The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-07
I EwPoRT. September e.-what is

~ termed 'the season" is over. V I am glad of it. In old times when our leisure class was smaller than 1t Is now, when fast trains were few and slow by comparison with the present run ming time and steam yachts were a nov city the month of August had crowded into 1t all the gayety of the season. Young men were necessary evils in those days and August was the vacation month. But a change has come over this place and the times. August is the sea- son" to the newspaper correspondent who yet clings to the memory of past times September and October are the real months. True, balls are few, but dinners are of nightly occurrence.
 We have a generation of young family men here and toll knows them not and office duties impose no exactions. We, who toll not and spin not, yet clothe not ourselves after fashion of Solomon, en- joy ourselves wonderfully. We cast our line off the dumplings to catch founders, sail boats, play tennis at the Casino, have picnics, ride horseback, drive tandem or coaches and reverently thank God that the excursionist has given up his half
 
 tacular Fish Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, IT,, Mrs. Burke-Roche, who keeps her looks in spite of all. Mrs Elisha Dyer the third Mrs. Alphabetical Belmont, grandmother of a dukelet the Duchess of Marlborough. who realizes a title is "a good thing" and the rest of them The end of the season. Nonsense. It Is not the end here until there Is a beginning somewhere else.
 am perhaps, bothered with trouble some memory. I think of the people who were all "the rage" twenty years ago and l wonder what has become of them? Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is dry reading to the decline and and fall of the Knickerbockers No I do not mean the Knickerbockers. The real hnickerbockers were keeping boarding houses or were put to rest wrapped in their social shrouds when the present swells were in knickerboclSers. Let me see? Twenty years ago; and that Is not so far back. One of the belles in those days was Baby Beckwith. Leonard Beckwith's beautiful daughter She mar ried an Englishman. I wonder if she is alive? Had she married a peer I suppose she would be apparent; well, though she does not appear may be she Is a parent. remember her well at "The Breakers not the same. Those were the days
 
 the Lorillards shone like Ursa Major in the social skies. An, it was the sign of the dipper! They scooped in everything but the house burned down. It did in- deed. Money went, Rancocas to a lady friend, domestic disturbances Georges meteoric career, a flash and futter; Jake overcome with steam yachts iron piers, refrigerators and brickyars; Louis sailed into port, helped on the financial stream by Miss wolfe's selibacy. And Mrs. James P. Kernochan, what a charm ing hostess. jolly talker. When she and 'Marm Stevens got together. Dear. dear, what they did not know about everybody's affairs was not worth know ing. Miss Kitty elopes! I remember the headlines well announcing that Miss Kernochan had flown the coop with Her bic Pell Now there is a marriage which did not wind up in Dakota-the mecca of so many of my young friends and of her cousin, Mrs. Maud Tom Suffering Taller.
 And the Vanderbilts. They were mo- where then. Newport knew them not. Ava. the bad-tempered, sometimes ap- peared. She was freeing herself from the name of Smith to qualify that of Wander bilt. Mrs. Cornelius was a modest quiet little woman with a pleasant, gracious word for everybody. She made such a 1 pleasant contrast to ter sister-n-law, whom the terrified called "She who must l be obeyed."
 The Belmonts were great people in those days. Mrs. August Belmont was a i grande dame, beautiful, elegant well | born, high bred. Mir Belmont was q great fnancier, a great sportsman, a great political leader. Young Perry was bachelor with a leaning towards pol- tics; young August, married to a beaut- ftl. charming and accomplished woman, daughter of Edward Morgan, was mak- ing a name for himself as a nnancfer and as sportsman, and Oliver. fresh from the naval academy, won the heart and Land of Miss Sall Whiting. a beautiful belle. That reminds me of Gus Gus was a wonder. lie he a bone in his nose scraped to make 1t look like a nose on a statue by Praxilites
 The Astors, too. were great people. Mrs. William had several daughters. Emily. who was Mrs. Van Allen, Helen, who married Rosie Roosevelt, Augusta and Caroline. Jack was in college. Angus ta set sail in the matrimonial barque with J. Coleman Drayton and got ship wrecked. She survived and became Mrs. Haig in London, and Caroline married Orme Wilson, of the lucky Wilson family.
 Mrs. John Jacob Astor was a Miss Globes and remarkably fine woman, and MT. Astor lunched daily at the Bank of Commerce where he got a $5 gold piece and his lunch for nothing. William
 
 | ing novels, furnishing overcoats to cleo tors in q congressional distRict fight and married Miss Paul, a beauty From Phila- l delphia. A little later he tossed over his American allegiance and has been fish l ing with a gold hook to land a peerage
 And the Wilson's. They arrived at New port xia New London. Ogden Goelet's people had died and he and Robert had i sold the old house with the iron railing at Eighteenth street and Broadway, the old COW, the old cock, the hen with two chicks and the pelican. They got money. It came after a long intermission. and they let the curtain go up on a scene of affluence. Ogden met pretty Miss Wilson fresh from the backwoods of Kentucky, in the rear of Orme & Wilson's country store. He married her and then began the rise of the Wilson's. It was a leap. not climb. Miss Belle, the loveliest of
 CoZY IN NAME ONLY.