Show CHANGING SOCIAL HABIT in comparing the babeta and manners of the present day with those ot the past it seems to roe that the most striking thing Is the great change that has taken place in our economic and financial conditions the poor of today are different race from the poor ot 60 or even 30 years ago they earn a great neal more money and though they get less tor it in solid comfort and well being they spend it in a much greater variety of ways neither are the rich t today the same as the rich of 60 years ago large numbers ot the latter the landed gentry for instance have taken a back seat it they have not ac heally disappeared the new rich who have pushed them out are introducing ideas habits and manners ot their own consequently the luxury of today has attle in common with the luxury ot eu years ago it spends its money in more elfish and ostentatious ways instead of the manor bouse with its crowd ot hereditary retainers we kave now the fashionable hotel with its army ot liveried waiters and crauf eurs W ac lawson writes in the london morning post in 14 ot these establishments lish ments was spent last year 2 nearly two and three quarter millions sterling this Is the essence ot present day luxury and those who consider it extravagant may console themselves with the thought that loreign contributed much more to it than doltish born prodigals prod igals our american visitors boasci very truly that we have them to thank for these sybarite caravansaries caravan saries they called tor them and have all along been their chief supporters paying without question most extravagant charges in other ways the americans have been the pioneers of modern luxury an inquiry which Is now going on in the united states as to the annual expends ture ot american tourists in europe indicates that it is little it any short ot or our canadian australian french german and other foreign visitors are also free spenders so much so that ministering to luxurious tastes has become one pt the most of london a indus ries on the other hand the corresponding class 0 our own people ara probably spending less rather than more on themselves than they used to do they are being taught thrift in a hard school that the chancellor of the ex chequer if we deduct from their apparently largo incomes tho number of prior claims on them that have to be met before the tree margin la reached little remains either for it will be found in many cases that comparatively riotous living or vulgar show besides it must be remembered that the modern croesus Is often a business man who can reinvest his annual profits to much better advantage than in 20 guinea banquets at the hotel cecil not the owners of motor cars and the champion spendthrifts of today are motor yachts they aro the railway and the shipping companies A single train de with its crew of clefa barbers and ladles maids wastes more money in the course of a year than the most extravagant millionaire there the latest atlantic liners than will be found in any Is tenfold more luxury on halt dozen palaces in the country from a careful comparison of the proportions of available income spent on superfluities the workingman will sometimes come out higher than many his little bets his evening paper bis dukes ills glass of beer bis tobacco picture shows bis football matches his seaside trips and bis other extras eat up a large percentage of the weekly wage even of a well todo to do artisan no one grudges him either bis comforts or his recreations but at the same time item in the sum total tot our it cannot be ignored that they form a large national outlay oa superfluities another significant feature of modern luxury Is to be found in the tact that the leading millionaires of the day are the reverse of extravagant neither have they made their millions by pandering to the luxurious tastes of the rich nearly all of them cater specially tor the working and the middle clagsen they are purveyors ot beer cocoa adap patent medicines and very light literature to the multitude I 1 bourg be an extravagant age its extras has at least the redeeming quality of being democratic free living acance akas never more widespread than it is today from cabinet ministers to ther are all decrees and shades of it al a ru r u so f |