I would ask power from Parliament to whip, when mild persuasion
failed, the precocious prig, "neither man nor boy," who struts about on
Sundays, scoffing at religion, and polluting the air with bad tobacco
and worse talk; and I would authorise the police to supervise, and to
send home at their discretion, those small giggling girls who, having
lost the shame which is a glory and a grace, and coveting every
adornment but one, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, are seen in
our streets, with nearly half a year's wage upon their backs, and the
change on their faces--in brass.
To gawster, in fine, is a sure indication of moral and physical
debility. He who gawsters is like a show, which has enormous pictures
and clanging cymbals, and gongs, and drums, and an obese showman, in his
shirt-sleeves, lying through a speaking-trumpet at the top of his voice,
_outside_, and little more than a three-headed puppy, or a seven-legged
lamb (not in vigorous life, as shown upon the canvas, but in glass and
spirits of wine) _within_. When, for example, you hear a man gawster
about his horsemanship, you may be sure that he will never be first over
a fence, unless it be some wee obstacle, which you could almost arrange
on a rocking-horse, and then he will rush wildly at it, as though he had
made up his mind to die; or, if his boasting be of cricket, you may
expect next morning to see him miss the first easy catch which comes.
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