The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-19
QUEST FOR THE GILDED YOUTH
A DISAPPOINTING PURSUIT FOp
VISITORS IN NEW YORK.
They Go To the BarrOOm where the a;ildes
Youth should Disport Itself and Find
Only Other seekers like Thcn,.
selves--The Panorama OF In,ere.,


Country folks visiting New York have m
itching desire to see certain uptown bar.
room where, as they have learned from
their papers at home, the gided youth ~
the town are to be seen conducting them
selves as becomes gilded youth
Those who have sat in the deeply padded
seats and seen country folk when thew on.
ter The place for the first time have usually
detected certain trace of disappoint.
nent in the faces of the visitors The high
and rather sombre apartment, with ita
dark furniture and few pictures is not the
splendid thing they had expected
There is no glitter of cut glass and silver.
The barkeepcrs do not wear diamond pins,
Even the cashier is an ordinary mortal.
Disappointment awaits the visitor elsc-
where. He looks in vain for tho expected
double row of young mllionaires, each with
family name known to Wall Street and "a
fashion, lined up at the bar drinking parti.
colorod liquors out Of gilded goblets. The
air is not momentarily shattered by tho
pop of champagne corks in half dozen
spots at once.
There is no opulent hum Of conversation,
and the familiar great names Of finance
are not called across the room II tho
visitor happens to have a really observant
eye he must note that the clothes Of most
Of those whom he sees in the room have
the cut to which he is accustomed In his
own city.
Perhaps he entered with some conscious.
ness of the fact that his new summer suit,
as he saw himself reflected in great mir
ror, fitted good deal like the parts OF the
=. L. la -
round at the men who stroll about the place
or are seated at the little tables, he notes
that the prevailing fit Of their clothes has
the same characteristic.
Most of them are in Enthusiastically new
garments that are worn by their possessors
in evident consciousness of that fact A
few men of different style of dress, style
unquestionably metropolitan, do samter
in and out of the room, peck at the free
lunch, call one another. Tom, Dick and
Harry, take a peep at the billiard players
In the next room, and so disappear. Ii re-
quires strong effort of the rural imagna-
ton, to believe these men part of the finan-
cial or the fashionable world.
Disappointment equally awaits the rural
visitor in the next room. where crowd
Is variously engaged in playing billiards,
reading the newspapers, writing letters
and drinking things out of tall glasses
Women sit here with the men, and il
is here that the rural visitor comes with
his wife or sister in the hope of seeing the
fashionable women of New York drink
cocktails and whiskev sours, a habit which
his home paper has taught him to believe
general in tho fashionable world.
Here for a moment he does sec women
in their best clothes drinking along with
the men. but his wife or his sister is easily
able 10 assure him that it is not the fash.
ionable world upon which they are looking
Tbo ~ ~, ba Ia
to identify some one of the gorgeously
dressed women as the wife or daughter
of local magnate in their own chief city in
the West or South. and country folk d,
not come to New York TO see their own
neghbors disport themselves so the coun-
try visitors leave the barroom disappointed
and convinced that the splendors of New
have been overdrawn.
Meanwhile the country visitors of all
sorts are unconsciouslv ministering to
the amusement of few New Workers.
who have learned to regard that partic'I-
lar barroom and it's adjoining apartments
as sort Of social exchange for the whole
his Scotch and seltzer the New Yorker
sees a social panorama OF the United States
unrolled before him.
The big man with the sombrero over
there. as he lifts his glass to his lips, ey-
hibits pudgy hand with finger gone
enduring Vi SOIlle lpIlH part quartet
In different kind Of barroom somewhere
In the far Southwest.
There, mixing his own mint julep, is
right Kentuckian with mustache and i'm
perial Just opposite is a soft-voiced
Albanian chewing tobacco. and talking
Of the cotton crop and Wall Street
The large, wise, rawboned. grizzle1 old
fellow in ill-fitting clothes of excellent
texture is lti-millionaire from the Rocky
Mountain region. New England born, twice
or thrice emigrant from his pioneer homes.
familiar now with New York, tho West
and Europe humorous, generous and hand
at bargain.
The New Yorker recognizes Southern and
Western Congressman, local great mon from
half dozen distant cities OF the Republic.
and knows that some OF the geyly dressed
women in the next room are their wives
and daughters. He knows, too, that sons
of the metropolitan looking men that glide
In and out and peck al the free lunch and
name one another Familiarity are birds OF
prey. with keen eyes upon those who 70 70
make up the personnel Of the great Ameri-
can social exchange.