The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-07-02

| see the flash of glasses in the electric
| sht as you pass down the street. Keep
\ ,ol is the motto of the city, and instead
: 3 o'clocks OF sending around for your
friends to come over and drink cup OF
afternoon beverage, the little note reads,
"Come around tonight and taste my
new punch"
What a woman can want with hat
is mystery here. If she wanted to, a
woman could get through a season with
nothing but sun umbrella. Women
discard hats after 6 o'clock and stroll
around the streets bareheaded without
even the apology of scarf. They ride
down Connecticut avenue without hats.
They walk down the business streets
without hats to the theater, and stroll
up at II o'clock, stop at a soda fountain
and stand there with head uncovered.
They walk way down Pennsylvania
avenue and through the parks bare
headed. They walk to church and at.
tend prayer meeting in the same COM
Portable state. They fill the horse cars.
and it is amazing that women who, dis
play such supreme indifference to hats
can be slaves in winter and parade such
monstrosities as hats in the theater. In
the popular ice cream resorts not one
woman in dozen will have hat on.
The city seems to have gone out of the
millinery business. There is more free
dom, so far as hats and dressing go here,
than at nine-tenths of the summer re-
sorts, and that is why Washington peo-
pie manage to survive.
Men are as happy and unconventional
as women. What would be thought if
Jay Gould or Willie Vanderbilt sat on
the corner of a street tipped back in a
, chair until midnight or later, and yet
that is the kind of sight seen here every
night. A favorite corner is that above
Newspaper row, by the Ebbitt House.
For years it has been the custom after
dinner for the hotel patrons to occupy
the broad sidewalk. There are two or
three trees and there is row of chairs
tilted back against those two trees every
night. 1t is a great political corner, and
was always Major McKinley's favorite
lounging place on hot nights. The gov
ernor was magnet and drew many
well known men there. If any one
wanted to see Mckinley that was the
first place to look for him, and he was
sure to be found the center of the side
walk group. At the next corner below
is Wizards, and here every night is
congressional group of southerners and
westerners. There is Tarsney, Of Mis-
souri,, talking over the house work with
Dockery. Morrison, Of Illinois, and his
wife are generally there, too, with hand
some Shiveley, of Indiana, and his pretty
little wife. Wizards is the greatest
place for women who are interested in
politics, and these nights the group al
ways contains Mrs. Tarsney, who knows
more about Missouri politics than any
other woman living. Mrs. Dockery is
close by her, and the only thing that
breaks up the party is the late supper
that is feature of Washington hotel
life.
The doorsteps of the cabinet houses
are never deserted. The Mobiles use
theirs, although they have a side lawn,
great rarely, where fountain plays
and the ladies walk about or lazily
swing in hammocks. When he isn't
over to the White House Steve Elkins is
pretty apt to be found hopping his
brown brow on the doorstep of his mag
nifcent mansion on Mcpherson square.
Around the corner on Vermont avenue,
where Secretary Foster is keeping bach
elor's hall, there is jolly couple. Uncle
Jerry Rusk comes over from his house
on the other side of the circle to see how
many cigars Mr.. Foster is smoking.
Then they tilt back in couple of chairs
and tell stories. Sometimes Senator AL
lison comes over and joins them, but he
is prone to occupy his own brownstone
steps next door in lonely grandeur and
call back and forth to the cabinet couple
when he has an idea. Secretary Tracy
is never found on his doorstep. He goes
over to the Metropolitan club and takes
an airing there. The postmaster gen.
erals house is supposed to be vacated
for the summer, but to look at it no one
would ever suspect that the postmaster
general had it all to himself. It looks
occupied by large family and it is a
pleasure of Mrs. Wanamaker's to keep
it so. Evenings the lights are turned
low, but the blinds are open and through
them can be seen vases filed with fresh
flowers and other signs of habitation, al
though no one but Mr.. Wanamaker is
there.
One of the drollest ideas for keeping
cool is the favorite practice of several Of
the legations. The South American
people have a fondness for horse cars
and electric cars. These sitting hot
nights several of them form parties, and
the secretaries with their wives and
sweethearts take car, have ride and
wind up on the terraces of the Capitol,
where if there is breeze to be found in
the city it is there. They stroll about
the capitol and walk or dream in the
moonlight till midnight. Then they
walk down in the cooler night after the
streets have grown quiet.
The family in the White House keep
very quiet these days and nights. They
have a late supper and then adjourn to
the south veranda, where the president
smokes and entertains such people as
come in. If it were not for this piazza