Beggars on Horseback.

Hastings Standard, Issue 170, 13 November 1896, Page 4

Beggars on Horseback.

'• P.eggars on horseback ride to the devil," says the trite, true, and Limehonored proverb, and there is an amount of wisdom in it that I think tlie majority do not quite realise. It is such a favorite proverb of mine that I have studied it in all its bearings and have found out from practical experience that it simply reeks with truth. As to the quotation, it is invaluable to the fair sex, as it enables them to invok"his "Satanic Mrjesty" without offciiniiig the proprieties by using his name in its native ugliness. Some pe.-ple seem to think that this proverb means that if a person suddenly becHuo c 1 of wealth, he uses it only in such a manner as will smootht-n his descent into Avernus, but this nii'xim mean® far, for more than this: it points with stern, unerring finger to the hypocrisy and humbug and caddish snobbery thai I firmly believ: is fur more in vogue today t'uin it was almost ;■ half century a«»o, when r Pv,ckeray tried to kill the mighty giant " Sham " with his powerful weapon of keen, unerring satire. Oh, what an ago of miserable pretence this is ; of trying to appear what we are not, and of being ashamed to be known for what we really are. Poor little hum;>n cprihenware pots, we float down "to stream, with the great metal jars, ill suddenly they close in upon us, < 1 lo ! we are smashed to atoms. V we accept no warnings; we want t-; be bigger than our shoes, and we wi :edly despise the labor or trade thn ' brought us, perhaps, to a tlourishi ; condition. "Jiegg . on horseback ride to the Devil." Let me try to show how it affects nearly all classes of society, and how every grade is tainted by the prevailing spirit of unreality and sham, and of how hopelessly Americanised we are getting in our lives and manners. A servant is no longer a servant. She is "a help;" the old-fashioned term of mistress is not in vogue, it is the lady with whom I live ! All the girls are being trained as School Board teachers, and the remuneration (a good word this for wages; it means the same thing, but sounds more euphonious, it suits as well the heading of my article) is not excessive at the best of times, but then the calling is so genteel, and the god of Gentility is worshipped as reverently amongst the so-called lower-classes as the great " Golden Calf" is respectfully adored by the upper ten thousand, "so the supply of teachers greatly exceeds the demand, and consequently this branch of the female labor market is hoplessly flooded, and the only thing which is benefited are the streets, whilst good servants are not to be had for " love or money." I will give an instance which, on my word of honor, is perfectly true, and which I can verify. A friend of mine advertised for a good cook. In the advertisement was clearly stated that there were four in family, and two other servants were kept ; the wages offered were L'l-5. She advertised for a fortnight, and received two solitary applications. I at the time required a voung lady to write from dictation, the hours being from 10 a.m. to 0.80 p.m. I advertised three times in the same paper, and got nearly 250 applications ! Can you imagine a sadder state of affairs than this '? Anything more hideously glaring and convincing of the rotten method by which at the present day we are training our girls ? Many of the girls came to me themselves, so young aud pretty some i of them were, and so eager to get the ; situation, and. truth to tell, I could not afford to offer a great remuneration. but they were very anxious to come. Such pitiful tales were told me, so much genteel poverty was revealed to me, that my heart ached for them. Oreat Go<l, when I think of the thous-

amis of pure, helpless, educated girls who are at this moment eating their hearts out for "want of employment, my soul sinks within me. Heaven knows that I reverence those who, through their own energy have raised themselves on the social scale; but this can never be done when our boys and girls are trained only to be a drug on an already frightfully overcrowded market. But, dear me, I am forgetting my text, " Beggars on horseback ride to the Devil." Who is so hard on a servant as one who has been a servant herself'? For the genuine spirit of snobbery, for a tyrannical system of nigger-driving, for an alarming large required amount of awe-striken respect, for an assumption of dignity which can only be characterised as ridiculous commend me to a " servant that has been"» in her behaviour to a " servant that is." She can never condescend to be either courteous or polite, to praise, to give a kindly word would be something derogatory ; she has risen ; therefore she kicks those who have been in what was once her place. It is not class against class, it is class against itself. Again, in other words, " Beggars upon horseback." I once had to cater for a number of girls, and who do you think was the most difficult to deal with—not those who were well and abundantly fed at their own homes. With them I had not any trouble. It was the few who were unused to meat more than twice a week, and who had to live through dire necessity (which, God forbid, I should ever sneer at), principally on tea and bread and butter. They were the ones that turned up their noses at honest roast beef, good bread and cheese, and wholesome puddings. Strange, but true, and it is a noteworthy fact that the folks who require the most are those who all their life have been in the habit of having the least. They get so inflated with an undue sense of their own fancied importance that they forget their past, live only in the present, and never stop to think of how their own conduct unfits them for the future. As a servant in a large Hydropathic Establishment once remarked to me, "It isn't the real ladies and gentlemen as comes hero as gives us trouble ; it's the make-believes. The folks that keep no servants themselves and so don't know how to treat them when they goes away. They are always the worst ; tliay don't seem to think we are the same flesh and blood as them ; but, you know the saying, Miss, ' Beggars on horseback ride to the devil,' " and verily the situation was summed up in th:' lew words of the proverb. A man, an honest tradesman, by untiring energy and industry, aakes his pile, and like the good, honest fellow that he is, educates his family thoroughly. The result, alas !is too often, that the sons and daughters are heartily ashamed of their parents and regard the business with extreme disgust, and disapproval. Trade is a word to be shunned in their presence. All their acquaintances, of course, must belong to the professional class ; they snub their parents' friends in a most merciless fashion ; they feel altogether as if Providence had behaved badly to them in bestowing them upon parents in trade. They deem it an injustice that they were not born to the purple, and consider that their parents owe them a positive debt of gratitude because they have accepted and profited after a fashion by the many advantages lavished upon them. Pshaw ! The whole thing is demoralising, and by no means pleasant to see or write about. Then there are the cads who suddenly come into money, and promptly drop all their old friends, and try to ignore their past life, which has in all probability been much more honorable and straightforward than the one they are trying to lead now, for at lease it has not been disfigured by miserable pretence and shallow sham, but sooner or later they find their level, and, like the others, metaphorically speaking, " Bide to the Devil."— " One of the Throng."