Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-10-29
sACKvILLE SOCIALLY.


From the Philadelphia Times.
There are many things to indicate that the
position u Lord Sackville at Washington has
been irksome to him for long time, and that
he has been far from satisfied with the icy for.
mality with which he has everywhere been re.
ceived almost since he came to this country
He is . strange man, with two idiosyncrasiet
that peculiarly unfit him for anything approach.
ing popularity in this country. One is an ex.
allied notion Of the importance Of family and
title, and the other q latitudinarian disregard
OF the conventionalities, especially those Of the
family life, that in this country, without ar
aristocracy to set q viscious example, are &c
pure and strong.
In family connection he has peculiar inter.
est to Philadelphians as the present head of the
take take their names. When he came to thif
country, instead Of taking one Of the New Yorl
steamers, he came on one of the National Line
In order to sail up the bay to which his ances-
tor gave his name century and half ago.
All who met Lord Sackville, then Sir Lionel
Sackville-West, ON that occasion were impressed
with his hauteur, his narrowness and his gen.
orally unpleasant British peculiarities.
The present complication is really a social as
well as political one, and it will possibly be
found in the end that the social aspect OF the
relation Of Lord Sackville and his family with
the President and members Of the Cabinet and
their wives may have led up to this climax. II
is curious also that social questions have been
involved in several of the changes that have
taken place before in Lord Sackville's diplo-
Washington, when it became known that his
eldest daughter was coming over and would
preside at his house, official socity was stag
gered by the discovery that the young ladies
were daughters of different mothers and that
Minister West had never been legally married.
xko<.v
dependence of the ordinary conventionalities,
while accepting and educating these daughters
born in the different countries where he had rep
resented her majesty's government, had declin.
ed to recognize their mothers As a result, official
society in Washington deliberated whether il
could recognize either Minister West or the
young ladies who, through no fault of theil
own, he had placed in this position.
The conclusion arrived at appears to have
been to tolerate them and accept them ''of6
cially," but no further. At the reception which
Minister West gave soon after his arrival Mrs
Hayes consented to stand by the side of Miss
West Yet not then nor since has Minister
West or any member of his household received
from any Of the ladies Of the successive Cabi
nets any such social place as was accorded, fol
instance, to Lady Thornton while there. Mrs
Garfield studiously ignored them. President
posed, and his attentions to Miss West were al
one time SO marked as to be the occasion OF
much gossip at the capital.
With the advent OF Mrs. Cleveland in the
White House the social status of Minister West
and the Misses West in official circles com.
pletely and wholly collapsed. She refused, per.
emptorily and uncompromisingly, to have any.
thing to do with them socially. This was gall
and NORWOOD to Lord Sackville, and it is un-
doubtedly to this circumstance that is owing
more than anything else the departure of the
Misses West for Europe. In this view of the
case Lord Sackville's letter assumes the nature
of Parthian shot.