The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-04-14


MUNIT1Es.-We Gee that the Liverpool papers
are assailing vehemently the social extrava-
gances of the merchants and traders Of that
town. They say that to such height are luxu-
rious living and rivalry in expenditure carried
that it but too frequently happens that for
of those by whose industry they have been
accumulated. Instead of observing a style of
living consistent with the rank which they
occupy in the social scale the families of
traders vie with those of the nobility in main.
tanning state which their incomes do not
justify. The consequence is that bankruptcies
have become of much more frequent occur
renee, and that the permanent retention of
wealth, which formerly enabled mercantile fam
lilies to pass in the course of generation or
two into the ranks Of the aristocracy, is much
rarer than formerly.
This result is in measure attributable to the
gradual breaking down of the lines of de-
marcation which divide society in England.
With the progressive increase of the power of
the democracy, as developed by the concessions
wrung, year after year, from the privileged
classes, there is natural tendency on the
part of wealth to outrival the pretensions of
hereditary rank. But it is also due, in great
part to another cause, and that is the facility
with which, in these days of daring speculation
and adventure, fortunes are made by CONNER
cial men. The gold discoveries in California
and Australia have impaired q stimulus to
,soh -
lance, in rapidity Of achievement, the cautious
progress Of other times
The same causes are producing like results,
but to much greater extent, in this country.
The accumulation of wealth in the hands of in
dividuals here is without precedent in the his
tory of any other commercial community.
Twenty years ago we could only count about
half dozen millionaires; to-day we can number
them by hundreds. But it is equally true that
the fortunes thus rapidly acquired are almost
as rapidly spent. In the course of few years
we see man become suddenly rich, cut fig
ure in society, and then get ruined again,
without its exciting almost any comment When
Lord Napier was here. be observed of the Fifth
avenue, that it was a street of palaces, and
that there was no single street in Europe to
equal it. How surprised he would have been
to have been told that it was the calculation of
one of the most experienced house agents and
real estate brokers in the city, that the average
tenure of those magnificent mansions by the
families of our commercial aristocracy did not
exceed three years. 1t takes, in fact, only
that brief period to ruin the great majority of
the persons whose ambition to cut dash and
live in palatial mansions outweighs the sug-
gestions of prudence and the measure of their
incomes,
These evils will, however, cure themselves
in time AS soon as the disturbances caused
to our equanimity by the influx of a large
gold supply and the speculation which it in
duccs tuhsice, our habits of living will con-
.oIm themselves 10 more prudent notions, and
w We coi''oi!ed more CT less by public OPT.
| RIOS. a lie meanwhile i ID some consola-
tic' 10 rei'e CT that tie cxtrwagances charged
again. rs are not peculiarly our own. When
s,s.d people like the English are tempted
into the commission Of similar follies, we may
well be excused for yielding little to the
extravagances induced by sudden flow of
prosperity.