The June 1, 1893, edition of the Boston Globe announced that “Ward McAllister arrived in Chicago yesterday.” The Brooklyn Citizen made the same claim, with some addional spice:

“Ward McAllister arrived in Chicago and went at once to the Hotel Metropole. A rumor went around the hotel that Hobart Chatfield Chatfield-Taylor, who, as Spanish Consul, expects to become acquainted with the infanta, had become alarmed at the possibilities of social blunders had sent for Mr. McAllister to tell him how the thing was done in New York.”

Had the Dictator of New York Society, the Autocrat of Gotham’s famous “Four Hundred” actually come to see the World’s Fair? No—he had never left New York. The Chicago Record’s “Comment of the Day” column the next day included this curious note:

“The merry young lady who put Ward McAllister’s name on a hotel register evidently did not anticipate the size of the commotion that it caused among Chicago society”

Eugene Field, in his “Sharps and Flats” column in the same issue, elaborated on the hoax without identifying the perpetrator:

“In a humorous mood, one of our local practical jokers wrote the name of Ward McAllister in the register one of the hotels, and presently the news spread that the drum major of New York society had actually arrived. In less time than it takes to tell it, a number of toadies and parvenus flocked in from Prairie Avenue, eager to dance attendance upon the vulgar paranoias from Gotham, and sorely disappointed to learn that the Apostle of Toadyism had really not arrived.

It has been suggested to us several times that we ought to make some kind of answer to the strictures which McAllister, the paranoic, has seen fit to pass upon Chicago, and less than a week ago a very charming society lady sought to convince us that it was our duty to tell McAllister, in behalf of Chicago, that his attack upon our society was atrociously false. We have answered these importunities each time in this wise: That we should not seek to vindicate Chicago society until we had good reason to believe that, in the event of McAllister’s coming to Chicago, our society would not hasten to do him homage.”

Touché, Mr. Field.

SOURCES

“Comment of the Day” Chicago Record Jun. 2, 1893, p. 10.

“News of the Day” Brooklyn Citizen Jun. 1, 1893, p. 4.

“Personal and Impersonal” Boston Globe Jun. 1, 1893, p. 5.

“Sharps and Flats” Chicago Record Jun. 2, 1893, p. 4.