Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1884-05-29
America Criticised.

An English writer in the London
World thus gives his view of the aspect
of life in the United States: What is
simply the plutocratic spirit here be-
comes the blind devotion to Mammon
there. In England wealth goes for q
good deal. In America WORDSWORTH
line, 1.-The wealthiest man among us
is the best, is literally true. In Lon
don we are tolerably fond of display,
but the splendor of Belgravia or May
fair is completely cell psed by the ag-
gressively ostentatious prodigality Of
New York. The life of American
towns of any pretensions is infected by
the most fragrant vices, while it may
present some of the idiosyncratic mer-
its of old and new civilizations Cor
.ruption and magnifcence 90 hand in
hand. Side by side with moral de-
depravity there is o glittering and
shameless cynicism, boundless pro-
fusion and an illimitable cupidity.
Imagine the mingled horror and con-
tempt with which the simple, God
fearing Washington would have grazed
upon the group of carpet aggers,
spectators, libertines, lobbyists, mil
honaires, who are the chief personages
in American society to-day. Washing
ton was the father of American indie
pendence, and in this sense the father
of great nation but he may also be
said to have laid the foundation-stone
Of n vast human dollhouse. He could
not foresee the vast rapidity of growth
which would mark the stock it contains
the more than tropical luXuriance of
the foliage, the monstrous dimensions
to which seemliness and unseemliness,
beauty and deformity, vice and virtue,
would both be carried. Libya, writes
Tacitus, is always producing something
new. What Africa was in the days of
the historian, America is now. 1t is
the region of portents and prodigies,
of big booms and gigantic frauds, of
''rings" of terrific girth, and of mot
ives and actions of extraordinary little
ness; of incomes exceeding the dreams
of Asiatic potentates, and Of vice and
misery unspeakable; of monstrous
births, two-headed nightingales, ap-
palling twins, giants, pigmies, bearded
women, and all of the other abomina-
tons which can claim kindred with
humanity.
The polite and travelled American, as
we meet with him in the best society of
London or Paris, is q simpering dandy
or an effete buck. He is collector of
artistic gems, of bric-a-brac, of pict-
ures; he affects an inordinate love of
Venice; he writes the dainty English of
the new aesthetic school; he finds
Thackeray and Dickens too fulI-favor-
ed TO suit his taste: and-aS tho weak
headed academic exquisite, heaves q
sigh of disgust at the very. idea of COM
mon-room port, and can drink only the
highest of Rhenish wine, largely temp
cred by Apollinaris-he protests feebIy
that the purity Of his taste is such that
he can only tolerate Mr.. Henry James
or Mr.. W. D. Howells. His mincino
manner reproduceS the inanities and
affections of all the countries of which
he has had experience. His twang is
his own; his bearing and presence are q
compromise between the Paris muscadin
and the London masher. Yet, though
he NAV devote his existence to wander
inc over the European world, he is SCI
dom able to divest himself OF an innate
provincialism.
It is proposed to found cancer hos
pital in New York, and $250,000 mas
been promised for the purpose provided
an additional 800, 900 can be obtained.
There is at present no such an institu-
ton in the United States. The project
is the result of the recommendation of
the late DR.. Marian Sims,