New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-11-11
INDOORS.

Is il, after all, the whole Of life to thieve
and to fight thievesq Now that the election
is over, decent citizens look about with a
long breath of relief to realize how wide the
world is outside of Tsmmany. The Ring,
Rosenzweig, Mormon polygamists abroad and
Free Lovers at home, keep up such buzz
in the public ear that we are apt to overlook
the great social and domestic life among us,
to which they bear the same proportion that
the poisonous gad-h do to the widespread,
sweet, and wholesome fields of grain When
November frosts force us to shut our
doors and windows and gather round
the fire. this social life comes into
view. Man becomes suddenly conscious that
he is something more than voting animal,
and puts out his feelers as husband, father,
diner-out and dinner. giver. Women in colors,
armOred and plumed for the Winters cam
paign, prepare to crowd as much ball, opera,
and Irritation as possible into the time be-
fore Lenten austerities will become more
fashionable than dissipation villages re-
organize their sewing societies and reading
clubs Poor is that country neghborbOOd which
cannot afford it's weekly sOeiable or quilting
bee. We can safely prOphesy at this COM
mencemept Of "the season y that it's record. will
be the same as all that have gone before. There
will be the same seething mixture of innocent
and dreary, nauseating smusements of mar
rages from pure. healthy love, and for barter
and sale of vulgar Fashion in high places.
and Yulgarity itself aping it all the way down
to the scavenger's Wife of Sham asserting
itself in all its seven ages from the infaAt
mewling and paking with false curls sewed in
its cap to its decrepitide of second childish
ness, with eyes. teeth, taste, borrowed or
bought from each fresh leader of the ton.
Professor Huxley, in his late lecture, drove
the nail straight on the head when he said
that society suffered not 40 much from its
failure to lift unackn0wledged merit and
talent to their rightful places as from its lack
of machinery by. which to facilitate the de-
scent Of incapacity from the higher strata to the
lower. Some plebeian blindness. he protested,
prevented him from understanding why pigeon
shooting by princes and dukes should be re-
fined. while rat-catching by cads was vulgar,
or frnm seeing the advantage which aristo-
cratic slang had over gutter slang. Now,
American society does not lack the machinery
TO -dethreas- incompetent rulers. and we assert,
in spite, of tha records Of folly and
crime, that year by year vulgarity and
incapaeity are rated among us more and more
ct their true value; that our social ethics
grow steadily sounder. moro re6ned, and true
In tone. The very instability Of fortune here
helps this. Tomorrow, tho mechanics wife |
may reign in the Whits HouAe. tho Brahmin |
blood Of Boston or Richmond keep shop or |
run sewing machine. Tho breeds and rules
Of all castca AFRO thus necessarily faced snd
tested BY each other. and only that which i'
true and rational remains There are few 60
cial circles In the United States which ara not |
more elevated In culture aud governed oy
souadar rules Of common sense,' thai may
we're ffty years ago Charity ID more DENT :