on Paupers, your
Connaught fallen into potential Cannibalism, and other fine consequences
of the practice, come to light;--though come to light they will; and
"Ou' clo'!" itself may be in store for you, if you persist steadily
enough. But neglect to treat even your declared scoundrel as scoundrel,
this is the last consummation of the process, the drop by which the cup
runs over; the penalties of this, most alarming, extensive, and such as
you little dream of, will straightway very rapidly come. Dim oblivion of
Right and Wrong, among the masses of your population, will come; doubts
as to Right and Wrong, indistinct notion that Right and Wrong are not
eternal, but accidental, and settled by uncertain votings and talkings,
will come. Prurient influenza of Platform Benevolence, and "Paradise
to All-and-sundry," will come. In the general putrescence of your
"religions," as you call them, a strange new religion, named of
Universal Love, with Sacraments mainly of--_Divorce_, with Balzac, Sue
and Company for Evangelists, and Madame Sand for Virgin, will come,--and
results fast following therefrom which will astonish you very much!

"The terrible anarchies of these years," says Crabbe, in his _Radiator_,
"are brought upon us by a necessity too visible. By the crime of
Kings,--alas, yes; but by that of Peoples too. Not by the crime of one
class, but by the fatal obscuration, and all but obliteration of the
sense of Right and Wrong in the minds and practices of every class. What
a scene in the drama of Universal History, this of ours! A world-wide
loud bellow and bray of universal Misery; _lowing_, with crushed
maddened heart, its inarticulate prayer to Heaven:--very pardonable to
me, and in some of its transcendent developments, as in the grand French
Revolution, most respectable and ever-memorable. For Injustice reigns
everywhere; and this murderous struggle for what they call 'Fraternity,'
and so forth has a spice of eternal sense in it, though so terribly
disfigured! Amalgam of sense and nonsense; eternal sense by the grain,
and temporary nonsense by the square mile: as is the habit with poor
sons of men. Which pardonable amalgam, however, if it be taken as the
pure final sense, I must warn you and all creatures, is unpardonable,
criminal, and fatal nonsense;--with which I, for one, will take care not
to concern myself!

"_Dogs should not be taught to eat leather_, says the old adage:
no;--and where, by general fault and erro