, 1891-03-06
SOCIETY r.n OF LONDON
A Leading English Paper Accuses The'
of Re4nE Lazy ard Selfish.

a Leading English Paper Accuses Them
of BanE Lazy ard Selfish.
A careful and, so far as We have been
able TO compass it, an impartial study
of the young man Of the present day
has convinced many persons that he is
abnormally lazy, and that his selfish
ness is without parallel in any other
period Of our history. A concurrence
of the two vices is to be traced, they
think, TO the fact that he has almost
ceased, or at any rate he is rapidly
ceasing, TO dance. 1t is in vain that
he will plead the absorbing occupations
of modern life, or the saddening in
fluenco Of the philosophy Of SchoPen-
hauer. The plea is idle.
1t is not the overweight student or
the pale pessimist alone who declines
nowadays to join in the may dance.
1t is the dashing, or once dashing, mill
taire. The singular boast which was
once the monopoly Of the Tenth hus
sars will soon be the Common property
Of every cavalry and infantry regiment
of her majesty's army, while as for the
learned professions, their members
make fresh contributions TO the row Of
wall flowers every season.
Yet there seems TO be no ground for
saying hat girls are any less fond of
dancing than they used to be; the
partner difficulty is created by the male
sex alone. In other words, the young
man Of the present day, having ceased
to care about this particular amuse-
ment himself, is in the majority Of
cases too indolent and too selfish to
take part in it for the sake of gratifying
other persons of that sex which it is
supposed to be mans duty, no less than
his delight. TO attempt to please. Such
self sacrifice. however, finds no votary
in the fin de steele youth. To use his
own expressive phrase, it is mot good
enough, don't you know, " and he de
clines it accordingly.
The wretch concentrated all on
self" looks on at a few dances, and sur
veys the rows of forlorn and unasked
maidens who line the sides of the ball
room and leaves early for a cigarette
and n lemon squash at his club. We
are prepared, of course, for the answer
which our young man of the period,
thus roughly but ~righteously han
died, ~ is likely to make to us. He will
say that this is word for word-except
as to the cigarette and lemon squash
Identical with what his grandfather
once listened to from his great grand
father and repeated some thirty years
after TO his father.
There is n speciousness about this
argument which might, perhaps, de
ceive the unthinking, and it is there
fore well to remind them of the well
established fact that the grandfather
of the youth of the present day. al
though worthy people in many ways,
were extremely prejudiced, whereas
their sons, the fathers and uncles of
our contemporary young men, are ad-
mittedly capable of instituting a fair
and impartial comparison between the
men and manner of the present and
the past.
Instead of resorting to plausible but
fallacious retorts Of the ad hominem
description we counsel our youths TO
resolve to cultivate the virtues of cour-
tesy, kindliness and self sacrifice to
others, to determine that they will dis
play in future n chivalrous attention
to ladies and register a vow that elders
of their own sex shall never fail to re-
ceive from them the due tribute of
Difference and respect London Tele-
grnph.