8 APRIL 1899, Page 3

The bulletins from New York are full of a wedding

to which the local journals give pages of description. The bride- groom is Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt, son of the well-known millionaire ; and the bride, Miss Virginia Fair, the daughter of another man of nearly the same rank in the plutocracy. The wedding presents are said to be worth £400,000, and the description of them reads, as one lady irreverently said, like a chapter in. Revelations, all big pearls and gold. The incident would not be worth mention but for three facts of some social importance. One is that the plutocracy in America excites at least as much attention as the aristocracy in Europe ; another is that this plutocracy thinks it advisable to advertise its splendour ; and the third is that the democracy, instead of envying this wealth, evidently enjoys the profusion it produces as a sort of highly coloured picture that - breaks the deadly monotony of the scene around. The wedding is a Masque with a continent for spectators.