The Savannah morning news., 1902-12-28

the New Yorker in the mass a genial
and discursive person by she after
noon of Dec. 81. His approach is her
aided by rich, alcoholic fragrance
and halo of whiskey and sugar sur
rounds him.
The elevated trains bear him in
happy compressed carfuls. Every
time the door opens at a station the
mighty scent of LIQUOR rushes out like
the warm sugary breath from a bake
SHOP when the ovens are opened. The
lnsldes OF the cars are impressionistic
pictures of sideboards. The aisles
and seats bristle with bottles-some
carried decorously in their oblong
paper packages, but battalions of them
carried in primitive honesty, open to
the gaze of all.
New York has not outgrown. 1t out
grows many, but it does not cast them
on entirely. Always somewhere in
the nerd of communities that make
new York, there are some that can
wear the fashions that have become
too small for the city as whole.
Calling on the 'Table-Setters."
New York as whole has outgrown
the good old fashion of the ancient
DAYS OF ten years ago, when every
body called on everybody else, quite
without regard to the mere detail of
knowing anybody personally. But If
one go east or west into the streets
where families live in layers seven
ana ten deep one may still find the
glad caller. Windows still sport the
evergreen or artificial wreath with red
SATIN ribbons, which inform all who
pass that inside are hostesses who
have set a table, and are waiting for
whoever will, to enter to wish them a
happy New Year
Total strangers are not really ex-
pected to call; if they do, they are not
thrown out. Total strangers drop in
freely, therefore, and as the New Year
Day wanes, they often drop in with
absolute fidelity to the literal meaning
of the term.
II is an unwritten law that the lady
who sets the table" and her lady
friends. may be kissed by the callers.
The kissing is not confined to a pent-
up Utica of intimate acquaintance.
Inc total stranger kisses with as
much enthusiasm as if he had known
the kisses all his life.
The visitor finds the table "set"
with cakes and glass plates full of
lady fingers" and sponge cakes and
sandwiches.
The glass plates are the favorite
patterns that stand on a glass foot
ike an old-fashioned glass lamp. The
table may be only a board resting on
tresties. But the tablecloth, with it's
gHtterlng decorations, makes it as
worthy as the finest of old mahogany:
at least, it so seems to anybody who
doesn't peer underneath, and no gem
tleman would do that unless he falls
on the floor and cannot get up
The supply of Liquid joy.
More attractive to the caller than
the glass plates full of cakes are the
glass things that are not plates. The
lady who sets a table" has no mar
row Puritanical notions about drink.
She exhibits generous art in wines en-
New Year Day. Aroma and brand
do not bother her. The main point
with her is to achieve variety and
quantity. The callers Judge QUALITY
solely by the quantity.
A truly magnificent table provides
everything that is liquid, even lemon
ade. The liquors range from whiskey
and brandy through the finer tones of
burned sherry and port and Rhine
/ wines, down to blackberry brandy.
Among the callers there is always
some sport who has acquired the dis
tinction of having a fad for black
berry brandy. He is esteemed by his
companions accordingly, until the
over-supply brings its inevitable con-
| sequences.
A tall thin bottle of Madeira is an
| other steady contributor to the gayetv
of the occasion. 1t is not a kind of
| Madeira that Gen. Carroll would pay
| 500 a bottle for.
Happily, the New Years caller does
not consider glass of it critically
He is not looking so much for
bouquet as for a genteel sufficiency.
| Besides that, he has probably swal-
lowed drink of whiskey at the pre-
vious house, so he is not attuneds to
the more delicate harmonies of wine
| bibbing.
| The ladies who set the table are
| hopsitable, but not reckless They
! give the caller his drink cheerfully,
| for to get a drink at each house is
mans privilege. But they do not hest
tate to ask him if he expects to take a
bath in it, should he betray strong
| inclination to come again too soon,
The caller who is known in the
neighborhood where he performs the
rite must be more careful than the
| stranger. The latter can overstep the
bounds of prudence and suffer nothing
worse than a few verbal punishments
| and few physical ones later in the
| evening. But the man who is known,
| is criticized keenly 'and If he lowers
himself by drinking too much at any
| one place or eating a group of host
esses out of house and home, he will
awake next day to find himself a So
cial outcast. One of the ladies will,
no doubt, explain to him that he acted
as if he had been "brung up like a
pig"
Receiving the Callers.
The ladies themselves have delicate
| and sharply defined social standards
| to measure one another. Generally,
three or four combine to set a table,
They select the home of the lady who
has the biggest rooms and whose
| family combines the two ESSENTIALS
of presentability and amiability. The
| lady whose father or big brothers
have human weaknesses which might
lead them to do things to the bottle
decorations, and the lady whose
mother imagines that she is good
enough for them people" and refuses
to put on clean gown, do not aspire
to entertain in their own homes.
Having combined, they subscribe
equally to purchase the cakes and the
liquors, buying generally on the prin-
ciple that aetuated the farmer who
laid in his months provision by buy
ing three gallons of applejack and one
loaf of bread. Early on the morning
of the LIST of January they range
themselves behind the table. They
have not long to wait. Many of their
callers are accustomed to rise early.
Many others do not happen to have