You have yourself been in an omnibus when a stout passenger has presented himself to the conductor, and petitioned for a place. You are all snugly seated—why should you be disturbed? “The seats are full!” “Keep him out!” But the intruder is in, he presses forward to the inner corner, perhaps treading on some testy gentleman's toes. How you hate that new-comer, until you get fairly “shook down” and settled again in your places! The door opens again—another passenger! “Keep him out!” cry the company, and strange to say, the loudest vociferator of the whole, is the very passenger who last came in. He in his turn becomes conservative, after having fairly got a place inside.
It is the same through life. There is a knocking from time to time at the door of the constitution. “What's that noise?” ask the men in power. “It's a lot of men, my lords and gentlemen.” “What do they want?” “They want to come in.” “Well, keep them out!” And those who are comfortably seated within the pale, re-echo the cry of “Keep them out.” Why should they be disturbed in their seats, and made uncomfortable?
But somehow, by dint of loud knocking, the men, or a rush of them, at length do contrive to get in; and after sundry shovings and jostlings, they get seated, and begin to feel comfortable, when there is another knocking louder than before. Would you believe it? the last accommodated are now the most eager of all to keep the [pg 516] door closed against the new-comers; and “Keep them out!” is their vociferous cry.
Here is a batch of learned men debating the good of their order. They are considering how their profession may be advanced. What is the gist of their decisions?—the enactment of laws against all intruders upon their comfort and quiet. They make their calling a snug monopoly, and contrive matters so that as few as possible are admitted to share the good things of their class. “Keep them out!” is the cry of all the learned professions.
“Keep them out!” cry the barristers, when the attorneys claim to be admitted to plead before certain courts. “Keep them out!” cry the attorneys, when ordinary illegal men claim to argue a case before the county court. “Keep her out!” cry both barristers and attorneys, when Mrs. Cobbett claims to be heard in her imprisoned husband's cause. “What! a woman plead in the courts? If such a thing be allowed, who knows where such license is to end?” And she is kept out accordingly.
“Keep them out!” cry the apothecaries, when a surgeon from beyond the Tweed or the Irish Channel claims to prescribe and dispense medicine to English subjects. “Keep them out!” cry the doctors, when the Homœopathists offer the public their millionth-grain doses. “Keep them out!” cry physicians and surgeons and apothecaries of all ranks, when it is proposed to throw open the profession to the female sex.
But you find the same cry among the working classes of every grade. Mechanics and tradesmen insist on all applicants for admission to their calling serving long apprenticeships. If the apprenticeships are not served, then “Keep them out!” is the word. Shoulder to shoulder they exclude the applicants for leave to toil. “Knobsticks” are pelted. They must join the union—must be free of the craft—must conform to the rules—subscribe to the funds—pay the footings, and so on; otherwise they are kept out with a vengeance.
In the circles of fashion the same cry is frequent. A new man appears in society. “Who is he?” “Only So-and-so!” He is a retired grocer, or as Cobbett called Sadler, “a linen-draper;” and the exclusive class immediately club together for the purpose of “Keeping him out.” He is “cut.” Even the new man of high-sounding title is accounted as nothing among the old families who boast of their “blue blood.” Wealth goes a great way, but still that does not compensate for the accident of birth and connections among these classes.
Every class has its own standard. The money classes have theirs too. Even tradesmen and their wives go in sets, and there is always some class outside their own set, which they contrive to “keep out.” The aristocratic contagion thus extends from the highest to the verge of the lowest class of society in England. Is not monopoly the rule among us, whenever we can find an opportunity of establishing it? Monopoly or exclusivism in art, in theology, in trade, in literature, in sociology. Look at the forty Royal Academicians setting their backs up against every new-comer in art, and combining with one accord to “Keep him out.” That is the monopoly of art; and people at large call it a humbug; but they are not more tolerant or wise when their own craft comes to be dealt with. Each in his turn is found ready to combine with somebody else, to “keep out” all intruders on their special preserves. The “Flaming Tinman,” in Lavengro, pummels and puts to flight the poor tinker who intrudes upon his beat; the costers combine to keep out freshmen from theirs; English navvies band together to drive Irish navvies off their contracts; and Irish tenants pick off, from behind a hedge, the intruders upon their holdings. Even the searchers of the sewers maintain a kind of monopoly of their unholy calling, and will recognize no man as a brother who has not been duly initiated in the mysteries of the search. The sewer-searcher is as exclusive in his way as the leader of fashion at Almacks. “Keep him out!” is, in short, the watchword of all classes, of all ranks, of all callings, of all crafts, of all interests. We used to “keep out” the foreign corn-grower, but though he may now come in, there is exclusiveness and monopoly in ten thousand other forms, which no legislation can ever touch.