The Curse of Respectability

Observer, Volume XL, Issue 26, 28 February 1920, Page 29

The Curse of Respectability

(By EDGAR WALLACE.)

"QRITAIN is growing less and less respectable. That is the most significant and encouraging feature of the times. Even hated Bolshevism has this redeeming feature — that it is not respectable, though it is only a matter of time before 'it becomes so. The tendency of all revolutionary movements is toward respectability. In ten years' time Lenin will be taking tea in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair, and deploring the growth of another wildism. The social or religious movement which becomes respectable becomes stagnant. The Salvation Army is respectable—you pass the red jersies now and give them no more attention than you give to the common housefly. Wesleyanism is respectable, even Mormonism is respectable, and it is only the fear that it isn't which invests the creed of Brigham Young with such infinite charm. The desire to be thought well of is the canker of public and private life. Respectability creates more hypocrites and thieves than the basest of other human weaknesses. It fills the docks of the police courts with embezzling clerks and murderous dentists. For did not Crippen kill his wife in order to save himself from the stigma of living with a lady in sin? Respectability is the mother of swank and the child of deception. To be thought well of. Tβ be respected by one's neighbours— ; who, anyway, think the worst of you! Respectability stands for the snowy curtains that hide the baby farmer's piggery, for the hire-pur-chase furniture, which is such a fearful joy to its. hard-up posseesor, for the turned dress and the regular church attendance. If the respectable were satisfied with the statue which they acquire with such pains, they might be accounted worthy. But respectability must seek enhancement of its own virtues by the depreciation of the non-respectable. It is in the respectable cirteles of society that malice drips red-hot from glib and untruthful tongues. It is the respectable who judge without charity who can tell you the kour and minute Mr So-and-So came home drunk and the length of time' Mrs. What's-her-name spends with the insurance man. TEe wicked and unresectable have invariably the large gift of charity. They should worry what people thimk of them or whether they are respected by the little snipes who live next door! And here comes the irony of the 'whole thing. 'Tip respectable ar* eelton respected. IR+m ib*ir grd-

cers and butchers, who are satisfied that their respectable customers , cheques will come on Saturday with the Certainty of solar phenomena, sneer at the meanness of their clients, _and have a genuine warm feeling of sympathy and regard for the extravagant n'er-do-wells who pay when they think they will. Who respects the respectable? Not one another. Perhaps the vicar who counts his. souls by the pew-rent register, but not the doctor, who knows their grisly secrets, not the policeman ©n his beat, nor the postman delivering the free samples they write for. There is less respect for the respectable than for any other class of society. The really respectable people are the people who do extraordinary things well. George Robey and Jimmy Wilde are two of the best-respected people in Britain. Donoghue and Carslake have' earned the inspect of millions. ' Earl Haig and Earl Beatty are truly respectable people, because deep down in their hearts none ' of the men I have mentioned really care a tinker's curse what other people think of them. The art of right living is to live in defiance of other people's opinions; to live your lives and pursue your ideals absolutely as they should be lived or pursued independent of other men and women's views as to what is right or wrong. The law lays down a path from which you may not stray except at some distress to yourself. But inside the borders of that passage you may roam at will. You may even step over that border and be respectable. You may create your own laws, and if you are firm in and faithful to your ideals (the law. wjill endorse your amendments.