Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1902 — EDITOR WATTERSON WRITES A PIECE ABOUT THE NEW YORK FOUR HUNDRED. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

EDITOR WATTERSON WRITES A PIECE ABOUT THE NEW YORK FOUR HUNDRED.

Crp HE “ninurt set" in New York society has received n most scathing denunjl. cUtion by Henry Wntteraou, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. “The ** term ‘smart set’,” he says, “was adopted' by society to save Itself from a more odious description. The diMtinguiahiug trait of the ‘smart set’ is its moral adbandon. It makes a business of defying and overleaping conventional restraints upon its pleasures and amusements. Being titled after u rule, and either rich in fact or getting money how It may, it sets itself above the law, both human and divine. Its women are equally depraved with its men. “The Four Hundred in America take their cue from the smart set in Europe. Behold them at the horse show in New York. Behold-fhem at swell resorts. Their talk Is of bonds, puts and call*, horses, scandals and dogs. The best society? Good Lord l “The ‘4oo’ aro rotten through and through. They have not one redeeming fenture. All their ends are achieved by money, and largely by the unholy use of money. Their influence is to the last degree corruptive. Their haugers-on are only such as money will buy. Nine out of every ten of the fortunes behind them will not bear scrutiny. “Must these unclean birds, of jraudy and therefore of couspicuou* plumage, fly from gilded bough*, fouling the very as they twitter their affectation* of mornl supremacy, and no one to shy a brick at them."