The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-01-26

years ago. It was given Monday even
ing, March 26, 1888, by Mr. William K.
Vanderbilt now Mrs. o. H. P. Bel
mont in the house at Fifty second
street and Fifth avenue.
Dates in social history since then
have been described as so many years
before or after THE Vanderbilt Ball"
The total money spent on it reached a
quarter of a million. Mrs. Bradley
and in spite of hard times in America
and the opposition of at least one of
New Yorlx's most fashionable and infiu-
entail clergymen.
1t is to be the mother of an English
countess pitted against the mother of
an English duchess, for Mrs. Bradley
Martin is the mother OF the Countess of
Craven, who preSideS over the earFS
country seat, Combe Abbey, near Co
ventry, England, and helps him spend
her own allowance of $4,000 year and
rentals of $19S,000 which the earl de-
rives from his estates. And Mrs. Bel
mont is the mother of the Duchess of
Marlborough, whose noble husband has
been putting some mortgages on his
outlying estate to keep up the SplendorS
North VS.. SOUTH, TOO.
It is to be the social skill of a daugh-
ter of the north pitted against that OF
a belle of the south. Mrs. Bradley Mar
tin was the daughter of Isaac Sherman,
the cooper of Troy, N. Y, who put his
savings from the cooperage business
into railroad bonds and died worth a
good many millions, while Mrs. Bel
mont was Miss Alva Smith of Mobile,
Ala.
It is to be the battle royal. Opposition
arOuses all the spirit of a woman like
Mrs Bradley Martin. She has planned
a bail that will cost $4,000 Rather
than fail she will make it cost half
million.
There were 1000 guests at the Van
derbilt ball. More than LOCO invitations
have been issued for the Bradley Mar
tin ball. The most eXtravagant cos
low Vso1sly -a1sea
worn at the Vanderbilt ball. The cost
of the costumes of the ladies, the dress
makers, said, averaged $3.50 each; the
| costumes of the men, $165.
GORGEOUS COSTUMES.
Mrs. Bradley Martin will insist on
still more magnificent costumes Cos
tunes of the 18th, 18th and 10 centuries
de riguere'' the invitations say, and
she has dropped hints that mean that
anything less than a court gown will be
displeasing. The costume of the popu-
lar burgomeister will not do At the
Vanderbilt ball there were C1eopatraS,
Maids of Athens, Helens of Troy, Maud
NIullers and Sairey Camps. These will
not do for the Bradley Martin ball. The
costumes must be historic, and the re
cipients of invitations are at this mo-
ment hunting high and low for old
paintings from which to copy their
dress. Word comes from Bradley Mar
tins old neighbOrs in Albany that they
are going to appear in the costumes of
their ancestors of the Colonial days.
So are the Colonial danes and their es-
cOrts.
Among those invited so great is the
CONSERVATION at Mrs. Bradley Martins
dictum as to costumes that scarce
gown has been settled upon Each one
is waiting on and counseling with the
others. The result is that the dress
makers of New York will be rushed
night and day and the costumers viii
scarcely be able to sleep after the or
ders come. Everything must be made
new Mrs. Bradley Martin will have no
made over gowns at her ball, nor can
any of the beaux hope to rent a cos
tune We are sure to have a worse
rush than there was for the Vanderbilt
ball And it is told of that ball that
the hairdressers of New York were so
crowded with orders that many fine
ladies had to have their hair dressed
on Sunday, and their heads done up
in patent paper appliances so as not to
muSS the artistic effects.
TWO BATHROOMS.
The Vanderbilt ball filed the great
! w. K. Vanderbilt house at Fifty second
! street and Fifth avenue. The ball that
is to Guido it is going pretty nearly to
fill the Waldorf The entire ground floor
of both the big hotels has been engaged
with the exception of the east dining
room and Turkish and Marie An
| toniette rooms, in which the ordinary
plebeian millionaire guests of the hotel
will be permitted to elbow one another.
The entire Aston suite of rooms on the
first floor has been engaged for the use
i
and she will have even more room on
the first floor for the ladies. Both ball
rooms will be used. The Waldorf and
Lander's orchestra will furnish the
music.
George c. Boldt who made himself
famous. first, by his entertaining of the
Astor family at the Bellevue hotel in
Philadelphia when William Waldorf
Astor married Miss Willing. and, next,
when he was caterer and manager for
the Harrison inaugural ball in Wash
ington, has carte blanche.Al New York
knows what that means. Already he has
retained hundred extra servants to be
added to his own large force. Costumes
of historic accuracy are being made for
each of these servants. AS Mrs. Brad
ley Martin likes English ways, Mr. Boldt
will serve an English supper. That is,
the supper will be continuous. 1t will
begin at midnight and continue until
a. m. Mrs. Bradley Martins guests
may come and go when they please. and
there will be a large card from which
they may order. They will take supper
in groups, each group being made up of
wearers of costumes of like character.
Then there will be champagne punch
and everything else one could desire at