New-York tribune., 1870-08-11
FASHIONABLE MECHANICS.

Mr. Blanchard Jerrold is just now giving to
our oyer-crowded cousins over the water his
ideas of how they may most readily attain
fresh air and food for both their cramped
bodies and minds. One of the largest and
most pitable classes in England, he suggests,
is the decayed gentry, the "genteel poverty
(which starves and shrinks from the public
"eye. The pinch Of hunger" he alleges, sun
"der faded silks and satins is sharpest.' We
are then treated to pathetic picture limned
in darkest colors of these pdurres hOnteur-the
sons of penniless baronets and hOnorables
"driven to the city to become clerks, or the
"daughters of clergymen sinking into seam
"stresses or nursery gOvernesSes." We have a
class in America which parallels these unfortu-
mates; one which, curiOusly enough, is as yet
unpainted among us by either poet or novelist
We have no decayed gentry to occupy that
dreadful, doubtful Debatable Land in society,
where one walks on red-hOt plowshares, for
ever aping and mining dignities which are
not rightfully ours. We have too few "goOd
cold families" and are too prosperous peo-
pie to furnish a class who have sunk to this
level, but we do provide countless aspirants
who have scrambled up to it--men and women
! far more deserving of pity than the gentleman
or gentlewoman in their shabby clothes, who
| are yet conscious of that strength or memory
| within which passeth both show and the want
| of it.
The shabby -genteel is melancholy spectacle
enough, but the vulgar-genteel is a sight over
which gods and men ought to weep instead of
laugh Who does not know the species in all
its miserable pretentiOus yariety-frOm the
new conner into Fifth-ave., with her tawdry
ormolu and brocade, to the b0ss-carpenters
wife with her painted Brussels and sleazy silk
| founces7 Just now, at this holiday noon of
the year, this great Fictitious sham element of
| American society thrusts itself into notice
most glaringly. 1t is the matter of dress, per-
haps, that is the most evident symptom of the
disease which has infected our society. We have
not so much fault to find with extravaganza or
luxury in outward garb of houses or persons
| when they are confined to those who Oan af-
| ford them, or who understand their uses. A
beautiful woman chastely and artisticaly
| dressed, or a house which is a home, furnished
meaningly, serve the same aesthetic purpose
as fine picture; and as to the
mere financial bearing of the matter, it is
better that Madame La Parvenue should
| o'hIpci hcl hC"lJ -Sdlncu wealth. iOll
able fingers among honest dressmakers and
upholsterers than that her son should fling it
away at the race-cOurse or farO-table. But
what shall we say to Stubbs, the wOrn-out
| gray-haired bOokkeeper, half of whose two
thousand year go to provide his wife and
| daughters with cheap false paners, cheap false
chignons and a cheap loud fortnight at Sara
tOga-all modelled strictly after the fashion
of Madamef Or to Smith, the peanut man,
whose wife, with chignon, panier etc, still
cheaper, still tawdrieT haunts it for week in
defiant imitation of the Stubbss7 Or of Dora
the chambermaid, and Polly the cook, who go
with their young gentlemen" glass jewelry
dangling from their ears, hemp twisted about
their heads and the calves of their legs stuffed
with sawdust, to jostle and parade with the
best at Cape MayY Madame La Parvenue has
cast into the treasury of Folly out of her
abundance, but these poor wretches have given
all that they had.
Ii needs but an hours walk on the beach or
in the ballroom at any of our fashionable places
of resort to know how culture, home comfort.
education, all chances for higher or more hon
orable lives, are being sacrificed by large
class of our mechanics and workingmen to the
idol of sham Fashion, poor and ludicrous
imitation of the falsest of realities. The
money which might give to the shOpkeeper or
smith sound domestic comfort and ft his
children to rise surely and steadl y, is spen