Few fashionable women have time to attend to their families. These are
left to the mercy of hirelings. The titles of wife and mother are
becoming merely complimentary. They are ceasing to suggest the best and
purest types of womanhood. That of mother is becoming decidedly old
fogyish, and to-day your fine lady takes care that her maternal
instincts shall be smothered, and that her family shall not increase
beyond a convenient number. Children grow up in idleness and
extravagance, and are unfitted for any of the great duties of life.
They are taught to regard wealth as the only thing to be desired, and
they are forced up as rapidly as possible to join the ranks of the fast
young men and women of New York, who disgrace what are called our
"upper circles."


EXTRAVAGANCE.

Extravagance is the besetting sin of New York society. Money is thrown
away. Fortunes are spent every year in dress, and in all sorts of
follies. Houses are furnished and fitted up in the most sumptuous
style, the building and its contents often being worth over a million
of dollars.

[Illustration: A Fashionable Thief--Shoplifting.]

People live up to every cent of their incomes, and often beyond them.
It is no uncommon occurrence for a fine mansion, its furniture,
pictures, and even the jewels and clothes of its occupants, to be
pledged to some usurer for the means with which to carry on this life
of luxury. Each person strives to outdo the rest of his or her
acquaintances. The rage for fine houses and fine clothes is carried to