formed in khaki, and boatmen, in sailor suits of blue, waited by the lake. The black-bass fishing used to be excellent until, on the ad

vice of the United States fish commissioner, German carp were put into the lake as food for the bass. The carp have survived.

It must not be forgotten that Tuxedo was originally built as a shootingand fishing-club,

where members could build small shooting-boxes them

selves, or rent cottages for the autumn shooting. There was always a certain effect of the private estate in that the women wore eve

ning-dresses to dinner (generally ones left over from the Newport season), and the men, as a concession to informality, adopted the English dinner-jacket, which later be

came generally known by the name "Tuxedo.'

The deer and the pheasants and even the quail have gone, along with the bigger game of the district. The blizzard of 1888 was largely to blame.

But to-day? Let us begin again at the beginning, which is New York. On any clear Sunday morning in winter, if you will enter the rear car of the 9:30 train of the Erie Railroad, you will find yourself in the midst of a group of people conspicuously different from the average passengers of suburban trains. As the popular novelist would put it, "there is an undefinable stamp of fashion about them." Every one knows every one else, and the talk is likely to be of skating and sleighing. Arrived at Tuxedo, the vivid winter sunlight catching the brilliant colors in veils or hats or frocks, the company make a very cheerful scene as they pile into open sleighs (long stages with tops off, and runners put on in place of wheels), and, soon leaving the ugly yellow station, ascend the steep, wide road to the gates.

This is where the privacy of the park begins. Outside, near the station, cluster groups of administration buildings, shops, schools, a library. And farther

Drawn by Vernon Howe Bailey THE TENNIS CLUB

back, but still outside, are dwellings, most of them rather better than those found in the average American village; but all the land is owned by the Tuxedo Association.

The broad stone arch of the lodge spans a brook of ice, and on the opposite side, in front of the keep, stands a police-guard. Past the gates the road ascends steeply for about half a mile through uncultivated woodland, then comes a level stretch past the race-track, and a few yards farther one gets a view of many cottages set against, and others topping, higher hills. Then the road makes a bend, descends a little, and skirts the edge of the lake. As the sleighs turn the bend, two ice-boats come skimming near, and at the same time one catches sight of the north end of the lake, where a fringe of skaters move like tiny, black specks. A few moments afterward the sleighs draw up in front of the club-house. Many of the new-arrivals go up the steps to the wide, glass-inclosed verandas and through swinging-doors into the big hall, some to make arrangements about luncheon, some to change town coats for sweaters, a few to see about rooms for the night. But the younger people make straight for the log-cabin down at the edge of the lake, and as quickly as clamps and buckles can be fastened, become a part of the kaleidoscope on the ice. A little later one gets a faint echo of screams and laughter as a

toboggan turns over out on the ice a quarter of a mile away. Other groups, not caring for skating, trudge up Tower Hill, dragging bob-sleds or small flexibles for the long coast from the top to the ice-house down at the edge of the little lake, back of the club, and below the fish-hatcheries.

A bird's-eye view of Tuxedo would certainly be of ceaselessly moving human particles: slow ones trudging up the hills dragging sleds; the same ones shooting down again; others darting down the wood paths on skees; others in sleighs, jingling along the lake road, a few on little sleds hitching behind; dozens whizzing down the toboggan-slide, skating back to the lake's edge, up the toboggan-scaffold, down the slide, and half-way across the lake again.

At half-past one every one appears in the club dining-room; that is, every one who is not lunching at the cottages. After luncheon there is usually a court-tennis or racket match in the tennis building, which a number of people like to watch; otherwise the afternoon is a repetition of the morning.

At five o'clock the club hall is crowded. Girls and boys are standing before the fivefoot logs in the big fireplace or sitting on long, leather sofas drawn. out at right angles on each side. The older people prefer duplicate leather sofas, but at cooler distances, against the walls, and every group has a teatable as its center of interest. A few last stragglers, caring more for sport than for tea, arrive as the horn blows for the passengers leaving on the six-o'clock train.

Those left in the club after tea go up to their rooms or to their cottages, the former to rest, perhaps, before dressing for dinner at the homes of the latter.

Occasionally there have been open winters, when the lake has not frozen and the roads have been mud, and when there has been nothing to do but

wade about in rubber boots; but during six winters out of seven all of the traps go on runners the first of December, and sleighing continues without a thaw until the middle of March.

