The morning news., 1889-05-16
Those M1DNIGar ORGIES,
a Florist Tells ofthe Wild Scenes and
plunder at the e-teanial Ball.
F,onl the Ne,o YORK World.

From the tejc OTS World.
vaxt TO Ward McAlAster. don't you
,,row. the maddest man who survives the
hall and banque. of the Four Hundred is
T-loris. Klundar. For the paltry sum Of
e5oo1 Mr.. Klunder agreed to trim up the
1fa+roDolltan opera house for the centennial
danrs and subsequent feast, and after the
sasIivitias be found himself 1900 out OF
,,ocket. mad as badger, but as wise as
5nIv a florist can be who grows the plant
experiences for himself
'sYou may take my head for football, y
sa;d he. ''and my body AID limbs for fly
ing BOBBY to frighten crows, if ever un..
dertake another equally patriotic and
Fashionable order. / never saw anything
ike il in my life, aud / have been in bus.-
ness for the last thirty years. The COM
Tnittee call it bowling success. Howling
II csrtalnlY was, but have as yet to realize
the success of it. When took the order l
didn't expect to make any monev. / was
satisfied with the glory that l thought
would accrue from the display l ksew l
could make Scandalous is The only word
know of to describe the ball as we saw it
hetween l and O'Clock a. IN. My manager
had three men with him, end l declare it
was wonder he didn't shoot at the da scers,
for his wrath was boundless. AS it was,
he was powerleSs protect our stock. 1t
would have taken 200 men to do it.
I'VE used between $1,000 and 100000
nlarts to decorate the supper and ball
rooms. the main vestioule and the stair
cases and balcony leading from and above
the foyer Palms aud trailing vines were
brought from Florida and Virginia. Wild
smilax from Mount Vernon, old English
box and juniper from the battlefield of
Valley Forge, and canvass was male Of
, all the large nurseries in the state for the
rarest and choicest collection Of towering
plants and cut ilowers, tie whsle socia-
rion of florists and growers assisting in
making display OF American flowers
worthy OF the occasion. In the Thirty
ninth street vestibue were trees brought
from the Oldest gardens on Long Isla d.
Many Of them were 100 years old.
Well, would you believe that those
grand Old pieces of lockwood and
osage were jumped on, sat on and
set fire to by burning matches' Well. it's
fact. They we're literally ruined, snd had
TO be cut down to the soil. The greatest
damage was done in the Broadway entrance.
After the dance the men successively gath
cred here to await the ladies, and being so
full of the fire of patriotism aad champagne,
tore off whole bunchss of hydrangia, which
they presented TO their partners on their re-
turn. This may seem slight otfense until
YOU think that each hydraugia cluster is as
big as your head, and that the singh plants
were worth $40 each. We wouldn't have
cared if the flowers had been cut, but
instead of that the vandalS tore them Off
and destroyed the whole plant.
SIN the balco Y above the Broadway
entrance there was a towering hedge OF
roysl PALM rubber aud banana. with
three-foot border Of pink asd white azalia,
Martha Washington geranium and two
rows of spirea iapolica. When the Presi-
dens arrived this mass of color and rich
foliage was invaded by the swallow-tail
mob and trample1 upon and broken like 80
much corn before q herd of cattle In the
ball room nothing Mas spared taat could be
reached. The Presidents box contained
two groups Of gorgeous plants. all in the
glory of blossom, and the moment he and
his party loft for the sper room the crowd
rushed in and stripped it Of every flower.
running the plants in the mad endeavor to
get a souvenir.
''On the Presidents table in the supper
room the red, white and blue effect of roses
and forget-me-nots pleased the guests i'm
menseiy, for not a tendril nor petal re-
mained, and the fifty-odd baskets of scarlet
geranlum aRd the same number of azalia
trees were carried off by the good-natured
800 and their friends
"At o'clock Tuesday morning the
Metropolitan was the widest looking place
ever saw. The French ball wasn't mllli-
meter in comparison. And then we did
bless Stuyvesant Fish, William Bedow
Morris and the rest of the committee on en-
tertain rent, for the contract called for
elaborate floral display Monday and Tues
day nights, and nothing remained but to
shovel up the broken vases, boxes and jar
dealers and the scattered earth, bind up as
mary palms as had escaped, and sresp out
the damaged plants, not one of which cost
less than Sl5. New decorations had to be
brought from the nursery, asd by the time
they we placed we had only half day to
wire the cut flowers for the banquet beard.
So if you wonder at our disgust you are
nothing Of florist. OF the entire lot of
$4,000 odd plants displayed less than a tenth
escaped seri us injury. l am out of pocket
about s12 ,000."