The Portland daily press., 1872-02-13
"Xh0 are the Yulgar?O

q This was the subject of James Parton's lecture
in Chicago on Tuesday evening, and it had,
course, many excellent points. Witness this
paragraph:
What constitutes vulgarityp Lord Ches-
terfeld told his son that smiling might be en-
dured, but laughing was not to be tolerated.
The first was provoked by refined wit, the
last merely by accident. Notable examples
of true breeding have been shown by men of
wont to say that it was the work of true
gentleman to place his decanter upon the ta-
BILE and go and look out of the window. The
Indians consider that individual who has
gathered most scalps as the truest gentleman.
In this connection Mr.. Parton described a
lady's scalp which he had seen, lined with
deer-skin and elaborately ornamented. The
Indian who possessed it was looked upon as
Tweed with his diamond pin was looked up
on by the lower Tammanyites. jewelers. say
that they can tell true lady by her jewelry.
A Washington barber thought the country
would be ruined when Mr.. Madison was cleo
ted, because he wore so small cue Artif-
cial distinction adds slight honor in the Unit
ed States. One who wears diamonds is in
danger of being taken for courthouse con-
tractor, or something of that sort. Fisk and
Helmbold by their snowy turn-outs have help
ed to make display disreputable. Even Office
gives no prestige AT Newport, last summer,
Governor Hoffman drove a pair of ponies,
and the speaker heard two bootbacks discuss
ing the knotty question whether the governor
had not stolen them.
As to society:
There is really now no such thing as socie-
ty. Several evenings during the year an eff
fort is made to keep it alive. People sit to-
gether for three or four hours and try to think
they like it. They drink many kinds of wine,
and have as their exceeding great reward a
paragraph in the Home Journal Society is
possible only where the rich are the educated.
Without these conditions co-existing, society
cannot exist. The speaker said he had been
in the very hot-bed of vulgarity, the very
cream of vulgarity so to speak, to wit, the last
ball of the Americus club. The characters
tics of that assembly were bad grammar and
fine diamonds" "white kids and dirty paws"
Nothing like this had been evolved by the
French revolution. Those whom he saw at
the ball where the immigrants who had land
ed at Castle Garden thirty years before. The
dissolute life of this class fortunately takes
them off in three generations. The immi-
grant who educates his children in the laws
Of health gives to America valuable citizens.
Yet, in spite Of all, the race prospers, the best
seed being saved.
After paying high compliment to the Ger
man element in our population, Mr. Parton
said:
Some of the clothing sent to western suffer-
ers should have been sent to Vassar college,
| if reports were true concerning it, the spe k
er having been informed that the young la
dies of that institution had plenty of silks and
satins, but lacked serviceable garments. Vul-
garity in dress is outdone by vulgarity in bio
graphy. In his "Book of Snobs," Thackeray
should have celebrated the vulgarity of snob-
berry. Washington's biographers would have
gladly acknowledged that their hero was a
liar. The more a man knows, and the more
| he is, the more charitably he judges his fel-
low-men. Ignorant suffrage is what we have
to guard against most carefully. Its effects
have been made apparent in France and
South Carolina, and on Manhattan island.
Voting is an intellectual operation, and when
| it is otherwise it becomes ignorant suffrage.
| Common natures, like the foxin the fable, re-
vile what is beyond their reach. The work
ing-classes, so-called, are wrong in consider
ing themselves the power of the world. Mus
Gle is a great power, but nothing when
not directed by brain. The working-classes
if left to themselves, would do poorly. The
Americans who seek presentation at the
French court ''ladies' who insult their ser
wants professional politicians and those who
give fashionable balls, are all distinguished ex
amples of vulgarity.