Miscellaneous Papers | Page 5

of April. He won't be supported, sir, I
know he won't; but it is worth remembering that his words were carried
into every manufacturing town of this kingdom, and read aloud to
crowds in every political parlour, beer-shop, news-room, and secret or
open place of assembly, frequented by the discontented working-men;
and that no milk-and-water weakness on the part of the executive can
ever blot them out. Great things like that, are caught up, and stored up,
in these times, and are not forgotten, Mr. Hood. The public at large
(especially those who wish for peace and conciliation) are universally
obliged to him. If it is reserved for any man to set the Thames on fire, it
is reserved for him; and indeed I am told he very nearly did it, once.
But even he won't save the constitution, sir: it is mauled beyond the
power of preservation. Do you know in what foul weather it will be
sacrificed and shipwrecked, Mr. Hood? Do you know on what rock it
will strike, sir? You don't, I am certain; for nobody does know as yet
but myself. I will tell you.
The constitution will go down, sir (nautically speaking), in the
degeneration of the human species in England, and its reduction into a
mingled race of savages and pigmies.
That is my proposition. That is my prediction. That is the event of
which I give you warning. I am now going to prove it, sir.
You are a literary man, Mr. Hood, and have written, I am told, some
things worth reading. I say I am told, because I never read what is

written in these days. You'll excuse me; but my principle is, that no
man ought to know anything about his own time, except that it is the
worst time that ever was, or is ever likely to be. That is the only way,
sir, to be truly wise and happy.
In your station, as a literary man, Mr. Hood, you are frequently at the
Court of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen. God bless her! You have
reason to know that the three great keys to the royal palace (after rank
and politics) are Science, Literature, Art. I don't approve of this myself.
I think it ungenteel and barbarous, and quite un-English; the custom
having been a foreign one, ever since the reigns of the uncivilised
sultans in the Arabian Nights, who always called the wise men of their
time about them. But so it is. And when you don't dine at the royal
table, there is always a knife and fork for you at the equerries' table:
where, I understand, all gifted men are made particularly welcome.
But all men can't be gifted, Mr. Hood. Neither scientific, literary, nor
artistical powers are any more to be inherited than the property arising
from scientific, literary, or artistic productions, which the law, with a
beautiful imitation of nature, declines to protect in the second
generation. Very good, sir. Then, people are naturally very prone to
cast about in their minds for other means of getting at Court Favour;
and, watching the signs of the times, to hew out for themselves, or their
descendants, the likeliest roads to that distinguished goal.
Mr. Hood, it is pretty clear, from recent records in the Court Circular,
that if a father wish to train up his son in the way he should go, to go to
Court: and cannot indenture him to be a scientific man, an author, or an
artist, three courses are open to him. He must endeavour by artificial
means to make him a dwarf, a wild man, or a Boy Jones.
Now, sir, this is the shoal and quicksand on which the constitution will
go to pieces.
I have made inquiry, Mr. Hood, and find that in my neighbourhood two
families and a fraction out of every four, in the lower and middle
classes of society, are studying and practising all conceivable arts to
keep their infant children down. Understand me. I do not mean down in
their numbers, or down in their precocity, but down in their growth, sir.
A destructive and subduing drink, compounded of gin and milk in
equal quantities, such as is given to puppies to retard their growth: not
something short, but something shortening: is administered to these

young creatures many times a day. An unnatural and artificial thirst is
first awakened in these infants by meals of salt beef, bacon, anchovies,
sardines, red herrings, shrimps, olives, pea-soup, and that description of
diet; and when they screech for drink, in accents that might melt a heart
of stone, which they do constantly (I allude to screeching, not to
melting), this liquid is introduced into their too confiding stomachs. At
such an early age, and to so great