There Is Not Nearly So Much Difference In Price, As
Difference In Style.
As a first-class passenger I was assisted in and
out, and the door held open for me; as third or second-class one can get
in or out as they please for all the officials care.
There is a very
wide difference in every respect between those above and those below the
line which separates "gentry from commonality." Of course I am using
local words. Gentry are expected to have a well-filled and an open hand.
If they have not both, what business have they to set up for gentry?
Popular opinion thinks of them as Carleton's hedge scholar expressed
himself, "You a gentleman? No, nor one of your breed, seed or generation
ever was, you proctoring thafe you!"
Now the line of demarcation between the people trained by ages to stand
with open hand expecting a gift, and those to whom a gift is an insult
is hard to find sometimes. A young lad, a sharp boy, had been my guide
to two or three places and carried my bag for me. I offered him pay, for
pay had been expected from me by every one with whom I came in contact
from the moment I landed. Tears came into the poor lad's eyes with
mortified anger. One feels bad to hurt anyone's feelings, and between
those who have a desire for a gift and are hurt if they do not get one,
and those to whom offering a gift is the worst form of insult, one is
sometimes puzzled to know what to do.
I find a very strong feeling in some places where I have been in
connection with the contempt which some owners of the soil feel for the
cultivators of it. A landlord - lately an attorney in a country town -
who has succeeded, most unexpectedly, to a great estate, takes no pains
to conceal the contempt in which he holds his tenants. He sauntered into
a shop, also the post-office of the town, and in the course of
conversation informed them that his tenantry were a lazy lot of
blackguards. Two of his tenants were present standing in the shop. He
did not know them, but they knew him. To the eyes of an outsider like
myself the tenants seemed the more gentlemanly of the two parties. This
gentleman, it was explained to me by his tenants, was not a specimen of
the usual landlord, who, whatever the fault of the land law might be
which they believed in and ruled their conduct by, they were gentlemen
who would not degrade themselves by such an utterance.
The idea is brought forward to me again and again that the best landlord
clings to the power to oppress, absolute unquestioned power to do as he
likes with his tenantry though he might never exercise it. The
Protestants of Derry, Donegal, Tyrone, farmers with whom I have had the
opportunity to converse, all refer to this fact.
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