The Washington herald., 1919-10-07
NEW YORK CITY
special correspondent Of The Wash.
By o. o. McNTYRE

Special correspondent Of The WASH
lngton Herald.
New York. Oct. 6.-Life. as reflected
in our best cellars this winter. Il 60
ing to be very complex inded. 1t is
impossible to crowd many In a New
York cellar and so the fabled Four
Hundred may be just ten by Xmas
time. The large hotels report that
! there will be no banquets.
The biggest banquet hall in town
hasn't q single reservation. The dry
banquet will never be popular with
the New York contingent. People do
not warm up to each other here. In
the old days. after the little cere-
mony in the afteroom. II was no un-
usual sight to see two men, hitherto
strangers, sobbing because they were
not to be seated at the same table.
But without the ante-room cere-
n1ony guests remain frigid and sspe-
clally Is this SO with 50 many Eng
lishrnen In town. who have more nat
ural reserve than can be imagined
Especially Is this true Of English
writers. They are not apt to run up
merrily and say: MY name IL Hugh
Walpole. What is yours?"
But in the cellars there will be life! +!
But not crowds. The average cellar
was built only for a furnace 1t is
not idle talk to say that most Of the
drinking is done in cellars these days
1t 's q fact. Why? No one seems to
know. Perhaps servants talk or per-
haps it will awaken the children.
III there Ii to be revival Of the
banquet. the old order will change.
Hotels will have to do things diff
ferently. With sufficient supply of the
social lubricant" fortifying the
guests they never complained over the
size OF the oysters or the walters
| breath.
The idea OF waiting fifteen minutes
between courses and then getting four
square inches Of dry fish with a faded
and pressed lemon on the side was
even welcomed. Vanished squab
carved out OF solid oak was quite pal
/ atable and no one minded if the red
OF the paper cover enclosing the ice
cream melted all over the cream. 1t
gave 1t such q pretty color
| In fact there was a small banquet
at a Broadway hotel the other night
ana after the second course half of
the guests drifted over TO a French
pastry shop where n group OF Parlor
Pinks were bemoa ming the fate OF the
world. In a short while they were
smoking perfumed cigarettes and hav-
Ing gay old time.
A new crop Of Ole Clothes Men js
attacking pedestrians on Manhattan
street corners. There IL a heavy de-
mand for old clothes now. They are
paying 80 a suit and sometimes As
high as $50. The old clothes are
! heaped into a bundle and shipped
south Of Fourteenth street. where in
the crowded lofts of the swestshop
district they are torn to pieces and
cut into cap patterns. Not all, how
ever. The better class Of suitines are
passed through another channel, which
leads to tailor. a dry cleaner and
finally to clothing dummy along
Seventh avenue-where il brings three
times the price paid.
Minstrel end men and interlocutors
who once shuffled their way around
the country are turning into dusky
Romeos and Caesars and ETHIOPIA n
Otheilos in Harlem's black belt. The
Lafayette players herald the new day.
In the black belt Hamlets are not
born. but made. There is no member
or the players who hasn't at some
time passed with song, dance or jazz
over the two-a-day circuits.
! The success Of the PLAYERS has led
to the formation OF a negro theatrical
syndicate. headed by E. P Brown, a
banker. who plans to send them as
soon as possible before audiences OF
color all over the country. For this
purpose chain OF theaters is being
esta blished.
/ Already II links New York. PhiIa-
delphia, Chicago. Washington, Gin
cinnati and Cleveland and by fall will
lnciude Pittsburg. Indianapolis. Louis
vine. Atlanta Toledo. st. Louis, De-
trot' Chattanooga. Toledo. Dayton,
Kansas City. Houston and Buffaio