Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, CompleteVarious
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
Granting this, the popular advocates of civilisation certainly are not
the most civilised of individuals. They appear to consider yellow ochre
and peacocks feathers the climax of barbarismmarabouts and kalydor the
acme of refinement. A ring through the nose calls forth their deepest
pitya diamond drop to the ear commands their highest respect. To them,
nothing can show a more degraded state of nature than a New Zealand
chief, with his distinctive coat of arms emblazoned on the skin of his
face; nor anything of greater social elevation than an English peer,
with the glittering label of his nobility tacked to his breast. To a
rational mind, the one is not a whit more barbarous than the other; they
being, as Sir Joshua observes, the real barbarians who, like these soi-
disant civilisers, would look upon their own monstrosities as the sole
standard of excellence.
The philosophy of the present age, however, is peculiarly the philosophy
of outsides. Few dive deeper into the human breast than the bosom of the
shirt. Who could doubt the heart that beats beneath a cambric front? or
who imagine that hand accustomed to dirty work which is enveloped in
white kid? What Prometheus was to the physical, Stultz is to the moral
manthe one made human beings out of clay, the other cuts characters out
of broad-cloth. Gentility is, with us, a thing of the goose and shears;
and nobility an attributenot of the mind, but (supreme civilisation!)
of a garter!
Certain modern advocates appear to be devout believers in this external
philosophy. They are touchingly eloquent upon the savage state of those
who indulge in yellow ochre, but conveniently mute upon the condition of
those who prefer carmine. They are beautifully alive to the degradation
of that race of people which crushes the feet of its children, but
wonderfully dead to the barbarism of that race, nearer home, which
performs a like operation upon the ribs of its females. By them, also,
we are told that words would manifestly fail in portraying so low a
state of morals as is pictured in the lineaments of an Australian
chief,a stretch of the outside philosophy which we certainly were not
prepared to meet with; for little did we dream that this noble science
could ever have attained such eminence, that men of intellect would be
able to discover immorality in particular noses, and crime in a certain
conformation of the chin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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