It is also noticeable that the serviceability of consumption as a
means of repute, as well as the insistence on it as an element of
decency, is at its best in those portions of the community where
the human contact of the individual is widest and the mobility of
the population is greatest. Conspicuous
consumption claims a relatively larger portion of the income of
the urban than of the rural population, and the claim is also
more imperative. The result is that, in order to keep up a decent
appearance, the former habitually live hand-to-mouth to a greater
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.
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