Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-06-01
ENGLISH SOCIETY
4 Reliable Description Of Fashion
 able Life in London.
Money the Keystone of success In the 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 fish capital which are commanding 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 gles in the gayest, or the ''smRrt'' set, and she can also look at 1t 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 not 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 whio3 is most conspicuous and whose countenance is most sought for, and they are corrupting it ''as surely and as certainly as they did that of ancient Rome" Amusement is its one aim. Men and women live only for pleasure. Money is ''the keystone of success in the smartest London society,"" for great wealth is absolutely essential to provide the luxury demanded. It 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 essential to smart so- ciety, and most of its possessors in Lon don being outside of the old nobility, of course radical change in the compost tion 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 a comedy, a play time. Serious views of it's obli- gations are out of place in such a 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 entourage." They have relaxed the former restraints each as regards herself, and the whole as regards each other. If the moral tone of the society 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 hatly.
 That this moral degradation is ex- treme she implies when she saya that i've must feel infinite pity for the poor outcast women of the world who sin because they must live, while there can be nothing but a 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 a feeling of contempt for the men who, marrying on small means, suddenly find their whole encourage changed by the addition of horses and carriages, French cooks and all the modern luxuries of a fashionable men, age, and who shut their eyes and ac- cept the gifts of the fairy godfather who has wrought all these miracles"