When some member of the “smart set,” who allies herself with the effete nobility of Europe, gives to the world a sample of what a man should be, as did the humble American wife, Nancy Lincoln, then the “Common People” will forget their wrath at the absurd assumption of the worshipers of the British peerage. Women like Martha Washington, Nancy Lincoln, Carrie Harrison, and Frances Cleveland, will ever be contrasted with those samples of the “smart set” who seek the society of the snobs and swells of foreign nations. The wrath of the people will ever be aroused at the arrogant assumption of snobbery and sham aristocracy upon the part of the successful searchers after titles. The saying, by the “smart set,” that the “Common People” have nothing to do with them or their actions, or with how they dispose of their wealth, is quite true; but the unwise exhibition of an attempt to create class distinctions, can arouse such gusts of anger that that wealth, which is held only by paying such taxes as the “Common People” may decree (being, as they are, the majority), that much-prized wealth may be swept away, as a handful of dust, before the storm of the people’s anger. The correspondent of the New York _World_ hastens to vindicate the just censure written, from any suspicion of prejudice concerning New York’s “Four Hundred”; but, in the attempt to vindicate, gives evidence enough of the thought of the people with regard to the morals of any “smart set” possessed of unlimited millions, totally idle, selfish, and luxurious:-- “To vindicate my censures from any suspicion of prejudice, let me hasten to add that the tone of New York’s ‘Four Hundred’ is better than that of any corresponding set in the world. Comparisons are not satisfactory, because the society of Paris is the society of all France, and the society of London is the society of the whole British Empire. Compared with these, the social aristocracy of New York is merely a little clique. It is only just to say that it has not yet reached the coarseness of that fast set in London, which it aspires to imitate, and, if it lacks the refinement which centuries of courtly teaching have given to even the most unruly elements of French aristocracy, it also falls short of that cynicism which ignores all moral influences. Perhaps the present lowered tone of society may be only a passing malady. Perhaps things may get better before they get worse. Who knows? We can only say that unlimited millions, total idleness, and selfish luxury, are conditions not usually conducive to the elevation of morals.” What the people meant by the exhibition of their wrath last November, in the vote that they cast against what they deemed the party of the “smart set,” was the creation only of pictures in future, so sweetly pure as that with which the _World_ correspondent winds up the article:-- [Illustration: JAY GOULD.