The Washington herald., 1918-01-03

| New York, January Poor Enrico
Caruso, II is ze one grand tough life
he leads. Hoarse laymen who imagine
that great artists, having developed
golden voices, lead a sort of platinum
existence will gurgle in amazement at
the songbird's woe.
II goes 20 prove that the life of Ca
ruso-unlike the life of Reillt-is a
roseless pathway of thorns and eX-
penditures and that to live the victim
has to develop a sort of patient knack.
Some women called on him the other
morning in his gilded suite at an
ornate hotel They asked him to sub
scribe to a fund for buying knitting
/, machines.
Then they stood open mouthed as
the great tenor told them in barytone
! accents about life. the opera, the war
and what it all means to him. To be
brief he would like nothing better
than TO be drafted. go over the top
and be shot directly between the eyes
during a charge.
Caruso has been plucked clean by
| the charity solicitors. They hound
! him on the streets. in his dressing
room. in his hotel and when he goes
out calling. His life has become a
nightmare.
He will not talk TO anyone on the
phone and he refuses TO open any of
; his mail. All this despite the fact
! that he has contributed 81, since he
arrived in America to war charities.
has a son IN the service, contributed
! his services to ten different benefits
without charge.
! His secretary has nervous proStra-
! ton and Caruso has writer's cramp
from signing checks.
! Broadway was not surprised al the
amount of clothes Diamond Jim
! Brady kept in his racks as revealed
! in the probate of his will Ward Nc
! Allister had almost as many and
Berry Wall had probably more There
are many New Workers who buy six
evening suits al a clip 10 last them
through a zippy season.
Diamond Jim had only forty-one
! evening dress vests and thirty-three
overcoats and seventy-one pairs OF
| shoes. He did not wear all his over
coats at once, but that seems to be
the picture the newspapers have
printed. The reader seems TO sec a
bent figure toiling wearily through a
careful schedule of pleasure buried
beneath a small mountain Of clothes.
| About his person clanked chains oil
diamonds, il you will.
| Diamond Jim dressed well. but he
hadn't as many clothes as lot OF
lesser lights who play along the rosy
! paths of Broadway. There is a young
blood. known to all stage-door ten
ders. who has forty silk hats. A MEM
Der of Fifth avenue club has eighty
business suits. Diamond Jim did not
stand out conspicuously for his
! clothes. The jewels he wore made
him a national figure.
The meanest woman in New York
has been found. On Christmas Day
| she sent her divorced husband
photograph showing him in the
Prince Albert coat. three-quart hat
| and foolish smile he wore at his mar
riage to her.
A young girl. roped in pearls and
muffled in furs, stepped out of a tuft-
ed limousine in front of a Fifth ave
nue. shop the other afternoon. Gold
braided fiunkies rushed to escort her
inside and there was an excited furry
among the clerks.
Before she left she had made pur-
chases amounting TO more than S3.@g
and paid for them in cash. -Four
years ago the young girl worked foT
a pittance in an East Side sweatshop'
She saved up 500 apd paid it for the
| first weeks rent in Nan exclusive sec
ton for beauty shop. The furnish
ings she secured on the installmen'
plan. BY her cleverness she got the
patronage of a social leader. rms
stroke made her. she employs about
thirty-ive experts and does not have
| to work any more.