The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-04-05

markabIe Institutions in the World.
In the centre of fashionable Washington
within stones throw of the big house of Vice
President Morton, surrounded by the mansions
of statesmen, generals, and judges, stands the
most aristocratic charitable institution in the
world. There is nothing else like it in the
world, and there will be nothing ever founded
which will compare with it in exclusveness
and respectability. 1t is home for the blue
booded only, and its inmate has to have her
genealogical tree. 1t is home for women
who have never worked, for women who have
been rich and have become poor, and more es-
pecially home for the reduced gentlewomen
of the old families of the south who lost their
all in the late war. 1t was founded about
twenty years ago by the millionaire phlan-
thropist, Mr.. w. w. Corcoran, and of the
seven million dollars which he spent in charity
none was much better expended than the
amount which went into this. He erected it
as monument to his daughter, Louise Corco-
ran Eustis, who was the wife of q member of
Congress from Louisiana, and was related by
marriage to Mr. Eustis, the present United
States Senator from that State. Louise Cor
coran sympathized greatly with the South, and
when she died in the south of France shortly
after the close Of the war she asked her father
to make some provision for the women who
had lost their fortunes in it, This home was
her idea. 1t cost two hundred thousand dol
lars at the start for its building and grounds
and Mr.. Corcoran gave in addition an endow-
ment of quarter of million. A large tract
of land surrounds it, and this has become very
valuable within the past ten years. Its old
ladies trot around through gardens the soil of
which would sell at auction for six dollars per
square foot, and they have quite little farm
surrounded by the most expensive of resi-
dences.
TwO-SCORE SOUTHERN LADIES
Only forty inmates are admitted to this home
at a time. They come upon invitation, and,
once invited, they are expected to stay in it
for the remainder of their natural lives Invi-
tations are given only to those who can show
satisfactory certificates of blue blood, educa-
ton, and refinement, and list of candidates
for entrance is kept, which is consulted the
moment one of the old ladies dies. Once ad-
mtted, the old lady has as pleasant home as
she could have in first-class hotel. She is
cordially welcomed, and she is under no re-
strictions other than those of hotel She has
her own rooms and maid to keep them in
order, and If she wishes she can take her meals
in her room and receive her company there.
Surrounded with all the comforts, she spends
ner Llme mere Win ner DOCKS, MOWERS, birds,
bits of sO-called fancy work. She trots about
the house, plays on the parlor piano, or visits
about among her friends at will. Her washing
is laundried in the finest manner for her, and
every Friday the clothes come in immaculate
with no bill attached. She can go about the
city and call upon her friends, and she knows
that these conditions will continue for her un-
til the day of her death.
This great home is peculiarly Southern in
stitutiOn. 1t is big three-story and mansard
with windows "a nnt tha
sides OF which the sun ever shines, and upon
all of whose walls grow the luxuriant vines of
our Southern climate 1t has many shade
trees, and the magnolia blooms side by side
with the trees of the North. 1t is more South
ern, however, within doors. The moment you
enter its wide portals you turn your face from
Yankeeand and find yourself in Dixie. You
feel as though one of the old Southern planta-
tiOns surrounded you, and as you chat with
these gray-haired old ladies there passes In
mental review before you the luxurious life of
the master and the simple, rollicking existence
of the slaves Nearly all of the old ladies were
bellies in their youth, and they can tell Won
stories of conquests in Richmond Charleston,
and New Orleans. Most of them Were mis-
tresses of splendid homes till the Government
freed their slaves and the war left them poor
and helpless. Is it any wonder that they sit
together here dreaming of the dear old days,
or that they take from their wrappings again
and again the Confederate flag, or gaze fire.
quently at the pictures of Confederate heroes,
which SO conspicuousy adorn their walls?
They know naught of the present. The past
alone exists for them, and here, surrounded by
luxury, they love to recount their thrilling war
experiences or dwell upon the pathetic after
math.
JOHN c. CALHOUN LOVED HER
Notably among the old ladies is woman
whose name has appeared with every public
mention of the Louise Home since the open
ing This is Miss Hartley Graham, called by
a wide circle of friends ''Aunt Hartley" and
who still at the age of eighty-one retains the
grace and elegance and much of the beauty
that made her a noted belle sixty years ago.
Miss Graham is Virginian by birth and
descendant of the famous Scottish house of
the warlike Graeme. Her direct ancestor,
Dr. William Cooke, was sent by Queen