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                      SOCIETY AS I HAVE FOUND IT.

             [Illustration: very truly yours, handwritten:

                           Ward Mc Allister]




                               _Society_

                         _As I Have Found It_

                                  BY

                            WARD McALLISTER

                               NEW YORK
                      CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
                   104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

                              COPYRIGHT,

                                 1890,

                          BY WARD McALLISTER.

                        _All rights reserved._

                      THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
                             RAHWAY, N. J.




     “This book is intended to be miscellaneous, with a noble disdain of
     regularity.”--_Obiter Dicta._

     “How then does a man, be he good or bad, big or little, make his
     Memoirs interesting? To say that the one thing needful is
     individuality, is not quite enough. To have an individuality is no
     sort of distinction, but to be able to make it felt in writing is
     not only distinction, but under favorable circumstances,
     immortality.”--_The Same._




AUTHOR’S NOTE.


One who reads this book through will have as rough a mental journey as
his physical nature would undergo in riding over a corduroy road in an
old stage-coach. It makes no pretension to either scholarship or elegant
diction.

W. McA.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

                                                                    PAGE

My Family--My Mother an Angel of Beauty and Charity--My Father’s
Nobleness of Character--Building Bonfires on Paradise Rocks and flying
Kites from Purgatory with Uncle Sam Ward--My Brother the Lawyer,       3

CHAPTER II.

My New York Life--A Penurious Aunt who fed me on Turkey--My First Fancy
Ball--Spending One Thousand Dollars for a Costume--The Schermerhorns
give a ball in Great Jones Street--Sticking a Man’s Calf and Drawing
Blood--A Craze for Dancing--I Study Law--Blackstone has a Rival in
lovely Southern Maidens--I go to San Francisco in ’50--Fees Paid in Gold
Dust--Eggs at $2--My First Housekeeping--A faux pas at a
Reception,                                                            13

CHAPTER III.

Introduction to London Sports--A Dog Fight in the Suburbs--Sporting
Ladies--The Drawing of the Badger--My Host gets Gloriously Drunk--Visit
to Her Majesty’s Kitchen--Dinner with the Chef of Windsor Castle--I
taste Montilla Sherry for the First Time--“A Shilling to pay for the
Times,”                                                               31

CHAPTER IV.

A Winter in Florence and Rome--Cheap Living and Good Cooking--Walnut-fed
Turkeys--The Grand Duke of Tuscany’s Ball--An American Girl who Elbowed
the King--What a Ball Supper should be--Ball to the Archduke of
Tuscany--“The Duke of Pennsylvania”--Following the Hounds on the
Campagna--The American Minister Snubs American Gentlemen,             41

CHAPTER V.

Summer in Baden-Baden--The Late Emperor William no Judge of Wine--My
Irish Doctor--His Horror of Water--How an American Girl tried to
Captivate Him--The Louisiana Judge--I win the Toss and get the Mule--The
Judge “fixes” his Pony--The “Pike Ballet,”                            55

CHAPTER VI.

Winter in Pau--I hire a perfect Villa for $800 a year--Luxury at Small
Cost--I Learn how to give Dinners--Fraternizing with the Bordeaux Wine
Merchants--The Judge’s Wild Scheme--I get him up a Dinner--General
Bosquet--The Pau Hunt--The Frenchmen wear beautiful Pink Coats, but
their Horses wont Jump--Only the General took the Ditch,              65

CHAPTER VII.

My Return to New York--Dinner to a well-known Millionaire--Visit of Lord
Frederick Cavendish, Hon. E. Ashley, and G. W. des Voeux to the United
States--I Entertain them at my Southern Home--My Father’s Old Friends
resent my Manner of Entertaining--Her Majesty’s Consul
disgruntled--Cedar Wash-tubs and Hot Sheets for my English
Guests--Shooting Snipe over the Rice Lands--Scouring the Country for
Pretty Girls,                                                         77

CHAPTER VIII.

