SOCIETY IN WASHINGTON.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3233, 10 November 1881, Page 4

SOCIETY IN WASHINGTON.

Society at the capital tries to divide itself up into sets; but political necessities demand too much, and the different sets lap over each other and mingle in a way that makes all society very promiscuous. The White House bas for some years ceased to exert potent influence. Tho Hayes family were not society people, although. Mrs Hayes developed a wonderful amount of social tact and good sense. Her total-abstinence principles, however, undoubtedly kept many from the White House viho might otherwise have gone there, because they resented, or ••aid they did, the interference with the customs of good society everywhere. The rream of official society is supposed to he that of tho Supreme Court, it certainly ought to be, because the court is, in theory at least, composed of men of exceptional professional acquirements and ability. None but leading lawyers enter it, and not all Senators are welcome, while it is very seldom that the House of Representatives has a member who has position enough to be ti guest at the State dinners of the justices. Tt is here, however, that the great lack of Washington society is felt in all its force. The successful public man of thi9 country has, very likely, outgrown his wife. He married her when they were on the same plane. Perhaps she a little better off in money and position ; but he has gone on growing, and she has stood still. While he hrs been hard at work making fame and place for himself, she has been attending to the domestic economies. These have been useful to her husband, but they have stunted her ; and so she finds herself, when in the full glare of the official society of the '•apital, out of place awkward, constrained, doubtless as to what is proper and what is improper. There are many women -whose natural tact carries them over this difficulty, and they are soon able to make a showing in society which is very creditable to them ; but it nevertheless remains the fact that the society of Washington is largely colored by the. men, and that the women, not having grown with their husbands, bring them their village manners and their village timidity. One who has lived in Washington can recall more than one wife of a justice of the Supreme Court uneducated, unrefined, and thoroughly unfitted for any life but the boisterous one of the West. This is more often true, however, of the wives of men who have advanced in political life than those who have risen professionally. This gives Washington society the coarse tone which is the oftenest noticed by newspaper writers; but it is not just to say, because its characteristic is the presence of a much larger number of brilliant men than of brilliant, or even refined, women, that Washington society is wholly coarse. There is much in it that is better than can be found in any society in the country. There are certainly more interesting men, and there are very many charming women. Its deficiencies will exist as long as the country is so largely unsettled. The most of those who live there officially come from the parts of the country into which the refinements of cities have not gone, and life in Washington, composed, as it is, of people from all sections of the Union, will always be a reflex of the country. Westsrn people will come from the West, Eastern and Southern people from the East and South. Those who have spent their lives in villages —and many of the ablest public men have —will bring the manners of village life with them. When it is a woman, it is unfortunate. "It is different with the man, whose lack of polish can be replaced by vigor of mind. —Philadelphia American.