Certainly it does not appeal,
this mob, to the principles of '89, which you English make game of; it
does not insist on the rights of man; what it wants is beer, gin, and
_fun_."[479]
That is a description of what Mr. Bright[480] would call the residuum,
only our author seems to think the residuum a very large body. And its
condition strikes him with amazement and horror. And surely well it may.
Let us recall Mr. Hamerton's account of the most illiterate class in
France; what an amount of civilization they have notwithstanding! And
this is always to be understood, in hearing or reading a Frenchman's
praise of England. He envies our liberty, our public spirit, our trade,
our stability. But there is always a reserve in his mind. He never means
for a moment that he would like to change with us. Life seems to him so
much better a thing in France for so many more people, that, in spite of
the fearful troubles of France, it is best to be a Frenchman. A
Frenchman might agree with Mr. Cobden,[481] that life is good in England
for those people who have at least L5000 a year.
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