Putnam patriot., 1926-08-13

sar Pier, the North Shore, and all the
 summer resorts up and down the sea. hoard. Why. you ask, so much space ;r the newspapers devoted Co the some. vrat inane activities of these places I've reasons. Summer news is scarce
 But more important than the scarcity of the news Is the fact that a long lIne of editors of various and sundry yellow journals, have so long fed the uublie with stories exaggerated and freauently untrue regarding the class which in the benighted nineties ae- oaired the stigmatlzing title of idle Tleh" So long as the reading public is willing and eager Co devour the ab- sard tales which are printed abou, the humans known as Society, so long will space be given in the papers Co stories. true and untrue. of this some what indefinable class. Oddly enough fHe mongers of these stories about the scandal and the life of the socially prominent. are more frequently men than women. Women. the newspaper publisher will tell you, for all their tradition of gossip, do not handle the stiffness of society chatter with any of fhe snug facility displayed by cer- fal type of sleek young man. q sort of Ieeu-nule reporter who draws q large salary for his frequently libelous work and ls more or less despised for his tceIpation by his colleagues and ac- qaalntauces.
 Newport, without any doubt. has probably been more frequently the subject of exaggerated and tawdry newspaper yarns than any other of the American social resorts. New rort IS good copy. One divorce case m Newport Is q gold mine to the vel low newspaper that willingly ignores fifteen eases of q similar type m the confines of it's own bailiwlek. The tes- tlmony in such case becomes a mat ter of illustrations, lurid text, and mel0dramatic headlines combined with a reprinting of pictures that may or may not be likenesses of the princi- pals involved Newport, thanks to thls sort of exaggeration, has become ta the unknowiug a Babylonian canvas of q class whose daily life, if the stor- les were true, would make certain saiphnrous chapters of Scripture seem Ike mild and guileIess tale.
 And So Ends the Day
 Now what is Newport? We'll. first of all. II Is one of the oldest and most picturesque little cities in the euun- try. covering the seutherly end Of an Island that has figured in American lie from the earliest of colonial days. IL ls also one of the most important naval stations on the Atlantic seq board. II is thriving commercial 1gRa II is the home of large class oi retired people who never figure in ihe public print except in the events of birth, death and marriage. It pos sesses charming old streets with here and there a noble house of the Bull finch era. lt Is an important fishing center. It's Old Stone Mill inspired Longtellow Co write The Skeleton in Armor."
 This is the Newport that the papers ignore, more or less, devoting their time and their attention to that decid- edly secondary class of Newport in- habltants, the residents of The Gold fish Bowl" whose rim is formed by beautiful Bellevue Avenue and the fa- nous, quite justly famous, Ocean Drive.
 Now if one has a taste for luxury and an eye for beauty and a yearning for those things which come with rich es, The Goldfish Bowl supplies all Tn full. yet with hardly d trace of the blatant sensationalism and publicity which it's inhabitants receive in the public print almost without ceasing.
 Let us come up the hill from the old town and take a direct plunge into The Goldfish Bowl" and see what it is really like to the eye. First of all at the corner of Kay street. we come tO the new brick Viking Hotel, built for some unknown reason, at one of the hottest and noisiest corners of the city. Then on the left is probably the most famous boarding house in Amer lea, the Muenchinger- King, d modest red frame house that provides com fort and shelter to the social visitor. On the right is the little square yell low club. known as the Reading Room, a simple and dull little place where the male goldfish goes to gossip and talk politics, rocking back and forth on the veranda in the same sort of banal- ity as characterizes the ten-to-six ac- tivities of the guests in a thousand summer hotels.
 In the Goldfish Bowl
 4 block or so below and We come to the Casino, a long brick structure when shelters on it's street side, the summer shops of many of the better clas business houses of Boston and New York. Within the Casino Is a series of Courts, providing space for the annual tennis tournament, the dog show, the horse show, the flower show, and those other events which go on rom week to week in the routine of the summers life.
 Once beyond the Casino and we have plunged into that section of Newport which has just claim for fame and beauty. Here are residences truly magnificent, with ineomparable lawns and hedges and gardens that are both . riotous and formal. Here we see "Ihe Elms, the huge French house of Mir Berwind, it's trees and grass and very walks and drives so carefully clipped or swept or moved, as the case may be, that it resembles nothing so much as finely groomed woman. Then farther along there is Marble House, famed residence of Mrs. Belmont, closed these many seasons, a beauti- ful facade crowded in tiny plot be- tween the Avenue and the sea.
 This Is the avenue of the names that the society newspaper reporter