Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1903-02-13
PLAGUE OF LUXURY.
How 1t Has Fallen Upon the People
with Prosperous Times.
With the introduction of Modern
ConvenieHces and the Coundrys
Growth In Riches, Even tho
Flat Dweller Lives High.

The growth of luxurious living in
America was very slow during the first
SO years of the republic. Indeed, up to
the breaking out of our civil war the
inequalities of fortune were not SO
marked as to make those who lived
sumptuously. according to the stand
ards of those days seem SO far removed
from the merely well-to-do is to be al
most in another world. In the earlier
days, any sober and industrious man
could prosper, even though he did not
perform merely manual labor. There
was work for every one TO do, and no
one was more in demand than Mr.. Jack
of-all-trades, who now walks superfiu-
Gus in the dusty highway, with no one
to applaud his adaptability, none to
need his ingenious services. Food was
plenty, land was cheap, rents were low.
Be honest and you will be happy, was
not mere cant; it was the solemn and
the grateful truth. Pretty nearly
every one lived well, but pretty nearly
all lived plainly. With better houses,
with better water supplies, with i'm
proved lamps for illumination and
then with the introduction of illum-
mating gas, and most of all with the
greater wealth which came at the end
of the civil war, the growth of luXrri-
Gus living began taking tremendous
strides. Luxury with poor light after
sunset, luxury with few, of The means
of personal cleanliness, does not mean
much to us nowadays. Why, a man in
n Harlem fat at 5000 a year can COM
mand more of the kind of luxury just
mentioned than say the dissoiute
Charles II. ever dreamed of. But the
wealth that comes with new fortunes
to new people was really what began
the race which may he called the Mil
liomire Stakes for all ages, says a
writer in Ainslee's Magazine.
Before these stakes were opened
there were few fortunes in this coun-
try. Some were made in the trade with
the east, some were made in strictly
domestic commerce, some were found
ed in piracy, and other adventures 10y
sea. but the greatest number and the
most stable were those which came.
from the shrewd inyestme nts in land
which was enhanced in value by the
growth of cities. Even up to tie tire
that the newly rich began to spiurEe,
the owners of the fortunes jusi i~on-
toned were pretty generally tolerahiy
plain people, who lived very quietly
and locked upon those who made IN
usual display as too vulgar to COVE IN
side the sacred pale which called Itself
society. In New York. this class IF
people at the time mentioned h"ea in
the neighborhood of Was 'rrton
Square: in Philadelphia. toward the
foot Of Walnut street, and in nnstcn in
that ever sacred Beacon street. They
were slow but sure. They had no
doubt about their position. or the rro-
priety with which they intoincd
their d'"nitv. They did what they
pleased but they did not pleare to be
in the least fantastic, theGtric. os-
tentatious or conspicuous. Ard until
the newly rich had arrived. with the
manifest intention to etnv '>e~'7 nnent-
ly there were none with 81; ter TIE ann
bitten or the ability 20 Dispute ~ is e'i-
prenacv. which was maintained not Ivy
an nggressiveness, but by the passive
power of inertia.