Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 431, September 1851Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 431, September 1851
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Watering-places, and towns of fashionable resort, have suffered in
a like degree. The gentry, whose rents have been most seriously
affected by the unnatural diminution of prices, are compelled to
curtail their expenditure, and to deny themselves many things which
formerly would have been esteemed legitimate indulgences. Economy is
the order Of the day: equipages are given up, servants dismissed,
and old furniture made to last beyond its appointed time. These
things, I most freely admit, are no great hardships to the gentry;
nor do I intend to awaken your compassion in behalf of the squire,
who, by reason of his contracted rent-roll, has been compelled
to part with his carriage and a couple of footmen, and to refuse
his wife and daughters the pleasure of a trip to Cheltenham. The
hardship lies elsewhere. I pity the footmen, the coach-builder, the
upholsterer, the house proprietor in Cheltenham, and all the other
people to whom the surplus of the squire's revenue found its way,
much more than the old gentleman himself. I daresay he is quite
as happy at home--perhaps far happier--than if he were compelled
to racket elsewhere; and sure I am that he will not consume his
dinner with less appetite because he lacks the attendance of a
couple of knaves, with heads like full-blown cauliflowers. But is
it consistent with the workings of human nature to expect that the
people to whom he formerly gave employment and custom, let us say
to the extent of a couple of thousand pounds, can be gratified by
the cessation of that expenditure?--or is it possible to suppose
that they will remain enamoured of a system which has caused them
so heavy a loss? View the subject in this light, and you can have
no difficulty in understanding why this formidable reaction has
taken place in the English boroughs. It is simply a question of
the pocket; and the electors now see, that unless the boroughs are
to be left to rapid decay, something must be done to protect and
foster that industry upon which they all depend. Such facts, which
are open and patent to every man's experience, and tell upon his
income and expenditure, are worth whole cargoes of theory. What
reason has the trader, whose stock is remaining unsold upon his
hands, to plume himself, because he is assured by Mr Porter, or
some other similar authority, that some hundred thousand additional
yards of flimsy calico have been shipped from the British shores
in the course of the last twelve months? So far as the shopkeeper
is concerned, the author of the _Progress of the Nation_ might as
well have been reporting upon the traffic-tables of Tyre and Sidon.
He is not even assured that all this export has been accompanied
with a profit to the manufacturer. If he reads the _Economist_, he
will find that exhilarating print filled with complaints of general
distress and want of demand; he will be startled from time to time
by the announcement that in some places, such as Dundee, trade
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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