Читать книгу Lights and Shadows of New York Life or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City - James Dabney McCabe - Страница 17

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All the world over, poverty is a misfortune. In New York it is a crime. Here, as in no other place in the country, men struggle for wealth. They toil, they suffer privations, they plan and scheme, and execute with a persistency that often wins the success they covet. The chief effort of every man and woman in the great city is to secure wealth. Man is a social being—woman much more so—and here wealth is an absolute necessity to the enjoyment of social pleasures. Society here is organized upon a pecuniary basis, and stands not as it should upon the personal merits of those who compose it, but upon a pile of bank-books. In other cities, poor men, who are members of families which command respect for their talents or other admirable qualities, or who have merit of their own sufficient to entitle them to such recognition, are welcomed into what are called the “Select Circles” with as much cordiality as though they were millionaires. In New York, however, men and women are judged by their bank accounts. The most illiterate boor, the most unprincipled knave finds the door of fashion open to him, while St. Peter himself, if he came “without purse or scrip,” would see it closed in his face.

Society in New York is made up of many elements, the principal of which it is proposed to examine, but, unfortunately, wealth is the one thing needful in most of the classes into which it is divided. Nor is this strange. The majority of fashionable people have never known any of the arts and refinements of civilization except those which mere wealth can purchase. Money raised them from the dregs of life, and they are firm believers in it. Without education, without social polish, they see themselves courted and fawned upon for their wealth, and they naturally suppose that there is nothing else “good under the sun.”

Those who claim precedence base their demand upon their descent from the original Dutch settlers, and style themselves “the old Knickerbockers.” The majority of these are very wealthy, and have inherited their fortunes from their ancestors. They are owners of valuable real estate, much of which is located in the very heart of the city. The incomes derived from such property are large and certain. They are frequently persons of cultivation, and were it not for their affectation of superiority, would, as a class, be decidedly clever people, even if many of them are stupid. They make an effort to have their surroundings as clumsy and as old-fashioned as possible, as a mark of their Dutch descent. They sport crests and coats of arms such as the simple old Dutchmen of New Amsterdam never dreamed of; and rely more upon the merits of their forefathers than upon their own. They are extremely exclusive, and rarely associate with any but those who can “show as pure a pedigree.” Their disdain of those whose families are not as “old” as their own is oftentimes amusing, and subjects them to ridicule, which they bear with true Dutch stolidity. They improve in their peculiar qualities with each generation, and the present pompous Knickerbocker who drives in the Park in solemn state in his heavy chariot, and looks down with disdain upon all whose blood is not as Dutch as his own, is a very different personage from his great ancestor, the original Knickerbocker, who hawked fish about the streets of New Amsterdam, or tanned leather down in “the swamp.”

Strange to say, the Knickerbocker class receives fresh additions every year. Each new comer has a Van to his name, and can show a string of portraits of yellow-faced worthies, in leather breeches, and ruffles, and wigs, which he points to with pride as his “ancestors.” The statistician would be sorely perplexed in attempting to ascertain the number of Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam were he to trace back the pedigrees of the present Knickerbockers, for if the claims of the present generation be admitted, one of two things is sure—either the departed Dutchmen must have been more “numerous fathers” than they cared to admit at the time, or the original population has been underestimated.

The next in order are those who, while making no boast of family, are persons who have inherited large wealth from several generations of ancestors. Freed from the necessity of earning their livings, they have an abundance of leisure in which to cultivate the “small sweet courtesies of life.” They are neither shoddyites nor snobs, and while there are many who do no credit to their class, they constitute one of the pleasantest portions of metropolitan society. They furnish some of the most agreeable men, and some of the most beautiful and charming women in the city. Their homes are elegant, and abound in evidences of the taste of their owners, who spend their money liberally in support of literature and the arts. Here are to be found some of the rarest works of European and American masters. Unfortunately this class of New Yorkers is not very large. It is destined to increase, however, with the growth of wealth in the city. Good men, who have begun where the forefathers of these people started, will constantly contribute their children to swell this class, in which will always be collected those who unite true merit to great wealth, those who are proud of their country and its institutions, contented with its customs, and possessed of too much good sense to try to add to their importance by a ridiculous assumption of “aristocratic birth,” or a pitiful imitation of the manners of the great of other lands.

