Nutts. Why, yes. But then the steps themselves needn’t be in muck, need they? Why shouldn’t the lowest of us have plenty of sweet water, and God’s sweet air, and all be raised together?
Slowgoe. ’Thusyism, as I say, is very well; but you know nothin’ of political economy. Look here. A man gets used to all the Common Council talks about; to wholesome lodging, and all that. Well, he doesn’t go to the gin-shop. Then, how, I ask you, is the revenoo to be kept up? Where’s taxes to come from? I was only readin’ it yesterday. It seems that the publican alone pays money enough to build all the ships, pay all the sailors, fit out all the sojers with their cannons and bayonets, and what not. Well, the man who’s a good stiff drinker ought to feel pride in this. Every sojer he sees, every musket that’s made, every ball-cartridge that goes into the warm bowels of an enemy, he helps with every blessed drop of gin he swallows, to pay for. Isn’t it, or oughtn’t it to be, a comfort to a man, if he hasn’t a bit of liver left, to know that it’s gone to help to load bullets, and sharpen swords, and pipeclay cross-belts? I say it: a man with no liver, his tongue like shoe-leather, his nose no better than a stale strawberry, and every limb on him shaking like leaves upon the aspling-tree, sich a man, thinkin’ what the publican pays through him, may still go into the Parks, and seeing the sojers on parade, take a pride in ’em.
Nutts. Well, and suppose the man is taken out of the muck that’s helped to make him drink? What then?
Slowgoe. What then? Why, then comes the danger to Government. The man doesn’t go to the public-house. No: he gets used to a clean place and a clean shirt; and has light about him, and doesn’t live like a two-legged bat, and has water enough to swim in. Well, he begins to read and to think, and to trouble his head about his vote, and all such stuff, that with the gin-glass at his mouth, he never dreamt on. Well, the end on it is, such will be the presumption of the poorer sort, when you take ’em from dirt and darkness, which, in my ’pinion, is their nat’ral elyment—such is their conceit, that I’m blest if they soon won’t talk of having a stake in the country!
Nosebag. Well, and every man as has muscles and bones, and is willing to work with ’em, has a stake, hasn’t he?
Slowgoe. Where is it? You can’t see it!
Nutts. Why, suppose his muscles and his bones helps to build a house for a man?
Slowgoe. Well, it’s the man’s stake it’s built for, and not his’n that builds it. And that’s perlitical economy. But I was goin’ to say when you put me out, that the Government doesn’t know what it’s after encouragin’ cleanliness, and temperance, and such new-fangled stuff. It’s all revolution in disguise. We’ve had gunpowder revolution, and moral revolutions; but they’re nothing to what’s coming, for they’ll be the revolutions of water and soap. No government upon the ’versal earth can stand with everybody clean and sober. Do away with the swinish multitude, and I ask you, what becomes of the guinea-pigs o’ society? Tell me that.
Nosebag. Why, we shall all be guinea-pigs together.
Slowgoe. Impossible! The likes o’ you a guinea-pig! ’Tisn’t in nature. All I ask is, where will you get your taxes? Last week at the great meetin’ o’ the waters, as I call it, at Common Garden Theatre—last week, I stood in Bow Street, and watched mobs o’ people goin’ in, all on ’em conspiring against the revenoo of the country. There wasn’t one there, man or ’oman—and very pretty women some on ’em was, bloomin’ like fresh flowers in fresh water—that wasn’t a conspirator aginst the taxes that pays the sojers and the sailors, and the salaries in Woolwich Dockyard, and the Government never sent the p’lice to take ’em, but let ’em all sport away like the fountain in Temple Gardens. Temperance and cleanliness! I’ve lived to see somethin’! I’ve heard of the age of iron, the age of gold, and the age of silver, and I should like to know what age we are to call this?