A Southern Deer Park--A Don Quixote Steed--We Hunt for Deer and Bag a
Turkey--Getting a Dinner by Force--The French Chef and the <DW52> Cook
Contrasted--One is Inspired, the Other follows Tradition--Making a Sauce
of Herbs and Cream--Shooting Ducks across the Moon--A Dawfuskie
Pic-nic,                                                              89

CHAPTER IX.

I Leave the South--A Typical British Naval Officer--An Officer of the
Household Troops--Early Newport Life--A Country Dinner--The Way I got up
Pic-nics--Farmers throw their Houses Open to Us--A Bride receives us in
her Bridal Array--My Newport Farm--My Southdowns and my Turkeys--What an
English Lady said of our Little Island--Newport a place to take Social
Root in,                                                             107

CHAPTER X.

Society’s Leaders--A Lady whose Dinners were Exquisite and whose Wines
were Perfect--Her “Blue Room Parties”--Two Colonial Beauties--The
Introduction of the Chef--The Prince of Wales in New York--The Ball in
his Honor at the Academy of Music--The Fall of the Dancing
Platform--Grotesque Figures cut by the Dancers--The Prince dances
Well--Admirable Supper Arrangements--A Light Tea and a Big Appetite--The
Prince at West Point--I get a Snub from General Scott,               123

CHAPTER XI.

A Handsome, Courtly Man--A Turkey Chase--A Visit to Livingston Manor--An
Ideal Life--On Horseback from Staatsburg to New York--Village Inn
Dinners--I entertain a Fashionable Party at the Gibbons Mansion--An Old
House Rejuvenated--The Success of the Party--Country Life may be enjoyed
here as well as in England if one has the Money and the Inclination for
it--It means Hard Work for the Host, though,                         139

CHAPTER XII.

John Van Buren’s Dinner--I spend the Entire Day in getting my
Dress-coat--Lord Harrington criticises American Expressions--Contrast in
our way of Living in 1862 and 1890--In Social Union is Social
Strength--We band together for our Common Good--The organization of the
“Cotillion Dinners”--the “Smart” Set, and the “Solid” Set--A Defense of
Fashion,                                                             155

CHAPTER XIII.

Cost of Cotillion Dinners--My delicate Position--The Début of a
Beautiful Blonde--Lord Roseberry’s mot--We have better Madeira than
England--I am dubbed “The Autocrat of Drawing-rooms”--A Grand Domino
Ball--Cruel Tricks of a fair Mask--An English Lady’s Maid takes a
Bath--The first Cotillion Dinners given at Newport--Out-of-Door
Feasting--Dancing in the Barn,                                       165

CHAPTER XIV.

The first private Balls at Delmonico’s--A Nightingale who drove
Four-in-hand--Private Theatricals in a Stable--A Yachting Excursion
without wind and a Clam-bake under difficulties--A Poet describes the
Fiasco--Plates for foot-stools and parboiled Champagne for the
thirsty--The Silver, Gold, and Diamond Dinners--Giving Presents to
guests,                                                              181

CHAPTER XV.

The Four-in-hand Craze--Postilions and Outriders follow--A
Trotting-horse Courtship--Cost of Newport Picnics Then and Now--Driving
off a Bridge--An Accident that might have been Serious--A Dance at a
Tea-house--The Coachmen make a Raid on the Champagne--They are all
Intoxicated and Confusion reigns--A Dangerous Drive Home,            191

CHAPTER XVI.

Grand Banquet to a Bride elect--She sat in a bank of Roses with
Fountains playing around her--An Anecdote of Almack’s--The way the Duke
of Wellington introduced my Father and Dominick Lynch to the Swells--I
determine to have an American Almack’s--The way the “Patriarchs’” was
founded--The One-man Power Abolished--Success of the Organization,   207

CHAPTER XVII.

A Lady who has led Society for many years--A Grand Dame indeed--The
Patriarchs a great social Feature--Organizing the F. C. D. C.--Their
Rise and Fall--The Mother Goose Ball--My Encounters with socially
ambitious Workers--I try to Please all--The Famous “Swan Dinner”--It
cost $10,000--A Lake on the Dinner-table--The Swans have a mortal
Combat,                                                              221

CHAPTER XVIII.

How to