The record-union., 1893-11-27
NEW YORK SOCIETY.
The Winter Season viii be a Brilliant
One.
Financial Conditions in the Great
American Metropolis-The
Outlook.

NEW YORK. November 19.-This week
has suddenly brought winter to this
city, and life here has entered upon
its most fascinating and complete of
seasons. 1t has been cold. but that has
nothing whatever to do with the transi-
ton. Flowers, plays. music and the
city's wives, not frost or snow, herald the
period of full life. Nature rules in gen.
eral way that those who can shall go away
IN the summer and may return in the
cold months, but fashion, custom and
theatrical managers fix the dates, and all
men, women and children submit and
| obey.
People have been getting back to town
during the last three weeks. The boards
which have closed up tight the doors and
windows of Fifth avenue residences and
| made the street hideous for months, have
been taken down, and the houses and the
avenues have filled with rich life. Ele-
giant carriages with fine-bred horses
throng the asphalt and crowd aside and
humble the public vehicles. Fashionable
women and children and all the dudes
move eagerly up and down the sidewalks.
! Shop windows are gorgeous and the up
! town merchant wears smile of content
ment as he sees the activity Of his polite
new clerks. All this has been for several
weeks, bat was only preparatory. Men
and women were merely informally here
They were shopping-not yet "at home"
They neither received calls nor went out
till last week.
In the short space of six days, however,
the bursting into bloom has been so
rapid that many of the characteristics of
the season have been settled. one can
see already definitely what the human
winter is 10 be, and, too, not only for
! those who have summered elsewhere but
also for those who have remained here
the dismal downtown merchant and the
SuIlen eaSt-slde poor. For all alike have
given signs of the returning life, and the
beginning is all the more interesting be-
cause the end is concealed and not alto
gether assuring to lovers OF peace and
progress.
Extravaganza will mark the phe-
nomena OF New York society. at the
horse show, the theaters, concerts and in
the streets and shops this is the one gen.
eral principle A woman Of fashion, who
has shared the high life here for years,
said to me yesterday that she had never
seen so much money going TO the trap
being spent this year. The splendOr and
quality of the material used in dresses is
unprecedented. Huge sleeves, often sup
ported and filled out with cushions, are
typical of the whole current of fashion in
female attire. Furs, and especially the
mink, are continued in style from last
year. But the rage for fur trimmings is
cutting up skins which cost great sums
into shreds which will be valueless in
short time.
In flowers the development of luxury
has made great strides, and what cannot
be added to the orchid is put on the
basket. Roses and flowers like the lily
Of the valley, which are out OF season,
are bought by thousands of dollars a day.
The orchid holds over, with the mink, as
too costly to be given up. These, men
must buy In delicate, beautifully woven
baskets, and decorated with inappropri-
ate velvet ribbons of great width, to send
as periodic sacrifices to beauty or hos
pitality. They last but day and are
gone the flowers wither, the basket and
ribbons are ruined by the dampness.
Only the expense of renewal persists.
To decorate themselves, the rich young
men buy the chrYsanthemum and this
flower, simple ana lovely in itself, was
had with football-a ridiculous influence
on male heads. The fashion in mems
hairdress is the mophead, with long
locks cdE6tulIy LIdluGQ W UloOIu0Is ~
football players head at the close of a
match is the ideal, and the ingenuity
which is displayed in getting this with
a comb and putting it under high hat is
as admirable in its way as is the Hover
which is taken for an example and
match for the hirsute disorder.
Vanity, folly and extravaganza might
be only amusing or ridiculous were it not
for other very serious conditions which
these trifles ignore. Downtown busi-
ness men are shaking their heads and are
dismal Of spirit. They if not their rel
atives, acquaintances, and sleeping part
ners, know that the panic has been and
that its effects are not all through coming.
The weekly bank statement shows the
| highest surplus reserve ever reported.
1t is S65, ,470, AIS. Fifteen months after the
May panic of 1854 the reserve touched
! S64, 724, 100. This weeks total IS reached
| less than four months after the panic of
the year, and there is no sign OF that
shrinkage which returning activity of
! trade would produce. On the contrary,
there is no demand for capital for busi-
ness old or new; and discounts have de-
creased 81 ,253, 200 in the week.
! One heavy failure has taken place and
others are feared. That of the Thurber,
| Whyland Company was not a surprise;
but it was a disappointment that the
! financial aid given them three months
ago was rendered vain by the persist
ence OF business stagnation. And one Of
the most prominent of New y York's ma
tional bankers SAID to me, that it was sig
niticant that the present hope Of relief
came from elsewhere. ut comes from
California" he said, land l hope it
is as significant of courage and sound
conditions there as it is of temerity and
| weakness here"
But the idleness of capital is neither so
! T1IctfIrQGOUn StnrtliDna or inf bo
opening Oh a season, usually marked by
vigor, courage and safety in every phase
of the city's life, as is the idleness of la
oor 1t is perhaps wise that no notice
has been taken in the local papers of the
| state of things among the workingmen
but 1t may be the fault Of loose observa-
/ ton or of indifference. But for two weeks
the evidences of distress among the poor
ana OF uneasiness among the thrifty
! wage-workers, have been under any
! bOdy's eye. For idle men have been
wandering everywhere over the city.
1t is usual in dull times for the unem-
ployed to congregate in the saloons and
! halls of the east side. There they talked
and made speeches and cursed among
! themselves. But, though L have been
almost constantly in that quarter Of the
/ city for three weeks, l have seen nothing
/ otthis sort. There is an uncanny silence
/ and sullenness about the scenes and no
cursing. 1t is worth while noting that
/ when spoken to, ii answers are got at all,
| these men say they know that everybody
! is suffering in some degree. The talk all
/ summer of the losses Of capitalists and of
the situation of the banks has reached
them, and while their despair is all the
| deeper it does no divert their anger
against their old alleged enemies.
/ But up town, in unaccustomed places,
along Fifth avenue, around the great
hotels and restaurants and in the small
/ aristocratic quarter. ragged men are
lounging, staring and frowning. These
men are not of the stronger-minded