The record-union., 1895-02-16
NEW YORK SOCIETY.
"reminiscences of a Metropolitan
Beau.
Birth or Brains the Key-Money
Awaited Little In Those Days for no
One Had 1t in Any Quantity-Astor
the Solitary acknowledgements of
the Town Under Knfckerbocker
Regime-Suppers of the Time.

fright purchased by the REcoRD-UNIoN from
the Box Syndicate Press, New York.
Longfellow sang, ''Let the dead past
bury its dead" but he left indefinite in
meaning the word in his line that ex-
presses degree in the calendar Of Time.
Past is an elastic word, and can be used
in reference to any age or period that To-
day has left behind. By the use Of the
word 1 do not intend to sketch the So
ciety of Neuw Amsterdam; nor Of tho
time when it changed name under the
Duke of York. Washington Irving,
Cooper in his Spy, Mrs. Lamb in her
History, have already each made such a
sketch. Nor the society of New York
when Tory danes refused cards TO young
Alexander Hamilton because of his dia-
tribes against the mother country. Nor
the society of Mayor De Witt Clinton's
time soon after American naval ships
had ceased arboring off that island
where now the Statue of Liberty towers.
By the Past, in the title of this article. l
refer to about ffty-four years ago.
AT a period when procession passed
through Broadway commemorative the
obsequies of President Harrison the first
sions, therein chorusing honor to "Tippe-
canoe and Tyler too," as fast as the Ham
letian funeral baked feasts followed the
marriage tables. At period when n.
i. Willis began to jOurnaliZe of upper
tendon" above Blocker street; and when
society was residential, to large extent,
below Union Square, and where there
was farm land where now are the pala-
tial mansions of our Astors, Nanderbilts,
Goulds, Tittanys, Rockefellers, 4erkes
and Brices.
So much for time and scene plot as
playwrights phrase it. And now for the
actors and the action. Yet. what is
meant by the term society? 1t was then a
term which, for Specification, puzzled, as
now it puzzles, London's West End.
Even to-day the term finds various detin-
itions in New York, accordant as one
may consult the pocket dictionary Of a
Ward McAllister or of Nine. Paran
Stevens, or the compiler of an elite di-
rectory.
Let me paraphrase an old couplet thus:
Society! It's a venerable name
How few define it in plain terms the same,
And yet as entering it how many claim.
shall, however, use the word society
as defined by homely Webster - who
never cared for society-that Noah who
Ioated his electromagnetic through the
deluge of English words. Wrote he ::
1.-The more cultivated portion OF any
community in its social relations and in
1uences." Thus defined, the society OF
any community-be it Lenox of an AM
herstburg, New York or a Chicago
per, to be entitled New York Society
as it now ISL or up to Date,' 1 purpose
TO show how it evoluted from the society
/ now describe.
In the forties the open sesame to New
York society was either birth or mental
r1yto I, ioly
families then held the keys of drawing
rooms, to which the phrase nouveau
richie was yet utterly unknown. The
name of only one millionaire could be
found in the city directory. The metro
poiitan area in which society resided was
SO comparatively circumscribed that So
ciety was spared the absolute necessity
of maintaining private carriages by
which to leave visiting cards, or even to
attend receptions, concerts, balls or thea
ters. And opera-houSe was there nonei
Society was then in state of sheer indie
pendence, undismayed by the rigidity
of etiquette or the frowns of Mrs. Grun-
dy. There were no show houses.
Women had not come to wearing silks
for walking dresses, nor diamonds in the
daylight. COUNT Foster, James Coils
and Henry Sampson were the swells OF
Bond street.-The name was English,
quite English, you KNOW" but yet not
thought of as being such by it's weather.
residents. Nor was gold plate sported
for dinner service, except limitedIy, by
Dudley Selden, Henry BradhursL, Math-
ew Morgan and Herman LIE Roy OF
Washington Place, where its appearance
never excited envy. The much-observed
carriage of eX- Mayor Philip Hone-whose
daughter became the stepmother of the
late Judge Samuel Blatchford-had been
imported from Paris, and it sported a
livery coachman, to the wonder OF street
4 IL
bay horses proved to be the admiration
OF the fashionable crowds, whose after
noon promenade was on Broadway, be-
tween the Astor House, as q hotel, and
the private house of Jacob Astor (the
sole millionaire), situate on Broadway,
opposite Niblo's Garden. Those crowds
chatted OF the Louis Philippe hats which
the gentlemen wore, and of the Queen
Victoria coifures, and the Queen Nicto-
ria bonnets that the ladies exhibited. OF
the crowd Of promenaders chatted about
the recent social debut of Charles Kings
daughter, little dreaming that in years to
come she would be holding salons in
London or Paris as the wife of continent
tai diplomatist WaddIngton. Or the chat
was of the coming charity ball at the Dey
Street HOTEL on site where now West
ern Union ticks off thousands of dollars
per minute); or the projected removal o.
Grace Church from its downtown corner
TAT which Russell Sage half century
later proved to be bonn 10 proof to the fal
uptown Tenth street; or OF that merry
ball which Heman Thorne, who mar.
ried the rich Miss Jauncey, had lately
given, and at which the new dance called
the polka, had been danced for the frs
time in an American private house; anC
where handsome young George w. Mac.
Lean (he who long afterwards organized
the now famous Old Guard) actually. APP
peared in the newly introduced mus
tachios, (which neither papa, mamma
nor girls approve OF in young gal
liant"
Society then took promenades around
and through Washington Parade GrounC
it had not then arrived at the dignity
of being called a Square, and of having
marbled Washington Arch-and where
bellies could meet (''by chance, the usua
way" as the current Haynes Bayly sons
then RAM young student beaus as they
emerged from the portals of the recently
built University of EliZabethan archi
lecture. Society did not then disdain t.
finger of summer evenings on the Bat
terry to inhale sea breezes and GOSSIP
about the Saratoga that had just dis
fashioned Ballston Springs; or of tn,
steamb boat which conveyed excursionist
Gently written charming song begin
ming "On Long Islands seagirt shore,
which young James W. Gerard of Co
lumbia College had sung so charmingl,
at Mrs. Schermerhorn's musicale in he
Great Jones street mansion.
New York society was then admirinj
the entrance into it of the bride of tn
editor of the Herald. She was that pict
uresuue blonde, born Henrietta Crehan
don't you know, DEAR" one societ,
belle would say to another, who spok
several lanouaoes and Dlayed the MAN