Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
Unhappily, my indomitable friend Plugson of Undershot has, in a
great degree, forgotten them;--as, alas, all the world has; as,
alas, our very Dukes and Soul-Overseers have, whose special trade
it was to remember them! Hence these tears.--Plugson, who has
indomitably spun Cotton merely to gain thousands of pounds, I
have to call as yet a Bucanier and Chactaw; till there come
something better, still more indomitable from him. His hundred
Thousand-pound Notes, if there be nothing other, are to me but as
the hundred Scalps in a Chactaw wigwam. The blind Plugson: he
was a Captain of Industry, born member of the Ultimate genuine
Aristocracy of this Universe, could he have known it! These
thousand men that span and toiled round him, they were a regiment
whom he had enlisted, man by man; to make war on a very genuine
enemy: Bareness of back, and disobedient Cotton-fibre, which
will not, unless forced to it, consent to cover bare backs. Here
is a most genuine enemy; over whom all creatures will wish him
victory. He enlisted his thousand men; said to them, "Come,
brothers, let us have a dash at Cotton!" They follow with
cheerful shout; they gain such a victory over Cotton as the
Earth has to admire and clap hands at: but, alas, it is yet only
of the Bucanier or Chactaw sort,--as good as no victory! Foolish
Plugson of St. Dolly Undershot: does he hope to become
illustrious by hanging up the scalps in his wigwam, the hundred
thousands at his banker's, and saying, Behold my scalps? Why,
Plugson, even thy own host is all in mutiny: Cotton is
conquered; but the 'bare backs'--are worse covered than ever!
Indomitable Plugson, thou must cease to be a Chactaw; thou and
others; thou thyself, if no other!
Did William the Norman Bastard, or any of his Taillefers,
_Ironcutters,_ manage so? Ironcutter, at the end of the
campaign, did not turn off his thousand fighters, but said to
them: "Noble fighters, this is the land we have gained; be I
Lord in it,--what we will call _Law-ward,_ maintainer and
_keeper_ of Heaven's _Laws:_ be I _Law-ward,_ or in brief
orthoepy _Lord_ in it, and be ye Loyal Men around me in it; and
we will stand by one another, as soldiers round a captain, for
again we shall have need of one another!" Plugson, bucanier-
like, says to them: "Noble spinners, this is the Hundred
Thousand we have gained, wherein I mean to dwell and plant
vineyards; the hundred thousand is mine, the three and sixpence
daily was yours: adieu, noble spinners; drink my health with
this groat each, which I give you over and above!" The entirely
unjust Captain of Industry, say I; not Chevalier, but Bucanier!
'Commercial Law' does indeed acquit him; asks, with wide eyes,
What else? So too Howel Davies asks, Was it not according to the
strictest Bucanier Custom? Did I depart in any jot or tittle
from the Laws of the Bucaniers?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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