It is making the wealthy Jews forsake the synagogue for the opera-house, or the gentility chapel, in which a disciple of Mr.Platitude, in a white surplice, preaches a sermon at noon-day from a desk, on each side of which is a flaming taper.It is making them abandon their ancient literature, their "Mischna," their "Gemara," their "Zohar," for gentility novels, "The Young Duke," the most unexceptionably genteel book ever written, being the principal favourite.It makes the young Jew ashamed of the young Jewess, it makes her ashamed of the young Jew.The young Jew marries an opera-dancer, or if the dancer will not have him, as is frequently the case, the cast-off Miss of the Honourable Spencer So-and-so.It makes the young Jewess accept the honourable offer of a cashiered lieutenant of the Bengal Native Infantry; or, if such a person does not come forward, the dishonourable offer of a cornet of a regiment of crack hussars.It makes poor Jews, male and female, forsake the synagogue for the sixpenny theatre or penny hop; the Jew to take up with an Irish female of loose character, and the Jewess with a musician of the Guards, or the Tipperary servant of Captain Mulligan.With respect to the gypsies, it is making the women what they never were before - harlots; and the men what they never were before - careless fathers and husbands.It has made the daughter of Ursula the chaste take up with the base drummer of a wild-beast show.It makes Gorgiko Brown, the gypsy man, leave his tent and his old wife, of an evening, and thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him.
"Brother," said Mr.Petulengro to the Romany Rye, after telling him many things connected with the decadence of gypsyism, "there is one Gorgiko Brown, who, with a face as black as a tea-kettle, wishes to be mistaken for a Christian tradesman; he goes into the parlour of a third-rate inn of an evening, calls for rum and water, and attempts to enter into conversation with the company about politics and business;the company flout him and give him the cold shoulder, or perhaps complain to the landlord, who comes and asks him what business he has in the parlour, telling him if he wants to drink to go into the tap-room, and perhaps collars him and kicks him out, provided he refuses to move." With respect to the Quakers, it makes the young people like the young Jews, crazy after gentility diversions, worship, marriages, or connections, and makes old Pease do what it makes Gorgiko Brown do, thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him, and out of which he is not kicked, because unlike the gypsy he is not poor.The writer would say much more on these points, but want of room prevents him; he must therefore request the reader to have patience until he can lay before the world a pamphlet, which he has been long meditating, to be entitled "Remarks on the strikingly similar Effects which a Love for Gentility has produced, and is producing, amongst Jews, Gypsies, and Quakers."The Priest in the book has much to say on the subject of this gentility-nonsense; no person can possibly despise it more thoroughly than that very remarkable individual seems to do, yet he hails its prevalence with pleasure, knowing the benefits which will result from it to the church of which he is the sneering slave."The English are mad after gentility," says he; "well, all the better for us; their religion for a long time past has been a plain and simple one, and consequently by no means genteel; they'll quit it for ours, which is the perfection of what they admire; with which Templars, Hospitalers, mitred abbots, Gothic abbeys, long-drawn aisles, golden censers, incense, et cetera, are connected; nothing, or next to nothing, of Christ, it is true, but weighed in the balance against gentility, where will Christianity be? why, kicking against the beam - ho!
ho!" And in connection with the gentility-nonsense, he expatiates largely, and with much contempt, on a species of literature by which the interests of his church in England have been very much advanced - all genuine priests have a thorough contempt for everything which tends to advance the interests of their church - this literature is made up of pseudo Jacobitism, Charlie o'er the waterism, or nonsense about Charlie o'er the water.And the writer will now take the liberty of saying a few words about it on his own account.
