New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-09-22
SEPTEMBER ADVERTISENFNTS.

SEPTEMBER ADVERTISEMENTS.
As a rule, there is no better index 10 our
social condition on any day or the year tEan
the advertisements in the morning papers vi
that day, but during the present month the
lash Of necessity and sometimes want have
made even advertisers unusually Outspoken;
they give unmistakable hints of the amount OF
existing comfort and civilization among us, or
sometimes the lack of any comfort or clvlllza-
ton at all. Men in small retail business,
who find no customers coming to ther
shops, make urgent appeals and reductions In
price but these reductions are invariably III
the lines of necessary articles, not those or
luxury showing that even in the classes whose
incomes are small, as well az the weather,
economy is first practiccd where it will not
show; the shopkeeper knows that the mechan-
ic's wife must be tempted to buy comfortable
hannels and books for her children; sleazy
finery she is sure to buy; no need to lessen
the price of that. 1t costs her less to snfe1
hunger and cold for herself and her children
than to allow her neighbors to know that she
cannot faunt this Winter as gayly as usual.
We censured the well-to-do classes in the cities
the other day because they seized on the first
relaxing of the monetary pressure to indulge
in imported luxurics, but the same spirit shows
itself in every grade of social life. Take our
columns of Situations Wanted, for example.
There are often more advertisements of women
wanting positions as gOvernesses or COM
panions lin proportion to the natural numbers
of each class), than for cook or chamDermald,
although the wages of visiting or resident
teacher (unlcss she can teach the luxurious
branches) may be less than those OF
the domestic servant. Are, then, our women
too well educated, that they thus push
each other out of this chance for livingf
No; but women are crOwdng up to it whose
real worth lies far below; girls by the hundred
90 through the examining process of the public
schools and are eager to take their places as
examiners, at salary of $500 to $500 per
annum, who are unfit in mind, character, or
manner to have the charge Of children, yet
who would make admirable tradeswomen or
cooks, and as such receive good pay and live
comfortably. Loss of caste, the opinion of
their little world, weigh more with them than
money or comfort and we shall be told no
doubt that this is natural to young girl in
this country. But the significant fact remains
that they do weigh more.
With men this feeling has not an appreciable
money value. In the present stringency of the
times, most honest men, who feel the pressure,
are ready to take up any work, provided it is
honest, which will pay the best per-
centage on time and capital, without any
regard to its gentility. The most pathetic
lines just now in our columns are not those
which chronicle deaths but the vain ap-
peals of willing, industrious men out Of work
for any employment which will keep them and
their families from starvation during the coming
Winter. There are other and worse wants than
that of money indicated in these advertising
columns. Crime and prOfigacy hint themselves
in ways that few mistake; there come vicious
mothers ready to give their children to any
body who will promise to be kind t. them;
and virtuous mothers anxious to hand theirs
over to nurse maids, kind or not; one wants
woman to take entire charge of an infant
day and night. and requires as her only quail
ficaton that she shall wear French cap and
apron.
In short the most trifling sign points in the
same direction as the defalcation of high
officials or the failure of corporations. There
is something rotten at the bottom of all the
crash and havoc, and the time has come when
we are forced, willing or unwilling, to know
what it is. For the last generation every class in
this country has been aping the habits of life of
the class just above it in point Of wealth, The
laborer with an income of $500 regulates bis
expenditures by the mechanics, who is worth
double that amount, and he in his turn tries
to dress his wife and give suppers in imita-
ton of the fashionable banker around the
corner; while the dashing young fellow
who has no money at all, but the same
lofty ambitions naturally enough helps him
self from the first convenient pocket to crafty
them. We have all, in word, been in too
great haste to devOur our living, like tho
prOdigal son, and do not find the first taste of
the husks palatable. 1t remains to be seen
whether there is common sense and weight
enough left in our social life to stay the
evils about to fall on us before it be too late.
For We may lay the immediate blame of tho
present impending disaster on this or that
financial change there can be no doubt that
it originated in that social life, and in its love
of glitter and false, paltry ambitions. Until
these are destroyed there can be no hope Of
any radical change for the better.
This New-York campaign is not o good one for