The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1883-09-19

passed over here without remark, but the
effect of these and their like upon society
in the United States has been deplorably
debasing and vulgarizng. The observa-
ton of high life " by such spectators, so
transient, 80 ignorant, so incapable of
thought, reveals to them nothing which
may not be obtained by an expenditure of
money and briefly Qor / must be brieD,
this vast increase of wealth, this demo-
cratic equality and these skippings over
the surface of European society, working
together, have produced AZ their resultant
a social monster called in the newspapers
"Society or " World of Fashion" Now
society and fashion singular, iuexplica-
BILE word, thus used) are no new things
here; but not this society, this fashion.
Some money is necessary always for the
formation and maintenance of cultivated
society; some exclusiveness must be prac-
bear garden. But this society rests upon
money only; not upon property, posses
sions, estates; but upon sheer money that
may be put in box and carried about,
got one day and lost another, like watch
or toy, and with no more social disturb
ance; and this exclusiveness excludes
those who have little money, and as to
the bears, shuts many of them not out
but in. Let any man who chooses so to
spend his time and trouble read the highly
interesting paragraphs under the World
of Society" and "Circle of Fashion "
headings in three or four of our leading
newspapers, and if he has any particular
knowledge of society, and knowledge
which extends backward beyond the
war, he will see that quite seven.tenths
of them relate to people who at that
time would themselves not have dreamed
of themselves as persons of gentility
Ito use an obsolescent word), not TO
say of consideration or fashion. Peo-
pie without breeding, without educa-
ton; whose every word and every tone
(surest evidence on such point) be-
trays the inferior associations in which
they grew up, whose language, whether
they speak er write, would be put to
shame by that of well-bred upper ser.
want in England, and whose notions of
politeness are confined to the observance
of etiquette which can be taught to a
monkey and poured into man, and yet
more easily into woman, as liquor can
be poured ont of one vessel into another !;
who have indeed generally sort of
formless, insipid good nature, but of
courtesy, Unborn or inbred, no concep-
ton whatever. They have simply money
money which they are ready to spend
1 for their own coarse pleasure, money
which they are even willing to give away
for their own ggrandizement, money
which they are anxious to use in every
mode which will enable them to "get on -
and make figure. Besides these, who
are hundreds and thousands, there are
others not 80 prominently rich, who are
tens and hundreds of thousands, that are
of like origin and social history, and who
all more or less affect elegance and ar
istocracy," and talk of society and
fashion. Most, but not absolutely all, of
the others, are wholly, utterly lacking in
any charm to distinction from the crowds
that swarm to Barnum's greatest show on
earth, except money, money gotten
quickly, and, in many cases, not honor
ably, although not illegally. But because
of their money and their gross and selfish
expenditure of it, they, or rather Git i;
but right and fair to say very many Of
them, seem to think that they have pc
sition in this country CORE spending to
that of the leaders of society in Europe
4 for example the nobility and gentry Of
England. They keep their fathers anC
their mo- hers hidden away, in closets up
stairs, or in the waste places and remote
corners of the land, and set up for people
of fashion upon fine clothes, bric-a.bra,
and hampagne.-Richord Grant White
in the North american Review.