WHY SOCIETY OUTRUNS THE CONSTABLE. Lrviasu is very expensive in
London and families that have been well to do and have got into difficulties go abroad to economize ; a proof, it is too hastily presumed, that living is cheaper abroad. The presumption is but partially true, and not at all true of some
places. The reports of the American Ministers to the Secretary of State at Washington have shown, for the twentieth time, that
-there is no very essential difference between the cost of living in
London, Paris, Madrid, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Constantinople ; oven at Rio de Janeiro the economy is not great. If you do not London, Paris, Madrid, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Constantinople ; oven at Rio de Janeiro the economy is not great. If you do not
lay in one way you pay in another. Rent is high in London ; but it is also high in Paris where you cannot get a respectably fur- nished house under 3060 or 4000 dollars a year. Horse and car- e are dear in London; but so is fuel in Paris, so are vegetables at Constantinople. In Holland the people seem to be great econo- mists, but it is at the expense of life : "The effect is often seen," says the American Minister at the Hague, "in the unhealthy aspect of the people, and especially of the children." Dinners and balls are more costly in Madrid than in London or Paris • and at Berlin, Mr. Barnard cannot pay his way with his official salary, in spite a alls. "perfectly simple and unostentatious style of living," "inexpensive habits," and "meagre show of hospitality." He has dipped into his own purse, and has exceeded his official in- come by 2500 dollars. The reason why even the Republican is obliged to keep up horse and carriage, a respectable house—meaning a luxurious house, a de- cent hospitality—meaning ostentatious dinners, is, that in European society, whether in Germany, Spain, France, England, or even Turkey, Moral influence will not hold good unless it be set forth with the outward signs of wealth. Mr. Neal S. Brown, at St. Pe- - tersburg, says that without 12,000 dollars a year the representa- tive of the American Republicans "cannot maintain a ranh be- coming his country." Here is a confession! Unless the repre- • sentative of the backwoods-man and the loafer' of the go-ahead Anerchant and the digger, or the hunter and the pushing specu- lator, can keep up the appearance of an aristocrat,—if he is com- pelled "to fall back upon some subordinate rank of living,"—he cannot make himself so "useful." The tailor makes the man ; the quality of the meat marks the gentleman ; who loses caste if he do not feed on "the delicate portions" which Mr. Rives finds so dear at Paris. Unless the Minister has a carriage to ride in, like a woman—several good things at table, instead of the one that would suffice for health and vigour—fine clothes, when rough clothes are more manly—unless your rooms are furnished with many refined nicnaeks of in-door life—you cannot be so " useful" a servant: even to the Republicans, because, unless you possess all these appliances of a softer civilization, you cannot get attention.
But there is a further moral, besides this more obvious one of influence through luxurious superfluity. It is notorious here in London, that the larger number of people in the cultivated classes do not make such incomes as to support the usages of society with ease. The cultivated classes must either be contented to pass their lives amongst the less cultivated classes,—which few do,—or they must live beyond their income ; or they must resort to very hard shifts in order to make both ends meet. We find by these reports, that the scale of living does not - vary in any of the European capitals ; but we know well enough that in some of these capitals the general range of incomes for the -4:-giultivated classes is not so high as it is in London ; their shifts
therefore must be greater. If such great numbers of cultivated men, and women too, amongst us, are so strained in their faculties to keep up their appearances, how much more vast the multitudes in Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Vienna, Constantinople, and St. Petersburg. And why? Is it true that all the expensive habits, the costly superfluities, the wasteful conveniencies, are necessary to refine life ? Is it not true that there are many men in this class who would gladly do without these needless luxuries P—Unquestion- ably. But there are two reasons why they consent to expend their means in things they do not want. One reason i, that if they have not those luxuries—if they have upon their feet thp evidences of walking when they enter certain rooms—if they wear cloth suited to their purse—if they cannot bring to table viands unsuited to their resources—they excite the contempt if not the avoidance of those whose society they covet, and covet on very ra- tional grounds of intellectual or moral sympathy. The second reason is, that the imperfect law of supply and demand does not discrimi- nate between the essential and the non-essential. Trade, working without reference to the discriminating demand, -which numbers of the cultivated classes could express, constructs the things wanted according to the pattern set by the wealthy classes. Thus, for ex- ample, the cultivated man desires a house substantially built, de- cently commodious, properly ventilated and drained; but in London, he will have the utmost difficulty in finding such a house, 'unless it be also expensively adorned in various ways which ho does not covet. He cannot get the sterling parts of a good house without the gewgaws ; and he must either consent to violate taste and de- cency in his abode, or with decency and commodiousness undergo the cost of idle ornament.
We can only point out the evil, not a remedy. Civilization is not yet refined enough for that. But when we have sufficiently pointed out the evil, and contemplated it for a sufficient number of generations, one may begin to discover that educated people might be provided with substantial and commodious houses not burdened by needless ornaments, and that a man may be an educated gen- tleman even though he wears a coat suited to a modest purse.
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