The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-04-29
THE FOUR HUNDRED.
SOME CaARACrElI5rICs OF NEW
YORK'5 CREAM OF SOCIETY"

from me " dSRingtOn STAR.
''Are you in the 400a"
The question was asked of New Yorker
who comes to Washington every spring,
because he finds the climate 50 much
pleasanter. He looked a little surprised and
answered with the deliberate ease Of the
heavy swell:
The 400a o, that has been narrowed,
you know. The thing now is to be in the
15O."
Are you in the l50W
'''Pon my word" he said, II hardly
know. Ever since the 400 was started I've
been in it, but it has hardly been settled
definitely who are and who are not in the
15O."
How is q man to fiud outl sThe list is not
| printed yet, nor is it likely that an authori-
tative list ever will be printed. The mem
bers of this most exclusive set are not
branded. so that you can tell them on sight,
| and they have not all got straw berry marks
upon the left arm. There are certain ear
marks. as they say OF cattle in the west. by
which you can identify the people VINO COM
| pose the 400 but that new $50 is tribe
which has not yet been properly classified.
! A New Yorker was asked by the writer to
draw the portrait of typical member of
the 400
There are many Individual characters
tics of the noble band. " he replied.
well, just let us have the principal ones
and not 60 into the subdivisions"
HOW TO TELL ONE OF THE 400.
ga member of the New York 400" he
said may be known from the fact that he
| has the unmistakable air of the man who
does not work for living. No busy man
can initiate him in this, and you can tell
the man with an occupation who is tenn
porarily loafing from the professional
| loafer at q glance. The latter lives upon
| an income which some one else was kind
enough to get for him, and the fact that he
never has had to earn dollar in his life has
made him find other means OF passing the
| time than the ceaselesS struggle TO make a
| living. He has lazy walk, a slow method
of speech, an easy INDECENT way Of doing
everything that it takes a lifetime Of loaf
ing to acquire. If he lifts his hand TO his
head he does it slowly; f he halls hack and
gets into it he spends as much time over the
| operation as possible"
"Why is he SO slow? What is the objec-
ton to his moving quickly"
| "Oh," said the expert in the science Of the
400, you don't understand the point. The
member of the 400 is trying to kill time.
| He has nothing to do with his time, so be
tries to kill it. II he should be quick about
anything he would tiud himself brought t.
| a standstill with vast spaces of hours before
him and no means OF bringing them over.
| He gets up as late as he can, be spends as
much time In dressing as be can. he eats
| breakfast as slowly as he can. Although he
does not read much of his newspaper It
takes him longer to do it than it would take
you to go through all the morning papers.
When he goes down the street he strolls.
| The fire engines may go dashing by and
| everybody may rush to the fire. but he
never rushes. The two professional loafers
| of the world are the man who is born rich
| and becomes a member of the 400 and the
tramp. Neither ever make a penny, yet
they live; nei her ever tolls, yet they enjoy
life. People support them both. The one
| has the park bench and the saloon where he
Gao loaf and the other loafs in clubs"
Hold on" said the writer. ''you don't
mean to draw q comparison between the 400
aud the tramps, do your
"Why, yes, do" said the authority,
laughing at the strange conclusion that his
own reasoning had brought him to. of
course it sounds startling, but it is true that
the 400 are more like tramps than they are
Ike any other class Of the community"
A CIRCLE WITHIN A CIRCLE.
But the 400 isn't the $50, and before pro-
ceeding any further it will be well to ascer-
| tain what the $50 is. 1t is simply circle
wi hin circle. Ward McAIlister says 4UO
! is too large a number of exclusives. Within
| the $50 there is a smaller ring, and smaller
one in that. and so on until you find a small
| dot, which stands for the most eXclusi We
| circle of all and is represented doubtless by
| McAllister himself. If matters keep on at
| the present rate the French Academy with
| its forty immortals will be- large in COMPARE
son with the exclusive society circle of New
| York. AS it is now it is like the toy Chi
nese boxes-each box you open contains a
smaller box, until finally there is box SO
| Tiny that it can hold nothing.
| However, this is the state of affairs that
| confronts New Workers. now. Those that
| had got securely settled among the 400 find
| themselves shaken up by the institution of
| the $50, and now, Of course, every nerve
must be strained and every stratagem re-
sorted to in order to get established in this
new b md of brothers. But how can any
| one get in unless there is a vacancyg II the
| limit is stretched then it cases to be the $50
| But whatever the $50 may be now, like the
| 400, it will come TO express an idea sooa
rather than the exact figures of social cir
| Gle.
There are some Of the $50 here, but how
many 1t would be impossible to say. OF the
F400 Washington has a considerable number,
| for it has become the truly fashion,
| able thing to have a cottage at Bar Har-
| boz or Newport or Tuxedo and a house in
| Washington for the winter. 1t is true that
person supplied with residences in this
way does not spend much time in New
| York, but to be a New Yorker It is not
necessary to live there, but simply to have
been identified with the place at some time
in the past. But if all the New York peo-
pie who have cottages at Newport or fash
| ionable summer resorts and houses in Wash
iugton we're admitted to the charmed Giro lie
its numbers would be nearer 1000 than
400.
| KNOW THEM BY THEIR CLOTHES.
| 4 pretty certain way TO know member
of the 400 is by his clothes. They have the
unmistakable air of having recently been
put on. They are no better than the clothes
of many professional aud business men, but
they have not been sat in or worked in so
long. The toilet, which is a mere circum-
stance in the daily life OF the average citi-
zen, is an event in the day of the mem Der
of the 400. AS he has hardly any other
| necessary occupations each day besid es
dressing. eating and sleeping, it is,
strange to say. found necessary by him to
| hire a man to help him in the dressing
part, aud the orthodox 400 man ought TO
| have a valet
These ways of spotting one Of the 400 ap-
ply to his aDpearan II you speak to him
you can tell what he is at once. He usually
| drawls and he has an accent that sounds af-
! fected, although il may really be perfectly
! natural He uses the broad a, OF course.
There are plenty Of people who are not af-
, s,ctcd, and not of the 400, who use the En-
l Hsh pronunciation, but 1t would be hard