Now let us draw the veil over where “Chappie” spends his evenings. “Chappie’s” pleasures and “Chappie’s” unnatural amusements would cause a blush of shame to redden the face of the humblest horny-handed son of toil. “Chappie’s” exhausted nature has ceased to realize sensations natural to men and sons of God. “Chappie” is much poorer than his progenitor, the old fur trader; for the old fur trader was rich in all the natural inclinations and appetites created by a natural and vigorous manhood. The old fur trader had no coat-of-arms; but, “Chappie,” that old fur trader would blush at the decadence of his own descendant! When the historian, “Chappie,” shall make up the records of this great nation, that old fur trader, though he swindled the Indians and debauched them with rum, had that which you, “Chappie,” lack—manliness, courage, and character, even though the character was of a peculiar kind.
You have no character, “Chappie.” The Common People have found you a tumor, an excrescence upon the body politic. They have taken their knife to amputate, from wholesome Americanism, a foreign infliction. Be careful, “Chappie,” that the amputation does not include the severance of that semblance of a head that you carry on your sloping shoulders. Be warned in time; you and yours have wealth, luxury, influence, and obedience upon the part of those you dominate. You have all that wealth will buy—villas at Newport, yachts, palaces. You revel in banquets, balls, and glittering assemblages. The poor man’s home is illuminated alone by the light shed by honor. He who would steal or deprive him of that one light, takes all from him that makes his life worth the living. The poor man’s honor is the honor of his wife and children. Your immoralities have increased, like appetite, by what they fed upon. It is not after you, the deluge, but it is around you, the deluge. It is in the air, because it is in the hearts of the Common People.
It is no exaggeration to say that the assumed license which young men of the “Chappie” class exhibit in their lives, morals, and manners, has done much to disgust the large mass of the people. The oft-repeated expression, that “virtue and honesty in England is confined to the great middle classes,” is reiterated by those of the “Chappie” class in America as an excuse for their own misdemeanors. The flagrantly sinful lives, filled with debauchery, which they lead, is an evidence, to their poor intellects, of their being members of the sham aristocracy with which America is cursed. The society of the kind composed of “Chappies” is so objectionable to the decency and intelligence of the Common People that its exclusiveness would be almost a virtue.
The Common People of respectability would never seek “Chappie’s” society, and their hearts are filled with resentment at his supercilious manner and ignoble intentions when seeking the society of the Common People.
ABE, THE RAIL-SPLITTER.—The “Common People” Made Him President.