Usually Tuxedo life in winter is a series of weekly circles, of quiet outdoor and domestic pursuits, with Sunday to mark the end of each week with a touch of vivid color. A few of the visitors begin to arrive on Friday evenings, a few more on Saturdays, but the real crowd comes on Sunday or a holiday only for the day.

In March the end of the skating is followed by a period of uneventful domesticity; but by the middle of April, when the woods give their first signs of summer promise, the conversation which used to be of ice and skating, is now of gardens. "The tulips are all up in our borders," "The scilla has been blooming on our terrace for weeks." The strangers, however, do not arrive until May. Then each day, in through the gates pour trunks, crates, and boxes of incoming spring or summer cottagers, while out through the gates go a duplicate procession-the goods and chattels of departing winter householders. I believe that nowhere else in the world is there a quadruple "season." Many per

Drawn by Vernon Howe Bailey

THE CHURCH

sons rent Tuxedo houses for spring or autumn, others for the summer only, others for the winter months.

By June 1, the summer season is in full swing. The center of social life now revolves about the tennis-courts. The bathing-beach also has its hour every day when children duck and splash and swim-or small ones pretend to be ducks and pretend to swim. There may be found a water-chute, a raft or two, and the usual number of anxious mothers of very young children who do not want to go in or cannot be made to come out.

When the five-o'clock train comes in, the men go to the tennis-courts for a game, followed by a swim in the outdoor pool (a different place from the bathing-beach) or a plunge, with a rub-down, in the Turkish baths. In the evenings, especially through the month of June, dinners are given by the various cottagers every night in the week. The height of the spring season is marked at Tuxedo, as in many other places, by a horse-show, where cot

tagers and their visitors sit on hard, wooden chairs, in limp muslin and limper feathers. Why does it always rain during horse-shows?

A

The next event in the Tuxedo year is Fourth of July. On this day the park is thrown wide open to the villagers and their friends. The celebration begins with trotting-races, the horses being cheered on to utmost endeavor by the strains of the local band until one o'clock, when every one adjourns to the lawn in front of the children's annex of the club-house. huge collation is given to all who care to come. Afternoon is one continuous march of festivities-the firemen's parade, policemen's parade, Fourth of July address by a local political celebrity, and athletic contests by the various employees. In the evening the band and fireworks uphold tradition.

The Fourth being a “domestic” day, as it were, there are not many strangers in Tuxedo. The time when Tuxedo welcomes strangers, her best foot forward and

with a company smile, looking not at all her usual self, is at the annual autumn ball. At this the débutantes of the coming New York winter make their first appearance, and every train brings a veritable swarm of people, more than half of whom are strangers. By tea-time the hall of the club is wedged so full of tables that not even a fashion-plate figure could squeeze between. Girls and boys, girls and boys, are everywhere.

The ball is a crush (three rows of cotillion-chairs), and in the following two days Tuxedo's usual population is trebled. After the ball Tuxedo settles down for the winter season. Those who have taken houses arrive, and the circle of the year is made. During the Christmas and NewYear holidays the club is again crowded; but this is Tuxedo's own holiday. The New-Year's ball is a very informal affair, where half of the boys and girls go coasting,, and the musicians play to an almost empty room.

There is a fixed idea in the mind of the general public that Tuxedo is inhabited by a stiff-necked, snobbish, and equally gay set of people, whose chief fear is that some one from the outside may evade the ceaseless vigilance of the guard at its gates and enter the citadel.

There is a certain foundation for this

supposition. Tuxedo people are indifferent to strangers, but no more so than any Northern or Eastern community. There was a time, when the place was very small, when outsiders must have found Tuxedo inhospitable. Though there is little change in this respect to-day, there is this difference: it does not matter nowadays whether John Smith and his family, taking a cottage for the summer or for the winter, know any one in the "A" group of people or not. If they do not know any one in the "C" group, they surely will know, and like, some of the "D's" or "B's."

In other words, it is just like any other place. People of wide social acquaintance find themselves among friends wherever they may go; people of limited acquaintance must seek to make new friends in every new place, and those of this latter class, if they are clean and well-mannered, simple and decent, or whatever may stand for a definition of "gentle folk," will find congenial friends in Tuxedo as readily as anywhere else. It is no longer a closed community to the general public; a man, not a member of the club, may rent a house for a season, and during that season be accorded the privileges of the club without becoming a member. At the end of a year, if the householder wishes to stay on