New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-11-16
policy on the financial question without incre'
dulityf
RANK ON THE RAIL.

RAYK ON THE RAIL.
We are told every day OF our lives that we
cannot have beer in this country because we
have Mt the hops, and that we cannot have
playwrights and novelists and caricaturlsfs
because we have none of those gradations OF
society which form the needed background for
all pictures of life and manners. We have no
manners, our critics say, and therefore we
cannot ridicule them. We have no high or
low classes, and 50 we are deprived OF the
keen delight which more favored peoples take
in observing the collision between the AFRO
sance of the high and the impudcncc or the
low. As there are no classes, the wis ahd the
calicatursts are driven TO find their prey III
individuals. a joke at the expense oil poilti-
clans is fiat and pointless. 1t must be leyeled
at some especial member Of Congress to have
any force. The caricaturiSt has still mar
rover range. The play Of his wit is restricted
to two or three journalists, and he must put
asses ears upon them and print the name OF
their papers somewhere to show who is meant,
or the joke would be lost upon nine-tenths OF
those VINO see it, Thrice happy, in the view
of the critics, are the English, who have Lords
and Commons and pOpuace, Bishops and minor
clergy, and, below all these, Hodge, the type
of dull rural ignorance and poverty. Every
time these classes meet and touch there is a
tabeau and collision. When horse dealer Is
told that his horse has an ugly head, and ad-
mits the charge, adding, "But look at MI
"Gladstone's 'Ed--and he the cleverest man In
"hall England" the effect is excessively comic.
It would not be comic ut all If you insert the
name of Governor Dix, and such thing never
could occur to an American artist. The En-
glish wits made an industrious use OF the com
munity of interests in the last general elections
between the Tory peers and the licensed Wet
ualers. No one would be amused or struck at
a carcaturc showing the Manhattan Club and
Baxter Street standing shoulder to shoulder IN
favor of Hard Money and Home Rule.
1t has just been proposed to abolish the
second-class carriages on the English railways,
and the mere suggestion has excited turmoil
in public opinion which has given the artists
and wits golden opportunity. The comic
newspapers are filled with jokes and pictures
based upon the confusion of rank which would
result from the distribution Of the secOnd-class
passengers among the first and third. Du
Maurier draws with his sharpcst pencil keen,
sarcastic old peer, who tells his valet to buy
two first-class and two third-class tickets.
"Am / and Mrs. Harris expected to go Third
"Cass ~ asks the indignant turnkey. " Gra-
"cious Heavens, no." says the patrician; 81 the
" third-class tickets are for my lady and me-
In another place stout British matron ex-
claims in horror to the guard, 81 can't afford
Frst-Class and | won't go Third. What am
81 to do9'-a question as far beyond his pow
ers of divination as was the similar cOnundrum
propOunded by Webster beyond the grasp OF
Boston audience.
In country like this, where everybody
travels frst-class, whether he can afford it or
not, it is difficult to comprehend the signifi-
cance of the distinctions between the different
styles of accommodation prepared for different
grades of society abroad. One invariaDle rule
in England and on the Continent is that SER
wants shall not be In the same class with mas
tiers. A German carcaturist represents
Countess setting out on Summer tour with
her daughters; at first they have first-class
tickets for themselves and sccond-class for
their servant. AS their money wastes they go
second, and book their servant third, and as
they take their tickets for home, they enter
the third-cass carriage and put the unhappy
valet IN the dog-van. These satres would
naturally DC destitute Ol punt Ill NcW-Iol
where the millionaire on the way to his bust
ness swings from a dirty strap in company
with his butcher, or rises, if he has the Ameri
cans natural respect for weakness, to give his
seat to an overloaded washerwoman. Rank,
like confidence, is plant Of slow growth.
The thing which is Oftencst said of it in these
latter days, is that it is more picturesque than
democracy. Perhaps we may admit this, with
out regretting its absence or desiring its
advent among us. We are better without it,
even if we are compelled also to live without
dramatists or rOmancers or caricatursts. We
can worry on century or so with Shake
speare and such volunteers as are willing to
brave the critics, with an occasional novelist
no better than Hawthorne and Cooper and
with the genial gentlemen who lash the follies
of the time by drawing journalists in asses
ears.
IT, co:l tI1aA Ana hot