St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-06-14
POLITE SOCIETY.

Speaking of the GORDON CUNNING
Scandal, the Pioneer Press draws the in
ference that personal honesty is req
uiSite for admission to polite society,
and expresses the opinion that its doors
are not open and ought not to be open
to people who are guilty of no pro-
founder sin than falling to pay the
tradesmen with whom they deal. I'm
doubleday this ought to be the case; but,
really, is it so? If it Is, there has been
at last discovered the one thing which
gentleman cannot do without FORGETTING
his right to the name.
The GLOBE is little afraid that
punctiliousneSs i'll meeting ones debts
does not count for much in securing a
mans social advancement, and that
mans invitations to dinners and lawn
parties would continue, other things be-
ing unchanged, no matter how ins0vent
he might be. His royal highness AL
BERT EDWARD, Prince of Wales, for
example, is VIGOROUSLY in debt, nowith
standing his enormous income, and the
money loaners and ShopkeeperS who
have accommodated him have to take
good deal of their pay in the self-satis-
faction which comes from an acquaint-
ance with royalty. Mr.. GLADSTONE,
also, the greatest statesman i'll the
world, most famous Of diners out,
and more sought for than any
man in three kingdoms, has all
through his years of prominence had
the reprehensible habit of buying things
which he not only could not pay for,
l,0xy l,n
could not pay. OF course, if one makes
his definition of gentleman to be one
who pays his debts, the Prince of Wales
and Mr.. GLADSTONE are not gentlemen.
But if the doors of polite society are
not open to them, to whom are they
open?
There are different standards for such
things in different places, and the
GLOBE carefully and deliberately omits
St. Paul from the application of these
generaIizations but everywhere else in
the world the criteria and indici of gen.
tie blood are purely artificial and con-
ventional. Everywhere else in the
world there are a few things which
man cannot do and have his social call
ing and election sure, but these things
have no moral or intellectual basis.
Society's doors are open to fools as well
as to savants, to drunkards as we'll as
to the temperate; to the pure, and
also to the impure; to the rich and to the
poor alike, to both the churl and the
knight; ito the thief, and at the same
time to the honest. 1t would be very
difficult to name species of vulgarity,
of iafu
which may not be committed by man.
the effect of which is to put him out
side the pale of formal recognition, if
we except the few conventional rules
which make up the social code.
Moral and intellectual distinctions
control in ones choice of friends and
intimateS, but society is not a matter of
friendship or Intimacy. Society is
thing of formula and business. Mems
personal deficiencies are not obtrusive
in the ballroom because all there
dress and act alike. They cloak their
Municipalities and go through the rout-
inc as soldiers at drill. One circle of
society does not differ from another in
its moral or inteliectul characteristics,
bit only IN the technicalities of its tao
tics. People who prefer to eat with their
knives naturally invite people with
similar prejudiceS to their dinner par
ties; and those who have been brought
up to think lightly of forks as form of
weapon enjoy their food more keenly
if they are not agitated by the fear that
their table companion is about to disfig-
ure himself by the Use of his knife for
purpose to which they are not accus-
toned. To sum up the whole matter,
birds of feather flock together; and it
should be remembered that the flocking
is purely matter of feather and takes
no account of the flesh or the skill and
grace in flying.