Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-08-23

OF every grade are engaged In 1t,
from the highest and mightiest
leader of fashion, against whose
reputation not a whisper must be
uttered, to the notorious adventures
from the demi-monde who brings
her sexual attractions to Washing
ton as the best market for their
disposal. Wide apart as are the
extremes of this series, the line |
which separates them becomes I
scarcely distinguishable where they |
approach one another. There is
the great lady whose husband by |
his wealth or official position is able
to place her at once on an eminence
from which, in virtue of its mere
position, political influence radiates.
Mere admission to the charmed
circle of which she is a centre is an
endorsement for recognition in the
magic penetralia of exclusive fash
ion. Imposing as her prestige is,
her influence is not nearly as potent
among politicians as that of some
others to be mentioned, and extends
chiefly to such Senators and Con-
gresham as have their wives and
daughters with them in behalf of
whom they are tempted to seek adj
mission into those realms of light,
and pay for it by political subserv-
iency.
Next comes a class of sOceresses
whose object it is to be recognized
as among the legitimate sovereigns
above described, but who have not
the wealth or official status on which
their supremacy is based. What
they lack in external advantages
they make UP by their personal
qualities; they are pretty or witty
or both, and know well the arts of
allurement by which the opposite
sex is attracted and held in allie
glance; they are not among those
who entertain the ladies of Mar
quises and Barons and Ambassa-
doris, nor can they blaze in diamonds
and satins and plumes, though they
hope to do so, and the Marquises
and Barons themselves are wont to
desert the statelier and duller circles
frequented by their cOnsorts for the
gayer and more piquant pleasures
| of the second class. The purpose of
this class is, if they are married, to
gain official position for their hus-
bands, or, if maids or widows, to
get husbands already endowed with
wealth or Office. In short, being
second class, they live on the hope
of rising TO first class, but in perpet-
ual danger of falling to third class.
Glass No. brings us to the verge
of the demi-monde. 1t consists
chiefly OF those who were in class
No. 2, but have lost their hold upon
it in playing the dangerous game
| which is the chief occupation of the
latter; for No. is indeed engaged
in a dangerous game, that of cajol-
ing and holding captive the power
full of the other sex by means of the
attractions peculiar to their own.
1t is indeed an unequal game; a
handsome and dashing Western
girl, accustomed to the freedom and
frankness of her Western home,
thinks she can safely play the same
pranl1S in Washington as she did at
home; hut she is in a different at
mosphere. AT home every gentle
man is a protector, and, instead of
desiring to take an unworthy adj
vantage of the careless abandon Of
her ways, is ready to strike to the
earth any libertine who would.
She lives, in fact, in land of chiv-
airy, where her sex is a claim on
the championship of the opposite
sex, and she has unlimited conf
dence in their devotion, But in
Washington she breathes different
atmosphere she lives, not among
loyal knights, but cold, hard, though
brilliant and polished voluptuaries.
With them she plays an unequal
game. The betrayal of her conf
dence, which with her beauX at
home would be looked upon as in
fanny, would be Il feather in the cap
of one of these heartless libertines,
and it is an object with them, if not
to seduce and ruin, at least to get
the credit of it and compromise the
woman whom they fail to conquer.
Thus she sinks to class No. 3, a
.Coterie of women whose reputation
is clouded rather than destroyed,
who are treated coldly or even
Stunned by their own sex, and
sought by the pleasure-seekers of
the other with the more freedom
because they know that they shall
not meet their own wives, sisters or
daughters there. Their reputation
being only doubtful, they remain
in those doubtful circles, but are
always in peril, and one after
another falls to class No. 4.
These are ladies whose reputation
is no longer doubtful, but one known
to have fallen. Alas, It's ranks are
constantly recruited from No. 8,
whose very attraction for the men
who resort to its circle is that the
restraint which sex imposes is there
relaxed, that the ease and freedom
of the club-room is carried by them
into the saloons and parlors of this
dubious society. There is in fact
but slight difference on the surface
between No. 3 and No. 4, and only
an expert, one who has been taught
the difference, can find it out, for
/ the denizens of No. 4 have fallen
from No. 8, perhaps even from ,,
and preserve in a measure the eX-
/ ternal observances of the realms
from which they have fallen.
1t is not necessary to describe No.