A MILLIONAIRE "ROUGH."
IT is not of much use to moralise, as some of our con- temporaries have been doing, over a cane: like that of Mr. Abington Baird, the Scotch millionaire, who died on Satur- day last at New Orleans from a chill caught while attending
a prize-fight. He was the last of a family who, we are told, have been distinguished for nearly a century by the same parities. They have all been able so to command and guide great masses of men as to make money in quantities out of their labour ; they have all gone their own way exactly as they pleased ; and they have all been described by their enemies as "roughs," with half-developed con- sciences and a sort of intelligence. If Mrs. Oliphant did not sketch Pat Torrance in "The Ladies Lindores " from one of them, she might have done ; and it is related, truly or falsely, of another who gave £500,000 to the Scotch Church, that he was the cause of the best and most characteristic of all Scotch ecclesiastical stories. He contemplated his mighty benefaction long before it was made, and with true business acuteness asked an expert as to his chance of getting a full return for his money. "Will it help me," be inquired
of his minister, 'tout yon " " no just free to guarantee ye," replied the ecclesiastic, Scotch as himself, "but its an experiment weel worth trying." The race ended in the man just deceased, who, left at nineteen heir to the whole family, with thirty thousand acres in land, and accumulations worth ten times as much, devoted himself entirely to pleasures such as a " rough " enjoys,—to keeping racers on a huge scale; to riding himself, as a gentleman. jockey, in every part of the Kingdom ; and to instigating, rewarding, and associating with professional prize-fighters. He was not a fool, and he did not, it is said, scatter the prin- cipal of his fortune ; but his vast income was spent on some of the lowest of men and women ; he broke his constitution by sweating himself to ride light ; and he died, at thirty-two, of a chill caught while holding the sponge at an American prize-fight. We never heard of his cheating any one, or betraying his backers, as some men of his type have done ; but his career was, of course, utterly indefensible, —a steady and consistent misuse of the three great powers entrusted to him by Providenee,—namely, vast wealth, a sound constitution, and the faculty of always compelling him- self to do what he wanted to do, even if it involved physical risk or suffering. We feel an interest in his career, however, not because he is a fit subject for moralising—which is, we fear, utterly useless, for men of his type will not be deterred by his fate, any more than he was deterred by the fate of the Marquis of Hastings, on which he had a habit of dwelling— but because he belonged to the class which, of all others, is in our day least understood. People write of Mr. Abington Baird as if he were phenomenal ; but he was really one of a class as old, probably, as history,—certainly as old as the Roman Empire, under which young men of vast fortune con- stantly appeared, who devoted themselves to gladiators as Mr. Baird to prize-fighters ; exulted in rare breeds of horses trained for racing-chariots, as he exulted in his stud; and even them- selves descended into the arena, as be rode for himself in matches between gentlemen-jockeys. All through the histories of France, Germany, and England, we find nobles appearing with precisely the same tastes, the tournament differing little, except in dignity, from the arena, and the hunting-fields of the Continent becoming places for a contest in individual prowess, distinguishable from a race only in this, that plebeians were not allowed to partake of the fierce enjoy- ment. To ride all day, to drink all night, to watch animals or men fighting, and to vie with one another in struggles taxing the physical energies to the utmost, were the amuse- ments of our own squires of the eighteenth century, and are the amusements of a section among their descendants still. There is not a country-side, or, for that matter, a prosperous town, in which a few men are not known whose lives, though leas conspicuous, are those of the Marquis of Hastings and Mr. Baird. They love " sport " in its lower forms.— wild riding, hard-drinking, fisticuffs among others or between themselves ; every distraction, in fact, which we think natural, and excuse among sporting miners, prosperous grooms, or men of the lower class who live by the turf or gaming. There is hardly a family outside the hereditary professionals which has not one such member in it, or which could not relate histories nearly as strange as that of Mr. Abington Baird. His only separateness from the ruck of his kind consisted in the vastness of a fortune which made him conspicuous, and which, inasmuch as it was a misused trust, justly increased the regret or the contempt with which he was regarded by good men. Apart from that, he was nothing but a "rough," enjoying himself, or, at all events, seeking enjoyment as
" roughs " of every grade, and in every age and country, have always done.
