AMERICA’S ‘'SMART SET.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2389, 2 January 1909, Page 10 (Supplement)

AMERICA’S ‘'SMART SET.”

SOME INTERESTING AND SCATHIN G i COMMENTS.

Mrs. George Cornwallis West, formerly Lady Randolph Churchill, has contributed a two-column article to the “NeAv York World,” in which she scathingly criticises the Neiv York “Smart Set.”

She declares that the eccentricities of these people are due to “a. desire to- attract attention as a means of getting into the best society by a display of wealth.” She adds:— “The empty lives and ostentatious, not’ to say vulgar, entertainments of certain would-be fashionable women are naturally condemned by all sensible and right-thinking people. The glorified detailed accounts of some of these senseless festivities have brought blushes to the cheeks of their compatriots abroad, Avho have been mercilessly chaffed on the strange doings of their country people.” .-Mrs. Cornwallis West says that in England individual meritjmi® more appreciated in the most exclusive circles than rank or fortune, and that tho English society woinan has an ad. vantage over her American cousin in mixing in politics, thus giving her an additional outlet for her energies. She expresses the belief that the mistakes some American Society women are making will soon be eliminated by their own good sense and intelligence. With justice she maintains that tho class of. Americans Avho give pink violet teas, pale-blue dinners, where sauces match the hostess’ gown, red suppers, and freak entertainments generally, are not the best American society, but people striving by senseless extravagence “to attract .attention as a means, so they think, to got into the best society.” It was not long, however, before a champion appeared in the lists on. behalf of American society. Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, the only serious claimant to the supreme position in American society, until recently occupied by Mrs. William Astor,' replied next day in her most animated manner to Mrs. Cornwallis West. “I beliove,” observes Mrs. Fish, “that Mrs. Cornwallis West was Miss Jerome, an American woman. But she has been absent a long time from America, and apparently does not know what American society to-day is like.

“I certainly never attended any of the extraordinary social functions Mrs. West.speaks of. They must be very funny. A ‘pink tea ’ just fancy! A ‘lavender dinner, with sauce to match the color of the hostess’ gown 1’ How amusing I I never ate a green breakfast either, and I never heard of any of these things before.” Mrs. Fish has always maintained that the “circus antics” of American society were vastly exaggerated by journalists, but she was intensely embittered some months ago by the parvenu element which battered its. doors with the almighty dollar. Indeed, she. departed, in the springtime for Europe, declaring that Newport was no longer a place where a “genuine aristocrat” corild live in comfort. Since then Newport, so its habitues affirm, has reformed. Votaries of “monkey dinners” have been conspiciottsly absent all the summer from its gatherings. \