SOCIETY.
In New York, poverty is a great crime, and the chief effort of every man and woman's life, is to secure wealth. Society in this city is much like that of other large American cities, except? that money is the chief requisite here. In other cities poor men, who can boast of being members of a family which commands respect for its talents or other good qualities, or who have merit of their own, are welcomed into what are called "select circles" with as much warmth 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 every fashionable door open to him without reserve, while St. Peter himself, if he came "without purse or scrip," would see it closed in his face. Money makes up for every deficiency in morals, intellect, or demeanor.
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."