Year: 1875

line and the blessed of Fashion walking within
and there the great majority without mocked
BY banquets which are not for their tasting,
and music to which they are not hidden To-
dance. Their own dinners may be twice as
savory and plentiful; their own music the
pleadings of Tyre, while the other is but a
hurdy .gurdy; but none the less do they stretch
their hands over the impossible barrier Win
groupings of soul not to be uttered.


These magic rings are the sole cause or the
fierce haste to be rich among us; OF the FEVER


sh strife, the shaving, swindling, bribery, cor
ruption, among those who have good deal
of money, and the petty shams, the miserable
attempts to keep up appearances, among tnose
who have little. Kryter and his wife have
set themselves to work to push their way into
society in New-York or Washington; Kryter
il determined to force himself into certain
club his wife is equally resolved that her
Jenny shall move in a certain circle. Money
and the glitter of it are the Open Sesame 10
both. Kryter's hand is open and his vote
ready for any Railroad cOrpOration-that can
hid the highest; while his wife shows her
diamonds, her dresses, her dinners, where she
knows they will prove effective. How mean
she is in the showing, how tawdry, and vrl-
gar: how she turns her back on the poor
though she was kind-hearted woman when
she helped Kryter "keep store in her native
village how she let's God slip out OF her mar
rowed life altogether! In her native village
there are her cousins, the widow Peters and
her daughter. They are of the "od aris-
"tocracy" They live in shackling Old
house (of which only the parlor Is furnshed)
upon an income literally less than the wages
of any servant in their neIghbors' kitchens.
Mrs. Kryter sends them her cast-off clothes, in
which they are fine and stylish; they are
starving into disease and premature old age,
and everybody knows they are starving, and
they know that everybody knows it. Yet they
would not rent the old house or earn dol
lar in any decent indecent way, for fear of
being thrust outside that invisible line which
has always hedged them in.


Surely, as it costs so much we ought to know
what this line is. and what qualities will pass
us inside it. We can find plenty of negative
qualifications in Society newspapers and the
well-knOwn habits of the bon ton here and in
Washington. Strict adherence to the rules of
the Catechsm which we read during Lent Is
not necessary. It is not obligatory on US 3" to
keep our tongues from evil speaking, lying,
"and slandering;n our bodies in temperance
and chastity, or our hands from smuggling
and bribe-taking.


In other countries there are positive requl-
sites for admission to the charmed circle. In
civilized monarchIes it is rank: the kyn-Jin
in China obtain their high offices through
wel-tested scholarship; the social leader OF
the Esauimaux is he whose hut can boast the
largest strips of walrus fat; the Oboo OF
blue blood owns slave whom he rides
pickaback, while his wife trots alongside with
dead sheep in case he needs to dine. But
American fashionable requirements vary in
every town or hamlet. Culture, birth. piety
are nowhere requisites: in certain cities you
90 in on your bank account; in others on
your skill as a waltzer in Philadelphia an In
yitation to select ball was recalled this
Winter because the recipient was discovered
to live north of Market-st. We have known
towns where napkins and finger-bowls con-
secrated their owners of the Brahmin class,
and innumerabe others where the only
qualification was to have been one of the first
settlers therein. No matter what refinement,
taste, or genius belonged to the newcomers,
they never such was the force Of public
opinion. were able to meet, without qualm of
self-oontempt these old families who had
taken root. There are thousands of circles"
where Brussels carpet and brassy chan:
delier. or number Of sleazy silk dresses.
qualify the leaders. There are tens of thousands
! of honest mechanics and tradesmen who have
been driven to ruin by the incessant aspiring
of their wives to these emblems of social
| merit. Rational men and women, whether
milliouaircs or mechanics, have contented
themselves with laughing at the assumptions
of Fashion, and then have gone quietly on
their way, just as Gulliver took up the inch
long king on his palm, and after noting his
petty swagger, put him down again. But if
ho had closed his palm it would have been all
| the better for the Liliputians.


Bishop Huntington, in late comprehensive and