THE DUDE KING.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 28, 11 July 1891, Page 145

THE DUDE KING.

The king of the New York dudes had been suspended in his own city by the club chiefly frequented by his subjects for the lordlike offence of intoxication. Mr Berry Wall and his younger brother, Mr ‘ Billy,’ are types of the gilded youth of America, probably the most useless variety of the human race on the face of the earth. Berry and Billy are

the sons of an honest citizen who made his fortune by a somewhat ominous occupation—namely, the keeping of a ropewalk. Since Wall senior’s lamented demise his offspring have devoted themselves with great success to getting rid of the money which he had accumulated by his industry. Although Americans, one of their chosen methods of doing

this was to patronise the most expensive London tailors, and refuse to appear in any but English made clothes. Berry Wall is noted for two achievements. He refused on one occasion to put up his umbrella, although it was raining, because it had been rolled by a celebrated artist in that line ; at another time he attended some races near New York with a four-in-hand, and, between each race, retired into the interior of the vehicle and changed his clothes, so that he might have the distinction of being seen on the course during one afternoon in four distinct suits. Berry and Billy together once opened a liquor saloon, not that they had any intention of resorting to this plebeian means of getting a living, but because a liquor seller next door to their establishment had refused to serve them because of their obviously obfuscated condition.

Some years ago Berry having wasted his substance in freaks such as those above described had to seek employment as the representative of a champagne firm—the only calling under the sun, except that of tailor’s dummy, for which he appears to have had the slightest natural qualification. Whether his troubles with the fashionable club are due to his having too freely sampled his own wares, or whether he has been restorer! to atlluence and is celebrating his good fortune in the only way he understands, it is impossible to say, and it is a point with which history outside of New York is not particularly concerned. He is interesting only as an example of the young American who has come into money. He has much in common with Mrs Langtry’s sometime admirer, Freddie Gebhardt, who used to insist upon being called Mr Frederick ‘Gebawhd,’ and who once wrote a testimonial for champagne of so wildly ungrammatical a character that a wine merchant exhibited it in his window, partly as an advertisement, and partly as an excellent joke. Another distinguished member of the New York aristocracy was a Mr Bronson, who, though he has since committed suicide, earned undying titles to fame by a drunken escapade of an entirely novel character. Mr Bronson having been out for a ride in the later days of his career sought rest and refreshment in a restaurant, and there, becoming deeply intoxicated, went to sleep with his head in his plate. The opportunity thus afforded was too good to be lost by Dr. May, another glass of fashion, who called for the materials for salad, and then and there proceeded to make a salad with oil, vinegar, and mustard of Mr Bronson's ambrosial locks. This done, Mr Bronson’s long boots were drawn off, and filled with salad dressing, with all imaginable stinging substances, as cayenne pepper, etc., added. The slumbering hero was then awakened with some alarming message and induced to hastily don his riding gear and mount. His progress as be galloped along distributing salad dressing and curses, ami objurgating the fires which he thought had already taken possession of his extremities, is described as a thing never to be forgotten. No wonder that a man who had done all this for glory thought it seemly to quit the world while still young.