Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-12-10
Society in New York.

A late New York paper contains the
following faithful sketch of society" in
that metropolis
10 be fashionable it is not enough to
be rich, to be respectable, to live and
dress well, to give parties and to enter
tain many acquaintance. All this is
requisite, but something more is neces.
sary. Fashionable society is organized
by clique of wealthy persons, who,
having nothing else to do, make it their
business to give dinners and parties.
They are generally intelligent, reside in
handsome houses, dress richly but in
good taste, drive fine but not fast horses,
and can trace their ancestors as far back
as their grandfathers, although their great
grandfathers are often enveloped in a
dim and romantic mist, through which
it is quite impossible to distinguish
whether they were shoemakers or noble
men. These organizers compose their
society of few hundred young ladies
and gentlemen, divided for convenience
into half dozen eliques. Most Ameri-
can ladies are in hurry to get married
young; they know the time is heeting,
and they want a man to pay their dry
goods bills. Fashionable young ladies
are in no such haste. With rich parents,
and on an assured position, they do not
care to marry before they are twenty
FIVE. Having finished their education at
fashionable school, they pass the inter
val until their marriage in dancing the
German, attending the opera, and re-
ceiving the attentions of the geRtlemen,
with whom, however, they do not go SO
far as to flirt.
These fashionable gentlemen are also
a peculiar class they toll not, neither do
they spin, except in waltzes; but Solo
mon in all his glory was not arrayed like
unto them. The German is their sole
occupation. They rise late, breakfast at
noon, and then come down town, ask the
price of gold, aud drink a cocktail at the
lower Delmonico's, by the way of busi-
ness. Fatigued with this exertion, which
they perform with great solemnity and
regularity, as if the finances of the nation
would be disarranged should they omit
it, they then ride home and dress for
dinner.
After dinner they 60 to various parties,
lead the German, and retire at two
O clock am, to be awake for several
hours, trying to invent new figure for
their favorite dance. Their only ambi-
ton, like Won Bismarck's, is to be the
German leader. If the dance got off
well no prince could be prouder. If the
couples get confused the leader is ex-
lied, like Napoleon after Waterloo.
When they grow too old to dance they
marry fashionable women, and when
they die they expect to enter fashion
able heaven, and dance the German
throughout eternity upon floors of pure
gold and music Of angelic harps. These
are the real fashionables, and to apply
that term to any other class is mistake
They set the fashions in dress, in amuse-
ments and in society, and host of ad-
mirers and imitators are ready to follow
them. They did not patronize the wa
tering place hotels this summer, and con-
sequently the season is a complete fall
ure. The fact is that these fashionables
have been crowded out Of many of their
old haunts by the newly rich people who
have more money and spend it more
extravagantly. The true fashionables
never waste dollar. They have the best
things, but buy them at the lowest prices.
Only shoddy people give their carriages
to their coachmen, and lighttheir cigars
with greenbacks. 1t is as unfashionable
TO throw money away foolishly as it is to
earn it by hard work. The newly rich
may flourish at the watering place hotels,
pay enormohs bills, and make the for
tunes of rapicious landlords; but the
fashionables have quietly withdrawn to
their neat cottages and secluded villas,
where they live more comfortable and at
a much cheaper rate