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Show I THE THINGS THAT PERISH. B It is said that Newport as a fashionable resort B fe going into a mild decay. The struggle for dls- B play has exhausted itself. First it was the Mer B chant Princes, the bankers, the steamship and B railroad presidents and mixed with them were the fl brilliant men and women of letters who gave B grace to the wealth surrounding them. Then the B promoters, the coal-oil Tommies and stock sharps B who had won, came and as wealth and display B were the requisites, elegant and refined independ- B once was cast into the shade. Then the faces be- B gan to change. The eyes grew closer to the nose, B the intellectual presentations became shrunken, B tho acquisitive presentations became more pro- B nounced and faces of lions became changed to B wood rats, until respectable and high-bred people B grew fewer and fewer as the birds of prey in- B creased. Then the test of real gentility changed. It B was no longer a question of how many could afford B champagne for dinner, but rather how many bot- B ties each could drink. This was when the de- B generate offspring of bondholders and brokers B took the reins of society and essayed to drive. B There are still many very rich people who B are respectable but these are beginning to draw B away from Newport. B Then while the ambition of one multifold B millionaire may be to excel, what can he do when B there are a hundred others to duplicate or over- B top his utmost efforts? The finest gems grow B common when the bosom under them is just the B bosom of a vulgarian. It is the same way with fine equipages when the unclean can own them. Why lavish wealth on an automobile when the B boor who was long on wheat or cotton last month can obtain the latest machine? B The latest fad is to build a great country Place, with rooms enough for a hotel, with parks, hunting preserves filled with game and artificial II lakes filled with fish, where there is room for a B whole circle of friends and where the vulgar may B not intrude, the same as the very rich of Hie Old B World indulge in. This is better, but it, too, will B fail unless there, js an ambitiou higher than the B ambition to make a display behind It. There were B certain obligations placed on mortals in the be-B be-B ginnn Which have to be fulfilled in order to so B curq happjness and to nobly perpetuate the race. B The first was the necessity of work; the next to work for a high reward; the next that the work be just not only to the worker but to his fellow fel-low man. When these obligations are ignored, the result is race, degeneration. Happiness without with-out self-respect is a dead-sea apple and self-respect that is not backed by iigh purposes and honest efforts, degenerates in a little While, into intellectual sterility and a falo pride. When a man and woman of this kind come together and a family is raised, the childrer as a rule are degenerates. de-generates. This is justly so for within a generation genera-tion or two the wealth Is dissipated and goes back into the hands of others and former owners are forgotten. No matter what laws may bo made; no matter mat-ter what protection may be drawn around the unscrupulous or shoddy rich, there is an old, inexorable law that enforces an accounting. Sometimes Some-times appeals are made and it requires three or four generations to obtain a final verdict, but it comes at length and there is no appeal. Newport is passing; the great estates will pass after a while and generally those who devote de-vote their lives to mere wealth-gathering and whose children know nothing higher than pleasure pleas-ure seeking and a desire to display their wealth require only two or three generations in which to be forgotten. |