The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-09-13
Thomas Hamlin in the Metropolitan Mag

Thomas Hamlin in the Metropolitan Mag azine.
 VUyHAT is Newports keynote? Is it A exclusiveness? Far from 1t. w stand-offishness, in a measure, so far as some of the older dwellers may be concerned; but exclusiveness, never! Mora possessors of new fortunes have wedged their way into the fashionable set by way of Ocean Avenue and The Cliffs than by almost any other route or roadway. Newports walls have been scaled by more besiegers than any other stronghold that has exalted itself in it's isolation and it's jealously guarded ram parts. But a young man alone in the world, socially gifted, finds warm wei come at Newport. He is accepted, in vited, dined, wined and sought after in direct proportion to his social gifts-from woman more is exacted. The keynote, | the criterion for power-so far as enter taining goes-is the capacity for giving | large or novel entertainments. The New porter must be amused-must be keyed up. There Is no relaxation, no let-down | for the summer months. It's not a play ground it is a field of active effort-a constant vieing show of fashion. It is parade of all the evidence of proper that may said to be: Always in q state of vigorous wealth."
 The driver with the pointing whip, who tools a decrepit horse attached to | a rickety, little. open trap through the Newport streets, gives to the trpper who comes in on the Fall river boat this dominant major chord in every sentence of his perambulating lecture: | Alabaster Hall'-Mrs. Van-get-theres S house-cost million O dollars. That's Mrs. Van-get-there's butler standing on the steps He gets a salary of $5000 a year. That's Mrs. Van-get-there's auto mobile there waiting-she has four cost s6O0O apiece. That's her stable got IS horses in it-all prize win ners-one's worth s20,0O0 See this gentleman comin' along drivin' red car? That's MT. - Well the driver isn't very particular as to ve- racity; any namell do, but it must spell money. The transient visitors crane their necks. The driver again unblush- ingly points his whip. See this gent wallxin' along with whiskers? He's a vstor-dulSe or a count or somethin'- or, maybe palmer-off-you can't tell lem apart" **
 Thus it goes-the transient visitor departs, his ears throbbing with the roaring dominant chord
 | But Newport, when one gets away, away from close contact with this ever lasting blare, and has caught the charm ing minor chords, Newport is beautiful, delightful. The stretch of sparkling sea. the waves dashing against the brown, weed covered rocks, the smell of the salt in the air, the white sails of the yachts, making in and out of the jewel | of a harbor, make of Newports sur roundings-its rim, its setting, the most eye-satisfying of panoramas. When one escapes from the massive piles of granite and brick and marble that crowd upon one another's very founda- tions-when one has grown tired of looking through massive entrances at 1 too close hand views of Tudor and Gothic and Italian Renaissance. and Norman Castle. Georgian Hall and French Chateau, there Is the Cliff Walk or the Ocean Drive; there is the charm that in the early days brought the early dwellers there, the "cottagers.' as they were called. wkose unpretentious homes l-alas! mostly for rent nowadays hide down tho side streets behind their hedges and their noble trees. Yet the drive is never crowded except at cer- tain hours when the searchers for move Iment and action art on their way to the polo grounds or Bshley's Beach. And Bailey's Beach is quite by itself in more ways than one. It is an amusing little cove that stretches In a short quadrant between two rocky points. It succeeds in being very secluded and exclusive. but as a beach 1t is not at It's best. It
 Is seldom that the cove is free from sea- weed; the fine surf that beats on New ports other bathing place., with its stretch of hard, shimmering sand is absent. But the other beach is common.