The age-herald., 1902-01-19

Washington, January 18.-(Spec4al)-1n the delightful comic opera of San Toy, the jester Ii asks the English maid if in England he will be permitted to wear night dress.
 You mean evening dress" she cor rects him, laughingly.
 'Mlakes no difference" u insists, and in pantomimic way he conveys his inn presson of the decolette dress of our wo- men of fashion. It is very, very funny, this nonsense of Ii, even as the decolette displays the very, very beautiful-some- times.
 The virile and unique society of this nations city of Vanity Fair is now in the headlong rush of the seasons furious pace, speeding through the pre-Lenten days and nights to the forty days set by the ancient church for self-examination fasting and praying, and nowayears more fully than ever before observed by the society of this Western world of ours. The old law changeth not. Rulers and society alike are powerless to deny Thine ancient sacrifice, Lord"
 This society of the city of the nation is in what the waggish Ii calls night dress and is running the pace that might kill were not blessed Lent coming some thirty days hence Like the brigand' S sister in another one of those very hu- man little operas. the girl of society hath no need for such arts as night dress when Lent is come. She may then have her hair washed every day if she like and not have upon ner conscience the burden that some man is going raving mad because her hair is confoundely long-in drying.
 It would be an interesting study in so- cial economy, the number of men who have been driven to suicide or incurable insanity by hair-washing women they love. 50 sorry I couldn't see you; but l had just had my hair washed" That kind of plaint has tended to decrease population and crowd the asylums for the insane. while causing every man between the seas to suffer torture that was more or less acute.
 The winter season in society here be- gins in the first week of January and ends with Shrove Tuesday, which will mean an unusually short period of night dress festivities this year; and as Easter comes with the close of March, the light minded will mourn over the impossibility of Easter gowns and bonnets; whereat soberer folk may rejoice,
 The White House makes society here as fully as Buckingham palace makes it in London, and Presidential reception is quite as interesting in its way as a. Queens drawingroom in Buckingham's stately chambers or Kings levee in an- cient Saint James; and a Presidential reception for which cards are essential is not in any degree more crowded than the royal receptions in London. True there is nothing like the old-world state Illness, reserve, and pomp and circum- stance of power here, but perhaps those who are bidden to the White House by the President and the First Lady are all the better pleased
 Yet private reception in the White House Is impressive, for, after all Is said, it is very noble in its simplicity, or rather its lack of royal restraint
 It begins with the arrival of the guests, say woman and man. at the great north ern doorway. The man presents two en- graved cards of admission, of about the size of visiting cards. the doorkeeper scands the cards, tears them into bits, throws them into a basket. and bids the guests enter.
 Once inside an attendant takes the wom- am's wraps and the mans topcoat and hat and binds them together; places them in one of the hundreds of racks in the outer vestibule and gives the man a numbered brass check for all; and then the woman and man take their places in the double-column line and begin the slow march to the Presidential presence, walking through the wide vestibule into the Blue room and through that room into the Red room, just Inside the first door of which stands the master of cere-