BILLION-DOLLAR BALL.

Mataura Ensign, 29 September 1913, Page 4

BILLION-DOLLAR BALL.

* WHY IT WAS GIVEN. Mrs Stuyvesant Fish's "billion-dollar ball" (says the New York correspondent of the 'Daily Telegraph' on August 3) was far and away the most brilliant and successful event of America's social season, and establishes the hostess as a society leader of the first rank. This is the •unanimous opinion of tho society chroniclers here, who exhaust their adjectives and eloquence in describing the midnight revels 4 the grotesque and beautiful decorations, and the artistic disguises worn by nearly 500 guests at Mrs Fish's Newport residence.

The hostess objected to the popuar description of the "billion-dollar ball," and desired that her entertainment, which cost £20,000, should bo called "The Fairy Tale," or "Mother Goose's Fete," because almost everybody personated some familiar and picturesque character in the famous English nursery rhymes. There. was no lack of bizarre as well is beautiful decorations; but the cheap jpectacular effects which had marked :ome of the previous weird and costly sntertainments at Newport, such as the amous "butterfly ball, the_ "barnyard 'ete," the "monkey reception," and 'the shower of jewels reception," were visely banned. It is true that the value >f the jewels worn by the guests is estinated at over £2,000,000, and one lady lad big diamonds galore sewn into her OTSage. But social functions at New>ort without scintillating gems of fabuous worth would bo unexampled, and lere, as elsewhere, custom rules. The 500 guests comprised many of he most notable American society folk. Mrs Fish, arrayed as the Queen of the dairies, received them at the. head of he balcony between the ballroom; and he drawing-room. Her gown was of liver hue. and was trimmed with rhmeitones and spangles. A large star, fit;ed with an electric device which kept t twinkling, was worn in her hair, and she carried a sceptre in which, tiny eiccalo lights emphasised the beauty and Magnificence of the gems studding her •ostium©. Her slippers were laced with •opes of diamonds and rhinestones, and had buckles of diamonds. She was attended by two children, dressed as sprites. . Miss Janet Fish, who assisted in receiving the guests, was dressed in an elaborate goose-girl costume, and carried a stuffed sroose under her arm. Never lreforo in Newport were more elaborate precautions taken to prevent loss of jewels. The Fish mansion was surrounded by a cordon of police, and 'scores of plain-clothes men scanned all passing in and out, and even mingled among the guests. Fire precautions were also taken, and uniformed firemen were stationed at points of vantage in the grounds and in the hou.se. Supper was served at midnight on the clos,'v,-ni ve andali. The waiters were costumed in liveries of the time of Louis XV. Following the supper, dancing was resumed, and did not cease until dawn, when 'three young society ' 'debutantes still refused to go homo until uu.v' look a three-mile swim in the sea. Mrs Fish received many congratulation's on the success of the greatest fancy-dress hall ever given in fashionable Newport. She told the interviewers that she gave the ball as a protest against the Woman. Suffrage agitators. "I'm tired," she said, "of women wanting to acquire something they don't really need. The day after reading about some of the atrocities committed by the militant Suffragettes I picked up Mother Goose's melodies, and, oh,! tliev seemed so refreshing and lino after all this sex and suffrage twaddle. It occurred to me that Mother Goose was someone very much to be revered in this day of women's changing standards. Mother Goose was a real woman, and, what's more, she was a real mother I with the love of children beforo anything else, as it should be. Suffragists? I detest them, and my ball was given as a protest against the woman who wants the ballot instead of the things she was created' for."