" Respectability " in England is becoming as exclusive as
ever aristocracy was in France. A correspondent of the Times quietly urges Mr. Cowper to expel all seedy, ill-dressed, ill-bred raga- muffins from the parks, and the journal itself, in a sketch of their present condition, endorses that advice, declaring that the parks are intended only for the "health and recreation of the respectable members of the public, to whatever rank they may belong." Why not go a step farther, and be logical as well as despotic, assign the streets to respectabk*3 and leave the ragamuffins the lanes, let only income-taxpayers traverse the squares, and com- pel all men out at elbows to slink along through the mews? A ragamuffin smells no sweeter in Regent Street than in Hyde Park, and may offend the eye outside the rails in Piccadilly as well as inside. Brahmins in Madras object to Pariahs throwing their shadows on the path, and surely Brahmins in broadcloth may be as fastidious. The masses whose toil maintains those Brahmins might perhaps, under those circumstances, think that the French idea of equality had advantages, but as the cost of that idea would fall on the black coats exclusively they have of course a right to risk it. Only we should like, just for the sake of consistency, to see Christianity abolished first.
