Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-04-23

HEEsl5EW little surprised and
| H4EAE n answered with the de-
'M4HH - liberate ease Of the
| Tbi heavy swell:
| THE 400? Oh. that
has been narrowed, you know. Tho thing now
| is to be in the 49,"
| Are you in the 1902"
"Pon my word" he said. II hardly know.
Ever since the 400 was started Eve been in it,
but ii has hardly been settled definitely who
are and who not in the $50"
| How is n man to find out? The list is not
printed yet, nor is it likely that an authorita-
two list ever will be printed. The members of
| this most exclusive set are not branded, SO
/ that you can tell them on sight. and they have
not ali got strawberry marks upon the left
arm. There are certain ear marks, as they say
! OF the cattle in the west, by which you can
| identify the people who compose The 400 but
that new $50 is tribe which has not yet been
properly classified.
New Yorker was asked by the writer to
| draw the portrait of a typical member of the
| 400
There are many individual characteristics
| OF the noble band, he replied.
well, just let us have the principal ones
and not 60 into tie subdivisions"
HOW TO TELL ONE OF THE 400.
"a member of the New York AGO." 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 imitatc him in
| this. and you can tell the man with all occupa-
ton who Is temporarily loafing from the pro-
| fesslonal ioafer at a 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 a dollar in his lie has
made him lind other means of passing the
time than the ceaseless struggle to mako q liv-
ing. He has lazy walk. a slow method of
| speech, an easy iudolent way of doing every
| thing that it takes lifetime of loafing to ac-
quire. II he lifts his hand to his head he does
it slowly; if he halls hack and gets into il he
s sIhSIe as much time over the operation as pos
why is he so slow? What is the objection
to his moving quickly"
oh" said the expert in the science of the
400 lyon don't understand the point. The
member of the 400 is trying to kill time. He
has nothing to do with his time. SO he tries to
Kill it. II he should be quick about anything
he would find himself brought to O. standstiii
with vast spaces of hours before HIM and no
means OF bridging them over. He gets up as
late as he can. he spends much time in dress
| ing rs he can. he eats breakfast as slowly as
! he can Although lie does not read much of
his ne wspaper 1t takes him longer to do it than
1t 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
1 hC'SI AuSucss 1hc tWO pfOieSSlOuul lOa1erS Oh
the world are the man who is born rich and be-
comes a member of the 400 and the tramp.
| Neither ever makes a penny. yet they live;
neither ever tolls, yet they enjoy life. People
support them both. The one has the park
bench and the saloon where he can loaf and
| the other loafs in clubs.
| Hold on" said the writer, ''you don't mean
| to draw comparison Between the 400 and the
tramps, do you?'
| why, yes,I do" said the authority. laughing
/ at tho sfr
| ing had brought him to. 'Of course it sounds
startling, but it is true that the 400 are more
like tramps than they are like any other class of
the community"
A CIRCLE WITHIN A CIRCLE.
But the 400 isn't the $50, and before proceed
ing any further it will be well to ascertain what
the $50 is. 1t is simply circle within CIRCLE
Mr.. Ward McAllister says 400 is too large a
number Of exclusives, SO he narrowed it down
| to $50 exclusives. Within the $50 there is a
smaller ring, and smaller one in that and SO
| on until you find small dot, which stands for
! the most exclusive circle of all and is repre-
sented doubtless by McAllister himself. If
matters keep on at the present rate the French
| Academy with its forty immortals will be large
| in comparison with tho exclusive society circle
| OF New York. As it lie now it is like the toy
Chinese 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 con-
| fronts 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
| ana every stratagem resorted to in order to get
| established in this new band of brothers But
how can any one get in unless there is vacancy?
II the limit is Stretched then it ceases to be the
| 100 But Whatever the $50 may be now, like
| the 400. 1t will come to express an idea soon
! rather than the exact figures Of social circle,
| There of the 150 hire m HON
many 1t would be impossible to say. OF the
| 400 Washington has a eonsidera Bile number for
1t has become the truly fashionable thing to
have a cottage at Bar Harbor or Newport or
Tuxedo and 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 i'll the past. But il all the New York peo-
pie who have cottages at Newport or other
| fashionable summer resorts and houses in
Washington were admitted to the charmed
| circle its numbers would be nearer a thousand
! than 400.
KNOW THEM BY THEIR CLOTHES
pretty certain way to know a member of
| the 400 is by his clothes. They have the I'M
| mistakable air of having recently been put on.
They are no better than the clothes of many
professional and business men, but they have
| not been sat In or worked in SO long, The toilet,
wnlch1S mere circumstance IN the daily life
| OF the average citizen, is an event in the day
| OF the member of tho 400. As he has hardly
any other necessary occupations each day
beside dressing, eating and sleeping, it 10.
| strange to say, found necessary by him to hire
| man to help him in the dressing part, and
| the orthodox 400 man ought to have valet
These ways OF spotting one of tho 400 apply
| to his appearance. If you speak to him you
| can tell what he is at once. He usually drawls
and he has an accent that sounds affected. al
though it may really be perfectly natural. He
uses the broad a, OF course. There are plenty
OF people who are not affected and not Of the
400. who use the English pronunciation, but it
would be hard to find one of the 4O0 who
doesn't use it. They take their time in talk
ing, as IN everything else. and this is doubtless
due to the fact that their brains are sluggish.
| THEN SELF coMPLAcExcy.
But there 10 one characteristic that they have
in an extraordinary degree. and that is self
complacency. A lawyer may sometimes doubt
whether there are not other professions as great
as his; physician may be modest when he re-
hects that physicians some times make mistakes;
even Clergyman may think there are other
| great callings in the world beside the church,
but genuine professional swell never under
| any circumstances doubts that lawyers, physi-
clans and clergymen would not rather follow
his occupation than their own. There is some
thing sublime or exasperating in thi: self salts.