GENTS. (From the Saturday Review.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVII, Issue 1288, 17 January 1860, Page 4

GENTS. (From the Saturday Review.)

There is a character in Aristophanes who informs his companion that he has lain awake all night thinking what Eort of a bird the yellow heathcock is. A philosopher might, in the same way, lie awake a good many hours thinking what sort of bird the British Gent is. What constitutes & gent t How is he distinguished from a gentleman ? Clearly we do not call every one who is vulgar a gent, nor can we say that a gent is such because he is over-dressed, or noisy, or affected. These traits of character are exhibited freely by many who are universally recognised as gentlemen. Nor is a gent merely to be distinguished by the class of life to which he belongs. A man is not set down as a gent who has a small income, or is engaged in what is usually treated as an ignoble occupation. Perhaps the most likely answer to be given, if were to ask any one who had not reflected on the subject, is that the gent is a man who afiects to be a gentleman, who imitates his superiors, copies their manner of living and dressing, and seeks to shine by addpting their follies. We do not think this is the real account of the gent. It does not seem to us true that a gent is essentially an imitative animal. He cannot avoid following the fashion set him by persons richer and higher than himself, but it is not his prime object to do so. His primary wish is to enjoy and amuse himself. This is alio the wish of many thorough gentleman. The notion that a gentleman is in any way necessarily a good man stands in such open contradiction to the facts of daily life that it is strange how often we find it expressed in popular literature. Men who have health, and money, and high spirits, and little or no principle, devote their thoughts very largely to the attainment of sensual gratification, and there is no distinction in this respect between the gentleman and the gent. If fine clothes are to be worn to Bet off a fine person and make a show, they must be cut after some pattern; and the richest and highest of those who wear them first accept from an inventive tailor what for the time this pattern is to be. The leu rich and prominent take the fashion at second-hand, but both classes are actuated by the same motives in putting the clothes on. * The real difference between the gentleman and the gent is, we are inclined to think, that the former is under a restraint and a counteracting j influence to which the latter is a stranger. The gentleman mixes with a society which has traditions and 1 contains elements belonging to a very different order of things from the sphere of sensual pleasurei. He is, in some measure, brought daily to the tribunal of persons who have taste, or principle, or a great position to maintain. He ii subjected to the operation of the feelings which must pervade the ruling classes in a great country. He is obliged to mix in the society of educated, virtuous and refined women. The gent is the gentleman in pursuit of pleasure without this restraint and this opportunity of escaping to another set of ideas. A book has lately been published, entitled Fast Life, which seems to us to throw much light on the nature of gents. It is one of the very few books in which the life of a gent has been portrayed by a writer who freely and frankly owns that he is a gent. Mr. Albert Smith, in his novels, has described minutely the habits and pleasures of gentish life, but then he views this phase of existence as if he were on a slight eminence above it. The author of Fast Life sayt openly that he is a gent, and he wishes to show other gents what a happy, noble, fine fellow a gent may be, how much of life he may see, and what a variety of pleasures he may experience. The notion that it is his business to affect to be a gentleman never seems to have crossed his mind. He has indeed succeeded in tasting many of the sensations which the rich most covet. We do not know whether we are to understand that the facts stated in the book are to be taken literally; but when he says that he was secretary to Soyer, he probably gives us a real hint of the sort of way in which he placed himself in the sphere of gastronomy on a level with the highest and richest of Soyer's patrons. He has evidently had very good dinners, and done them a iort of rough and ready justice. He has travelled abroad, and has stayed at moat Tingling watering-places, and when there he appear* to have done exactly as many of hit betters would do. His great wish is to fill up every moment "with some excitement. When he goes to a watering-place hit ambition is to bathe in the freshest water, to smoke the biggest cigars, to eat the best dinner, to drink the best brandy, and flirt with the prettiest barmaid that the place afford*. A thousand English gentleman have exactly the same aspirations ; and if we were to say that no man with such aspirations i« a gentleman, wo should have to alter the ordinary meaning of the word.. • Nor is he troubled witk any false pretences. He owns that he ii often short of money, and that then he is obliged to accommodate his pleasures to his purse. He informs us that, when without cash for a cab or stumped out at Vauxhall, he is in the habit of walking about all night and seeing what he calls " early morning life." , This seems to us merely a gilded expression for looking on at the arrival of the cabbage carts and milk vans. But it show* that he does not ape the fine gentleman. Excitement is the dream of his life, and not, to be mistaken by » waiter for a lord. So far from gents leading the the stiff-stuck up life that is attributed to them by those who think that'the walking gentleman of. Begent-street is the true type of the class, the must, friendly, funny, unaflected sociability, of real gents is apparent, in all the pages of the book to whicbwebaye referred.' Taking one stfc of persons •gainst another, we fancy that gents get more amusement out ofjife than gentlemen. Coarse fun can siuk tain itself much, better than elegant trifling. The author inserts a large selection.fromhis correspondence, and , the letters certainly show that the.gents view an outing in much brighter Spjpurs, «nd-,make muchmore fun out of the mere prospect of it than gentlemen can do,' who ' are Spoilt by q&et friends 'and educated women for 'tori perpetuity of racketing, s and are hsuited'by the'uneasy recollection tbat-they mightjbe r doing something 1 better: F^ Two 'or tlnjee of these letters will ! »how what the gent is^ibetttr^thani pages of description, and we' will' ttierefore'sinViteTcrar"' readers' to p^riiie some 'of these ■pirited oppositions'. « No'^on* 1 who 'reads these 'can fail to see that the gent-has a style 'of -his 1 ' own, and a .capacity of 'enjoymeriVof his own, and that he does not in the least affeo%to be tfg&Ttleman^ t Tiii instances we J^T^^tJected-^re, invitations .to an outmg,:and:the { wthgrXioswejcs 'err ha >H4r n,'si Ufa *n ' -c "*<'%<£s&&&& ?ars# o»-j v&nb <$* »«ft-T=-iBtnuid*j>t " ' %Qgo A lfy!?sXtirsig! ;-,.: 'blow^^^ypurun.down'tOoFplkstone on-.Sajiurdfty; "'and crou to Bologna, till Tuesday or^Wednesdiy; «nd r

