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Died. Louis Sherry, 71; after a long illness, in Manhattan. When he conducted his restaurant at Fifth Ave. and 44th St., many gentlemen had a way of saying to him, "I am dining 60 tomorrow," or "My daughter's dance will be on the 19th." Directions would have been a useless insult. He knew every debutante, dowager, rake, banker, and gourmet who lived in Manhattan between 1885 and 1915. He chose the wines that J. P. Morgan offered his guests. James Hazen Hyde, one winter night, gave in his restaurant a costume ball which is said .to have been the most brilliant event** in the social history of the city. He was the son of a Vermont carpenter of French descent; he worked as a waiter in the Hotel Brunswick and, when the management discharged him, the patrons whom he had pleased helped him to start a place of his own. It is said that he knew by a customer's bearing what he would like to eat—for a bright eye, crepes Suzette; for a laggard step, Vol au Vent de Volaille à la Reine. Bolshevism, prohibition, induced him to retire. "I will not submit," he said, "to having food thrown at my patrons." He left a large estate, including a new restaurant and apartment hotel on Park Ave. and a candy store on Fifth Ave., in the ownership of which there were associated with him "General" T. Coleman du Pont and "Colonel" Benjamin McAlpin, potent financiers.
Died. John Diedrich Spreckels, 72, after week of illness; at Coronado, Calif. He was the eldest son of the late Claus Spreckles, who expanded his Philadelphia grocery business to control much of the U. S. sugar trade. The sons—John Diedrich, Adolph Barnard (died 1924), Claus August (president, Federal Sugar Refining Co.) and Rudolph (spells his name "Spreckles," onetime fighter of California political corruption)—all went into the sugar business. John Diedrich. went furthest, developed the Pacific islands sugar trade, pioneered transpacific shipping to carry his products, broadened into finance, philanthropic and civic activities.
*In the Socialist Soviet Republic of Georgia there is manufactured silverware of an English pattern which is sold by unscrupulous dealers under a written guarantee that it is "genuine Georgian."
**A Louis XIV affair of such splendor that a prurient public demanded to know by what right the son of Henry B. Hyde (founder of the Equitable Life) entertained like an emperor. At the next Princeton Commencement festive graduates carried a three-sided transparency inscribed: "The Simple Life; The Strenuous Life; The Equitable Life." Finally Mr. Charles Evans Hughes bounded into prominence by conducting an investigation into the methods of insurance concerns, which bore fruit in much salutory legislation.