The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-31

they are talking of having a social
exhibit out there. That's bully good
idea, it seems to me, only they've got
to be mighty careful who they put at
the head of such a Department if they
intend to do the thing in the right
way"
ooh, 1 don't know" said the Poet.
1T don't strike me as such a difficult
proposition. They can give us. models
showing how people live in. congested
sections of our great cities; they can
by means of colored charts indicate in
an Illuminating fashion such statisti-
cal facts as the public need to know,
and"
ooh, tut" said the idiot. scornfully.
who in thunder wants a social ex-
habit made of papier mache and can
vas? 1 wouldn't give a tuppence for
social exhibit of that kind. 1t would
possess no more human interest than
food show where the only relief from
the general grocery aspect of affairs
is series of barber pole arrange.
ments showing how much starch re-
mems in your system after you have
eaten pint of picked oysters and
cream. These statistical models are a
deadly bore and as far as the charts
are concerned except to students, what
good are they? You might just as
well claim that you have spent an en-
joyable summer in Europe because
you've sat in your hall bedroom in
New York gazing at map of France,
Germany and Italy as pretend to have
taken in comprehensive idea of So
ciety by looking at chart showing
what proportion of negro babies there
are in the world to the number of
stockholders in the steel trust No
ms aVd off he i,,FA
four hundred by reading the Social
Register, and if that's the kind of So
cial exhibit they're going to have the
sooner they decide to give it up the
better. 1t won't be any more salts
factory than the apple show at the
Pan-American. l hooked one of the
loveliest pippins you ever saw from
| one of the counters there while the
guard wasn't looking, and when
came to bite it 1 found it was made
of wax. Took me a whole week to
get the taste Of paint out of my
mouth"
What kind of a Social Exhibit
would you have then?" demanded Mr..
Brief.
why the real thing, of course"
said the Idiot. What else? What's
the use of having an exhibition at all
If you don't have the real thing? Your
machinery is all real; your Silks satins,
| bicycles and breakfast foods are real:
your food exhibit as a rule contains
the real stuff; it is only occasionally
| that you strike a wax apple-why
should your Social Exhibit be other
wise than genuine?'
But how? That's the question. If
you are going in to convince others
| that your suggestions have value,
you've got to throw out something
more substantial than a glittering gen
erality like that" said Mr.. Brief. "Too
many glittering generalities are hav-
| ing the water squeezed out of them
these days to inspire confidence in new
| ones"
Correct" replied the Idiot You
are right as usual, and l am glad to
say l am prepared to lay down the
plans and specifications of my scheme.
To put the thing briefly, 1 should
turn the exhibit into a Midway-The
Social Midway, as it were-similar in
| its get up to the famous Plaisance of
| the Chicago Exposition, and not very
different from the general scheme of
Lunar Park at Coney Island. But in
stead of having Hagenbeck's Wild An
| imal Show, or booths in which the
what-is-it, and living skeleton, and
! lady with the iron jaw are exhibited to
a curious public at so much head, I'd
put up side shows rejecting the many
varied phases of social life in America.
| Do you suppose any man or woman of
ordinary sense would pay dime for
a voyage to the moon if for the same
amount she could take a Trip to the
Four Hundred? AS Cicero said to
| Ptolemy, Not on your life. "
You fall into the common error of
supposing that people who speak of
society mean the upper ten," said Mr..
Brief. Society in the larger sense
comprises the man who stands before
the coffee wagon of the philanthropist
| just as much as it includes Mr.. Tom
my Dare of Newport. or Mrs. Stuyve-
SAINT Van Binks of New York. In the
| large Chuck Connors of the Bowery
| is of society just as much as Mr.. Car
negie or Mr.. John D. Rockefeller. Isl
| dor IaginSky, who works in a sweat
shop on the East Side, and 81 Hop
kins who runs farm in Ohio, and Bill
! Sykes the motorman belong to the So
cial order no less than James Henry
Jones, the millionaire yachtsman, or
Mrs. Reggie de Swellduds who holds
] the Eastern Matrimonial record against
all corners, having recently come into
| her sixteenth divorce. Even We MIR.
Idiot, unknown as our names are to
the Editor of the Social Record are
parts of society using the term in it's
| proper sense"
Certainly said the idiot EVERY
/ WOrQ IndL you Sdy rs true anu L maven [
denied it. AS a matter of fact l have
often gone further and said that the
only people in the country who really
don't belong to society are the four
hundred. They have aloofed them
selves to such a degree that except for
the income they get there is nothing
of this world about them. have
wanted always to have them definitely
set apart from the rest of us and with
a designation all their own"
Similar to what?" asked Mr.. Brief.
"Wel I'd call them 'Notor-iety'
rather than Society But until we
pass an act of Congress placing these
/ individuals among the exotics we've
got to include them in our Social Ex-
hibit, and frankly, il exposed at ST.
Louis frankly, precisely as they are,
/ think they would prove the most in
structive and amusing exhibit on the
list"
Give me the poor man with his brow
furrowed by toll and his hands wet
with the sweat of effort" cried the
| Bbliomaniac.
For human interest and sympathy
yes" said the Idiot. mot for amuse-
ment and instruction"
"Pah," calculated the Doctor. What
instruction could we get from a con-
temptation of the four hundred ex-
hibit?"
THE very best" said the Idiot. ''I
country who is worthy of the title who
intimately the miserable lives these
/ 4 - Scr L.. 4