extent than the latter. So it comes, for instance, that the
American farmer and his wife and daughters are notoriously less
modish in their dress, as well as less urbane in their manners,
than the city artisan's family with an equal income. It is not
that the city population is by nature much more eager for the
peculiar complacency that comes of a conspicuous consumption, nor
has the rural population less regard for pecuniary decency. But
the provocation to this line of evidence, as well as its
transient effectiveness, is more decided in the city. This method
is therefore more readily resorted to, and in the struggle to
outdo one another the city population push their normal standard
of conspicuous consumption to a higher point, with the result
that a relatively greater expenditure in this direction is
required to indicate a given degree of pecuniary decency in the
city. The requirement of conformity to this higher conventional
standard becomes mandatory. The standard of decency is higher,
class for class, and this requirement of decent appearance must
be lived up to on pain of losing caste.

Consumption becomes a larger element in the standard of living in
the city than in the country. Among the country
population its place is to some extent taken by savings and home
comforts known through the medium of neighborhood gossip
sufficiently to serve the like general purpose of Pecuniary
repute. These home comforts and the leisure indulged in -- where
the indulgence is found -- are of course also in great part to be
classed as items of conspicuous consumption; and much the same is
to be said of the savings. The smaller amount of the savings laid
by by the artisan class is no doubt due, in some measure, to the
fact that in the case of the artisan the savings are a less