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A few years *{l fro a Newport society notable, in
casting about lor something novel, something at
once edifying and unique, achieved a mighty suc
cess in the famous “Monkey Dinner. It will be
remembered that invitations wen 1 sent out to, and
were accepted by, all the pet monkeys about the
Social Capital. That is. all that bore a reputation
for deportment equal to that of their masters and
mistresses, which was by no means a severe test,
and it was a mighty sorry animal whose character
failed to pass.
A chosen few of the society belles and beaux
were allowed to sit at table with the guests of honor.
Others helped to receive and served as waitresses
and waiters. The monkeys observed the prevailing
styles of dress scrupulously. The males wore the
spike tail regulation black, and the lady monkeys
were charming in decollete creations, presumably
“direct from Worth.”
Beyond evincing some slight impatience between
the courses, and a few errors of judgment in the
choice of forks and spoons as the dinner proceeded,
it was said at the time that the little Simians quite
measured up to the requirements of the occasion,
and retired that night with brains vastly less be
clouded from alcoholism than did their entertain
ers.
As a vagary, the “Monkey-Dinner” held its
position at the the top of the column until dis
placed a few nights ago by the banquet of the Cos
mopolitan Society of (treater New York, which oc
curred in a New York restaurant, where twenty
white women and girls dined side by side with ne
gro men and women. After tin* meal was over, the
accounts of the affair say. there Avere speeches in
which social equality and intermarriage of the races
were 1 openly advocated by the orators.
We are further told that, “whether by accident
or design, all of the white women save three found,
when they reached the tables, that the seats beside
them were to he occupied by negro men. Many of
the men were as black as tar.” This arrangement
was not pleasing to the Rev. Madison C. Peters, who
was there to make an address to the society, and that
gentleman suddenly recalled another engagement,
'the Rev. Peters up to this time had an average of
](X) per cent for speech-making wherever oppor
tunity offered, and hitherto it was believed Dr.
Peters, when gathered to his fathers, would carry
a clean record for declining to languish in a pent-up
condition when oratory was clamored for. In short,
Peters was thought to be equipped for standing al
most anything save standing mute, lie didn’t stand
mute. lie came; In 1 saw; he tied—mute.
Dr. Peters’ flight left at the banquet but one
white person of whose existence any considerable
proportion of the public had even casual knowledge.
This was Editor Villard of the New York Evening
Post. Ts the Post is notable for anything beyond
its situation on the “inside” as regards operations
SOME FREAKS AND SOME FOLLIES.
By AL. REYD.
THE REASON
in Wall street, that thing is a most persistent as
sumption of the office of a common scold toward the
South and its ideals.
A very small percentage of the white women
present laid claim even to that vague and doubtful
distinction of belonging to “society.” They were
three in number, two from the Pacific coast and the
third the daughter of a Brooklyn hotel man. There
is no information that any had achieved fame in
some direction which to the smallest degree might
qualify them to pose as representatives of a definite
lv defined class or as momentous forces behind or
inside any movement that should merit public at
tention.
Hamilton Holt, editor of The Independent, ap
pears to have been the only negro of any particular
intellectual attainments found amongst the partici
pants in the banquet. Holt's utterances proved con
clusively that his college training had failed to de
velope any attribute which would have endowed
him with power and ability as a counsellor and
guide to his race. The effervescences of such ne
groes as Holt and T. Thomas Fortune tend to spread
the already widely prevailent conviction that the
negro is an imitator and not at all a reasoner, es
pecially under the test of the higher education.
The Cosmopolitans’ banquet was not without
features contributory to the gaiety of nations. \Ye
are given to read that which tends to establish an
equal quantity of truth and poetry in the little
couplet which runs somewhat like this:
“You may break, you may shatter, the vase
if you will.
But the odor of the rose will cling
round it still.”
Witness whereof, glance over the paragraph in
the dispatches which tells of the departure from the
festive board of the Landis' family (white) “before
the speaking concluded, when the place got warm.”
Another amusing incident, an occurrence which
brings one to doubt the genuiness of the White Cos
mopolitans professed love for equality with the black
brother and sister, was the panic amongst the fair
diners when preparations were discovered making
for a flashlight picture of the assemblage, presumably
for publication. There was tremendous perturba
tion, much chatter, squirming on chairs, and such
like, which for a time caused rhetorical pro-racial
amalgamation shafts to fly ineffectively over heed
less and ducked heads. Finally, however, the picture
man was shooed away and the oratory proceeded.
The whole proceeding presented a spectacle
nausions in the extreme and devoid of a single ele
ment commending the Cosmopolitan Society to even
charitable tolerance. Yet many thoughtful persons
question the wisdom of the course pursued by the
daily newspapers in giving through their columns
great prominence to the debased affair at the Fulton
Street restaurant. The personal of the white parti
cipants is not such as to warrant treatment in a
vein other than of satire and ridicule. The example