FIGHT FOR A PRINCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 26 October 1907, Page 4

FIGHT FOR A PRINCE.

STORY OF A SOCIAL WAR. KAU DE COLOGNE WAVES. New York, August 25. The S|icctaeular departure of Prince William of Sweden from Newport to-day ended one of the most exciting struggles for social supremacy ever witnessed in this strange city of fashions and freaks. The contest has been watched with breathless interest by the entire country, which was informed that Mrs Stuyvesant Fish intended to exploit the occasion for the purpose of extinguishing the Vanderbilts, avenging herself and other eminent hostesses for the defeat suffered at the memorable visit of Prince Henrv of Prussia.

Thus neither Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt, Mrs Ogden Goelct, nor Mrs E. H. Harriman, whose husband ousted Mrs Fish's husband from the presidency of the Illinois Central Railway, were invited to Mrs Fish's luncheon to the Prince, prepared with a magnificent disregard of expense. But it seems that Mrs Cornelius Vandorbilt ultimately secured the honors of the four days' contest. On Friday that enterprising hostess smuggled the Prince quietly into bar trap, and herself catching up the reins, drove him. amid peals of laughter, to her cottage, where tea was partaken.

Yesterday she was no less victorious. Profiting by the rainy weather, which forced Hie Prince to abandon a bail on board the cruiser Fylgit, to which 250 of Newport's elect had been invited, she despatched her husband to request that he would honor the yacht Xorth Star with his presence. The Prince unsuspectingly accepted and found himself once more the guest of the Vanderbilts at a grand fete. Filled with triumph. Mrs. Cornelius Yanderbilt was able later in the evening complacently to meet her rival, -Mrs. Fish, when they, together with a. dozen other millionaires and wives of millionaires, were entertained by the Prince on board the Flygit. Mrs. Fish after this meeting informed a newspaper interviewer thai the talk about social war was all nonsense, adding that her ideas in regard to the entertainment of the Prince had been misrepresented. The Swedish Minister at Washington, Herr Hermann de Lagcreranz, perturbed at the evidences of the social campaign being waged round the youthful figure of the Prince, hinted that the democratic instincts of their compatriots would be offended by the spectacle of a Prince in the plutocratic whirlpool of Xewport. The Prince himself confirmed this view of the situation. While acknowledging the grandeur of the hospitality extended to him by the millionaire social set, he announced that be would devote the rest of his time in America to the society of his own countrymen.

Accordingly, lie manfully withstood a temptation to make one of a bathing partv on Bailey's Beach, despite the f : iet, which the \ew' York \Yr> Id vo.ubcs tor. that th" waves had been sprinkled with gallons of eau de Cologne in anticipation of the royal immersion. Tie even requested his hosts not to serve wine and champagne at the banqueting tables, and last night at the Masonic Hall danced assiduously with several Swedish maidens who approached him and asKcd for the pleasure of the next valse.

To-day Mrs. Fish gave a farewell luncheon in honor of the Prince. All express satisfaction that the enteilainmfc.it of the Prince throughout was conducted with the utmost solemnity, no pains having been spared to differentiate the occasion from the fantastic festival- .'n honor of aristocratic monkeys, pigs, and horses with which the millionaire hostes.es in recent yenrs have been netustomed to achieve social notoriety.