The nation's "heart and core,"
Him we are all agreeing
To flatter—and much more.
"Why should the poor be flattered?"
You pause for a reply—
But, if our brains are battered,
Dear Hamlet, don't ask why.
When critics complained of the extravagance of the rich in their entertainments and house-decoration and found in the newspaper accounts of this luxury an explanation of industrial discontent and strikes for higher wages, Punch did not hesitate to fall back on the disputable argument that the consumption of luxuries involved the profitable employment of those who produce them:—
Suppose, instead of flowers and dessert at £200, including peaches at a guinea a-piece; suppose, instead of a house decorated by Mr. Owen Jones, and a set of aluminium plate, millionaires were to spend their money in founding schools and scholarships, for instance, and in educating their poor relations' children, and sending them to the Universities; even suppose they expended it in almshouses, and Peabodying the destitute, the mechanical working-classes would have far less cause to be satisfied with them than they are now. It may be that there is a wiser and a better use for riches than lavish expenditure on the productions of market-gardening and decorative art; but the consumption, at any rate, benefits producers, and enables employers in those lines of business to pay the artisans and labourers the higher wages. So the working-classes, at least, need not grumble.