Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1889 — THAT CENTENNIAL BALL. [ARTICLE]

THAT CENTENNIAL BALL.

Drunken Waiters, Vulgar People and Gamblers Contrive to Make It a Disgraceful Kvent. ■ _4 • The New York World says Now that The centennial ball is over, people who paid from $lO to $25 apiece to participate in it, and whose fan was represented by the figure L, are taking out the balance in criticism. The tongues of theball-goeis were blistered with faultfinders Thursday. On all sides it was conceded that the centennial bajl was the biggest exec-, utive failure of /the century. People who were most competent to speak, were loudest in declaring the ball a monument of incapacity and vulgarity. As Mr. Ward McAllister read his private dispatches in his Washington retreat, a complacent smile overspread and softened his features. The scenes in the supper-room ckhEot bediscribed safely in a newspaper. Never since the palace of the Tulleries was invaded in 1779 by the sans culottes of the Seine department have such startling contrasts been witnessed in similar circumstances. When it is said that the waiters, policemen and messenger boys drank most of the free champagne, the situation at midnight may be suggested. Justices of the Supreme Court, Governors, staff officers, club men, lawyers, poets, millionaires, with beautiful and refined women -crowded blankly along the supper counter and demanded in vain the attention they were accustomed to receive. The functionariesaroundthe place showed undisguised contempt iof the “free lunch fiends.” Waiters who did pot have to account for the unlimited wipe took occasiop to neglect'guests JhjeaE'themselves. The excellent ifojjilpjr-tWas largely wasted. There was no*/responsibility for anything to anybody*. The “gentlemen’s dining room’’ idea was shown to be an uttejr fallacy. By 12:30 a. m. the supper room had been given over to people whose ideas of enjoyment had been learned in free-and-easy resorts. Drunken men mvaded tl*e ball room, flourishing bubbling-hob ties of champagne. In the corridors free fights were of constant occurrence. Gam piers, book-makers and women dozed or made merry on the staircases. Never once did an accredited officer of the evening interfere to anybody’s knowledge. The policeman who were sober were helpless. They could not tell the drees coated waiters from the guests. By 1 o’clock most of the respectable element were making frantic and supperless efforts to get away. Even this privilege was denied them. A line extending from the coatrooms for 500 yards, and made up of some of the leading citizens of this town, surged for hours against the feeble and inadequate partitions of the coat-room. Gentlemen grew aDgry and desperate at the utter inadequacy of the arrangements. With torn coats and wrinkled shirt fronts, men whose names are known ail over the Union, fought their way toward their coats under the frequent clubs of the police, the jeers of the mob outside, and the pernicious activity of the pickpockets. It was 5 o’clock in the morning before the last battered and ragged guest joined his family at the doors and reached his hack.

“In its executive aspects the centennial ball was the worst of its sort ever known in the history of the city,” said a well Known man about town, Thursday. “The possibility of letting the attendants get at all the wine they wanted was enough to ruin any plans which might have been made. I left at 3a. m., # without my hat or coat. Two es the checkers inside the cloak room were drunk. I got my umbrella by paying $1 for one exchanged for it in my sight by the fellow who demanded the dollar. Of the ladies I met, one’s dreses was ruined by a plate of salad thrown over it by a drunken brute, and the shoulder of another was cut from a bottle which a stranger had broken upon it. I saw more respectable women insulted ip the supper room than I ever saw even accested at the French ball. I knQcked down a man who tried to kiss the daughter of a leading lawyer here.” The ticket-takers had no check placed upon them and there is no question they made lots of money letting in people who never Bhoulu have been there. The policemen lost their temper completely and cleared people out with their clubs. Hundreds of bottles of wine were passed out of doors and sold by waiters and others. One man was drunk, fell down stairs and was so badly hurt be had to be carried off in an ambulance. Many flags and potted plants were stolen, and some of the boxes were shockingly soiled after their first occupants had left. The supper-room was cleared by clubs shortly after 1 o’clock. The lights were turned out in the ballroom long before the crowd had left the building.

Dr. John W. Gibbs said at the Hoffman House, Thursday night: "I have just finished a letter oi congratulation to Mr. Ward McAllister. The ball as it went off was about the best answer he he could make to those who removed him. Mr. Stuyvesant Fish may know something about railroads, but be knows nothing of how to conduct a ball.”