Los Angeles herald., 1906-03-25
MODERN SOCIETY
DULL AND VULGAR
SWEEPING INDICTMENTS OF
EXTRAVAGANCE
Cost of Living Is Too Hlgh-Reck-
less Waste of Food One of the
Greatest Evils of the
Times
Special Cable to The Herald.

Special Cable to The Herald.
LONDON, March 24.-Msyfair is in
quite flutter about two sweeping in
dictments which have been hurled
against society and its manners of liv-
ing this week. One was by the bishop
of Birmingham in criticising the ex-
travagance of modern social life, and
the other a condemnation of modern
civilization as whole by Edward Car
penter the poet and lecturer at Trinity
hall.
Why was it, asked Bishop Gore, that
the requirements of income were so
verv much smaller in Germany and
France than in England. 1t was in
large measure, he declared, because the
English scale of expenditure on en-
tertanment was absurdly and needless
ly higher. There was no reason why
man should not have a dinner with
his friends without that amount of ex-
penditure that was at present consid-
cred necessary in high circles on costly
wines and other matters. This applied
to women as much as to men.
Says Statement Is True
Referring to this, the Daily Mail
adds:
"a casual glance around the restau-
rants of London and the luncheon and
dinner tables of modern country houses
and brief study of the dressmakers'
bills which are revealed periodically in
the law court cases, will certainly con-
firm Bishop Cores statements"
The Daily Mail then proceeds to add
what may be interesting to Americans
with the approach of the tourist season:
"a remarkable feature which has not
yet received it's due need of notice is
the increasing number of costly and
luxurious restaurants which are at
tached to the new hotels in provincial
cities. Life at the modern hotels in
Liverpool and Manchester has no ter
rors now for the most fastidious gour-
met, and it's bills might cause a mil
lionaire to look twice at them if, in the
slang of the day, he had been doing
himself WELL
Waste in Country Homes
I'm the English country house it is
the same tale with additional cost by
the enormous waste of catering for a
dozen people for small quantities of
food. The late duchess of Rutland
once alleged that the men and women
of a Scotch house where she was stay
ing during the shooting season, ate
eleven meals a day. 1t is of course
notorious that the chefs in several pri-
vate houses today receive salaries of
$4,000, $4,000, $780, and in one case, $10,
900 a year, and that they would think
a dinner fit only for workhouse feast
IL It's MATERIAL including fruit and wine
has cost much less than $175 or 5000 for
a score of guests.
zone of the best known young Eng
1ish peeresses. whose husband has an
income of $1,500,00O a year. was so dis
gusted with the waste of rich food with
which she was confronted in the prin-
cipal of her new homes that she dis
missed the chef and engaged a wo-
man cook for 1925 a year. 1t is now
alleged she, her husband and her guests
are all much better fed for a third of
the former cost"
Plea for the Simple Life
Turning now to Edward Carpenters
Indictment, which preluded an appeal
for the simple life, he said there has
arisen a mass of the most futile So
ciety that probably the world has ever
seen.
st don't say the most wicked or the
most criminal" he said, 'for it has not
sufficient spirit to be either, but 1t Is
the most aimless, the most vulgar, and,
perhaps, the most dull society the
world has ever seen, and this society
is founded on enormous human waste.
Every one is complaining of the
complexities of life of the worries and
anxieties that overburden existence
Brain fevers abound, suicides are more
frequent than they ever We're before,
the lunatic asylums are so full that
when our own time comes there will