Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-23

PROFESSIONAL WATERS.
There is another dinner item at Wash
ington which is by no means small and
that is the walters. There is a regular
walters club here, and nearly every colored
man in the Government departments belongs
to il. These men make it q business of act
ing as walters in the evening, and some of
the stately old darkes about the Supreme
Court have waited at the dinner tables of
the capital through several generations of
statesmen. They get from S4 to S5 night,
and they have their regular rules for en-
ployment, and are sort of trades union of
their own. Not few OF these walters 60 to
the White House at big reception and
take care of the hats and coats. Their
profits here are very large in the way of
fees, for the crowd is so great that they gen.
orally get quarter or so out of every guest
who is at all in hurry. They wait also at
state dinners, and they consider their " hite
House engagements the most profitable of
any they can have. Stanford always pays
these walters very we'll and the extra wait
ers are the only thing he hires for his
dinners.
1t is not so with some Of the less wealthy
statesmen. There is great deal of shoddy
| aristocracy in Washington, and many u
| dress suit goes to a White House reception
which has seen service on half dozen dif-
ferent men in the past. There are men here
who rent out dress suits, and who have their
| regular customers. 1t is the same with Ia
dies clothes, and one of the strangest meth
DDS of doing business in ladies' dresses that
1 have yet heard of is the selling of them
| on installments. 1 know the daughter of
| one of the most noted statesmen that this
country has produced vino buys her dresses
this way, and who frequently has gown
half worn out before it is paid for As to
hired China, one of the big dealers on the
avenue tells me that this is very common,
but that white china is almost always
rented.
HIRED JEwELRY.
1 have heard of women hiring jewelry,
but do not believe this prevails to any ex-
tent here. There is an immense deal of
shoddy worn, and half the brilliants you
see at White House reception are Rhine
stones. The stones worn by Senators wives
and millionaires' daughters are supposed to
be pure, but who can tell. The fact that
they wear them would, if they were paste,
make them Dass current, and the better
class of imitation stones are so fine that it is
now impossible for any but a dealer to de-
tect the false from the true. By all odds the
finest collection of diamonds here is that of
Mrs. Stanford, and she looks regal in
dozen different sets every winter. She has
four sets of diamonds which once belonged
to Queen Isabella of Spain, and which She
bought in Paris when the effects of this
Queen were sold. Some of these diamonds
are as big as pigeon eggs, and they
are of wonderful brilliancy. She has
one set of yellow diamonds which
glow like gold fire under the East Room
chandeliers, and she has others of
80 80 IL IL
blaze when the light catches them. Mrs.
President Harrison is not wealthy enough
to own many fine stones, and do not think
she has anything as beautiful as the dia-
monds which Mrs. Cleveland received from
the President as a wedding present. Mrs.
Representative Flower is said to have the
finest opals in the United States. Her col
lection comes from Mexico, and they were
set in diamonds in New York. They cost
nothing, however, in comparison with the
Stanford diamonds which I have men,
toned. 1t is said that Mrs. Stanford's
brilliants are valued at 81 200, 900, and that
she paid 5000, 900 for the stones bought of
Queen Isabella. She has another necklace
which is--valued - at S100, 900, tine
pendant Of which cost $50. .OOO She has 60
diamond finger rings, which she keeps on
string of black tape, and she has precious
stones set in all forms and shapes.
MRS. FRANK LESLIE'S DIAMONDS.
met Mrs. Frank Leslie one night in the
East Room Of the White House when she
had a pair of diamonds in her ears, each of
which was worth fortune. They were
large, white solitaires, and they blazed,
almost framing her face in light. Mrs.
Senator Jones, of Nevada, is very fond of
pearls, and she has some of the finest pearls
at the capital. One of her possessions is
necklace of solitaire pearls, with a diamond
pendant in the shape of an oyster shell, with
a large. single, pure pearl affixed to that
place where you usually find the pearl in
oyster shells. The last Chinese Minister
used to wear some fine jewels. He had a
curious white stone on his cap as big
pigeon egg, and like all of his people, he
was fond of jewelry. Mrs. Senator Hearst
has many fine diamonds, and she wore one
night three magnificent necklaces, forming
band two inches broad, with frontage Of
pendants which shine like fire under the
gaslight. She has beautiful neck, and
these jewels were set off BY the black velvet
dress below them.
Mrs. Harriet Hubbard Aver was here at
the same time that Mrs. Frank Leslie paid
her visit to the capital. She had a wonder
full collection of jewels with her. but she did
not wear many of them to the Washington
receptions. In her collections there were 15
necklaces of pearls, each pearl as big as a
flbert and there was a necklace of rubies
set in diamonds. One of these rubies was
an inch long, three-fourths of an inch wide
and an inch thick. 1t had belonged to an
Indian rajah and had never been cut. She
had several pear-shaped diamonds and one
of these she'said had belonged to Cardinal
Mazarin and had been worn by him 200
years ago as buttons in his gown. A num-
ber of her diamonds were worth 900 apiece
and she had 100000 worth of jewelry which
she was carrying around in her trunk.
THEN AND NOW.
Such jewels are no doubt extravagant,
but the fashionable society of the United
States is now pouring dollars where it used
to spend cents, and the economical days of
Ben Franklin and his wife Deborah are no
longer. George Washington was satisfied
with meals of toast and tea, and Martha
herself toasted the bread while the guests
waited. The feed at many quiet little
luncheons here cost $40 plate, and the
furniture of the Washington millionaire's
home is gathered from the four quarters of
the earth. There are dozens of houses in
Washington which have their walls hung
with silk and satin instead of paper, and
the hand paintings in such house as that
of Senator Sawyer's cost enough to educate
John Rodgers nine children, including the
one at the breast. There is one place in
Washington which has nine bathrooms
finished in mahogany, and just across
Lafayette square from the White House
there is big brick palace, the ceilings of
the parlors of which are finished in oaken
panels, in the grain of which gold dust has
been sprinkled.
ENGLISH SNOBBERY,
It is true we are the richest peo-
pie in the world and our aggregate
wealth amounts to about $1,000 for each
man, woman and child in the country; but
it remains to be seen how long we can stand
snch customs Here at Washinrtnn we ane