The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1865-11-28
KEOKUK, IOWA:
TUESDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER %
The Round Table and the Pet0
- RDAmUel. -


nails, painting with wondrous wealth Of words,
and with a vigor that even the seeming re-
dundance Of style doesn't enervate, the mise
ries of American social life. 1t is our Ca
tonian Censor, reproving with more than
Roman severity the reign of more than Ro-
man righteousness, prodigahty and frivolity.
1t is present at the recent gorgeous banquet
given BY the English Railway Prince, Sir
morton PRO, at Delmonico's, New York
It witnessed the wealth of geld and silver,
the flashes and gleamings of diamonds, the
rustic of robes of more than imperial rich
ness and costliness, the superb satin wine
lists and the yet odorous liliputian tankards
Of Rimmel's rose-water, which are preserved
like sainted relics to perpetuate the hour of
extrsvsgance." 1t regarded the guests pres
eut. Divines that brought the highest honor
of the pulpit to grace feast Judges who had
worn the ermine until they had passed into
judicial immortality soldiers who had mar
shaBed hosts, and conducted campaigns, and
by their achievements made their names
familiar in two worlds and ladies who glitter
and sparkle as only American ladies dot
regards all this, and turns away and utters a
cry OF alarm, for it discovers danger to the
Republic. 1t forecasts the end of temper
ance of frugslity, of virtue, of republican
symphcity-lost, swallowed up by extrava-
gance and voluptuousness.
1t is we'll to have censor, albeit the
,,,J,1,- II
pations unreal and morbid. Out from the
strife, whence the nation has just come, with
its discipline and its Christening influences,
with its mere than Roman valor and hardi-
hood, and more than Spartan virtue-from
thence our people surely do not come to be
slain by surfeit of wealth which is but the
bond holder of a national debt They will
not be slain BY effeminacy and luxury whom
war could not destroy-a war, too, from
which was borne such golden fruits of noble
deeds and generous impulses
From past rich In experiences, and
strewn with the wrecks of nations, come iu-
dicious warnings. May our people heed
them, and as wealth i'll used has reared
tombs,ones for governments, may American
wealth be used to repress vice. to advance
virtue, TO make our people greater, wiser and
better, and make more enduring our nation
atty and free Institutions But thus the
Round Table
Alas ! for the record of irreyersible history.
can we hope that our own good republic is
entirely free from the hazards which have en-
quilted other nations? If not it may be well
TO look about and consider whittier we are
drifting. When men whose names have been
suggestive OF stalwart work in every depart
ment OF enterprise become so effeminate as
to gorge themselves in such extravagant man
ner, and crown the indolent hours of self.
graduation and qualification BY tipping the
dew OF rose water upon their precious fingers,
1t may not be out of place TO inquire il in
deed an era of effeminacy is not already upon |
us, with all its stupefactions and grossness |
Hence do we dispute the dinner at belmont |
cos. And we would send no word of croak- |
ing across the water to the mnni6cent host. |
we would most earnestly deprecate such de- |
monstrations as this, which has made night, !
millonaise and restaurant famous. I'll
Americans are TO drift upon this STYLE Of dis. |
play-if the old Roman and Oriental ban |
quetings are to be revived, then are we nearer |
to certain destruction than we were at the |
uhrhest moment OF civil war. ExtravaQant |
indulgence like this will enervate people |
like the breath of a terrible scourge. II will |
blast the truest life, and leave a senseless and |
irresolute nation. Nothing is more deplora-
bic than effeminacy; nothing more conta- |
g1ous than Incidence. If many dinners of |
the character of this Fifth Avenue german
dizing are to be given, it were better that the /
names of all Delmonicos were blotted out.
ln those elder days luxury and ruin followed |
' the Punie wars. 1t may be that we, too, have |
been spared the lest OF war to 60 down more |
ANONYMOUSLY by our own waste and affluent |
indulgence. Surely, not few signs of the |
times point to such an alternatiye. The gates
OF prodigal expenditure seem to have been
lifted without restraint, and the song of high |
carnival floats up from every quarter.
We cannot too earnestly urge the great dan
ger that now threatens us as nation. There
Is not IN all the pages of heather history a
record more etfeminate than that of the rose
water banquet of Sir Morton Peto. The most
influential and the most esteemed in all the
metropolis gave countenance to the reckless
waste. Nor was it merely a throwing away
OF money, but the alacrity with which respec-
table persons united in the enervating indul-
gence betokened willingness to drift to any
extent upon the rocks of prndigality and -ef.
feminacy. II there is no voice to cry against
1t, no hand to stay it, no disposition to resist
II, tell us who can whittier these things will |
tend. All history shouts aloud the answer.
They lead straight down to ruid and decay.