Fairhaven herald. [volume] (Fairhaven, Wash.) 1890-????, 1891-03-24
A REVOLT PREDICTED.
WASHINGTON SOCIETY WOMEN WILL
BE THE REVoLUTlONlSTS.
They Say That the Work of Making and
Receiving Calls Is Altogether Too Hard
for Them--sIanIess Receptions and ATT
ernoon Teas
Isneolal Correspondenee.l


ton the happiest Of living mortals. With
a constant round OF gayety, fine gowns to
wear the most Of them with elegant homes
and handsome carriages, their life would |
appear 10 be one Of unallOyed bliss. Yet
even these poor creatures have their trou
bles Just now they are much worried by
two or three annoyances incident to their
vocation, for society and its doings Is the
vocation Of most of the fashionable WON
en- of the capital during the season. Care
of home and children is merely their avo-
cation, an incident Of life, subordinated al
most wholly to the more serious business
of the hour. One Of these troubles is re
suit of the great extent to which the fabric
of official society here has grown with the
growth Of the country. The social rules
and customs are pretty much the same
now as they were when the republic had
only half as many officials as it now has.
With congress of more than 400 mem
bers and a correspondingly large number
of persons in other official life, and a ten
fold increase in the number of non-oflicial
families who mingle in the official society,
the wives of cabinet officers, senators and
Others high in the government have found
their calling lists growing beyond the
powers of human endurance.
Some day the whole system will have TO
be changed, and the absurd law by which
a society woman, il her husband is in Off
cial life, must return all calls made upon
her no matter by whom, will have to be
repealed. At the present time the protest
against the overgrowth Of society and the
burdens entailed thereby has taken the
form of a demand for the lengthening Of
the afternoon hour. Ladies say it is impera-
lively necessary that they have a longer
time in which 10 make their calling rounds
But this only temporizes with the evil,
and the day viii surely come when society
women Of official rank will rise up in arms
and sweep the whole thing into obscurity
The cabinet ladies have indeed emanci-
pated themselves from the thralldom Of
the calling custom. They combined one
with another two OF three years ago, and
declared that henceforth they would not
attempt TO return the calls made upon
them. And the innovation was effected
without there being any necessity for call
ing out the troops or reading the riot act,
as was predicted would be the case by
some observers. Now the wives Of sena-
tors are disposed to follow the example set
them by their sisters OF the cabinet, and
after the senatorial ladies have revolted
there will come in good time the rebellion
of the wives of representatives, and after
them the ladies OF other official households
will take courage and assert their rights
too Thus in the end, and probably not so
far distant in time, we shall have a com
plete revolution Of the social institution.
ut is high time we were doing some
thing" said a senator's wife recently, with
a tired look upon her handsome face. "Ex-
tending the calling hour will help but
there is the work to be done some time or
1 q I 4
like rushing it through as rapidly as pos
sble. Perhaps you don't know what
mean by my work. Possibly you think /.
we society women have nothing but play |
and easy times and luxury II you do you I
are greatly mistaken, as | shall show you. |
Every Thursday my house is open from .
TO o'clock. have been here a long time,
and my husband Is very prominent and Of .
course we have many friends. The callers
come in perfect crowds. Some fine Thurs.
days have as many as 800 cards left in my
basket, or my baskets, for one basket
wouldn't hold them all, in the hall.
Thursday evening my daughter aud /,
and sometimes my husband and his clerk,
sit up till a very late hour going over these
cards, and arranging them first by the days
ON which their owners receive, and after
we have arranged them by days we try to
lay out routes by which | can return all
the calls with the least possible travel and
waste Of time and horseaesh Every day
Of my life Thursdays and Sundays ex-
cepted, am on the go, trying 10 catch up
with the tasks set me by these piles OF
bristolboards But every Thursday brings
a larger pile, and renders my task still /
more hopeless. Many of these callers are .
persons | never heard Of, and who are Of |
no consequence in the social world, though |
no doubt estimable people in their own /
walks Of life. Yet il is my duty 70 return /
these calls as well as others. II don't it /
may hurt my husband For instance, Their, /
are plenty of people from our state in the |
departments here. They have friends Wis |
iting from their old home. The first thing /
the ladies Of the household begin to talk /
about is society. Shall they make thesena- |
torial callsg OF course they must. Tho /
hostess holds that out 70 her guest as one /
OF the charms Of Washington life Proba- 1
bly, the visit has been arranged for the |
month Of January, so that the country |
woman may gct glimpse fcapital society |
well, we must call on Mrs. Senator
Blank-shes from our state, you know
whether we go any other place or not |
The Blanks happen to know, and | am
sure you will like Mrs Blank So says
tht WIG VI Nilt ntldAN ultub GltEk 10 utF
visiting sister or cousin or aunt, and when
Thursday comes, sure enough, they are ia
my drawing room. They add one more to
the stack of bristoiboards in the over
lowing basket, one more to the list OF
calls which | must make, or else get a rep
utation for exclusiveness and that sort OF
thing which would be sure to hurt my
husbands popularity at home. Mind, / do
not object to this class OF callers because
they are department people. | know and
love many bright women whose husband.
are in the departments in clerical positions.
What | object to Is the large number OF
these callers and the amount OF work it
puts on me"
This is the way the wives Of senators and
supreme court justices talk Of their chief
trouble-overwork. Making the calling
hour from to 6 o'clock, instead of from
TO g. will, they think, help them a little,
and they are seriously discussing that
change. But with women's usual neglect
OF mathematics and logic they do not ap-
pear TO realize that IL other people add two
hours to the afternoon they must add two
hours also, and that these two additional
hours are likely to 80 increase the volume
of bristolboards in their baskets that
their task Of returning calls will be proper
tionately greater instead Of smaller. Some
of the more thoughtful and experienced
ladies think the only way out Of the diff |
Guilty is to initiate the cabinet ladies. who