Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-10
CLARA BELLIES CHAT.
The Mrs. Astor to Give q Ball With
out Ward McAlIister'S Help.
CHARITY OF TIE FOUR HUNDRED.
A Midnight Apparition AStrids q Bicycle
StartIes New Yorkers.
NEWPORT GIRLS GETTING NATURAL
CORRESPONDENCE OF YHE DrsPArcH

CORRESPONDENCE OF YHE DIsPATCH
NEW YORK, August 9.-August days
make one feel like seeking out q shallow
pool, under tree somewhere, and standing
shin deep in it, as the cows do. We adult
women may go to the seashore, and use the
surf as much as we have q mind to, but
always with a hindrance of dress, what
ever the libelous DISORDERS of bathing may
say to the contrary. The envied creatures
are the little girls, who are permitted to
take off their stockings and wade. We
are sending thousands OF poor chill
dren, by means Of numerous fresh
air fund.-" to the ocean side on excursions.
Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt alone provides
the money for some of these trips, and lets
her physician, pastor and other cognizant
persons select the benefciaries.
But there's one thing want to insist
on" know of her saying to young doc
tor, who was to go along with 100 young
sters on an excursion to the Jersey Shore;
you must let them all wade, unless they
are too i'll for it to be safe. Start in the
girls-for they may be shy to begin-too
tlmid to take off their hosiery
When saw the little girls racing, dane
ing and spattering in the water, with their
bare legs and tucked up skirts, realized
the real thoughtlulness OF their benefactress,
and l wished that she might have paint
ing Of these cooled and capering children az
a reward for her charity. It would mean
more than the best cows-in-water canvass
ever made by an artist.
NOT ALTOGETHER FRIVOLOUS.
Do you imagine that the Astors and the
Vanderbilts and the other mIllionaires in
their clique are frivolous and nothing else7
Then you are very much mistaken. It is
true that they 60 in for show; that they
very carefully foster the absurd notion that
400 persons constitute kind Of aristocraey
in New York; that they excite greal deal
OF ridielule by their pretensions Of exclusive
ness, the fact being that they are less 90
than are some other social circles; but along
with all their harmless foolishness goes an
open-handed princel1ness of generosity.
Every year or so an Astor or Vanderbilt
builds hospital or a church, establishes q
library fund, endows reformatory concern
or does something else for humanity at q
heavy cost We are apt to forget these
deeds, and to bear in mind only the more
frequent exhibitions of social gaiety.
A reader of this correspondence asks me
why the New York papers chronicle the do
ings of 'the -Four Hundred" much after the
manner of the London court circular, and
thus tacitly assent to the idea that the Nc
Allisterians are socially superior to other
refined and respectable New Yorkers. Well,
here in the simple explanations: The jour
nails would not hold a 1.-THE OF the society
news" of a population Of two millions. BY
restricting it to this one set of elaborate
idlers it is kept down TO feasible space In
print; 1t relates to persons who by the proc
ess are kept familiarly before the readers,
and it Is easy to get, for these imitation aris-
tocrats like the conspicuousness which In
accorded TO them.
M'ALLIsTER IN DANGER.
And McAllister? o, he is an amiabls
fellow, who volunteers to do the work for
which the once noted and comic Sexton
Brown used to be paid. Brown was an
enormously fat and pompors old fellow, who
offciated at Grace Church weddings and
funerals, and from that became a factotum
at receptions and balls. He kept lists of
people sin society,"" and it was not alto
gether joeose theory, but occasionally an
actual practice, that he provided eliFibls
young men to ''do the swell grand" il the
larger assemblages. He was a butt for ridi-
cule by those who employed him, as well as
death, McAllister took the job for love Of
it, and he does it to the satisfaction of Mrs.
William Astor, whose approval has been
quite sufficient to maintain him in author
ity.
But here comes in a piece of news, which
am enabled to give in advance of its other
divulgence. Mrs. w. w. Astor, having es-
tablished herself by local postal sanction az
Newport as "the Mrs. Astor," will next
winter declare her independent leadership
in town. Her first and great act of self
assertion will be to give a Delmonico ball
without the help, real or implied, of Ward
McAllister. And won't that make talkf
THE NATURAL GIRL.
The girls at Newport are doing one sensI-
BILE thing. They are fixing a more agree
able code of manners, and doubtless she
effect will spread with reasonable celerity
the land. Men have accused
women of being so frightfully artificial.
Now the fad is to be natural. There will
be less of this mealy-mouthed, lackadaisical,
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS style Of
girl. When woman means anything, she
will say it, as the English do.
A number of our West End stay-at homes
were treated to a rare and unexpected exhi-
bition one hot night. As sleep was impos-
sible, they had gathered, singly and In
groups at the windows for q stray puff Of
air from the Hudson. OF course, no gas was
burning in the houses; dim light and silence
the avenue; it was the hour for
ghostly visitants and suddenly, az the clocks
struck IL, sleep-forsaken eyes were opened
far beyond their daylight limits. A figure
in white was making strange operations
few feet above the street pavement, and
floating erratically long distance up and
ha aA aid ID
canny enough to send superstitious mortal
to his sheets. But West Enders
are not superstitious they are wide awake,
especially to hot nights and ghosts; and
scanning the vision as it approached nearer,
.hey discovered that it was a womAn-cele,-
tial or otherwise - attempting to ride Q
bicycle.
A PLUCKY APPARITION.
The machine wabbIed and reeled as IL "a
had lately imbibed; the rider took many
header, but recovered herself In q manner
wholly mysterious, until it was further dis
covered that she had o male attendant who
calamity caught her and replaced her in
her seat The tyro's fgure-for no one after
this mistook her for a wanderer from celes-
tial spheres-was beautifully 1.-THE, her
light and graceful, these details
being clearly shown BY her white costume,
backed a. il was by The dark attire Of her
Some of the White-robed on
lockers behind the window screens accused
her of having counted on just this effect in
for her adventure. However that
may be, she was plucky, for neither the nu-
nerous falls nor the steady effort diminished
ler zeal.
At last she mounted her subdued steed
1nassisted and rode along the avenue a.
"a n veteran Wheelmau Thla