The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-14
THE PASSING SHOW
The Social South Travels Enfamlie Pretty Woman
 Started Social Boycott Gossip of Well Known Folk
BY ANNIE KEN pRlck WALKER.

scented in the lists of August arrivals at many of the fashionable inns. And while the watering places of the south always seem more or less as If every one travelled enfamilie," because every one knows ev- erybody else, still the little ''social cliques" representative of every section of the south are part of summer life at all the inns.
 You will see the Charleston folk form ing their small and interesting coterie for the morning bridge, the New Orleans peo- pie assemble in their exclusive corner, the Atlanta, Birmingham or Richmond or Louisville folk have their small bridge coteries, and so 1t goes, strange kind of provncialism that characterizes social life, but which forms no barrier detrimen- tai to social briliancy, because the Whole social south is "enfamile' when 1t comes to knowing your ancestors, and coteries finally dissolve.
 It Is almost impossible to meet any one from the south who does not know some thing of your family or who at least feels the tie of friendship through mutual
  influences of socia, life in either large or small inns, these mutual interests soon express themselves. The Richmond woman is thereupon admitted to the Louisville coterie. the Baltimorean plays golf with the Birmingham man, who met him casually on the Swannannoa links; the New Orleans girl and the Atlanta woman immediately grow confidential over the discovery that they both were at Palm Beach last winter at the same tilne
 Tine most trivial excuse furnishes the raison d'etre for growing acquaintance- ship The fact that two young and pretty women were at the Hotel Poincianna at the same time is not ordinarily of osre- cial interest, but it Is a most diverting discovery when made some months later at one of those charming mountain inns, when you are having tea on the terrace, and precipitates an animated conversation on the complex life of Palm Beach, so vastly different from the unconventional life of country inns.
 heard young woman say of Palm Beach the other afternoon that whenever she rode about in one of those wheel chairs, the only means of going about at Palm Beach, as every one knows, no traps or automobiles being permitted that she felt like an overgrown baby in an ex- aggerated perambulator.
 Women may sometimes be hateful with grievance and a method in their mad ness they can seek out little roundabout paths of vengeance. All the summer co. teries sometimes combine against one woman, and If she remains through this ordeal she has to be a very strong. deter mined person.
 On the balcony of a charming little inn yesterday well known young southern woman, who is having the gayest time here in these mountains, told me of a social boycott that Is going on at her hotel against woman also from the south, and rather young and pretty.
 barbarous custom at some of these hotels, and one In vogue for many years is that of peremptorlly introducing strangers without the slightest reason for doing so, the master of ceremonies now being regular attache of hotels. It is the most ridiculous role that may be im- agined. He undertakes to see that no one Is left out in the cold, and his particular prey are the newly-arrived, who are not permitted to sit about until they have been dragged about and introduced rro- mjscuously.
 There was never the most punctilous master of ceremonies who was infalGble, no social secretary who did not make n mistake in arranging dinner guests, few hostesses who have not sometimes invited the wrong people.
 If, even those who are so we'll trained in social usuages, the born so- sial diplomatist errs occasionally, what could be expected of the master of cere- monies at the summer resort?
 Think of what an assortment he has to cope with, the nouveau riche, the ex- elusive coteries, the social climbers, the bores, the bright and stupid folk, the married firts, the poseurs
 But lam wandering from my story.
 This woman from the south fell a yic- tim to the suave master of ceremonies and went through several stiff introduce tions the very afternoon of her arrival as soon as she had arrayed herself properly.
 She was not especially gracious to any one, looked immeasureably bored and. of course, woman who looks that way Is doomed.
 The next day she met more people in much the same way, her manner frigid. Then she and the polite and well-meaning master of ceremonies, were observed to- gether, and after that there were no more introductions. She had laid the law down that she was not to be introduced to any one, at least not in the cut and dried way. "When I want to know people," she said, q can generally find out some way to meet them. But in future I prefer to be let alone do not want to be ntro- dueed promiscuously.''
 Now, as the master of ceremonies had introduced her to the most exclusive and delightful people in the inn he thought the story was too good to keep, and re- lated it to the pretty and well-bred south ern woman whose social position is so un- questioned that she could meet any one, and in fact has assisted many social climbers whom she considered worthy. She told the story at tea, the married women laughed with their husbands over it, and social boycott was the result
 None of the women to whom the woman was introduced will have a word to say to her, every woman looks at her as If she