Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-01-01
SOCIETY GENERALISSIMO.
The Trials and Triumphs of Mr.
 Wurd McAnister.
How He Game to Found the Patrlarcha and F. C. D. C.--McA A llister, ST., and the Iron Duke The New Years Ball to
 Succeed tho New Years Call.
COPYRIGHT 1889.

COPYRIGHT 1889.
 The New Years call is dead Long live the New Years ball! So says the McAllister.
 The subscription ball in the Metro. politan Opera House next Thursday evening derives its importance not from the fact that it will represent Ward McAllister's supreme effort to show New Workers what 8 ball ought 1,2OO to l,50O social stars will twinkle in tho largest private cons stellation tn at ever illuminated the city. but its true significance is grasped only when it is understood that the great ball giver stakes his reputation, won by twenty years of social directorship, on his abil- ity to create new American festival, a legitimate successor to the outworn cus- tom of tho New Year's call.
 MT. McAllister considers that he has laid his finger on a felt want, some ap- propriate celebration of tho New Year. The 1.500-to this figure must the new social census conform-have ceased, so far as in them lies, to receive on the first of January. Many ot them are of to second of January finds them back in town and they will dance with lighter feet when they know that McAllister means the ball to be the great proto- type of an amending series, and that he counts confidently on his ideals being taken up in other cities and towns of social enterprise from Maine to Cali fornia until the New Years dance be- comes all over the country the great winter diversion. holding it's place in upper tendon by as firm tenure as Fourth of July fireworks or the Christ mas tree in lower ten-milliondom.
 ''1 am not conceited enough" said he, Ito believe that l can do this all alone. but the idea is sure to commend itself everywhere to society leaders,
 Such triumph will be the fitting continuation of a social career. A pub fishing house in New York has just offered MT. McAllister large sum to write his memoirs, predicting that the book would make as great a hit as Grants autobiography. But I don't mind telling you" remarked the Gen. eral of bloodless battles, that I con- sider the greatest thing Bismarck has "reminiscences"
 Seated before cosy grate fire the other evening, pictures of generations of debutantes may have danced in the flames. The carpet was . warm crim- son, the ornaments crystal and silver, and photographs of beautiful girls in ball gowns stood on easels and overran small stands.
 "Now there's Newport:'' this in a vein of off-hand recollection; "of course you know what made Newport in the beginning; it was the summer capital of Southerners. When money grew less plenty with them, after the, war there was first a Boston invasion, and then New York drove out the Bostonians. Everybody knows what the place is now. l don't take to myself any undue share of the credit, but 1 have done what could to make the place bright and gay. l gave picnics-dinners in the woods, you know, and all that sort of thing-and drives in the country to farmhouses. Society people are tickle and always wanting change, so we had dances in the barn. cattle in their stalls on one side, haymows on the other. decorations of pumpkins. you know, and corn, but French cooks, you see, and servants in livery and the best wines to be had and everything man aged, oh so charmingly.
 '"Then there are the Patriarchs. We've been giving them, it must be tell you how l came to think of start ing subscription balls in the beginning. This gentleman's grandfather" and Mir. McAllister nodded towards young man seated on the other side of the fire, twas Dominick Lynch, who was the greatest beau and gourmet of his time From 1870 to 1850 was the period of his social triumphs, and it was about 1850 that he went to Europe with my father. He had letters of introduction by the hundred, letters to everybody worth knowing, but when he got out at sea he let every one of them flutter out of his hands into the Atlantic Ocean. If Dominick Lynch couldn't make his way in European society," he said, s1,,sf iv,tr 1,4 I,sk l1 serve to succeed
 "Lynch and my father were invited to an Almack ball. Almack's was a common sort of place, a restaurant, like Delmonico's, but the balls were very swell, and all London society pushed and jostled for invitations. for they were very exclusive. Dominick Lynch and my father entered and stood there uncomfortably. for nobody spoke to them, or so much as looked in their direction. What fools we were, said my father to Lynch, to put ourselves in such a deucedly awkard position By and by the old Duke of Wellington appeared. looked about a bit. and came straight to where they were stand ing. He shook hands with Lynch, put one arm around him and the other round my father, and walked the length of the ball room with them twice in that manner. Then he pleaded an engage ment, sent servant for his coat and left the floor. No sooner was this little performance over than everybody came pressing about them with profuse cor diAlity. The ice was out of the atmos- phere. The Duke had spoken to them, no other introductions were necessary.
 Tho Almack balls were subscription affairs, and took the idea of mine from them; but they were broken up in time by the quarrels of the women, who split into cliques and become altogether too exclusive. Whom I con ceived the notion of the Patriarchs, didn't start with the women-women will quarrel, you know-but with the men. This has been my theory in all my social entertainments, to begin with tho heads of families, the pores de famille, with daughters to bring out, you understand. That avoids one rock of stumbling. And I will say this. that I've never yet had a man go back on tO know and