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8 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