Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-03
NEW YORK IS BLUE.
The Unhappy Gothamite Ended the
Year Illuminating on Paresis.
NEWS OF PROMINENT PEOPLE.
Pathetic Figure Cut by A Giant Whose
Knees Gave Way Four Inches. {.
TWO CURIOSITIES IN LITERATURE

New YORK, Jan. 2.-There is only one
thing duHer than Christmas in New York
for those who have grown out of childhood
that is the period which drags along from
December 25 to the beginning of the next
year. During those days life is compare
lively gloomy. The year is dying, and
death scenes are dispiriting. There is not
much to do, and frail man, while waiting
for the day to come when tine official taking
OF good resolutions shall be in order, gets
morose as he thinks how many things he
must give up and how bad he has been.
The mere fact that he knows better than
anyone else that he will. not keep his reso-
lutions is of no Importance. Every man is
an actor in his own heart, and the fine act
ing of his inner man, as he contemplates it,
moves him to genuine tears That saddens
the week, to begin with. Then, theatrical
men, instead of coming to the rescue and
trying with their finest efforts to lend to
the melancholy tinge of the holidays little
rose color, deliberately settle down to
dullness and inactivity. They ought to
invent new things, give all the plays of the
year boiled down into one as the French
do, but they don't. They know that this is
a bad theater season, and instead of fighting
fate they submit and put their good things
away until another time
| The Victims of Faresis.
Poor Scanlan, the good-natured Irish
singer, has wound up the year most sadly.
He has broken down with paresis, as Nc
Cullough, Tony Hart and so many other
| well-known actors have done That fright
full mental disease, one of civilizations lat
est achievements, is much talked about, and
men who find themselves aimlessly cutting
up bits of paper or otherwise exhibiting
what are called signs of incipient paresis
| have taken to worrying about themselves.
The general impression that actors supply
nearly all its victims to the disease is en-
| tirely erroneous. 1t is based on the fact
that when an actor breaks down in that way
| the fact Is known to everyone Chemists
and other medical specialists are oyer-run
with cases from the rank and fill of New
Workers who try to combine excessive dissi-
patton and work. Of those the poor go to
insane asylums to die, the rich are taken to
die abroad. Nature, in her efforts to make
man behave himself, never conceived any
thing more effective or depressing than a
victim of paresis. 1t is strange, and seems
unjust, that in England paresis is as yet
comparatively uukHOWH.
Pat Gilmore Blowing Out the Year.
Thursday night found New York City
trying to say cheerful goodby to 1891. |
The horrid bells were ringing and the |
stupid horns blowing as usual A new feat |
ure was the hanging of electric lamps above |
the steps of the City Hall and musical |
performance by Mr.. Pat Gilmore, of Coney |
Island, and his band, with ghostly flags
futtering in the dark. AT the PLAYERS |
Club, the Authors Club, the Century Club |
and other clubs that make a specially of in
tellect, healths were drunk and fine things
were said At the other clubs they had
just as fine ceremonies, minus the intellect
ual part. Some New Workers travelled to
Albany to hear Governor Hill lead off his
touching farewell speech with poetry and |
high-fown prose, telling how his heart
strings were wrenched by moving away from
his Albany crowd.
Others of a practical turn, stayed at home |
and set fire to their houses or shops. That |
kind of thing, according to insurance men,
always happens very extensively at about |
this time, when the time of an annual set
tlement finds many enterprising business
men unprepared.
The Sights at Delmonico's.
A little New Year event frightened the
lives of those who regularly frequent the |
public camping ground of New York So
ciety, which is Mr.. Delmonico's big dining
room. All heads were turned toward one
table near the window. 1t was not to see
the physically big Englishman who has
come over to marry Mrs Marshall o. Rob-
erts, nor was it to study the mentally big
Mr.. John Lafarge, who has wandered home
from Japan and the South Seas with pic
lures and tales of adventure to stir the
blood. A pink bonnet was the object of
interest, and under the pink bonnet which,
in obedience to law, carried little plumes
like hearse, sat Miss Lillian Russell.
Miss Russell is entitled to the interest of
the publlc-any woman is who, after 10 OF
II years of well-advertised good looks, con-
tinues to work hard. 1t is curious how
rarely an interesting actress, or in fact any
one outside. of the common ruck of rich
nonentities, turns up at Delmonico's. Per-
haps that is why all the commonplace peo-
pie showed such interest as she sat eating
her dinner with Mr.. French, her manager
Probably several million females out of
town would like to know what Miss Russell
had on. 1t is unfortunate that man can
never convey such information. Her dress
about the neck was a sort of dark color cut
out in an attractive flower pattern, some-
thing after the fashion of the silver around
modern whisky TASKS which allows the glass
to show through. Through Miss RusselPs
pattern there was visible pink, probably
silk, which matched the bonnet
Troubles of a Man Who Can Draw,
When Du Maurier, the interesting En-
glishman who draws such fine tall women and
fat short men, came out as an author not |
long ago, it was suggested that he did SO to
test his ability to earn living by his pen
should the loss of his sight ever make it i'm
possible for him to continue the making of
pictures. News that comes from London
tends, unfortunately, to confirm the un-
pleasant explanation given for his literary
departure. His eyesight has undoubtedly
been falling and although he has not be-
come blind, as has been rumored, he will
be compelled in few days to undergo an
operation of dangerous. character Eyery-
body will hope for his recovery, but if the
worst should come it is pleasing to think ..
that he will be able to write and that he will
have plenty Of friends to illustrate his writ
ings.
In the way of illustration, BY the wav,
Mr.. Oscar Wilde, the human chameleon, has
evolved a new idea, or some one has evolved
it for him. He has written q book, not vet
circulated in America which deals with
dreams and contains pictures that try to ]
make on the eve the impression which
dreams make on the mind. So far as being
hazv, indistinct and interestingly incom-
prehensible goes, the pictures do suggest
Dreams
Paderewskfs Price for Charity Concerts.
Mr.. Paderewski, whose name is now on