, is some young fellow with an imperial title, a military
personage of course, for what is military is so particularly genteel,
with flaming epaulets, a cocked hat and plume, a prancing charger, and a
band of fellows called generals and colonels, with flaming epaulets,
cocked hats and plumes, and prancing chargers vapouring behind him. It
was but lately that the daughter of an English marquis was heard to say,
that the sole remaining wish of her heart--she had known misfortunes, and
was not far from fifty--was to be introduced to--whom? The Emperor of
Austria! The sole remaining wish of the heart of one who ought to have
been thinking of the grave and judgment, was to be introduced to the
miscreant who had caused the blood of noble Hungarian females to be
whipped out of their shoulders, for no other crime than devotion to their
country, and its tall and heroic sons. The middle classes--of course
there are some exceptions--admire the aristocracy, and consider them
pinks, the aristocracy who admire the Emperor of Austria, and adored the
Emperor of Russia, till he became old, ugly, and unfortunate, when their
adoration instantly terminated; for what is more ungenteel than age,
ugliness, and misfortune! The beau-ideal with those of the lower
classes, with peasants and mechanics, is some flourishing railroad
contractor: look, for example, how they worship Mr. Flamson. This person
makes his grand debut in the year 'thirty-nine, at a public meeting in
the principal room of a country inn. He has come into the neighbourhood
with the character of a man worth a million pounds, who is to make
everybody's fortune; at this time, however, he is not worth a shilling of
his own, though he flashes about dexterously three or four thousand
pounds, part of which sum he has obtained by specious pretences, and part
from certain individuals who are his confederates. But in the year
'forty-nine, he is really in possession of the fortune which he and his
agents pretended to be worth ten years before--he is worth a million
pounds. By what means has he come by them? By railroad contracts, for
which he takes care to be paid in hard cash before he attempts to perform
them, and to carry out which he makes use of the sweat and blood of
wretches who, since their organization, have introduced crimes and
language into England to which it was previously almost a stranger--by
purchasing, with paper, shares by hundreds in the schemes to execute
whic