The third class may be said to consist of those who value culture and personal excellence above riches. There is not much individual wealth in this class, but its members may be regarded as “persons in comfortable circumstances.” They are better educated, have more correct tastes, and do the most to give to New York society its best and most attractive features. It is a class to which merit is a sure passport. It is modest and unassuming, free from ostentatious parade, and, fortunately, is growing rapidly. It is made up of professional men of all kinds, clergymen, lawyers, poets, authors, physicians, painters, sculptors, journalists, scientific men, and actors, and their families. Its tone is vigorous and healthy, and it is sufficiently free from forms to make it independent, and possessed of means enough to enable it to pursue its objects without hindrance.

The remainder of those who constitute what is called society are the “New Rich,” or as they are sometimes termed, the “Shoddyites.” They constitute the majority of the fashionables, and their influence is felt in every department of domestic life. They are ridiculed by every satirist, yet they increase. Every year makes fresh accessions to their ranks, and their follies and extravagances multiply in proportion. They occupy the majority of the mansions in the fashionable streets, crowd the public thoroughfares and the Park with their costly and showy equipages, and flaunt their wealth so coarsely and offensively in the faces of their neighbors, that many good people have come to believe that riches and vulgarity are inseparable. They make themselves the most conspicuous, and are at once accepted by strangers as the “best society” of the metropolis.

They are almost without exception persons who have risen from the ranks. This is not to their discredit. On the contrary, every American is proud to boast that this is emphatically the land of self-made men, that here it is within the power of any one to rise as high in the social or political scale as his abilities will carry him. The persons to whom we refer, however, affect to despise this. They take no pride in the institutions which have been so beneficial to them, but look down with supreme disdain upon those who are working their way up. They are ashamed of their origin, and you cannot offend one of them more than to hint that you knew him a few years ago as a mechanic or a shopkeeper.

Some of the “fashionables” appear very unexpectedly before the world. But a short while ago a family may have been living in the humbler quarter of the city, or even in a tenement house. A sudden fortunate speculation on the part of the husband, or father, may have brought them enormous wealth in the course of a few days. A change is instantly made from the humble abode to a mansion on Fifth or Madison avenue. The newly acquired wealth is liberally expended in “fitting up,” and the lucky possessors of it boldly burst upon the world of fashion as stars of the first magnitude. They are courted by all the newly rich, and invitations to the houses of other “stars” are showered upon them. They may be rude, ignorant, uncouth in manner, but they have wealth, and that is all that is required. They are lucky indeed, if they hold their positions long. A few manage to retain the wealth which comes to them thus suddenly, but as a rule those who are simply lucky at the outset, find Dame Fortune a very capricious goddess, and at the next turn of her wheel pass off the stage to make room for others who are soon to share the same fate.

During the oil speculations, and during the war, the shoddy class was largely increased by those who were made suddenly and unexpectedly rich by lucky ventures in petroleum lands and stocks, and by army contracts. Now other speculations provide recruits for this class, to which Wall street is constantly sending fresh “stars” to blaze awhile in the firmament of society, and then to make way for others. The shoddy element is not, however, confined to those who acquire wealth with rapidity or by speculations. There are many who rise very slowly and painfully in the world, who, when blessed with fortune, throw themselves headlong into the arms of “shoddy.”

It is not difficult to recognize these persons. They dress not only handsomely, but magnificently, making up in display what they lack in taste. They cover themselves with jewels, and their diamonds, worn on ordinary occasions, might in some instances rival the state gems of European sovereigns. Their rough, hard hands, coarse faces, loud voices, bad English, and vulgar manners contrast strikingly with the splendors with which they surround themselves. They wear their honors uneasily, showing how little they are accustomed to such things. They look down with disdain upon all less fortunate in wealth than themselves, and worship as demi-gods those whose bank accounts are larger than their own. They are utterly lacking in personal dignity, and substitute for that quality a supercilious hauteur.