Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 July 1889 — SOCIETY IN CITIES. [ARTICLE]

SOCIETY IN CITIES.

A Huge Collection of v Rich Poor Folks and Poor Rich Folks. A student-of society in a pity tike this, if he circulates among all classes ■ and wandeis upTtatl dOWh an tne t&oroughfaresT will be impressed with two special features of its life, writes the Chicago Journal side-walk stroller, , namely, the great number of its rich poor folks and the great number of its poor rich folks. Now I mean to explain this declaration. I know it needs explanation, and I can best do so by dividing the masses of society into two general classes—capitalists and laborers. Then I will assume to call the former “the rich,’’ and the latter “the poor.” Having done this, I will call the student’s attention to the many hard-working people who own 1 their homes in the city—homes seemingly humble, but worth all along from two or three thousand to six or seven thousand dollars apiece; and also to many other laborers who have deposits of sums of money in savings banks, varying from a few hundred to several thousand dollars each. We will now turn away from these poor folks (?) and their homes in the unaristocratic streets of the metropolis and visit the fashionable avenues, and here we shall find—what? Thousands who pass as “capitalists”—people who “put on style,” but who have no proper wh o have to scrimp and worry along “by their wits” to get,together the means to live and to pay their rents. I have discovered in this way that many who think they are less fortunate than Others have to struggle for the necessities of life very much less than many of those of whom they afle jealous. Why, I have myself more than once envied dashing and apparently prosperous men, who have failed within a fortnight with heavy liabilities and no assets.