Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1902-09-13
THE "SMART SET"
Henry WattersOn ScOrches New
YOrk's Four Hundred.

Henry WattersOn ScOrches New
York's Four Hundred.
Henry Watterson in The Courier
Journal last week made a scorching at
tack on the New York 400, referring to
them again as a flock Of unclean birds.
The editorial occupies two columns of
space and says in part:
1.-THE term Smart Set was adopted
by society to save itself from a more
odious description. The distinguishing
trait Of the smart set Is its moral
abandon. It makes a business Of defy
ing and overlapping conventional re-
straints upon its pleasures and amuse-
ments.
Being titled as rule, and either
rich in fact or Of getting money how it
may, it sets itself above the law, both
human and divine. It's women are
equally depraved with its men. They
know all the dirt the men know They
talk freely with the men Of things for
hidden the decent and virtuous. They
read the worst French fiction. They
see the worst French plays. The very
question Of sex becomes interchangea-
BILE. and sometimes it Is the sissy earls
and always the horsy girl who kicks
out Of traces and drags the set through
the mire. The women Of the smart set
no longer pretend to recognize virtue,
even as feminine accomplishment. In
nocence Is badge Of delinquency, a
which, If tolerated at all, must carry
some promise Of amendment; for among
these titled cyprians the one thing
needful is to know it ALL
I'm London and in Paris and at Monte
Carlo in the winter and at Trouville
in the summer, they make life one
unending debauch, their only literary
provender, when they read at ALL is the
their Mecca, the roulette table and the
race course; their heaven, the modern
yacht, with its luxuries and isolation.
The ocean tells no tales and as the
smart set knows no law when in ex-
tremis, 1t can go to sea.
"Thc 400 in America take their cue
from The smart set in Europe. Behold
them at the horse show in New York.
Behold them at swell resorts after the
show. Their talk-that is, what can be
heard-is Of stocks and bonds, puts and
calls, horses, scandals and dogs. They,
the best society? Good Lord!
1T is true that we have come to a
beautiful pass If the simpering john
nies and the tough girls that make
Sherry's and Delmonico's hum; that
irradiate the corridors of the Waldorf
Astoria with the exhalations Of their
unclean lives and thought, emulating
the demimondaines Of the third en-
pire, are to be accepted even by the
good and virtuous of the land, even
though quite able to pay their way at
home and abroad. must be relegated to
the middle class and dismissed as SIM
pie 'bourgeoise.'
THE 400 are rotten through and
through. They have not one redeem
ing feature. All their ends are achiev-
ed by money and largely by the unholy
use of money. If one Of them proposes
to go into politics. he expects to buy
his way, and the rogues who have seats
in congress or foreign appointments to
sell see that he pays the price. If one
Of them wants to marry lord, she ex-
poets to buy him, and the titled rascals
who wish to recoup their broken for
tunes see that she pays the price. Their
influence is to the last degree corrupt
i've. Their hangers-on and retainers
are only such as money will buy. Nine
out or ten of the fortunes behind them
will not bear scrutiny; when it was not
actually got by foul means, it yet goes
back to the grimiest antecedents, the
wash tub and the stable yard.
Must these unclean birds of gaudy,
and therefore of conspicuous, plumage.
fly from glded bough to bough, fouling
the very air as they twitter their affec- |
tations of social supremacy and no me
to shy brick and to cry, Scat, you
devilS?"