Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-14
GOSSIP FROM GOTHAM
The Burning Question of the Hour
Among Society Women,
TO SMOKE Or NOT TO SMOKE.
Bierstadt's Artistic Success, The Last Of
the Buffalo.
DR. FON BULOw AND HIS CATACLTSM
rcoRHrsroNDExcE OF THE D1spArcH.l

OF Tie uOuE Will tuC 4dAA A4CS-
danes and demoiselles of New York is,
shall women smoke" All the women
prominent in literary, political and theat-
rical circles are taking up the pen to tell
what they know about it. The fact that
Her Grace, the Duchess of Marlborough,
nee Lilly Hammersley, is credibly reported
to be addicted to her Havana cigar. mind
you, not a cigarette-has beyond doubt had
something to do with raising this interest
ing subject and question, ana filed the
daily and weekly papers with pot pourri
of sense and nonsense about evenly divided,
from such notables as Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
Mrs. Frank Leslie Charlotte Adams, Fanny
Davenport, Mrs. Lily Langtry and even
Belva Lockwood. The best essay so far
published was inspired by the delicious
aroma of Charlotte Adams superb ''Turk-
ish Beaties," and is a most voluptuously
beautiful eulogium of the little rolls of to-
bacco wrapped with rice paper.
The whole thing has been a splendid ad-
vertisement for the manufacturers of cigar
cites, and 1 know of at least two well-known
society girls, who are inclined to just a lit
tie abandonment-quite "fy" in fact-that
have taken religiously to the vice simply
because La Dame Adams said it was nice.
1t is probable that the revival of the habit
may even spread to Pittsburg, and because
it is Just at this time fashionable fad
resurrected in New York and diligently
practiced by ultra flip women of the haut
ton, will be accepted as quite the thing by
the more rapid girls in Pittsburg society.
say to them, don't. IF they could take
ramble through a cigarette factory, where
the disgusting little denominations are manu.
tactured, as 1 did one day last week, it
would effectually dampen their ardor to try
this fad at least. BY way of a simile:
Suppose one of these ''fy" girls was to see
baker take his dough out of the pan, spit
on it and roll it in the dirt of the floor be-
fore making it up into loaves and baking.
Would she relish the bread when it came
out of the oven, no matter how beautifully
brown and nice the top crust of the loaves
looked?
DR.. Hans Won Bulow has actually opened
his American concert season without q cata-
clysm. A cataclYsm was feared, of course.
What is Won Bulow season without one
more than Sunday school without cate
chism? They go together.
Mr.. Schwab, the great "pianist's" mana
ger, is, as everybody admits, the most
equable-tempered man that ever scuttled
play or cut a coupon. Mr.. Schwab has cir
eumvented too many wind storms on the
tempestuous sea of journalism and manage
nent to court them everyday divertisse-
ment He has, as we'll, graduated in diplo-
macy out of the bitter school of experience
with hosts OF prime-donne and countless fas-
cinating prime-tenore. But the sum of his
policy and aggregation of his art, fancy, is
barely equal to the task of keeping his dis
tinguished pianistic protege in good humor
and en- rapport with his surr oundings at all
hours OF the day and night Certainly since
the Herr Doctor set foot upon our auriferous
hut unsympathetic shores, Mr.. Schwab has
Oeen doing nothing but throwing oil by the
hogshead on the agitated waters in which
the great pianist has been foundering. The
fact that he succeeded in calming the storm
by the time the first concert was given on
Monday afternoon, does equal credit to his
head and to his art.
Every precaution was taken on this occa-
sion to calm the troubled spirit of the
maestro into at least temporary placidity.
The stage of the Broadway Theater was set
with scene that seemed to be the very
home of peace. Flowers and palms were
everywhere. A landscape scene, summer
sky and blue sea in the background, on the
surface of which not a ripple rippled. One
might have imagined the muses. sitting list
ening to Won Bulow and Apollo contesting
for the crown of rnusic-with the previous
arrangement, of course, that the diadem
was to go to Won Bulow, SO that the muses.
might be amply satisfied. The concert was
in every way delightful. When Won Bulow
appeared on the stage he smiled an imperial
smile. The house was full, and many love-
ly young women were among the audience,
holding their music books on their laps,
open, ready to follow the maestro's interpre-
tation of their beloved Beethoven.
DR. Won Bulow is a great master among
masters of music, even if he is not master
of his temper. No hand that has ever
touched a piano has ever made it vibrate
with such delicious, splendid living reson-
ance. 1t is the spell of a great magician
that this strange nerve-cursed and brain
laden genius exercises in the art on which
he has set necromantic seal. He played
six of Beethoven's sonatas chronologically
and II variations on Russian dance song
six variations on an original theme in z
major oU. "a. What about his work i'm
pressed one most was his absolute fidelity to
Beethoven, to interpret whom DR.. Won
Bulow has made it his mission. You will,
however, very soon, yourselves have the
pleasure of listening to this wonderful
pisnistie genius.
I spent two hours most proftably and de-
lightfully in Albert Bierstadt's studio on
Monday. Nearly all the time my eyes were
glued to his latest, most wonderful and
best picture, 1.-THE Last of the Buffalo" It
is a magnificent canvas, impressively de-
picting the stirring yet tragic process which
has now resulted in the virtual extinction
of a royal race. For the American bison,
popularity called the buffalo Ga term an
swerlng for both singular and plural, in
the sturdy frontier dialect) exists no longer
as a roamer of the Western plains and
intervales.
One can scarcely realize the swiftness
with which this has been effected, since the
first rails were laid across the American
continent. 1t eliminated in the work of
but little more than a quarter of a century.
In 1850 myriads of "the buffalo'-appar-
emily inexterminable, though even then at
tackled in front, flank and rear by whites
and Indians alike-were still darkening
their shifting grazing grounds, the vast un-
settled region of the West. In 1889
but one lone remnant of a herd; few bulls
a score of cows, and even these within a
Government reservation, the Yellowstone
Park. Two years ago q scientific expedi-
ton hunted long and determinedly to pro-
cure a few stray specimens of this noble
game. Probably bison in captivity now
outnumber the few still at large in the re-
mote businesses of the extreme Northwest
The royal buffalo are at last exterminated.
The beginning of the end is powerfully
suggested by an American master painter
-Bierstadt. Distinctly wonted-famils.r