W> 'dipl;7"B^*iif,^»a ,vi the pwilM. Vpthtog but »6d* 'ttid brim^ m we oome biwk; / 1 , , „ ".Yoi%over, \. >3 , , , , „ „ - mf , .. , , . , „-, Eybb.'V , vffh* answer runs thus :~£ \ ;, , /> ; ', f Bjcapt,— Why tempt mo away from dear virtuous '■London and its 'Poses Piastiques,', to French debauchery and bud Cognac t Let vi have two or three day* ijtjGreenwieh 1 1 and itop at the 'Ship ;* they can cook a Sinner there, and they keep rjtal ! Moselle. ' Send 'aimwer by bearer. ' - "You«i,(n)ever, "Jacob Stow." One morning the author, us he telli us, received the following from an old Mend : — ' "Ohambew, Marylebone." ' "DIAB JOHH,— l've copped fifty quid out of old 'Bladderskate,' anS wttnt to sweat it. Dewberry, myself, and Tom Wildun.aro off to Margate. ,WUI you come down (do your' writing here) to -the 'King's Head,' and ask for the BWhtet-., We will live to rights, and wash our feet ! ! ' \' *" " Your sincerely, "SODAANDGIS," Ho answered his friend; and said :— "Three 'o'clock! Wednesday morning, at horne t "Sib,— Your private existence, like your public profession, is a compound of villany and lies. Do you mean what you say ? If so, expect me down to-mor-row, in a new suit of clothes. lam ' stumped ;' but, if you really will square me, I'll come. Put your razors out of sight, and order stewed eels, broiled salmon, 1 lamb cutlets, and a pheasant ; 111 bring some ' cham' with me — Margate never had any. " Faithfully your own, " Jeremy DrpDMR." The author gives us a piece of his history which is worth noticing, because it shows how the absence of restraint which is characteristic of gents tells on the intercourse with prosaic life. He informs us that, wanting to know everything, he wanted, among other things, to know what the life of a railway official was like. Accordingly, he procured an appointment from a Kailway Board, and was sent down to a country Station to learn the duties of a station-master. He took up his abode at an hotel near the station, and there instituted a "convivial meeting;" but even the applause of the farmers, who admired his songs, did not satisfy him. -As he expresses it — " My blood longed to boil as in days passed by, and I felt that a new excitement would really do me good. I was cowed and down on my luck, and wanted a bouleveraenunt, and I had it." He was assisted in attaining his desired end by the arrival of two friends, " one just from the Cape, and raying for a spree." The fun for which his blood boiled then began. "The mayor," he tells us, "Jwho was notoriously of wretched temper, and who had been particularly prominent in trying to put down my convivial party, was my first victim; six of us, about 2 a.m., wrenched off his three knockers, pulled out his bells, ordered an undertaker from the next village to call and take his measure (a very old joke of mine), and sank his duck-punt." He proceeds to tell us how cleverly he managed to make suspicion fall on some, innocent persons. He subsequently went to lodge at a bootmaker's, and "the way in which I escaped rent for nine weeks will, I think, be considered amusing." The way was, however, rather audacious than complicated. He waited till an express train was nearly due, threw his luggage out of the window to an accomplice, and stealing down-stairs, locked the bootmaker in his shop. Ultimately he paid what he owed, for he seems to have a sort of pecuniary conscience ; and having done his duty as a gent by tricking his creditors temporarily, is afterwards honest enough to pay the bills. Of course he wu discharged by the company, and so ended his railway experience. He seems fully to believe that, by neglecting the duties of an office the pay for which he received, he, in some way or other, " saw life, and that the sight was highly creditable to him. We cannot say that in any part of this transaction he did anything which is not. done by many persons who are considered gentlemen. There have been many gentlemen who have held public situations without doing the work — many who have gloried in not paying their debts and in cheating their creditors — many who have gained glory by wringing off the knockers of peaceful citizens. But then they have always retained a connexion with a society, which is honourable, quiet, orderly, educated, and refined.- This connexion has added, to tastes which they share with the gent, ideas and feelings of which the gent has no knowledge. And this influence of the good elements of society are continually sobering the outward demeanour of gentlemen. Twenty or thirty years ago, practical jokes were tolerated, and leaders of fashion thought it funny to knock down a constable or wring off a knocker. Now all decent society pronounces such bursts of humour decidedly snobbish. And this influence of general society is continually spreading and operating on a wider scale. A vast number of concurrent causes tend to bring even persons of a comparatively humble position within the limits of social restraint. The British gent is, we may guess, a doomed animal. He will cease to be admired and tolerated in his own circles. The number of railway clerks who would wish to copy the gent in hii railway career is not very large, and will gradually'become less. We are not prophesying a golden age of morality. We do not think that gentleman are morally better than gents, but they are under more restraint; and the license in virtue of which gents flourish will be encroached on as the habits and tastes of the educated and refined classes become extended to those beneath them. O

