THE “WELL-DRESSED” AND THE “WELL-TO-DO.”
“There has for the last few days been a smile on the face of every well-dressed gentleman, and of every well-to-do artisan, who wend their way along the streets of this vast metropolis. It is caused by the opposition exhibition of Friday night in the House of Commons.”
Such is the comfortable announcement of a Tory morning paper,—the very incarnation of spiteful imbecility. Such is the self-complacency of the old Tory hag, that in her wildest moments would bite excessively,—if she only had teeth. She has, however, in the very simplicity of her smirking, let out the whole secret—has, in the sweet serenity of her satisfaction, revealed the selfishness, the wickedness of her creed. Toryism believes only in the well-dressed and the well-to-do. Purple and fine linen are the instrumental parts of her religion. She subscribes, in fact, to forty-three points; four meals a day being added to her Christian Thirty-nine Articles. Her faith is in glossy raiment and a full belly. She has such a reverence for the loaves and fishes, that in the fulness of her devotion, she would eat them—as the author of the Almanach des Gourmands advises the epicure to eat a certain exquisite dainty—“on her knees.” She would die a martyr at the fire;—but then it must be lighted in the kitchen.
The parliamentary exhibition which, according to the Sycorax of Toryism—a Sycorax with double malice, but no potency—has set all the well-dressed and well-to-do part of “this vast metropolis” off in one simultaneous simper, took place on the following motion made by Mr. FIELDEN:—
“Resolved,—That the distress of the working people at the present time is so great through the country, but particularly in the manufacturing districts, that it is the duty of this House to make instant inquiry into the cause and extent of such distress, and devise means to remedy it; and, at all events, to vote no supply of money until such inquiry be made.”—(Hear, hear.)
This motion was negatived by 149 to 41; and it is to this negative that, according to the avowal of our veracious contemporary, we owe the radiant looks that have lighted up the streets of London for the past few days. In the same sense of the writer, but in the better words of the chorus of Tom Thumb—
“Nature seemed to wear a universal grin!”
It being always premised and settled that the term nature only comprehends the people with sleek coats and full stomachs. Nature abhors a vacuum,—therefore has nought to do with empty bellies. Happy are the men whose fate, or better philosophy, has kept them from the turnips and the heather—fortunate mortals, who, banned from the murder of partridges and grouse, have for the last few days of our contemporary, been dwellers in merry London! What exulting faces! What crowds of well-dressed, well-fed Malvolios, “smiling” at one another, though not cross-gartered! To a man prone to ponder on that many-leaved, that scribbled, blurred and blotted volume, the human face,—that mysterious tome printed with care, with cunning and remorse,—that thing of lies, and miseries, and hypocritic gladness,—that volume, stained with tears, and scribbled over and over with daily wants, and daily sufferings, and daily meannesses;—to such a reader who, from the hieroglyphic lines of feigned content, can translate the haggard spirit and the pining heart,—to such a man too often depressed and sickened by the contemplation of the carnivorous faces thronging the streets of London—faces that look as if they deemed the stream of all human happiness flowed only from the Mint,—to such a man, how great the satisfaction, how surpassing the enjoyment of these “last few days!” As with the Thane of Cawdor, every man’s face has been a book; but, alas! luckier than Macbeth, that book has been—Joe Miller!
Every well-dressed gentleman has smiled, but then the source of his satisfaction has been the rags fluttering on the human carcases in the manufacturing districts. Every well-to-do artisan has wended his way along the streets showing his teeth, but then at his own sweet will he can employ those favoured instruments on roast or boiled: hence his smile for those who, gifted with the like weapons, bear them as men bear court swords, for ornament, not use. Alas! the smirk of the well-dressed may be struck into blank astonishment by the fluttering of rags—by a standard of tatters borne by a famine-maddened myriad; the teeth of the dragon want may be sown, and the growth may, as of old, be armed men.
