Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-11-17
BUSY BUTTERFLIES.
How a Fashionable Woman Tolls In
defatigably Day and Night to
RETAIN RER SOCIAL STANDING,
Cabinet Ladies Who Sustain the Admins.
tration's Credit
NEED OF A CLEARING HOUSE FOR CARDS
WRITTEN FoR THE DIspATcH.I

| LSSSifS "uS AatIiS sympathy, huu HO wages
to speak of unless it be in the satisfaction Of
duty done, as they see 1t. These workers
have not been invited to join the knights OF
| Labor. As class they take little or no in
terest in the W. G. 7. o. They give no aid
or counfenance to reforms or movements for
making the world better or wiser, save per-
haps in church bazaars aud individual in
stances. They are simply devoted-head
and heart, body and soal, and all that in
them is-to society, as it is understood to
mean the circle of social caste" which in
every village and town and city fastidiously
and exclusively claims through virtue of
ancestry or fortune to be the upper class.
In order to hold and to gain position "in
society" these women work, and manage,
and maneuVer and bring powers of mind
capacity for endurance, and energy of ann
bition worthy of nobler end and higher
aim. To maintain their prestige and duly
impress outsiders with the magnitude OF
their Importance, they must entertain with
great elegance and severe exclusiveness.
They must go forth day after day, and make
calls and distribute cards. They must at
tend receptions, and teas, and dinners, and
charity fairs and swell weddings. From
morning until night they are engaged in
this society business, and complain of moth
ing SO much as being worn out and bored to
death.
The busy women who are not "in society, I"
but have six or seven children to make and
to mend for, to train and to teach as to
catechism and manners, whose thoughts and
endeavors are given at all available times
to the vexing problem of how to make both
ends meet on narrow means, are apt to envy
these danes of fashion, and to imagine that
their days are full of joys and the bliss of
rest from carking care, but if they only
| knew it their fashionable sisters work as
hard as they at the drive of fashion and the
demands of society and find little or no time
to read or to rest or to enjoy.
A SOCIETY woMAN's WORK.
Take note of the society woman so-calIed.
In the morning she gives her orders for
the day to her servants. Then she goes off
to the dressmaker's, or to do shopping, or to
marketing, or other indispensable work
The afternoon is devoted to calls and cards,
while evening is usually given to dinner,
or an entertainment of some sort that more
often than not is dull as dishwater, or a re-
ception that proves to be only depressing
encounter-under false pretenses of pleasure
between bores and bored. Weddings,
parties, at homes and dinners "in society"
are mainly matters OF elaborate decorations,
exhibitions of exquisite china, splendid
services of cut glass and silver and menu
of numerous and costly courses, with wines
to match, with the proper number of stupid
people done up in full dress, who are rarely
congenial, intellectual or otherwise than
| solemnly dull at any scene of festivity.
These eat and drink and walk
around and exchange compliments in an
artificial way that imposes on nobody as
sincere or heartfelt How strongly these
| grand and stately entertainments, with the
| guests arrayed in their best clothes, the
women vieing with each other as to dia-
monds and low-cut gowns, and with digni-
| fed dullness as the prevailing feature-con-
trast with the little cozy dinners with con-
genial friends, where the sparkle of Jewels
and cut glass is more than made up by the
brilliance of wit and play of humor, where
with palmer but better cooking and less of
blaze and glitter the good stories are told.
the solemn jokes bring smiles and cheerv
laughter, which, as Carlyle says, is ''the
cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole
| man."
'In society" the cost of the Jewels a
woman wears is the fact most usually chron-
icled to show her standing, while the dollars
man possesses are given as evidences of
his title to high position and distinguished
notice. Mrs. Astor, as accounts go, is re-
markable for nothing special, save her dia-
monds, which represent so much actual
cash, that when she attends reception a
policeman in evening dress accompanies her
for their protection. But while this wealth
of sparkling stones may be solace to her
soul, and give her the comforting satisfac-
tion that few, If any, can compete with her
in their possession, yet their mere display
ADDS NO ADDITIONAL zEsT
to the enjoyment of the company. All of
the Mrs. Astors, save the first, rank as dull
women, with nothing to distinguish them
from the common herd, except their wealth.
The first Mrs John Jacob Astor, as is re-
lated, helped her husband with his work of
dressing and tanning furs, and to make the
future upon which her successors base their
claims to exclusiveness and social prestige.
Mrs. Astor is the acknowledged leader of
society in New York, but what is her in
fuence in the country as compared with
some who are leaders of thought, whose
claims to distinction are founded on brains
rather than on priceless precious stones?
In almost every little rural village or
country town there is a small clique or ex-
elusive set called 'tsociety" To be in this
pretensions either by virtue of ancient
lineage, blue blood or money-to be outside
means to be common, to be plsbeian, to be-
long to the lower orders. Those who are
ranked as sin society" will treat these lat
ter with politeness and courtesy, it may be- /
when they chance to meet, but they are not
invited to the round of dinners, the rotation
of luncheons, or the general gayeties bv
which the laws of hospitality are main
tanned, and the exclusIveness OF society is
sustained. In country towns wealth has
less to do With social standing than alleged
blue blood and ancient family, while in
cities wealth carries everything before it
sooner or later. The English nobility, with
lordly halls, and with ancestors that
came over with William the Conqueror,
will marry into a lower social order-upon
which they look with contemplation the
sake of money, and no social set in this
country is SO hedged in by pride of birth or
position that the possessors Of money cannot
enter and secure its prizes. So powerful an |
influence has the almighty dollar that |
Prince Colonna was glad to wed the daugh-
ter of the keeper of an ordinary boarding
house-and a Prince Hatzfeldt eager and |
anxious to sell himself and his aristocratic
antecedents and noble title to a grocer's |
daughter for spot cash, and Marlborough, |
the unworthy representative of one of En- |
glands proudest and most famous names,
marries an obscure New York widow for her |
stacks of stocks and shekels and wealth OF
real estate.
SOCIETY AT THE CAPITAL.
But nowhere perhaps are the claims and |
duties of society-as they are felt to be- |
more onerous and oppressive than in Wash |
ington, to not only the strictly fashionable |
society people, but to many whose tastes and |
inclinations lead them to desire life given |
to better things than falling in with empty
forms and wasting time upon all the differ !
ent varieties of bores that the laws of social !
usage and etiquette infict upon those whom
politics or fortune or fate bring into prom
inence in the beautiful city. Public duty