A Bon Ton Divorce of 1850

We have already stated that there is no positive criminality testified to by the witnesses against Mrs. Forrest, although many of the circumstances described by them give a very curious picture of the fashionable manners among a portion of the “elite,” or those who call themselves the elite, in New York. – The bon ton of 1850 in their Easter Parade fashions. – image source, Pinterest

Literary and Fashionable Socialism—

The Recent Divorce Cases

We have published, elsewhere, the whole of the evidence presented to the Legislature of Pennsylvania, in the Forrest divorce case. It presents some remarkable features, illustrating the morals and manners of the day, in such a way as to draw down a great deal of attention upon certain literary and fashionable leaders of the “bon ton” in these latitudes. 

We have already stated that there is no positive criminality testified to by the witnesses against Mrs. Forrest, although many of the circumstances described by them give a very curious picture of the fashionable manners among a portion of the “elite,” or those who call themselves the elite, in New York. 

The principal persons figuring in this testimony are N. P. Willis, Chevalier Wikoff, Jameson the actor, Professor Hackley, of Columbia College, and we may add, Capt. Calcraft, who is represented to be a relative of Lord Clanricarde, Postmaster General of England. When the trial comes on, these gentlemen will have an opportunity to make their own statements. 

One thing strikes us in regard to this and other divorce cases, which are now before the Legislature of Pennsylvania. The manners, the style of life, the mode of social enjoyment, which are developed by the evidence in these cases, and particularly in those of Mr. Middleton’s and Forrest’s, are, we believe, copied or imitated from the manners and customs of fashionable society and literary socialists in Paris and other great cities of Europe. 

Mr. N. P. W. Tillis, the very pink of fashion, and editor of a fashionable journal, has been endeavoring to indoctrinate the fashionable people of this community, for several years past, with all the graces, all the elegance, all the classic freedoms of society, which have prevailed so long in Europe. An elegant French writer, connected with certain society here, is also publishing a French periodical, having the same purpose in view; introducing in our fashionable circles the tone, temper, and elegant characteristics of European society and literary socialism of the most attic kind. 

The house of Mr Forrest, during his absence on professional tours, appears to have been made the centre of much fashionable enjoyment, conceived and executed according to the latest doctrines and ideas inculcated by such writings. Still all this style of society, or character of social enjoyment on the “European plan,” by no means seems to have suited the straightforward, calm, considerate, regular notions of Mr. Forrest, who is a native of the Quaker city of Philadelphia, and though an actor, seems still to possess many of their upright notions of propriety. Yet not a season passes at Saratoga or Newport, that the fashionable classes, who frequent these resorts, do not practice, and “carry on,” as it might be called, in the same style, with the same grace, and with as much freedom as that described in the Middleton and Forest testimony. 

In fact, our watering places in summer, and our opera circles in winter, present scenes of poetic enjoyment and sentimental freedom, equal to any thing exhibited by the classic socialists of Europe, of the highest and most fastidious kind. High poetic temperament, great mental cultivation, duly mixed with slices of canvas back ducks, and little oceans of sparkling champagne, will scarcely fail to produce such scenes of enjoyment, and such testimony for divorces — equal to anything of the like kind in France or Germany. Alas! alas ! We pity Mr. Forrest — we pity as fervently Mrs. Forrest. They have both been made the dupes of these new doctrines in philosophy, manners, morals, and classic socialism of the latest pattern.— The N.Y. Tribune, 1850

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