Allied to this expression is a phrase which may even be said to have a kind of literary merit. "Don't care a damn" is indicative of about the utmost possible amount of unconcern. It would be in vain to seek for any object more intrinsically inconsiderable with which to liken a condition of indifference. Anstey seizes upon it in his 'Bath Guide':-- "Absurd as I am, I don't care a damn Either for you or your valet-de-sham." But curiously enough this figure of speech was originally as independent of the "shibboleth" as we have seen that was of the classic "damno." There is in India a piece of money of the minutest value, which is known as a _dam_. The phrase, therefore, so far from originating in a fanciful comparison, really does nothing more than announce a prosaic fact. It has been said that the expression was occasionally used by the "great Duke," a circumstance for which the Indian experiences of the victor of Assaye has been held sufficient to account. Mr. Trevelyan, indeed, in his 'Life of Lord Macaulay' (ii. 257) states positively that the Duke of Wellington invented this oath. Etymology, which has thus brushed away what one might have taken to be a thoroughly characteristic expression, also supplies a matter-of-fact explanation for another modification of the phrase. "Don't care a curse," or "Not worth a curse," we might fondly imagine to possess something of poetic imagery. The learned in derivations undeceive us. They say that the word _curse_ is here identical with the plant "cress." In that sense, "not worth a curse" will be found in Piers Ploughman's Vision, the remarkable work of the fourteenth century. * * * * * Since the days when City madams and Fleet Street apprentices flocked round the dusty scaffold of the Blackfriars play-house, and laughed and rallied one another, or possibly took passing umbrage at the satire that was being levelled at this newly-nurtured word, what a remarkable, what an astounding ascendancy has it not enjoyed? No mint has ever issued its metal more swiftly than has this exchequer of bad language, or given it a more unmistakable impression. And yet there is nothing healthful, nothing good in it. From the disorders which first environed it, it has never yet recovered. It lives only by disease and unhealthiness, and when it has rid itself of disease and unhealthiness it will die. CHAPTER IV. WHICH GIVES A DOG A BAD NAME.