Ahecdote op the Duke op Pobtland. — Mr. Howitt gives the following interesting anecdote of the Duke of Portland :— " The duke found that one of hia tenants, a small farmer, was falling year after year into arrears of rent The steward wished to know what was to be done. The duke rode to the farm, saw that it was rapidly deteriorating, and the man, who was really an experienced and industrious farmer, totally unable to manage it, through poverty. In fact, all that wm on the farm was not enough to pay the arrears. ' John, 1 ■ays the duke, as the farmer came to meet him as he rode up to the house, 'I want to look over the farm a little.' Ai they went along, ' Eeally,' said he, ' everything is in a very bad case. This won't do. I see you are quite under it. All your stock and crops won't pay the rent in arrear. I will tell you what I must do. I must take the farm into my own hands. You shall look after it for me, and I will pay your wages.' Of course there was no saying nay — the poor man bowed assent. Presently there came a reinforcement of itock, then loads of manure, at the proper time seed, and wood from the plantations for repairing gates and buildings. The duke rode over frequently. The man exerted himself, and leemed really quite relieved from a load of care by the change. Cropi and stocki flourished, fences and out-buildings were put into good repair. In two or three rent-days it was seen by the steward*! books that the farm wm paying its way. The duke on his next visit said :: — { Well, John, I think the farm does very well now. We will change again. You •hall be tenant again, and as you now have your head fairly above water, I hope you will be able to keep it there.' The duke then rode off at his usual rapid rate. The man stood in astonishment; but ft happy fellow he was when, on applying to the steward, he found that he was actually re-entered as tenant to the farm, just a% it stood in its restored condition. I will venture to iay, however, th»t tho duke was the happier man of the two."— European Timet, Oct. 18.

A letter from Leipsic, of the 2nd, states that the cloth fair in that city, which has just terminated, has been very satisfactory. About 20,000 pieces were brought for sale, and about five-sixths of them found purchasers at good prices. Large sales in other articles of woollen and printed stuffs were also effected.

Death op JSheup fboh xhi Shctuko op thbir Wool apter bbinci ditbssed.— A singular circumstance has just occurred in the Parish of Cudham, Kent, on Lusted Form, in the occupation ,of Mr. James Francis. Mr. Francis has been in the habit for several years of wing a wash tohii sheep, containing mercury and soft ioap, ts a preventive against flies. He has generally hid it applied by dipping them ; but this year he had them laid on their sides, «nd poured the wa»h!--ono. pint to , a •heep— OTer them. The flock '(about 128) having been thug dressed, were turned into a barren part of a field to drip. -Abc^ut ah hour or «o afterwards, the shepherd noticed some of them look badly, and in a •hort apace of time they/ began 'to'clie,, and by the morning only 16 remained alive piit of the entire number. Itis jsupposed .that.they had tuoked'the, moisture from' 'each ''other'i 'w i ool, there being no water inthe field, and the 'great heat causing them nmoh^thirs^.-^'gtrrffgygr** Chronicle. , ' " '