Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1881-04-06
SHODDY ASA SOCIAL FORCE

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SHODDY ASA SOCIAL FORCE
For long time after the fall of th'
French Empire the various monarch
ical parties in the Republic made M
doubt of a short shrift for the demo
cratic system, because it afforded mont
of that display which is inseparablC
with wealth. The Paris shop. keeper
-and TO the ordinary politician oi
France there are no other factors Of
any considerable potentiality in itf
two millions of people-would never
consent TO support a Government
which, by the very law of its being
must inculcate frugality and absence
of show As time wore on, all the
same the Paris shop-keeper seemed to
be content with the new order Of
things. He even prospered beyond
the widest excesses of imperial and
royal show. Though there were nc
weekly fetes at the TuiIeries, st. Cloud
and Fontainbleau business never had
been 80 brisk. The secret Of it was
that the shop.keeper came to supply
the whole world, for Paris never was
so crowded with Kings and Princes
and wealthy wanderers, so that in
stead of one court, Paris had the whole
royal and princely lists of Europe to
clothe, adorn and crafty, There re.
sides as a regular thing in Paris three
or four reignlng Monarchs, en- cachette,
while scores of unthroned potentates,
Grand Dukes, Dukes, and Princes and
and what not have houses in the exqui-
site gardens of the Park Monceau or
the Avenue of the Wood of Boulogne.
In keeping with the inconsistencies
Of American character the only mourn
or at the shroudcd shrine of royalty
and Imperialism is the American. His
plants are loud and long in the Paris
social circles. He laments the glories
of the Empire, when his wealth and
his importantly made him the equal
in ostentation of a nobility that grew
up in a night and exhaled the noisome
efiluvia of its gourdlike grandeurs un-
der the carrion.kissing sun of an En-.
pirc built by fraud and maintained by
force, In the golden days of that
pinchbeck prime shoddy in its most
repulsive forms haunted its bad breed
ing, its garnish display Of swiftly.
garnered wealth, tolerated though
never welcomed by the Brummagem
grandes of Napoleon's parvenu court.
Under the Republic, though French
manners have not congealed into aus.
terity nor the morals reacted into as.
cetcism, the place Of the shoddyite is
not so marked, the entree TO the arcana
of high place not so facile. The gum.
cas- stamp IS not, in short, accepted as
the mark of manhood nor the seal of
rank. Letters, art and some gifts OF
an intellectual sort are more pass.
word now than ever TO those lofty re.
gions of serene good breeding whore
men of mind find their only congenial
relaxation from the treadmill of daily
ondeavor.
In these adversities the always well.
filled ranks OF American nobody strut.
ting in the pride of shoddy.made place
find life an arid waste of barren ideal.
tiles His fine equipages, his Sybarite
feasts, his vulgar display OF piebald
blazonry, excite not the envy but the
biting satire of the sharp.witted Pari.
SLAMS. In the saloon of Madame Adam,
whose weekly assemblies are enliven'
ed by all the spirits that make French
society worth courting, the soul OF
the entertainment is conversation, i'm
provisation, criticism of current posey,
politics, painting, men and measures
and the regalement by simple bever'
ages, coflees, ices and by no means
indigestiblc "confeotion." At the
court end of town American society
snobbism, shoddylsm and ostentation
hold court in the bewildering parlors
ofa bonanza Princess, whose spreads
from the topic of the town for weeks
before and after the event Show is
the shibboleth and fashion the altar
of the genufexion. The glorios Of
the house are sung by frowsy stipen'
diary prostaurs, cringing tho supple
joints of the moral knee that thrift
may follow fawning, Nothing is toe
trivial for the admiratory notes oI
these shoddy rehectors, whose muse
stands cap in hand, bells in their ears
and bells on their toes, bursting into
dithyrambic dullness over every new
gown and furbelow OF their Pactolian
patrons. But the sporadic peaus that
garnish the obscure columns OF Amer.
lean country newspapers are not am.
pie enough for the cpithalamium Of
shoddy and sham. Novels have been
written to embalm the gorgeousness
of Bonanza as a dispenser of the opu'
lence OF the gulches. No detail OF do
mesticity is too trhng to appear in
these thrcnodies, from the buying oi
. ten.button kids by tho gross to a bid
for the arch of the stars The race oi
cringer and toady are not however
content with the idealizing of the
Bonanza folk their Boswell industry
scars on higher pinions. They aspire
to shape the manners and cautenzC
the morals Of the Franco American
colony, bringing TO this modest en-
deavor the experience of varied socia
vicissitudes n this country from Q
garret SIX stories heLvcnward in the
obscurest quarter of Paris.
+ 1t is from their large powers Of OBJ
servation that they instruct two cont
nents on the amenities Of the day in
the French Capital, and it is upon theil
industrious pens that q half dozen o
the social censors Of America depend
for their current glimpses into fereigr
society If their imagination wer'
! equal to their ambition, or their breed
3 ing to their importantly, the weekly
letters that emerge form their penI
would be invaluable memoirs Of pass
ing events. But as the society they
discuss is seen by them only through
the medium of the gossip OF Figaro ol
the obscure attaches of foreign minis
tries its value as realistic pictures o
French society can be readily esti
mated. 1t is, therefore, unfair to th,
French society OF today to judge o
. its action, its tendencies and It's ton,
: from such stuff as this. 1t is not TO b,
wondered that tho French resent th,
intrusion OF such people and denounc'
the ludicrous travesties sent here By
people who never see tho interior 0
the real architects of the French socia
fabric. Nor ia it to be wondered tha
American society suffers in the estima
I ton Of people Of real breeding whei
5 the preposterous stuff printed from
. such parasitic mems roes back and Is re