Such is the Monument of French Folly which a foreigneering people
have erected, in a national hatred and antipathy for common
counselling wisdom. That wisdom, assembled in the City of London,
having distinctly refused, after a debate of three days long, and
by a majority of nearly seven to one, to associate itself with any
Metropolitan Cattle Market unless it be held in the midst of the
City, it follows that we shall lose the inestimable advantages of
common counselling protection, and be thrown, for a market, on our
own wretched resources. In all human probability we shall thus
come, at last, to erect a monument of folly very like this French
monument. If that be done, the consequences are obvious. The
leather trade will be ruined, by the introduction of American
timber, to be manufactured into shoes for the fallen English; the
Lord Mayor will be required, by the popular voice, to live entirely
on frogs; and both these changes will (how, is not at present quite
clear, but certainly somehow or other) fall on that unhappy landed
interest which is always being killed, yet is always found to be
alive – and kicking.
Page 145
Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
Footnotes:
(1) Give a bill
(2) Three months’ imprisonment as reputed thieves.
[*End*]