Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1873-03-13
Eatsfilaaeaas.
American ..Society.v

American society
OF course that there is plenty of soci-
ETY. in America none would be foolish
enough to deny. The girl who grows
up "goes out" as matter of course;
the man who reaches the age of six
teen is very likely to go to dancing
classes, and two years later to balls
But there is no social code, except
such as is imported from Europe, and
when you say imported from Eu-
rope" you don't mean from any one
country, but some customs from Eng
land, some from France, some from
Germany, some new, some old, some
bad, some good, some destined to sur
viYe, some TO perish. 1t is in fact with
social ideas in this country as it is with
everything else, intellectual, moral,
and physical-except such manuGac-
tured products as we think it necessary
to exclude by a tarif-eyerything and
everybody is allowed to come and
maintain himself, or herself, or itself,
if enough can be found to live on. Ali
ideas, principles, thoughts, feelings,
processes, and traditions that have
ever made their appearance in the
world find in the United States a
common field in which the struggle
for existence results in the survival of
the fittest. Nothing is settled, nothing
is fixed. There are no decisions which
are final. There are no laws or code OF
the levitical kind. A general sense of
social obligation OF course exists. 1t
would be impossible for a gentleman
who wished to cut figure IN the socie-
ty of New York or Boston, to make a
habit Of drawing bead" on his host
.es5 whenever anything went wrong in
the cotillion, or of picking the pockets
of his fellow-gue5ts; it would be out Of
the question for waiter to sit down TO
table with the company, or for the
ladies at a formal dinner party to re-
main with the gentlemen after the
hostess had gone into the parlor.-
Within these rather broad limits,
however, there is such an amount of
freedom as to render it an impOSsibili-
ty to say where the true lines are. 1t is
absurd in such Il society as ours to talk
Of what is allowed, what is permitted,
what is de rigueIr, and what is not
Tle idea of the necessity OF social ordi-
nances, and the machinery for their
application is derived from a familiar
ity with fixed states of society, in
which for generations the means OF
social amusement have been c0ncen-
trated in the fame or nearly the same
hands. But we have adopted change
a: the basis Of existence, III this as in
any other branch Of life. From anoth-
er point OF view the matter IS still
clearer. When a girl '1comes out"
with Us, or u man begins to go out,
the amusement 10 which they are
chiefly confined is dancing, and it is
the dancing together of girls and boys
between the ages of eighteen and
twenty-five which really constitutes
what foreigners hear of, when they
get their information about American
Society After that they in almost
ali cases. marry and settle down to
work, in the ease OF the girls who re-
Ihains unmarried retire from the field,
reconcile themselves to a single life, or
take, in the case of a few Of the boider
ones, to some occupation. But mean
time d new generation has entered the
field. New freshmen and freShmen's
sisters are dancing the German to-
gether; the Older SCI has disappeared.
There are few, a very few of both
sexes who we2uiy keep it up for a few
years longer With much tribulation
and difficulty. But they are few, ana
are beginning to have gloomy thoughts
about the vanity of earthly affairs
They, too, will soon marry or retire.
With this Kaleidoscope movement
going or, social existence cannot pro-
duce Society" y [" "Ne5ut9," in Gal
Gry for -HGrca.