Wichita eagle., 1889-05-03
SHAMEFUL ORGIES.
The Centennial Ball Turned Into Genera
Drunk-Decent People Kicking

NEW YORK. May 2.-The World says
Now that the centennial ball is over people
who paid SO to SIS apiece to participate in
it and whose fun was represented by these
figures, are taking out the balance in
criticism. On all sides yesterday it was
needed that the centennial ball was the
biggest executive failure of the century.
People who were most competent to speak
were loudest in declaring the ball monu-
ment of incapacity and vulgarity, and as
Mr.. Ward McAllister received his private
dispatches in his Washington retreat a
complacent smile overspread and softened
his features.
The scenes in the supper room can not
be described safely in newspaper. Never
since the palace of the Tuileries was in
vaded in 1779 by the sansculottes of
Dozine Department have such startling
contrasts been witnessed il similar cir
cumstances. When it is said that the
walters, policemen and messenger
the situation at midnight may be
suggested Justices of the supreme court,
governors, staff officers, club men, lawyers,
poets, millionaires, with beautiful refined
women, crowded blankly along the supper
counter and demanded in vain the atten-
ton they were accustomed to receive.
The functionaries around the place showed
undisguised contempt for the free lunch
fiends" Waters who did not have to
account for the unlimited wine, too, took
occasion to neglect the guests and treat
themselves. The excellent supper was
largely WASTED. There was no response
bility for anything 20 anybody. The
gentlemen dining room" idea was shown
to be an utter fallacy. By 1870 a. m. the
cd mi, n lie
whose ideas of enjoyment had been learn
ed in free and easy resorts. Never once
did an accredited officer of the evening in
terrier to anybody's knowledge. The police
men who were sober were helpless. They
could not tell the dresscoated walters
from the guests.
BY 10 O'Clock most of the respectable ele-
ment were making frantic and supperless
effort to get away. Even this privilege
was denied them. A line extending from
the coat room for five hundred yards and
made up of some Of the Leading citizens OF
this town surged for hours against the
feeble and Inadequate partition OF the coat
room. Gentlemen grew angry and desper-
ate at the inadequate arrangements. With
torn coats and wrinkled shirt fronts men
whose names are known all over the union
fought their way toward their coats under
the frequent clubs of the police, the Jcers
of the mob outside and the pernicious ac
tivity Of the pickpockets. 1t was 5 O'Clock
in the morning before the last battered
and ragged guest joined his family at the
doors and reached his hack.
''ln its executive aspect the centennial
ball was the worst of its sort ever known
in the history of the city" said well
known man about town yesterday
THE possibility OF letting the attend
ants get at all the wine they
wanted was enough to ruin any
plans which might have been made. left
at 5 without my hat or coat. Two of
the checkers inside the cloak room were
drunk. | got my own umbrella by paying
81 for one exchanged for 1t in my sight by
tn fellow who demanded the dollar, OF
the ladies | met the dress of one was ruin
ed by plate of salad thrown over it by a
drunken brute and the shoulder of another
was cut from a bottle which a stranger
had broken upon it. | knocked down a
man who tried to kiss the daughter of a
leading lawyer. The ticket takers had no
check placed upon them and there is no
question they made lots OF money letting
in people who never should have been
there The policemen lost their temper
and cleared people out
at the end of their club. Hun
dreds of bottles of wine were
passed out of doors and sold by walters
and others One man was drunk, fell
down stairs and was SO badly hurt he had
to be carried off i'll an ambulance. Many
flags and potted plants We're stolen. The
supper room was cleared by clubs shortly
after l O'Clock. The lights were turned
out in the ball room long before the crowd
had left the building"
Dr. John ". Gibbs said at the Hoffman
house last nignt: Il have just finished d
letter of congratulation to Mr. Ward Nc
Allister. The ball as il went off was
about the best answer he could make to
those who removed him. MIR. Stuyvesant
Fish may know something about railroads
but he knows nothing of how to conduct a
hall -