What is the explanation of such persons P The one current just now, that their existence is due to the existence of great fortunes, is mere nonsense. Fortune sets men free, but can in no way give direction to their tastes, which in the majority of the rich have usually tended towards a somewhat useless- but graceful kind of refinement. Their wish, as a rule, what- ever their occupations, is to be gentlemen, not gladiators, still leas the companions of gladiators or grooms. The wealthy in all countries produce, and always have produced, many more politicians, collectors, debauchees, and men of curious and thoughtful luxury in living, than of the variety of roughs whom we are now describing. Besides, the latter belong to no class, but may be found in all, especially in country-towns, where life is apt to be tedious and the vents for excessive physical energy exceedingly few. Even hard work does not prevent the tendency, though, of course, it immensely diminishes the number of those who can indulge it. Still, a period of unexpected prosperity in any trade, not in itself debilitating, brings to the front scores of men who love with all their hearts fisticuffs, dog-fighting, pony-racing, drinking, and violent bedevilment of every kind. Ten Smiths and Williams ruin themselves and shatter themselves in such amusements for every one aristocrat or millionaire. No is the explanation of inherent viciousness quite final; for it is one of the phenomena of every society that every now and then a man appears among the rich or poor who, as regards amuse- ments, is a "rough" in all respects, but who is not vicious, and if born a gentleman, does not entirely cease to be one. Such men are few compared with their rivals, with whom they are often confused; but we doubt if there is an experienced General in any army, or an experienced contractor in any country, who could not instantly lay his finger on two or three. These have an instinct in them—or is it a conscience P—and at a point they revolt, like Kingsley's hero in "Yeast." The truth seems to be that there is a good deal of brutality still surviving in man, and that in every civilisation there are men, or sometimes families, whom civilisation does not touch, who, in spite of all the refining influences around them, of training and polish and the pressure of a softened public opinion, remain like the six elder sons of Squire Osbaldistone in "Rob Roy," uncleansed of the fierce element which once infected entire races. They cannot enjoy unless excited; and they cannot be excited except by appeals to the lower passions, or by the fierce delights of a struggle of some kind, whether joined in or witnessed, or—as you may see in half the boys in the Kingdom and in some strange instances among grown men—even read of. Did not the Record—the earlier one, we mean—for a time quote reports of prize-fights, to the bewilderment of its evangelical constituency ? The men cannot study, cannot even read ; society in its ordinary forms seems to them tame to imbecility ; they cannot rest without excitement of a kind
which taxes the physical energies ; and if they cannot work off the spirit on the sea, or in dangerous sport, or in exploration, they are apt to expend it in methods as injurious to themselves, and to all around them, as Mr. Baird's are reported to have been. Imagine the strain Benvenuto Cellini must have put upon himself before he could have lived like other men, and you have some idea of the power of the motor which drives these men to their ruin, and against which they occasionally seem as powerless to struggle as lemmings are to abstain from rushing periodi- cally to the sea. They are not powerless, of course, unless they take to drinking ; but to their wretched relatives, and to the public at large, they often seem possessed.
Will they become fewer P We suppose so ; and, indeed, are inclined to think we see an improvement, especially in the Universities ; but the process will be very slow. Intelligence, it is true, is increasing and reaching unexpected quarters, women are becoming better cultivated, and public opinion in- creases in weight and potency ; but these causes will all operate with a motion like that of glaciers,—irresistible, but taking decades to the inch. A heavy minority will be unin- telligent up to any time of which it is useful to think. The "roughs" of degree are seldom influenced by good women ; and public opinion has almost always failed to restrain any in- stinctive tendency, though it may force it into concealment, or even, during Puritan epochs, suspend its manifestations altogether. We should hope more from the existence of natural or even beneficial outlets for instinctive brutality, but
that we seem to see they are gradually closing up. Men get afraid of national war, and prohibit private war altogether. The area for wild sport—the slaughter, that is, of really dangerous animals—is slowly closing in, so that in 1950, for example, it will be impossible to find a lion to shoot, or an elephant to trap, or even a bison to destroy. Explora- tion of the rougher and larger kind is slowly getting finished, not a sixth of the world remaining unvisited ; and minute exploration no more attracts the men of whom we speak than does scientific research. The excite- ment will not be sufficient, the demand on physical energy will be too small, to attract the " roughs " in velvet. Globe- trotting will remain, of course ; but it is rapidly being made too easy and too civilised in all its daily incidents. They will have to make their excitements as the Roman nobles did, instead of finding them ; and that will mean in too many cases careers like that of "Mr. Abington," in which wealth is em- ployed to keep the influence of civilisation from being closely felt. The change will arrive at last, we suppose, and the world be like a philosopher's drawing-room ; but it will be a long while before the instinct for brutality dies -entirely out. The democracy feels it, and suffers from it, just as much as the aristocracy ; and of a new and useful vent for it, we see no hope. The sons of Squire Osbaldistone will, in fact, have less and less to do, and will be all the more provoked because they see that, do what they will to emancipate themselves, Rashleigh, possibly a converted Rashleigh, is becoming their lord. We have no sympathy with the millionaire "rough," indeed, something like an abhor- rence of him ; but we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that he is a product of human nature, and not only of this century or this "end of an age." The Emperor Baber, after his long
career of victory, with India at his feet, could only find rest for his cravings in jumping, half-drunk, from battlement to 'battlement of his palace. Each jump meant death if he missed his spring ; but whenever there was moonlight Baber jumped.
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