The San Francisco call., 1895-11-24

balls, and without a spark of jealousy.
Nor had Byron that green-eyed. monster,
for although incapable of waltzing he
wrote the only lyric on the waltz which
literature knoweth. Benjamin was then
editing ans evening paper named the Sig
nal, and on the next day appeared poem
on the pulka, from which l recall these
lines:
Pulka, pullSa, pray how came you so?
I've asked ten dandies and the ten don't know.
One reason for the disappearance of the
german or cotillon is that the old regime
OF leaders here is falling through years
and corpulence; and that the new young
men OF the period are too lazy to fully
learn and direct its intricacies. To this
day Llspenard Stewart, who, although a
semi millionaire, is hard-working
Legislator, is pointed out in the park and
at the opera as that lovely man who used
to lead the german" Such is fame An
other reason why this dance is destined
to exile is its expense. 1 have attended
private balls where the favors dis
tributed cost thousands of dollars.
YES, YES, 90 our society is getting eco
been introduced this year in the opera
house the London fashion at Covent Gar
den OF sharing purchased boxes on differ
ing nights. Indeed, I do not despair of
seeing the Virginia reel brought into favor
at the Patriarchs or charity ball. And if
1t should be, then Ward McAllister's adj
mirers will actually rejoice that he did
not live to. see the vulgar quadrilie
and reel of his youth revived among his
heretical Four Hundred. Are we to have
a conservative fin de slecle?
The prominence of the Whitney we'd
dlng so soon after the election results had
struck signal blow at Democracy re-
VlVed the question whether the father OF
the bride would become a Presidential
candidate. l have it from one of his most
intimate friends, whatever ex-Secretary
Whitney's views may have been before
Maryland, Kentucky, Iowa and New Jer-
ssey deserted the colors which he flies, that
he is certainly no candidate now. "He
does not" said this friend 'intend to
waste his chances and his money as
sweetness on the desert air. He is, as
heretofore, for Cleveland, and his init
macy with Editor Bennett, with whom he
IS IN constant correspondence, doubtless
dictated the cable message from Paris
that in the Herald astonished the poll
tlclans not long ago, commanding an edi-
torlal In favor of third term. The Her
aids inconsistency is consistent with its
history, for was it not in 1876 that it daily
berated third term for Grant as Cas-
sarism Mr. Whitney is cautiously shrewd.
w
Attorney, in my fourth term, he had his
first law case with me, in defending a
newspaper proprietor against an indict-.
ment for false pretenses. He had only
been then admitted a month on his Boston
diploma. The then Recorder, a very
brusque Judge, in interrupting novel but
puzzling proposition made by young Whit
ney (and he looked very boyish and dandi-
hed), said to me in what he presumed to
be sotto voce over the bar, "Who is this
man?" But the Recorder was a son of
the great Falstaff actor Hackett, and had
inherited his sire's deep stage voice, so
that Whitney heard the observation.
Strengthening himself proudly he said:
'tIf your Honor please, | am as you are,
an officer of this court-my name is
Whitney-a member lately of the Boston
bar and a graduate of the Harvard
Law School" Whitney succeeded in his
motion, and as accident produced it bought
of the Recorder, in Park avenue, where
the two became hobnobbers; for the
Judge respected courage and presence of
mind. Whitney then dashed Into Tam
many politics, in time became Corporation
Counsel and municipalist, and after
ward, having become, first officially and
next personally, intimate with Grover
Cleveland, became President Cleveland's
Secretary of the Navy. The political
friend referred to-a practiced Democratic
politician-aIso believed that Whitney, get
ting New York delegates and becoming one,
would kill off all State competitors and
nominate Cleveland as he did the last
time. 'That may be the case of pro-
cedure, also," concluded the politician,
sin the Republican Convention, where