AMERICAN SOCIETY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5004, 7 April 1877, Page 3

AMERICAN SOCIETY.

(From the New York Times.)

A regular customer at a great New York jeweller’s watched one afternoon with amazement the proceedings of a very common-look-ing woman buying, to use the phraseology of the most renowned auctioneers, “ regardless of expense.” Rings, bracelets, and earrings were selected with as much carelessness as ordinary persons might buy yards of ribbon, and his astonishment grew when, on the shopman’s preparing to wrap up the purchases with all the deftness of his calling, the customer exclaimed : “ Oh, never mind that bother and, opening a handkerchief, placed the goods within it, knotted the ends together, pulled out a bundle of 500-dollar bills, paid the demand, nodded familiarly to the man who had served her, and left the shop. Inquiry proved this valuable customer to be the wife of an Oregonian lumber dealer who had made his pile, and could afford his wife diamonds to any amount. Probablj there are only two countries in the world where such a scene could have occurred—the United States and Australia. The incident is an illustration of that want of harmony which more than anything else in our social life strikes the observant foreigner of the highest class, who is for the most part entirely ignorant of the mode of life prevalent among the lower middle class of his own country, and consequently supposes that peculiarities he observes among those who correspond with it here are altogether exceptional. But very similar traits, although less conspicuous and pronounced, are certainly found in England. Given a man rising from the position of a tradesman or a country attorney to considerable wealth, much the same lack of harmony will be found in his surroundings. For example, his table will be alternately inferior and profuse, while the plate placed upon it on gala days will be gorgeous, but probably vulgar in design. The house will be gilded all over, but the servants inferior to those at the rectory, where the whole income is £7OO a year. The contrast between the house and the establishment is, however, decidedly stronger here than there, and this, it must be confessed, is not always confined to merely nouveaux riches. There are establishments in New York belonging to educated people where, duly allowing for the difficulties incidental to domestic arrangements, the appearance of the servants especially certainly presents a ludicrous incongruity with the pretensions in other respects. It is not very long since a gentleman went out one morning to present a letter of introduction at a house in Madison-square, whose owner has at least 250,000 dollars a year. He rang and rang again. At length there appeared a dirty slattern, wiping on her apron hands wet with soapsuds. He presented his card, on which she impressed her autograph, and leaving him standing in the hall, disappeared. Presently she returned, saying, “ She’s busy, and can’t see you.” Now, the lady had in fact said ; “ Give my compliments to the gentleman, and say that I very much regret that I cannot see him this morning, but I am specially engaged.” Again, the same want of harmony is very common in the matter of the table. If those persons who look envious at many of the great brown stone houses imagine that luxurious fare is always to be had there, they may console themselves with the reflection that they themselves probably dine quite as well. A lady who has a thorough knowledge of the culinary art hired, some months ago, a cook who had lived with a family inhabiting one of the largest houses in New York. When she came to order dinner, the first day after this treasure’s arrival, she sa’d that she would like some peasoup. The artiste seemed bewildered. Thinking that perhaps she had expressed herself too barbarously for a cordon bleu, of the cuisine, she put the order in French. The bewilderment was intensified, and the artiste blurted out, “ I don’t know mush about soups, mum.” “ Why, surely, you made them at Mrs. ’s ? ” “ Oh, no, never.” The lady raised her eyebrows, and passed on to the fish. Having carefully given her order, the rejoinder was, “ I don’t know nothing about fish, mum.” “ Nothing about fish 1 Why, what in the world did they have for dinner at Mrs. ’s ? ” “ Why, mum, you see there was no regular dinner, except early on Sundays. Then sometimes there was roast beef, and sometimes boiled mutton. On other days the ladies just took a lunch like, and the gentlemen only came home to tea.” She parted with the artiste. The fact is that harmony in the formation of an establishment la not to be learned in a day. People unaccustomed to wealth, who quickly become possessed of it, no more perceive absence of a harmonious whole than does a man who has no artistic taste discover the absence of it in statue or picture. Such persons cannot comprehend how utterly incongruous are Marcott’s furniture and Tiffany’s costliest plate with an ill-sorted meal and a slovenly waitress. Yet there is nothing in a new country which more painfully grates upon the cultivated, whether native or foreign. It is, in fact, this want of harmony between the parts which helps to make so many rich, highly educated Americans absentees. They get to feel as Europeans feel—that a lady in clothes and jewels worth 10,000 dollars is soutterly ridiculous in concert with ill-appointed surroundings that they turn longingly to Paris, and finally are off. Surely the newly-rich might condescend to follow more closely in the wake of those who have a right to be regarded as good models, and there are many such here before their eyes. By doing so they would help to remove a large and painfully conspicuous blot upon our social life.