Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-12-18

GOTHAA'S PR|LAN1HROP|C FARCE. j
How Woman With More Money Than Brains e.
Amuses Young Women Whom She Calls oS
"EIer Working Girls" oS
BY BESSIE DOW BATES.

! The funniest thing in New York hap
pens on Friday nights every week. 1t
is already good many months old and
promises to live to a good old age. And
1t has been funny-the very funniest
thing In all this big city-ever since its
beginning, and 1t will continue to be
screaming farce as long rs 1t lives.
The funniest part of it all is that its
instigator and central figure does not
have the faintest idea that there is
anything funny about it.
have told the story to a number of
New Yorkers who have lived here for
years and who know the city thorough
ly, and, although they greeted my
statement that 1t was "the funniest
thing in New York" with skeptical
smiles. they have always agreed with
me when they have heard the story.
In a fashionable up town street, n
few doors from Fifth avenue and not
very far from Central park, there lives
a very rich woman who likes to think
and is anxious for her friends to be-
lieve that she Is graciously charitable
in unique and original way.
She Is the wife of wealthy man, the
daughter Of very rich man whose
sporting tastes have made his name
well known and the sister-in-law Of a
famous member of Englands house Of
lords.
She wanted something to do. did this
rich woman, whereby she could make
the sunshine of her gold gleam down
Into the paths Of the poor. She wanted
to do something that would refine and
elevate and purify that portion of New
York that works for its living.
She scorned the flannel petticoat
Idea" No. What the working women
Of New York need. she thought is
something that will educate and ele-
vate their aesthetic instincts.
So she got together club Of work
ing girls" She receives the club at her
house on every Friday evening and en-
deavors to educate the aesthetic in
stincts of its members by showing
them her good clothes, not her dresses
and bonnets-oh. no; that would be too
much like vulgar dlsplay-but such re-
fning and elevating portions thereof
as her lace petticoats.
She takes the club members through
the drawing room sometimes and let's
them look at the pictures and bric-a-
brac. taking care to explain as they
pass along what each one is. She tells
them about the opera and about life
and matters among the Four Hundred
and attempts to talk literature, art and
political economy.
The girls are admitted at the area
door, where the French governess re-
celves them and gives them French
lesson-sometimes If madam is ready
for them to go up stairs, there is no
French lesson, because she does not
like to wait. If she isn't, the lesson
varies in length from ten minutes to an
hour. lasting only until she is ready for
them to meet her in the dining room.
Nearly all the young women who at
tend this remarkable club do so simply
and solely for the sake of lark. They
are bright, sensible, intelligent and ca
pable women who maintain themselves
in comfort and enjoy not few luxu-
ries. Scarcely one of them but Is by
far the superior of madam in common
sense, shrewdness. intelligence and in
formation, and they take keen delight