Social Washington

Ten years have brought a number of changes to Washington society. The dignified old Southerners, who made up the residential set, have been livened and freshened, and, if the truth must be told, sometimes pushed to the rear by an influx of rich men, who have built or are building palaces around the circles. In addition to this, there are now for the first time adequate apartment-houses and hotels for the man who desires to spend the winter in Washington and live in the same comfort and luxury he has at home.

The diplomatic society was never more pleasant than today. There are more ambassadors and younger ones, and the attaches seem to be in great demand. Official society is predicated always on the President, of course. Mr. Roosevelt is the greatest entertainer at the White House since the days of President Arthur. In addition to the state dinners, and his private house parties, he and Mrs. Roosevelt have planned for the coming winter a series of brilliant receptions and musicales, entirely apart from and in addition to the New Year's public reception, and the four great formal affairs where all Washington goes to shake hands and then rushes away again, glad the ordeal is over.

The stamp of social prominence, not worth, perhaps, but prominence, in Washington, is to appear in the "always invited" list at the White House. Some strange people get on this list, through political exigencies, but the real ones get there, too.

Washington is a dinner-giving city. One never dines at his own home there, even down to the humbler circles of society, unless one is giving a dinner to his friends. Invitations go out weeks ahead, and the society of Senators and other officials, the diplomats, the army and navy men, to say nothing of the millionaires who entertain all these and their wives, are at great straits to distribute themselves properly. Each winter the season is more brilliant than the one before--Collier's Weekly.