Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-04-17
SOCIETY IN WASHINGTON,
Fortunes Spent for Visiting and Menu
Cards.

Diamonds-Card Etiquette and
English Snobbery-Sired
Wealth.
WAsHINGToN.-Five hundred thousand
visiting cards have been engraved in
Washington this season. One stationery
firm tells me that it has turned out 800. 900
in the last two months and the money
spent here on pasteboard during a season
amount to tens of thousands of dollars.
The most ordinary card costs a cent apiece
after the plate is made and some of the
dinner invitations sent out cost S10a Dozen
A prominent item on the expense account
of a: Washington belle is her engraving,
and printing, and society ladies who give
dinners spend at times hundreds of dollars
upon the stationery for feast. Mrs LIE.
land Stanford lately paid s95 for fifty cards
to be used as menus for one of hel big dim
ners. The map of the United States was
stamped in silver on the cards and the draw
! lngs and engravings were exquisite. At the
dinner which Gen. Breckidridge gave a
week or so ago the cards cost 81 apiece,
| and Mrs. Justice Blatchford gave not long
ago luncheon the cards for which were
| carved by hand at a cost of S1S per dozen.
No one thinks of giving big dinner with
out something fancy in way of cards and a
great many of the menus are hand painted.
| Some of the cards are in raised silver and
gold. They look as though the gold and
silver had been melted and poured into
letters on the cards. They cost rs cents
apiece. Others are drawn in black, and it
is quite the thing to make the name card
which goes with each plate so pretty that
it may be carried away as souvenir.
Society runs to colors this winter, and
it is the fashion to have dinners and teas
of one hue There is the pink dinner, the
raw-red tea and the orange-hued luncheon
Each dinner must have flowers and hang
ings of the color after which it is named,
and Roswell P. Flower gave violet din
ner at which even these name cards each
bore a hand-painted violet A red dinner
at the Normandie had table in the CEN
ter which was an immense mat of tulips,
The candelabra glowed under red shades,
and the dlnlng-room was one mass of car
d1nal. At an orange tea on K street for
the Newsboys Home the fashionable re-
celving party were clad In yellow. The
tea-room decorations were of golden, and
one table had an immense centerpiece of
yellow tulips, while the other contained
big jars of jonquils. There were yellow
shades over the gas and yellow globes
under it. There was orange cake, orange
ice, orangeade, and everything which
tended to destroy the complexion of a pref
ty girl and to make some faces horrible
Postmaster General Wanamaker gave a
State dinner in which all the decorations
were of white and green. The centerpiece
of the table was an oval vase which rested
upon a silver trimmed mirror. About this
was laid a circle of cut lilies of the valley,
and outside of that circle of maidenhair
ferns. Around the table were four high
vases piled with marguerites and lilies of
the valley, and across the cloth were
strewn fronds of fern, and below the board
the table-cloth was festooned with aspara-
gus vines. At each plate was a bouquet
of white violets and lilies of the valley and
these were tied with white ribbons. The
white tapers cast a soft light through
white shades as they burned in silver can
delabra, and the decorations of the room
were all in white and green. Another of
anamakers dinners was in red and yell
low, and the table had a spiral center of
red and yellow tulips. Senator Jones of
Nevada, the silver millionaire, gave din
ner on the 1st of March, at which the
decorations were of white and gold and
silver blythe pound was used to furnish part
OF the white. Silver filigree dishes stood
at either end of the table, and these were
filled with jonquiIs. The silver Candida
bra were low and they bore gold and white
shades. The candy dishes were of white
and gold, and the only green about the
table was an oval mound of maidenhair
ferns, which rested in it's center. Mrs.
Senator Stewart, the wife of the other Ne
vada millionaire, gave pink feast not
longsago and on each lady's plate there was
bunch of La France roses, and the candel-
abra cast soft light through pink shades.
The dinner souveniers were hand painted
menu cards tied with bright pink ribbons,
on which each guests name was traced in
gold. At a dinner given to the Pan-Amer-
leans in February, the decorations of
Massachusetts, avenue mansion were all in
red and yellow, and Mrs. Representative
Scranton during the same month gave
yellow luncheon, at which the bouillon
was served in gold cups, and the button
hole bouquets were in jonquils.
The flowers 1t these dinners cost their
weight in silver, and Senior Mendoza of
Brazil gave a dinner on Washington S
birthday at which his house was decorated
with orchids brought from Brazil, and
which he honored the United States by
decorating the table and dishes with red,
white and blue. One of the plants at
this dinner contained over fifty flowers
Mrs. Senator Cockrell gave an orchid lunch
this month. and at many of the dinners
and receptions of the past season roses
have been used by the bushel. 1t is i'm
possible to describe the grandeur of the
floral decorations of the White House at a
state reception or dinner The flowers
used cost several times an ordinary man s
monthly salary, and were it not for the
fact that Uncle Sam furnishes the most of
them they would make quite hole in
President Harrison s expense account. The
corners of the various rooms are filed
with palms. The windows and CRATES
look like section of an oriental garden,
and the mantels of the room are banked
with these roses. bright-hued tulips, car
nations and other choice flowers The
dinner decorations are exquisite, and a
private citizen could not purchase the plants
used III the White House at one of these
feasts for a thousand dollars. Every year
society grows more eXtravagant in such
matters. and there are a number of gold
services now used in Washington. The
Mexican Legation has one, and there is
hardly noted family at the capitol which
has not It's own supply of solid silver. Mrs.
Stanford now and then gives a luncheon
at which she uses a gold tea set, and some
of the dinners of Washington could not be