Yet can we wonder at the jocoseness of those arrayed in lawn and broad-cloth—can we marvel at the simper of the artisan fresh from his beef and pudding, solaced with tobacco and porter? Surely not; for the smile breaks under the highest patronage; nay, even broad grins would have the noblest warranty, for his Grace the Duke of Wellington has pronounced rags to be the livery only of wilful idleness—has stamped on the withering brow of destitution the brand of the drunkard. Therefore, clap your hands to your pulpy sides, oh well-dressed, well-to-do London, and disdaining the pettiness of a simper, laugh an ogre’s laugh at the rags of Manchester—grin like a tickled Polyphemus at the hunger of Bolton!
Our babbling, anile friend, in the very looseness of her prating has let out the truth. Or rather—a common custom with her—she has talked in her sleep. Her very weakness has, however, given a point to her revelation.
“Diamonds dart their brightest lustre,
from a palsy-shaken head!”
In the midst of her snores she has but revealed the plot entered into between those most respectable conspirators, Broad Cloth and Beef, against those old offenders, those incorrigible miscreants, Rags and Want! The confederacy is, to be sure, older than the crucified thieves; but then it has not been so undisguisedly avowed. Broad Cloth has, on the contrary, affected a sympathy with tatters, though with a constancy of purpose has refused an ell from its trailing superfluity to solace the wretchedness; the tears of Beef dropt on the lank abdomen of Starvation, are ancient as post diluvian crocodiles.—but it has spared no morsel to the object of its hypocritic sorrow. Now, however, even the decency of deceit is to be dropt, and Broad Cloth is to make sport with the nakedness of the land, and merry Beef is to roar like the bulls of Bashan at the agonies of famine!
As the winter approaches we are promised increasing sources of amusement from the manufacturing districts. What sunny faces will break though the fogs of November—what giggling will drown the cutting blasts of January! Eschewing the wise relaxation of pantomimes, we shall be taught to consult the commercial reports in the newspapers as the highest and fullest source of salutary laughter. How we shall simper when mills are stopped—how crow with laughter when whole factories are silent and deserted! How reader—(for we acknowledge none who are not well-dressed and well-to-do)—how you will scream with joy when banks break!—and how consult the list of bankrupts as the very spirit and essence of the most consummate fun. Insolvency shall henceforth be synonymous with repartee—and compositions with creditors practical bons mots.
Oh! reader—(but mind, you must, we say, to be our reader, be well-dressed and well-to-do; for though we owe the very paper beneath your eye to rags, we trust we are sufficiently in the mode to laugh contemptuously at such abominations)—oh! reader, quit your lighter recreations; seek not for merriment in fictitious humour; it is a poor, unsatisfactory diet, weak and watery; but find substantial drollery from the fluttering of tatters—laugh, and with the crowing joy, grow sleek and lusty at the writhings and the lamentations of want!
We have, however, a recent benevolent instance of the political and social power of dress—an instance gathered from the Court of Spain. The organ (or rather barrel-organ of Toryism, for it has only a set number of tunes) which played our opening quotation, also grinds the following:—
“The Regent Espartero, and the tutor Arguelles, are doing all in their power to keep the young Queen and the Infanta in good humour, encouraging the Princesses in many little indulgences suitable to their age and sex, especially in the article of dress, in which their royal mother was more than inattentive. This line of conduct, coupled with the expected arrival of the Infant, Don Francisco de Paula and his family, who are to be received with every mark of respect, indicates that the present rulers of Spain, aware of their critical situation, wish to strengthen themselves by the support of the great majority of the royal family.”
Thus, if the royal family of Spain have an excess of courtesy and benevolence towards the people, such blessings will drop upon them from the fringed petticoats of the little sovereign. Thus curiously considered, may we not trace a bounteous political measure to the lace veil of a Queen, and find a great national benefit in the toe of a slipper?
Happy Spaniards! Give fine clothes to your rulers, and they yearn with benevolence towards the donors. They do not walk about the streets of Madrid, smiling in the strength of their wardrobe at the nakedness of those who have subscribed the bravery. Oh, ye “well-dressed gentlemen,” and oh, ye “well-to-do artisans!”—be instructed by the new petticoats of Queen Isabella, and smile no at rags and famine.