The Washington times. (Washington [D.C.]) 1901-1902, 1901-08-18
SOCIAL And PERSONAL.
DOings of the Gay World at the
Seaside Resorts.
The Festivities Are Duplicates of
Those That Occur Each Year
Whereabouts of Prominent Society
People and Others Less Notable.

Nothing happens. The dullness of last
week will be exceeded by the dullness of
the week to come. While the social
record here, however, is absolutely blank,
there is no lack OF news from the chain
of fashionable resorts along the North
Atlantic coast. The gay doings at those
place. ought to make what ArtemuS
Ward used to call mighty interesting
reading" but some way they don't. The
irrepressible .'chier who is forever
around notes faithfully every dance, din
ner, race, or engagement, as it happens.
but when it is set down in black and
white. with the usual gaudily-tinted ad-
ditions, for all the world to see, the think
ing reader-if a person of that superior
type ever hobnobs with q society column
cannot well keep from rejecting on the
monotonously dull methods rich people
take of throwing their money away.
Plainly, what Queen Fashion needs is an
Edison or Marconi to invent some newer
ways of entertaining her votaries than
the cut and dried pastimes that were
probably popular in the good old days
before the food. There are women in the
social world whose cleverness shines out
with the brilliant glare OF locomotive
headlight. There are other women in
the same fold whose intellects are as dim
and ftful as the chickering's of blue
headed match. 1t would seem that the
bright ones would assert their superiority
by doing original things to outshine their
less gifted sisters; but they don't. They
all give dinners and dances and things
just like the antediluvian ladies did-for
all we know to the contrary-and just as
their posterity will likely continue to do
until the end of time. All of which is
apt to set the thinking person to figur-
ing out that, after all, the pleasures of
the ordinary everyday world are as sat
isfactory as those of that shining king
dom whose sign is a and two naughts.
Of course. there are exceptions. How else
would there be rules? Mrs. Oelrichs is a
dazzling instance, as witness her circus
of yesterday afternoon!
After piecing together the advance
stories of that spectacular happening and
the specials that came over the wires last
night, Mrs. Oelrichs evidently had what
Mr. George AIDE would call the Time of
her Life. The greatest allied show of
this or any other earth had Mr.. Harry
Lehr for its ringmaster. II seems he took
lessons from the Real Thing tMr- AIDE,
AGAIN. to learn the art of cracking his
whip professionally, and ordered for the
occasion a real, for-true ringmasters cos
tune, down to the red tassels on his high
and glossy boots. The menagerie included
an elephant made of two society men.
some hide. and a lot of straw. and il is said
that Mr. William X. Vanderbilt, tr., i'm
personated an ostrich so true to life that
all the ladies wanted to pluck his feathers
for souvenirs. There was barrel of
pink lemonade and series of sideshows,
chief among the curiosities being a So
ciety woman who does not know Harry
Lehr well enough to can him by his first
name 'a-t .7i7c.4 a1r~rf