WORLDLY CANT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 48, 26 November 1892, Page 1164

WORLDLY CANT.

Cant is usually associated with professedly religious people. It is the cultus of the hypocrite. |But there is cant and cant, and none is worse than the cant which is so common in what Sterne call this ‘ canting world.’ Worldly cant is a much more common commodity outside church and chapel than most people suspect. The worldly hypocrite has always been rather rough upon his religious brother, and we have had more than enough of the Chadbands and the Mawworms who Supply with cant the lack of Christian grace.’ It may not be amiss to have a look at some of those who are ever ready to charge with cant those earnest religious souls who are more open than the world, and whose only fault is their sincerity. Amongst the many phases of worldly cant there is, first and foremost, the CANT OF THE RACING SET.

This is a pretty numerous fraternity ; and it is difficult to find among them a really well-grown man or a well-in-formed mind. They are the frowsiest of the frowsy, and include dukes and dossers, welshers and all sorts of bookmen, with just here and there a real gentleman. Their cant is that racing tends to improve the breed of horses ! What a fool they must think the British public to be. •It is English,’ ‘ Sets money going,’ and ■ Gives a holiday now and then to a lot of overworked men I’ What some of these gentlemen must know about the inner life of * the course,’ the secrets of ‘ stables,’ and the actual story of many a race mnst be just about as much as their memories can bear or their consciences carry. “ Breed of horses I Just think of the splendid estates flung away over the Jeremy-Diddling chances of one horse or another. It is sickening to hear men —fathers of boys—talk about the ‘noble art of horseracing,’ when the ladies have left the dining-room, and the stories of bets, winners, and plungers go round with the walnuts and the wine. It is the most offensive cant! But there is a worse cant than this, and that is THE CANT OF SMART PEOPLE. Some people may not quite understand what ‘smart’ people are. It is not well that they should. But the world knows them pretty well, and Mrs Jeune has, of late, sketched the manners and morals to the edification of our American 'cousins. Smart people are here, there and everywhere. They conse cr at e wealth cleverness, and social position to the avowed cultivation of lubricity, and they do it on the plea that life, to its fulness of enjoyment, cannot be lived without indulgence. There was a time when the ‘ must be ’ of the flesh was only affirmed of men. This cultus has now included in its virile and vile influence some members of the other sex. The boldness of this cant of an immoral ‘must be’ is its chief ISAI')AILrT feature. It is nasty, effeminate, J ' and bold. It does not hesitate to defend itself by the assertion of the law of necessity. As a modern development of the gospel of lust it is both preached and practised. Of all the world’s cants it is the most hateful. It makes life a yielding, not a fight; an indulgence, not a struggle; a lowering of mind, affection, and the soul to the level of a cultivated animalism. It is the cant of cant, clever, beautiful, insolent, and vile. The worst of it is that the cant of the smart people has nothing vulgar in its manner. It is refined in manners only really vulgar in morals. It goes with the most advanced views in theology, in art, in literature, and in social sorm. When allied with wealth or social position it becomes quite attractive to the gilded youth of the city and the sons of a certain class of self-made men. This cant is thought to be quite up to date, and the assertion of its lawfulness is made with an assurrance that, while it astonishes old-fashioned men of the world, goes often nnrebuked by new-fashioned women of the world. It does not, however, bear one moment’s contact with sound moral sense. Its frightful wickedness becomes apparent whenever it dares to show its cynical face in the presence of honourable men and pure women. Then this cant is seen to be both cowardly and contemptible. ‘ Canting world,’ said Sterne. More so now than in his time. Once it sinned boldly, but it sinned. Now it veneers over its iniquity with canting words about the breed of horses, the noble art of self-de-fence, and the necessity and rights of manhood. Better by far the bold old wickedness than this modern mode, which does wrong, and then excuses and justifies it by deliberate lying cant. G.S.R.