The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1896-08-27
BOHEMIA OF FASHION
ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING
eARTS OF THE HORSE SHOW.

Garden.
Society left the horse show recently
held in New York at 5 p. IN. every day.
In the ten minutes on either side of that
hour there vas a great gathering of
wraps and calling of carriages, and one
by one the boxes were emptied. At & 80
p. III. the horse show sp~ectacles began
again, but not at the Madison Square
Garden. To see this part of the show,
the most interesting part of all, you
must 90 to one Of three fashionable din
ing places. j.
This seems almost incredible. The
most, in fact almost all, of the people
who make the smart set Ill New York
society are rich. Several hundred Of
them are enormously rich, worth from
IS, 600, 900 to over 800. 900, 600. They
have magnificent houses. They have
scores of servants. They lave dining
rooms upon which tens and even hun
dreds Of thousands Of dollars have been
lavished. They have imported and ex-
~travagantly paid cooks. Yet they do not
dine at home.
At the Waldorf hotel any evening
during the horse show week you might
have seen W. X. Vanderbilt, John ia
cob Aston, Oliver Iselin, George Gould
and a score Of others Of great wealth,
seated in the public restaurant, eating
and drinking as though their gorgeous
homes We're not within a few blocks,
open and ready for guests. There they
sat, a part Of a noisy. elbowing crowd,
enjoying themselves as if peace and
quiet and privacy were not supposed to
be the main requisites of a good dinner.
The faVorite dining place at the Wal
dorf is not the big dining room, where
the management has made an especial
effort to CRAFTY the desire for splendor
and quiet. In the main dining room
there Is a carpet upon the floor, the
lights are sOftened, and the most softly
shaded lights are upon each table, and
the tables are removed each from the
other a sufficient distance so that con-
versation cannot be heard from one to
the other. But the smart set does not
dine i'll these surroundings.
They prefer the winter garden. 1t is
q pretty room. But it was intended as a
place for afternoon tea or for late supper
or for a quiet drink when a man wished
to have a mn with him and also
wished to smoke. There are palms and
ferns and various blOssoming plants, and
in a corridor overlooking the room an
orchestra plays. There is no carpet on
the floor, and every football and every
movement Of the legs OF a chair makes
u loud noise. When a waiter drops any
thing, the crash touches up the deadest
nerves.
; Men and women feel freer there. The
men smoke, and both men and women
lounge i'll "a respectable way. 1t is very
fashionable bohemia. And here the
smart people anne. So eager were they
that there were not nearly tables enough.
So you might see W. X. Vanderbilt and
Gould and Aston sitting solitary, each
at a separate table, holding that table
until the people they have invited to
dine shall come. If they did not sit
thus, the table would be given to the
first And the rule is not lifted
for millions or titles or any other con
sluSIuIlDu" lICu Will WOIh ally WOLucI
in other parts Of the world.
At : p. m. the little room was full.
The tables are SO close together that the
elbows Of those at one table came dan
gerously near plunging into the ribs Of
those at the next table. The service is
Of course as careful and as perfect as in
any other part of that beautiful hotel.
But the reasons this little room is popu.
lar above other rooms and other restau-
rants is the privilege to smoke and the
accompanying air and feeling Of being
bohemian and also being surrounded by
fashion and eminent respectability in
the sense in which that phrase is used
by society.
Now, in any society but that of New
York such a state Of affairs would be
impossible. In any capital city of
above all things. To be looked at, to be
seen Of the outsiders is to be miserable
and bored. Other societies have built
their palaces to live in, to be at home
in, to be at ease III. New York's palaces
seem to have been built to get away from.
Why do men with tens of millions
with longings to be thought aristocratic
and ultra refined thus subject themselves
to the miseries Of u long and dreary wait
to hold a table in the semibohemian
eating place Of a hotel? Why do women
who carefully copy the manners of roy
al persons and spend countless dollars
in the pursuit of exclusive ideas dine in
publicity and in tobacco smoke evening
after evening and enjoy it enormously:
Then there were a few Hople either
from out of town or from Ess fashiona-
BILE sets in town. These people were
enormously interested in the bearers Of
we'll known names. But they were not
more absorbed than were these we'll
known people i'll each other. OF course
they knew each other we'll. But the
women were discussing each others
gowns, each others personal appear
ance, Il the men were listening or
taking part in the gossip.
From table Il table it was gossip,
gossip, gossip, never things, ALWAYS peo-