Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
'When the very Tailor verges towards Sansculottism, is it not
ominous? The last Divinity of poor mankind dethroning himself;
sinking _his_ taper too, flame downmost, like the Genius of Sleep
or of Death; admonitory that Tailor-time shall be no more!--For
little as one could advise Sumptuary Laws at the present epoch,
yet nothing is clearer than that where ranks do actually exist,
strict division of costumes will also be enforced; that if we
ever have a new Hierarchy and Aristocracy, acknowledged veritably
as such, for which I daily pray Heaven, the Tailor will reawaken;
and be, by volunteering and appointment, consciously and
unconsciously, a safeguard of that same.'--Certain farther
observations, from the same invaluable pen, on our never-ending
changes of mode, our 'perpetual nomadic and even ape-like
appetite for change and mere change' in all the equipments of our
existence, and the 'fatal revolutionary character' thereby
manifested, we suppress for the present. It may be admitted that
Democracy, in all meanings of the word, is in full career;
irresistible by any Ritter Kauderwalsch or other Son of Adam, as
times go. 'Liberty' is a thing men are determined to have.
But truly, as I had to remark in the meanwhile, 'the liberty of
not being oppressed by your fellow man' is an indispensable, yet
one of the most insignificant fractional parts of Human Liberty.
No man oppresses thee, can bid thee fetch or carry, come or go,
without reason shewn. True; from all men thou art emancipated:
but from Thyself and from the Devil--? No man, wiser, unwiser,
can make thee come or go: but thy own futilities, bewilderments,
thy false appetites for Money, Windsor Georges and such like? No
man oppresses thee, O free and independent Franchiser: but does
not this stupid Porter-pot oppress thee? No Son of Adam can bid
thee come or go; but this absurd Pot of Heavy-wet, this can and
does! Thou art the thrall not of Cedric the Saxon, but of thy
own brutal appetites, and this scoured dish of liquor. And thou
pratest of thy liberty? Thou entire blockhead!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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