RICH YET POOR

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 120, 23 May 1931, Page 22

RICH YET POOR

I am not such a fool as to agree with the words of tho sentimental, song which states that "Tho Best Things in Life Are Free" (writes Bcverley Nichols in the '"Daily Mail").

The man who wrote that lyric was referring, of course, to such things as sunshine, tho song of-'the birds, flowers,' health, and all the rest of it, even including love itself. .. .

. I have never fouud that any of these things art free. If I want sunshine, I have to go to tho "South of France, which is hardly a charitable institution.

If I want to hear the song of the birds, I have either to get into a car or pay some transport company to conduct me. Flowers are..not free unless you live in a cottage.

And as for love —well, you can't buy love for money, but you can most certainly destroy it by poverty.

In view of these observations, it may seem--strange that I have chosen the title, "Pity the Poor Little Rich Girl." But I mention, these things because 'I want to clear ■ tho ground of sentimental slush-. It would be very easy to write the conventional article about the poor little rich girl. You know the sort of thing. Sho would be shown,, pale and listless, sitting at tho head of a long table, sending the ortolans away untasted, because, she had- eaten too much caviare.

Or she would bo posed in front of a mirror, bored to death by having to try ou so many clothes.

I cannot write that sort of stuff, because I realise that; the poor usually eat much more than tho rich nowadays. It takes money to diet.

As for clothes—even Mrs. Midas would never be bored by trying on clothes. • If women.tell you clothes bore them, they; are either such fearful liars or such fearful bores themselves that their opinions are of no value.

There is, however, a very definite reason why I pity the poor' little rich girl, and it arises from one of tho most disturbing phmenomena of modern society. I refer to tho. cnormotu increase in marriages for money.

A certain proportion of men, of course, havo always married women for their money. It used to be one of the most tweful functions of the British aristocracy. Since our aristocracy has

THEY SHOULD BE PITIED

degenerated in recent years from a merely mercenary condition into a state of -almost" complete coma, the function is, unfortunately, not so widely exercised. Cut it is exorcised, more and more, in other directions.

Half the young men who havo come down from Oxford in recent years were educated .out of capital. That capital is shrinking fast. Their fathers cannpt, support them, they,,, have expensive tastes. ;'... . The rest follows.

I repeat,'that':in no previous period of this country's.;, history lists there, been si'ch a vast floating population of for tunc-huuters. That is why I pity the poor little rich girl. There is another reason why the trade of the fortuneVhuhter is becoming, so increasingly .easy.' In the. old days, many, attractive young me.n of weak character,; though they would have welcomed '■ marriage with a rich girl, did not actually seek her out,-for the simple reason that- they wore in lovo, with a poor one.

•You may- fell me; that if society- is rotten—or,.should; you.'wist '.to-put;': it inoro kindly, if' morals are ' elastic'—the little- rich girl lias nothing to worry about. She can join the mad dance, you may think, jazz with the rest of the crowd, choosing her partners as she will. She can get tho man she wants, and if he does not turn out to bo .gatisfactory she. can. take as many others as she chooses until' tho right one conies along.

That argument does a gross injustice to women's psychology. are not naturally promiscuous. Even the poor little girl who' lives like a parasite on some rich girl'shusbandj' wants to stick to that (jrie man. Love, to most women, is more la matter of association, of protection, of a .thousand exquisite- and dolicato intimacies, than a mere passage of passion. . " : The poor little rich girl doesn't want to live he"' whole life •in constantly variegated epochs. She wants a home. And she is usually the last woman -in tho world to find one. . Besides, there is that question of dignity—tho quality whicli G. K. Chesterton described as vital in women and hateful in men.

A woman must keep- her dignity, even if she keeps it in rags. And it is easier to keep in rags than in crepe de chin©.