The Irish standard., 1892-06-11
ENGLISH SOCIETY.

!. SsS - L
ENGLISH SOCIETY.
\ n Reliable Description Of Fashion
able Life IN London.
Money tho Keystone Of Success In tho
Smartest Circles-Luxury and Pleas.
ure the Only Aims Of
the Wealthy.
An article by Lady Jeune in the North
American Review on London society
presents pictures and describes tenden-
cies of the fashionable life of the Eng
lish capital which are comnanding
much attention there because Of her
undoubted competency to deal with the
subject. Lady Jeune is the wife OF JUS
tice Jeune, of the probate and divorce
court, and both before and since his
elevation to the bench she has occupied
position which has given her access
to the society she criticises. She min
giles in the gayest, or the smart set,
and she can also look at it from the con-
fines of the soberer circle of those who
take more serious view of life; for she
frequents them both. Her social path
is pleasant before her and rot rough
and thorny, and hence she is philosoph-
ical and not envious and rancorous
Lady Jeune starts out by referring to
the revolution which London society is
obviously undergoing. Luxury, ease,
comfort, she says, have become the
watchwords of the ''smart set,'' or the
circle which is most conspicuous and
whose countenance is most sought for,
and they are corrupting it las surely
and as certainly as they did that of
ancient Rome.". Amusement is it's one
aim. Men and women live only for
pleasure. Money is !s'the keystone of
success in the smartest London society,""
for great wealth is absolutely essential
to provide the luxury demanded. 1t has
always been necessary for that purpose,
but now the money must be vastly more
than ever before, since the cost of the
life is vastly greater, and the standard
of luxury is fixed by the possessors of
fortunes unparalleled in the past.
Wealth being so essentialto smart So
ciety, and most of it's possessors in Lon
don being outside of the old nobility, of
course radical change in the compost
ton of the circle of fashion has re-
suited. The new are taking the lead
of the old in the grandeur of their en-
tertainments and of those they draw
about them. This social revolution has
resulted in a revolution Of morals and
manners. Life has become comedy,
play time. Serious views of it's obi
cations are out of place in such circle.
The recent scandals. in London society,
which have been the talk of the world,
Lady Jeune very reasonably attributes
to "the easy-going manner in which
women of the highest rank and culture
have allowed the old-fashioned rules
and restraints which governed society
to be relaxed" AS she says, very truly,
women and not men are responsible for
the tone and composition of society.
They fix it's moral standard, land as
women are virtuous Or the reverse, so is
their encourage" They have relaxed
the former restraints each as regards
herself, and the whole as regards each
Juliet. IL UlC 1AOl oil UOAC VI OAIO SONAOCy
has been lowered, it is because the
moral tone of the women in it has
fallen individually. This decline she
acknowledges and declares frankly and
fatty.
That this moral degradation is ex-
IRENE she implies when she says that
1--WE must feel infinite pity for the poor
outcast women of the world who sin
because they must live, while there can
be nothing but feeling of horror for
women who set their virtue so low as
to make it the price of dresses which
will cut out the toilettes of their
women friends in society; nor can we
have any but feeling of contempt for
the men who, marrying on small means,
suddenly find their whole encourage
changed by the addition of horses anG
carriages, French cooks and all the
modern luxuries of a fashionable men.
age, and who shut their eyes and &C
cept the gifts of the fairy godfather
who has wrought all these miracles"
Prussian Suicides.
The number of suicides is not increas-