Mr. Greg specially undertakes the defence of deer-parks. But his ground
is that the deer-forests which were denounced as unproductive have been
proved to be the only mode of raising the condition and securing the
well-being of the ill-fed population. If so, "humanitarians" are ready
to hold up both hands in favour of deer-forests. Nay, we are ready to do
the same if the pleasure yielded by the deer-forests bears any
reasonable proportion to the expense and the agricultural sacrifice,
especially if the sportsman is a worker recruiting his exhausted brain,
not a sybarite killing time.
From parks and pleasure-grounds Mr. Greg goes on to horses; and here it
is the same thing over again. The apologist first sneers at those who
object to the millionaire's stud, then lets in the interest of the
community as a limiting principle, and ends by saying: "We may then
allow frankly and without demur, that if he (the millionaire) maintains
more horses than he needs or can use, his expenditure thereon is
strictly pernicious and indefensible, precisely in the same way as it
would be if he burnt so much hay and threw so many bushels of oats into
the fire. He is destroying human food." Now Mr. Greg has only to
determine whether a man who is keeping a score or more of carriage and
saddle horses, is "using" them or not. If he is, "humanitarians" are
perfectly satisfied.
Finally Mr. Greg comes to the case of large establishments of servants.
And here, having set out with intentions most adverse to my theory, he
"blesses it altogether." "Perhaps," he says, "of all the branches of a
wealthy nobleman's expenditure, that which will be condemned with most
unanimity, and defended with most difficulty, is the number of
ostentatious and unnecessary servants it is customary to maintain. For
this practice I have not a word to say. It is directly and indirectly
bad. It is bad for all parties. Its reflex action on the masters
themselves is noxious; it is mischievous to the flunkies who are
maintained in idleness, and in enervating and demoralizing luxury; it is
pernicious to the community at large, and especially to the middle and
upper middle classes, whose inevitable expenditure in procuring fit
domestic service--already burdensomely great--is thereby oppressively
enhanced, till it has become difficult not only to find good household
servants at moderate wages, but to find servants who will work
diligently and faithfully for any wages at all."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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