People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1897 — WIDOWS IN WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WIDOWS IN WASHINGTON.

Gathering Ground Upon Which Rich Relicts Meet and Scheme, Especially is it a great place for rich widows with daughters—that peculiar type of American women who, as soon as pater-familias is comfortably tucked away under the sod, fly to Europe, spend years wandering about like social Bedouins, then are seized with a romantic form of homesickness, says the Illustrated American. But they dan’t stand Porkopolis and Kalamazoo and West Jersey after Paris and London and Vienna, and Washington affords a convenient stop-gap. It is American in location, European in habits and, to a degree, in personnel. So they come here, buy a fine house, get in with the diplomatic corps and the thing is done. And Washington, which professes a lofty scorn for trade and ruthlessly shuts the doors of society in the face of all Washington brokers, insurance agents, real estate people, and, in short, trade in every form, except banking, welcomes with open arms the retired trades people from New York, Chicago and anywhere else on the face of the globe. It reserves the right of laughing at them, though, and after faithfully attending all their luncheons goes home to roar over every slip the ambitious host or hostess has made. This habit is undoubtedly an affront to hospitality, but it has one saving virtue —Washington makes use of rich people, but it is not afraid of them.