The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-02-05
MISSES BRlCE'S SALE.
DAUGHTERS OF THE LATE MIL
LIONAIRE SELL OFF THEIR
COLORED WARDROBEs.


ture for "A Foreign ShOre-Mrs.
ChOate's Missionary Work Is Car
ried on Chiefly in the Smart Set.
New York. Feb. 3.-After the death of
Calvin Brice his wife and daughters held
a sale of their wardrobes at their home in
New York Society has attended too many
of these sales on account of going into
mourning to evince anything but shrewd
interest in the bargains offered.
The first person to inaugurate this
thrifty treatment of this mourning prob
lem was Mrs Marshall o. Roberts. On
the death of her husband she had just
completed her outfit for winter splendors.
ana her mourning represented a loss of
nearly $S,O0O With excellent business
sense, she hired too rooms at fashionable
hotel, every colored garment in her pos
session was sent and artfully disposed
about the apartments, and capable sales
woman and assistant were put in charge.
Cards were written announcing the sale
and posted to all Mrs. Roberts friends,
and, after society got over its first shock,
a rushing business was done in those two
hotel rooms.
1t is safe to say that not only did Mrs.
Roberts not lose a cent on her wardrobe,
| but actually sold everything at marked
profit. The women came in hordes, many
to see and the majority to buy. The sales
woman's assistant showed off the gowns
and hats on her own person, and so kindly
did the most conservative social element
take to this arrangement that nobody
thinks a whit the less of you to-day for
trying TO find what silver lining you can
to your cloud of bereavement.
The Brice sale was a more private af-
| fair; none of the afflicted family ap-
| peared, and the library and drawing
| room were given up to the clothes falr
| One woman who attended counted some
| thing like 1,500 toilets in all, including bi-
cycle and bathing suits, tea gowns and
dinner dresses. Fans, handkerchief,
gloves, stockings, shoes, feather boas,
boxes of odd ribbons, piumes, artificial
| flowers, mock and real jewels. tinted
note paper, underwear decorated with
| colored ribbons, all were heaped about
| the drawing room and library, and two
| sk1llful maids, under the direction of
| trained saleswoman, who gets her liv
ing by conducting these functions, car
| ried on the bargaining. ~4 ~
A curious feature of these sales is that
absolutely no credit is given. The pro-
ceedings are conducted on cash basis,
and you are at liberty to try and beat
down the price to the very best of your
ability. Another peculiar fact is that in
variably every thing is sold, even to pairs
of old golf stockings with holes in them,
for no woman feels her dignity in the
least lowered by buying and wearing an
others old things.
Sometimes, as in the case of Miss Elsie
de Wolf, who sold her clothes on the death
of her father the. bereaved lady prefers
to conduct her own enterprise, and then
it is perfectly evident that even the sin
cerest grief cannot blind a clever woman
20 the advantage of driving a sharp bar
gain. When these sales are personally
conducted it is customary to serve lun-
cheon of hot chocolate and sandwiches,
or afternoon tea, and the buyers invari-
ably arrange themselves for the delivery
of articles they purchase. If you happen
to ask the average fashionable and wealthy
woman why she attends these sales she
will answer readily enough that she went
to Mrs Roberts because the clothes we're
sure to be splendid and worth buying; to
the Brice sale for nearly the same reason,
and to Miss de VOLTS because, though she
might not find gowns SO Sumptuous, she
was willing to take an old dress merely
| to use it as a model for her dressmaker,
| since Miss de Wolf is clothed always in
the latest Partisan invention. Besides,
| the sales amuse and satisfy curiosity, and
| are an irresistible temptation TO extra
Vagance.
Mrs. Joseph ChOate as a Suffragi-t.
When Mrs. Joseph Choate sails aE y
| with her gifted husband, who has been ap-
| pointed our ambassador to the court of st.
| James, a sigh OF real relief win go up from
| the ladies who head the anti-suffrage move
ment in New York Mrs. Choate is a
| charming woman and one of the pillars of
| the suffragist temple as it stands in the
midst of smart society.
For years the workers for woman's rights
| had no hearing or following among the
| fashionable classes, for your fashionable
woman is wonderfully hidebound and nom
progressive. When Mrs. Choate, however
| became thoroughly persuaded that one wo-
man one vote was law both human and
| divine, she undertook to clear the cobwebs
from her society sisters brain in short or
| der. BY sheer force of eloquence and en-
! thusiasm she reused her dancing, dining.
! Paris mountaineering associates 10 a very
| righteous sense of Indignation at the vote
| less condition of the seX-not only does
| she now find time 10 fulfil all her duties as
| a wife and mother, get about to shops and
opera, chaperon her pretty daughter Ma
| bel, keep up a handsome winter home just
! off Fifth avenue and in summer a pretty
cottage at Stockbridge, but she works as
hard at her politics as any senator in
| Washington.
| Sne addresses meetings OF FdfiS-gOWneu
| sympathizers in Louis XIV drawing rooms
and groups of sturdy short-haired new wo-
men in their clubs. She writes papers
I and collects signatures for the next petit
| ton to be laid before the legislature but
| her noblest efforts are directed toward the
utter cOnfounding and undoing of her ri
| walls in her own circle of society, the anti
| suffragists. The leader of this reactionary
| party in the aristocratc neighborhood is
| an equally earnest, equally fashionable
and smartly dressed person, Mrs. Arthur
| Dodge.
Mr.. Plat and Mr.. Croker are no wider
apart in their political sympathies than
Mrs. Choate and Mrs. Dodge, and the war
| between the two has been waged merrily
with the larger share OF victories usually
| falling to Mrs. Choate, who does not hest
! tate to thankfully acknowledge the en-
| coura gement and assistance received from
| her husband. Just now, because of her
| rivals enforced absence in Europe, Mrs
| Dodge anticipates rich harvest of con-
| verts TO anti-suffrage-Mrs Choate, how
| ever win be received with open arms by
the English women suffragists, to whose
/ Ill