THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1897.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10407, 3 April 1897, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1897.

A most noteworthy sign of the times comes from America by the last mail. We refer to the commotion which has taken place in respect to a great ball which has been given in New York by Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Martin. These people are, it seems, millionaires, but whether the money was made by speculations in real estate, by plunges on the stock exchange, by a corner in pork or sugar, or in what manner, we have not been able to find. But this couple determined, it seems, to give a great fancy ball which should beat all the records in that line, and to issue invitations to all the wealthy people of New York. Home 1500 invitations were issued. The cost of this ball is variously stated. It is put as high as 250,000 dollars, or £50,000. Some accounts, however, state

that the actual cost of the arrangements to Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Martin was only 30,000 dollars, or £6000, but it is admitted on all hands that the expenses altogether must have been £5O,0OO.« This at once makes the entertainment rank high in history, evnn taking into consideration the accounts we have of feasts given by wealthy Romans during the later days of tho Republic. All the guests were in fancy costumes, and tho lackeys, waiters, and maids in attendance were all dressed in appropriate uniforms, and, we are told, freely used cosmetics in making up for the event. It was calculated that the cosmetics used by the guests would cost 11,395 dollars, not including perfumes, scented waters, or sachet powders, also lavishly employed.

There is, perhaps, not very much interest in reading such details about this grand affair. The remarkable feature is, that it has been made the occasion of a rabid explosion against wealth, and against such a method of spending money. Before the bull, threatening letters were sent to Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Martin and to some of the more prominent prospective guests. Some of the letters were written apparently in blood. Some of the windows of the hotel where the ball was given were boarded up, so that by no possibility could anyone throw a stone in to create alarm. Mrs. Martin's mail, we are told, was laden with letters of encouragement and expostulation. This feeling seems to have been led by the Rev. W. S. Rainsford, the pastor of St. Qeorge's (Protestant Episcopal Church.) He declaimed against the entertainment, and Baid;—" With want on every side, contributions to charitable societies decreasing, and applications for aid increasing, it is most unwise now to offer texts to social demagogues and political extremists by ostentatious display."

In all this explosion against these people is there not something utterly mean, sordid, and degrading? Here are a number of people, possessing all the comforts of life, and indeed, many of its luxuries, and they are in a state of howling rage because they cannot afford to wear diamonds and drink champagne, And this, the very meanest of feelings, is stimulated by clergymen, who want to appear as champions of the poor. Is the existence of thie

envious sentiment—which seems to assume that life is not worth living without being able to dress for a fancy ball—not more degrading than the merely paltry ambition to give a dance which should exceed anything ever attempted before? Surely Dr. Ruinsford might have had something to say about that aspeot of the question. The Jewish Rabbi took a much more reasonable view of the subject. In preaching on it he said :—

The alarmist does as great harm as either the Socialist or Anarchist, sometimes greater. Just at the present time we have an instance of this. Tho life of business depends upon the confidence in the existing order of things. The least suspicion of danger drives capital to cover, cheeks enterprise, and paralyzes trade. It moans the drying up of the sources from which the labourer derives his living. Love of display! Stamp it as vulgar, childish, or what you nny, but before you charge it, draw the line, if you can, where real use of wealth ceases and ostentation begins. What wan the motive that jilacod line mansions in Fifth Avenue and tills it daily with prancing horses and liveried footmen, of which New Yorkers are proud to boast? We ministers live in glass houses, and ought to be careful of our stone-throw-ing. Onr magnificent ohurohes and pnrsonages, our holy festivals and complimentary receptions are surely not models of simplicity.

The Rev. Thomas Dixon was still more emphatic. In a sermon he spoke time: -

Dr. Rainsford says that this is an inopporune time for such display of weaalth. Ht said: " Here are people worth 10,000,000 dollars, with a big income, and I ask inyselt what I would eay if I were worth millions, and somebody would come to mo and say, ' You lud better not spend any money at present, us this is an inopportuue time, and the publiu is unnerved.' I would say what a distinguished membor of the Vanderbilt family is reported to have said, ' The public be damned. . Who is this public? Who originated it, and is it worth a man't while to fawn ou it ? I would rather be a dog ami bay at the moon than fawn before it,"

That there should be some men in America enormously wealthy is only to be expected. The population of the United States is about 65,000,000, and every manufacturer and every speculator has this great nation as a field for his operations. If he takes a big risk and is successful, lip, makes a " pile." If he has business talent, and is not particularly scrupulous, and knows how to manipulate "trusts" and "combines," wealth may simply flow in a stream into his possession. If he makes a happy invention he nets a princely fortune in a few years. And the Americin people have aided all this by their legislation. Many of the American millionaires owe their fortunes to the fact that .they entrench themselves behind some protection law, The industry in which they are concerned becomes "protected," and thus they have a monopoly, and a clear field for the exercise of restrictions and combinations to raise prices. And all this is carried out for the benefit of the working mivn and for his protection from the "pauper industry"of Europe!

And then, it must be remembered that the lavish expenditure of the millionaire goes mostly in the shape of labour. It is quite certain that the people of the United States would be still more angry if their millionaires hoarded their wealth, and lived on crusts. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Martin seem good-natured people, and Mrs. Bradley Martin, on a night after the bull, posed iu a tableau in her Marie Stuart costume for a charitable purpose. Then, again, the appetite of the American people, as manifested by the newspapers, does much to causo the taste for mere display as a means of becoming famous. For weeks before the Uradlef Martin ball the papers were tilled with the preparations for it, witli details of the costumes to be worn, and with pictures of the fancy dresses of the ladies and gentlemen, In one of the latest issues of the New York Herald we have a large picture entitled, "The Fifty Thousand Dollars Dress of Mrs. Oelia Wallace, of Chicago." Think of it, a woman clothed in a dress which cost £10,000! Probably the result of successful speculations in pork! But she is made an object of envy to millions,

We come back to the point that it is melancholy that there are many people who find the joy of life, and the satisfaction of their being, and the gratification of the highest feelings of their souls, in a display of dress and diamonds. And it is still more melancholy to find that them are so many, who rave in anger against these people, as enjoying a great means of happiness from which they are shut out. The feeling which inspires both classes is in reality the same. It is the worst featu-e of the age, born perhaps of its scepticism as to everything beyond this life, that there is shown a feverish anxiety for material gratifications. The Bradley Martin ball, with all that has accompanied it, is indeed a manifestation of Immunity in this age not by any means of a cheering nature.