§ 7.

After all it is a pitiful controversy, this about the relative vices of rich and poor. Two school-boys taunting each other, with faults of which they were equally guilty, would best parody it. Whilst indignant Radicalism denounces “the vile aristocrats,” these in their turn enlarge with horror on the brutality of the mob. Neither party sees its own sins. Neither party recognises in the other, itself in a different dress. Neither party can believe that it would do all the other does if placed in like circumstances. Yet a cool bystander finds nothing to choose between them; knows that these class recriminations are but the inflammatory symptoms of a uniformly-diffused immorality. Label men how you please with titles of “upper,” and “middle,” and “lower,” you cannot prevent them being units of the same society, acted upon by the same spirit of the age, moulded after the same type of character. The mechanical law, that action and reaction are equal, has its moral analogue. The deed of one man to another tends ultimately to produce a like effect upon both, be the deed good or bad. Do but put them in relationship, and no division into castes, no differences of wealth, can prevent men from assimilating. Whoso is placed amongst the savage will in process of time get savage too; let his companions be treacherous, and he will become treacherous in self-defence; surround him with the kind-hearted and he will soften; amidst the refined he will acquire polish; and the same influences which thus rapidly adapt the individual to his society, ensure, though by a slower process, the general uniformity of a national character. This is no unsupported theory. Look when or where we please, thickly-strewn Edition: current; Page: [230] proofs may be gathered. The cruelties of the old Roman rulers were fully paralleled by those over which the populace gloated in their arenas. During the servile wars of the middle ages, barons tortured rebels, and rebels tortured barons, with equally diabolical ferocity. Those massacres which took place a few years since in Gallicia covered with infamy both the people who committed them and the government who paid for them at per head. The Assam chiefs, to whom the East India Company have allowed compensation for abandoning their established right of plunder, are neither better nor worse than the mass of the people, amongst whom joint-stock robbing companies are common. A similar sameness is exhibited in Russia, where all are alike swindlers, from the Prince Marshal who cheats the troops out of their rations, the officers who rob the Emperor of his stores, the magistrates who require bribing before they will act, the police who have secret treaties with the thieves, the shopkeepers who boast of their successful trickeries, down to the postmasters and dhrosky-drivers with their endless impositions. In Ireland, during the last century, whilst the people had their faction fights and secret revenge societies, duelling formed the amusement of the gentry, and was carried to such a pitch that the barrister was bound to give satisfaction to the witness he had bullied, or to the client who was dissatisfied with hima. And let us not forget how completely this unity of character is exhibited by the Irish of to-day, amongst whom Orangemen and Catholics display the same truculent bigotry; amongst whom magistrates and people join in party riots; and amongst whom the improvidence of the peasantry is only to be paralleled by that of the landlords. Our own history furnishes like illustrations in plenty. The time when England swarmed with highwaymen and outlaws, and when the populace had that sneaking kindness for a bold robber still shown in some parts Edition: current; Page: [231] of the Continent, was the time when kings also played the bandit; when they cheated their creditors by debasing the coinage; when they impressed labourers to build their palaces (Windsor Castle, for instance), obliging them under pain of imprisonment to take the wages offered; and when they seized and sold men’s goods, paying the owners less than a third of what the goods realized. During the age of religious persecution, Papists martyred Protestants, and Protestants martyred Papists, with equal cruelty; and Cavaliers and Roundheads treated each other with the same rancour. In the present day dishonesty shows itself not less in the falsification of dockyard accounts, or the “cooking” of railway-reports, than in burglary or sheep-stealing; whilst those who see heartlessness in the dealings of slop-tailors and their sweaters, may also find it in the conduct of rich landlords, who get double rent from poor allotment holdersa, and in that of respectable ladies who underpay half-starved seamstressesb Changes in tastes and amusements are similarly common to all. The contrast between the Squire Westerns and their descendants has its analogy amongst the people. As in Spain a bull fight is still the favourite pastime of both the Queen and her subjects, so in England fifty Edition: current; Page: [232] years ago, the cock-pit and the prize-ring were patronized alike by peer and pauper; and a reference to the sporting papers will show that the lingering instincts of the savage are at this moment exhibited by about an equal percentage of all classes.

Thus the alleged homogeneity of national character is abundantly exemplified. And so long as the assimilating influences productive of it continue at work, it is folly to suppose any one grade of a community can be morally different from the rest. In whichever rank you see corruption, be assured it equally pervades all ranks—be assured it is the symptom of a bad social diathesis. Whilst the virus of depravity exists in one part of the body politic, no other part can remain healthy.