Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-08
THE SOCIETY COLUMN.
Some Classes of People to Whom It
Furnishes Intense Interest.

From the Boston Gazette
Among the funny people to be met are the
people who read society items with the deepest
interest without knowing any of the society
people. They form little circle Of acquaint-
ances Of these people in their minds, and smile
over their frolics and condole with them in
their misfortunes as if with old and near friends
They rarely or never see these objects Of their
admiration, and draw on their imagination in
a most remarkable manner without any found
alton whatever for some Of the conclusions
they arrive at regarding the personal appear
ance Of these objects. There are certain wo-
men they occasionally meet whom they feel
certain must be Miss Groing-Tuff and Mrs. J.
Tommy Crasher. and these women, though
they may be plain Mrs. Jones and Smith, are
ever after whirled through dinner parties and
balls, weddings and receptions in a manner
which would be most surprising to them if they
knew of it.
Some inoffensive young man from Roxbury
or North Cambridge, perhaps with nothing to
condemn him but quick shine and bouton-
Mere, is suspected of being the gay old bach,
Top-Lofty, whom half the mammas of Boston
are after for their daughters. Some disheveled-
looking young man-perhapsa dry-goods clerk,
who has used up half his incoming walking with
his girl and is trying to dodge in somewhere
for a ham sandwich to further sustain him I'M
I'll MS dinner tlme-ls taken Tor the talented
young Pen Pullet, who has recently written a
book. or some tired woman who doesn't know a
rondeau from an anthem, and has probably
been buying cake pans and skewers at Walkers,
Is thought to be the poetess, Mrs. Stopping
Over. The announcement of any coming fes-
tivity fills these outside observers with almost
as much anticipation as if their own snowy in
vitation had just arrived. If the day turns
out badly their sympathies are loud and fire.
quent for Poor Mrs. Patrician Puffer and her
ball." or "What an unpleasant day for the
races" or ''This will be nice evening for Miss
Rosebud Newbury to have her coming-out
party"
These outside observers can tell you Con
newspaper authority who has gone abroad or
south, where every one is going for the sum-
mer, who was at the last charity concert. and
whose husbands are club men. In all their
lives they may never meet these people or
know them by sight, but they get far more
pleasure from newspaper talk about them than
from the actual occurrences in the lives of
their everyday friends about them. Some OBJ
scure young clerk in dry goods palace, or
perhaps Johnny, who comes to take the pro-
vision order, fills out the fuller part of his life
through the items of a society which he can
never hope to penetrate. He does not know of
any great desire or ambition he has to pene-
trate it. 1t is to him only never-ending novel,
some words of which he has to skip, but on the
whole finds mighty interesting reading. He
knows enough of the personages in it to give it
all real side. Miss Rosebud Newbury has
often bought Fedora laces of him to make her
sachet-bags Of or if he is gentleman. in the
provision line, he has often taken an order
from grand and lofty people whose exit from
the store he has watched with open mouth
and shining eyes. After seeing them
daily, and fitting the names to the people
nicely. he finds much enjoyment in accounts of
their daily life. He is not quite positive that
he knows what a musicale is. or a soiree dam
sante, but he feels sure it is something entirely
different from the assemblies of Prof. Tip
toe, his dancing master. and he secretly dis
dains the latter and acquires a sort of blase air
which Sarah Mulligan finds awfully wicked and
fetching. Dressmakers who have these people
for patrons eagerly search the society columns
for bits of news which are often used for moth
ing worse than a cud of reflection though
sometimes they are served up to madame as
she tries on her dress, with sauce that is all
the dressmakers own. Tailors, milliners, shoe
makers, are all as familiar with the names of
certain families as they ere with those of their
favorite novels, and can reel them off with a
familiarity that is astonishing, and speak of
their pleasures and pains a matter they have
very much at heart. In the bliss in which
their ignorance keeps them, they see only the
sunny side of the soiree dansante and the
musicale, and, with no burnings of envy or
thirstings for revenge, they are the ones who
really enjoy the ''society columns" the most