitude.
In the same paper there is report of the
condition of Mr.. Pierre Lorillard's Tux
edo Park. This is scheme involving
hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Law
ing aside of an immense tract of beautiful
country stocked with game, all for the
amusement of n few wealthy New York
ers who care to shoot for week or two
in the summer. Still in the same paper
it is told that DR.. Seward Webb, son-in-
law of the late w. II. Vanderbilt, has
formed regular association for the pur-
pose of giving winter ice carnival in
Burlington, and that Mr. William 4. VAN
derbilt, at the head of q dozen brother
milIionaires, has purchase an island off
the coast Of Georgia, on which fortunes
viii be spent so that IL may be fit to re-
ceive any of the leisure class who may
stray down there. There are country
clubs innumerable all around New York
where fortunes are invested for the tenn
might almost say the
omentary-amusemen Of men of means.
The rest of us who toll for our liv-
ing and consider a walk up Broad
way really an event of some n1agni-
tude in an amusement way, you know,
read Of these things, and are apt to sigh
and wish that we. too. could sometimes
gain a moment from the busy cares Of
The world to have just little of the good
things that have fallen in such abundance
70 the lot OF our brothers and sis.ers.n
At the coronation OF Queen Victoria a
curious incideut occurred i'll the middle of
the solemnity. "One ruby ring had been
made for her little finger instead of the
fourth, on which the rubric prescribcs that
II should be put. When the Archbishop
was to put it on she extended the former.
but he said that it must be on the latter.
She said it was too small, and she could
not get 1t on. He said it was right to put
I there, aud as he insisted she yielded,
but had first TO take OF her other rings.
and then this was forced on, but it hurt
Y cr-wr oh.