The first—High-Caste. Those who do nothing useful and pass their time in mere self-indulgence.
The second—High-second Caste. Those who do but very little, and come as nearly as possible to the selfish existence of the first.
The third—High-low. Those who are obliged to work more or less, but are ever longing to attain to the idle selfishness of those above them.
The fourth—Lowest Caste (Villeins). Labourers, not long since serfs, and still so in effect.
The fourth Caste is so low down as to be usually disregarded altogether, in any account of the people, though included in the count taken of the population by Government. They may amount to nearly a half of the whole. They are rarely styled people at all. They are designated by many contemptuous names, of which the more common are my man, navvy, clown, clod-hopper, parish-poor; boor, rough, brute, and beast are frequent, especially when any of the despised Caste slouch too near, or happen to touch a Higher Caste.
When a man of the higher orders thinks to take a wife, he sees to it that she will bring him money enough to compensate the cost. He dislikes to part with his easy freedom and yoke to himself a being as selfish, frivolous, and useless as himself.
He may be broken in fortune and notorious for immoralities, yet, connected to the Aristocracy, he knows that he may demand a large sum if he will take for wife a woman a little lower in family than himself. She must be of High-Caste, but not of the highest.
The woman's relatives say, "Well, he is fast; but marriage will settle him. His father, you know, is second son to the Earl of Nolands, and his mother was a sixth cousin to the Duke of Albania, who has royal blood in his veins. I think we may make a large allowance for such a desirable match." It does not occur to the speaker, at the moment, that the royal blood coursed through very impure channels in the case cited.
It is an object eagerly sought by low rich to buy for their daughters a High-Caste husband; and men of this kind, ruined by gambling, loaded with debt, often degraded by vice, deliberately calculate upon this ambition to repair their fortunes, and get comfortable establishments.