The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-01-14
GOTHAM GOSSIP

GUInAM GUOOlf
 Ry FRANCIS PHILLIPS, Copyright 1910, by the National News Service. N. Y)
 New York, Jan. 13.-Half dozen different explanations have been made for the sudden change of mind suf- fered by Count Fries, a London bank CT, who, after going aboard the Ham, burg-American liner George Washing ton, with his valet and baggage, dis embarked minute before the giant leviathan pulled away from her pier. The Count, who though an Austrian by birth has made the English capi- tai his home for some years, has spent a month here enjoying the sights of the city. The giddy lights of the Gay White Way" cast a strange spell over him from, which it was hard for him to escape. During his stay he was a nightly stroller down Gotham's gaudily lighted pike and generous patron of all its lobster pal aces and cabarets where the interim between twilight and daylight is punc- the toasting of birds. His calling list was substantially enlarged while here by the acquisition of number of at- tractive new acQuaintances, who made it so congenial for him, he says, that he really hated to leave the city. Those of his friends who went down to the pier to see him off for home were rather startled when he turned to his valet and directed him to take sall his luggage from the stateroom he had already entered and forward them to his hotel, pending a recon sideration of his plans. Pressed for an explanation, he naively asked if 8 gentleman couldnot exercise the same prerogative as a woman, of changing his mind, without exciting criticism.
 'I love your Broadway with it's lovely lights. it's brilliant night en- semble and wonderful life," he added smiling, "but of course this did not keep me from going home. I had some business to transact which had overlooked"
 He smiled again,a and before he could be questioned further, drove away in said afterwards that the memory of the pleasant times he had here tempt ed him to change his mind at the last moment. He did not know when he would be able to return to Gotham and he wanted to get his surfeit of the good times before he left these shores for good.
 Enfeebled in health by his close ap- plication to his uplift work in the slums of the East Side, James Phelps Stokes. the eccentric scion of one of New York's first families, has been forced to repair to the Adirondack Mountains for the rest of the winter. Friends fear that he is on the verge of a physical collapse and that unless extraordinary steps are taken to re- habilitate his health he will succumb to the disease which, in an incipient form, has taken hold of him. In his an fnr0n6 fn n in, retreat, the young millionaire is ac- companied by his wife, who as Miss Rose Pastor, an East Side cigar ma- ker and daughter of the tenements, startled New York a few years ago by winning him for a husband. Des- trary made at the time by society, which looked upon the union with an undisguised feeling of pity for the bridegroom, the marriage has been su- premely happy. Side by side, husband and wife, have been working ever ministering to their physical needs and encouraging their mental and in- dustrial advancement. In her new estate the former cigar girl, who once shared with the poverty stricken East Side the hardships which all exper- self with an unaffected, simple dig ntty and equipoise which have sur prised all who know her in the old days. The life, irksome to most men brought up in affluence and comfort, has proven sort of spiritual tonic to Stokes, who has often said that he got more sincere pleasure out of it than did those other young million aires Of the town who spend their patr1mony in nightly saturnalias with chorus girls, wine pushers, gourmands society touts, and the nondescript as- oC and wind tanners that are usually to be found in the entcurage of a rich ne'er-do-well.
 Those who remember the parsimon- ious habits of the late Russell Sage, who refused to pay more than $S for any suit of clothes he ever wore or more than 10 cents for his daily lunch, though worth $8O,000,000, are wonder ing what he would say if he could return to mother earth and See his money being used by his wife in feed ing the squirrels and birds in the city parks these winter days. Conceiv- ing that it must be hard for these little wards of the city to find food when the ground is covered with snow and fearing that they are often fore ed to go hungry, the widow of the millionaire banker who inherit ed his vast fortune, has huge bags of
 
 tomobile to Madison Square and Gen. tral Park for distribution among them. Mrs. Sage has been in the habit of visiting the latter park every morn ing for many years and has estab- lished a cordial acquaintance with the squirrels, who run up and down her arms in playful abandon and dance delightedly before her while she thrills their inner souls with her gratuities, The food she gives away in this way every day would settle old "Uncle RusselPs lunch bill for six months. Some of his old acquaintances think he would raise ructions if he knew it. Fortunately for the squirrels he don't.
 Fortune hunting, swains who besiege elderly women with fat bank accounts. received a jolt the other day from Su- preme Court Justice Mareau, who scored them as schemers without prin- ciple. His ire was aroused by the case of Eleanor Scott Ongley, spins ter 7S years of age, who on December 21st married Henry H. Ongley, an employee of the Tax Ofice and a sweetheart of 35 years ago. Ongley's first wife died recently and he at once renewed his suit for the hand and heart of his old flame. who had remained single and had accumulat- ed fortune of a quarter of a mil lion dollars. The brides brother, an- gered by her marriage to 'Ongley, made application to the court, as soon as he learned what had happened for the annoirfrnonf If x.