New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-01-11
NOCL1L ECONO.MY.

Now that the holidays are over, the fashion
able world in Ncw-York ard in the country
village feels that the squirt is done and falls
back into its usual rate OF progress, which IL
certainly this year rather slow. There are
probably as many balls and breakfasts in
TOWN and bees ana tca-partics IN the country
there are as hot limitations going on in dimly-
lighted Conservatives and by blazing kitchen
fires, and as many marriages in pOint-laco ana
in calico. But there is certain lack OF the
usual lavish brilliancy on the one hand and
Tightening Of the usual canny economy on tho
other. Mrs. Spriggs of Murray Hill. remem-
boring the thousands which her fancy costume
cost at her masquerade last Winter, substitutes
kettle drums this January, where Worth
dress even is not an imperative necessity.
Mrs. McVey, in Tarrytown, when she enter
tains the Judge at Circuit Court, FOR tea makes
sponge instead of pound cake and so saves
pound of butter. Straws, indeed, in them
selves. but as showing how the wind blew last
year. they account satisfactorily for the start
ling fact that the saving by domestic economy
from January, 1874 to January, 1875. is osti-
mated ut three hundred millions of dollars. A
lesson learned which we hold to be altogether
complish lasting good to the country, that
will in the end far outweigh tie temporary
annoyance and even acCual distress OF the
present hard structure.
Not that the lesson to society so-cGlled will
be long remembered. The majority of weak
women were economical after the September
panic of 1873 simply because economy was
fashionable, just as, before that panic, because
waste was fashionable, they dragged their
husbands to the verge of bankruptcy. There
is certain class OF men and women to whom
it is folly to preach reform or independent
action of any sort. They are born without
back bOne-they are Of tho verm:cular kind.
1t is just as impossible for them to stand erect
on q certainty of right and to brave public
opinion as for an earth-wOrm TO take to itself
legs and walk. All that can DO hoped for
them is that when tho road is well travelled
and popular, they will wriggle along it in
masses. 1t is not assuredly these people who
will hold society on its present prudent, COM
mon sense basis. Women with womanly self
respect and intelligence in town know that
they stand in no need Of Worth dresses, Of
florists and caterers with bills running up to
the thousands, to enable them to discharge
their social obligations with grace and effect:
two or three women in a village can dare to
say 81 cannot afford this or that But what
of the women who know that their social sue
cess depends on tho cost OF their dinners or
their admission to O certain set What of the
village bellies whose lives are spent in a terror
of alarm lest their hats should not be trimmed
after the latest New York style, or who write
to tho fashion papers agonizng appeals to
know what to do with their last years grena-
dinei They act after their impOtent kind and
will follow some leader to the end. But they
are the minority. There is a deal of latent
sclf-reliance, of what Western folks call "out-
"come," in American women as well as mon.
We can be gaudy and lavish when we choose,
with full pockets, fling away our cash all over
Europe until We are the laughing stock of
every other nation; but when high motive
stirs us, as in the Revolutionary or in the last
war, braggadocio and vulgar show drop from
the national character; we strip ourselves
Of every comfort and eat our dry bread or
wear our sackcloth, not like Roman heroes or
grim anchorites, perhaps, but with a saucy
good humor Of our own. Especially was this
the case in the South, whose lavish hospitality
made such action almost impossible. George
Eggleston. in his Recollections of Rebelr
"a book better calculated to assuage unkindly
feeling between the sections than dozen log
ical treatses), tells of the starvation parties
given to the returning soldiers, where the
poverty Of the fare, "a the sign of how much
had been borne for the cause, was held the
mark of the highest aristocracy. just as our
Southern people have been ennobled by self
denial, as never by their careless generosity,
tho women and men Of the North will learn,
We believe, IN enduring Lesson from their
present sharp discipline. We shall be forced
to SEQ that our comfort and good breeding
even our pleasures, do not depend upon lavish
OUTLAWS OF Rraepbacka or on any kind II uis-