The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-08-03

Like the "Wellington ~gigantea, the growth
of society in America haS been = marvellous
growth. 1t would be difficult for q foreigner,
accustomed to the courts of Europe, to see the
difference between a ball at the opera house,
Terre Haute, Ind, and one at the town hall
in some old European city, (Berne ror in
stance,) in any respect but in that one of
uniforms and orders, which in Europe render
me men as picturesque as the m He
would see more beautiful women in Terre
| Haute, and better dressed women than he
would see any where in Europe. except in the
| nigh salons of royalty at London, Paris,
| Vienna, and Rome. We take the name of the
little Indiana city as typical of the thousand
| American towns where society has thrown up
It's rapid tapestries until 1t ends with a fringe
| of barbaric pearl and gold on the shores of
the Pacific. No doubt crude everywhere in
| America, as yet-a crudity absolutely per-
ceptible every where but at Washington, when
| for a brief season there is always a court and
| orders of precedence, without which society,
as such, must ever be a jumble-still the same
enchanting union of mel and women, at their
best, trying to be agreeable, with the added
facinations of light, music, flowers and re-
freshments, society Is vastly the same in Terre
Haute as in Paris, to the superficial observer.
Americans have money, a love of travel, keen
perceptions, and 4 French love of pleasure.
They have thus conquered without a master
of ceremoies the great social problem involved
in ''giving a ball, and how ''to appear" as if
their forefathere had been Earls and Princes
tor a thousand years.
OF course the foreigner begins to ask ques-
tions after a few days. He cannot understand
the enforcement of political and social emf
hence; he cannot understand the shelving of
the elderly, or why the mamma is 50 snubbed
by her daughter. In that respect he will find
here a few mothers with European principles,
as to chapelenase, and a thousand mothers
who have never thought of such a thing. He
will end by throwing up his hands in wonder,
and will say. swell, society in America is ell
chanting but it is most mysterious" All mys-
FERROUS things are enchanting, and perhaps
that is one of the features of our society whi"li
we have too little enumerated. Every winter
brings up something entirely new a new social
queen, a new set, a new ''leader OF German"
a new set of society rulers, amusements, and, |
alas a new set of antagonisms, and Q%uarrels, |
and scandals, and failures.
These are as old as time. these last, and are |
as much a feature of European society as of
ours. The point where We fail dates back to
that remote background, the Declaration OF
Independence, and the announcement, the
"glittcring generality as Choa,e called it. |
that ''ail men were born free and equal anG
fail, also, because Of that national mistake. |
universal suffrage all of which may seem
far enough from society. But, indeed, these
things are intensely near it. and built into it. |
society, like everything else, needs a
leader, a code Of laws, and Il regular and
Thoroughbred be-understood manual Of Ell
quette, without which no society is a thorough
one. In London there are no heart-burninS>
between Lady Isabella and Miss Isabella for
Miss Isabella knows that the Norman conquest
is TO blame for the difference of rank betwerr
hem, and that she is as good an individual AS
the other; she has, too her recognized place
In American society it is all on d sliding scale, |
and he business of clamb-ring (never becom
ing to a woman) goes on all the time. Happ,
is 1t for those who are up, or who Chamber
well, but woe be to those TO whom the grease
pole of society has refused a hold! They
sink into ill-tempered and disappointed
s"clusion.
All this is absurd and wrong and needs a
but it seems irremediabie. There
are born women with a genius for society.
not less extraordinary in its way, although
not quite so highly to be esteemed as a genius
for poetry, and they seem to float upward, or
they, in a more ionoble way. yet in by a sort
If gimlet process, but they are often not one
half so agreeable or 81 cultivated, Or so
worthy of social pre-eminence as those who,
by some accident, are kept out. 1t would be
EASY to write a folio Volume on the subject of
he inferior minds who achieve success in
; oc'ely; of the ignoble, almost indecent,
of society, by which the newly raised
turns back and angrily slams the
ioOrs in the face of some aspiring applicant.
No people are such task-masters as newly
freed slaves. No people are so chary of the
purity of society as those who have brought
in some mixture themselves. All these poor
qualities of society must be relegated to the
of Independence. That COED
old document has been sufficiently abused in
IFS day--it can stand a few more assaults; for
NY depriving lis of a 1el editarv nobility. It
us of a sort Of necessary social hier-
archy-one which would have graded Aln@ri-
can society, without degrading it. These are
social opinions, and not necessarily seditious
ones.--M. E. W. s. in Boston