had but a bad time of it, and his Cloutieship, as
the Scotch call him, has had everything his own
way. There is civil war between authors and
publishers, too; representatives of a large section
of employers and employed, or rather of the
payer and the paid; and if you would believe
either side, you would come to a curious state of
haze and mist concerning some of the questions
of social economy. These maintain that they
buy chaff at the price of the finest wheat, and
plant their gardens with dry sticks incapable of
budding out to use or profit; indeed, it is one
of the unexplained problems of society how
publishers manage to exist and make large fortunes
on a perpetual series of failures. Not believing
these, listen to those, and they will tell you that
they have sold their finest wheat at the rate of chaff
or straw, and have planted the publisher's garden
with rare flowering plants paid for as so many
dried sticks; they have harvested all his grain,
and left their own to rot on the ground; they
have built him a palace, and been content with a
mud hovel themselves; in short, they have been
martyrs, each and equally; but the cooler
bystander sees only the fact that the two forces
are at war together, and that both lose their
senses in the din and turmoil of the battle.

The same thing goes on with managers and
actors, patrons and artists, picture-dealers and
painters, committee men and designers: with
every one without exception where there is gold
and influence on the one side, and empty purses
and talent on the other. Brains are matters of
barter just like calico or muslin; and he is the
best merchandiser who is able to sell his wares
in the highest market. There would be a higher
market for all if there were no civil war, and
brains would fetch a better price if the bargain
was made over the fumes of the loving-cup
instead of in the smoke-wreaths of an
Armstrong gun.

There is civil war in all professions, but
chiefly, perhaps, in the medical. One doctor
holding such an angle, is the mortal enemy of
another doctor entrenched in the opposite angle;
one system assaults another system; globules
cross fires with boluses; the water-cure wets
the powder and spikes the biggest guns of
both, with perfect impartiality. As for special
branches of the healing art, it is a wonder that
any should be left to tell the tale of mutual
slaughter that goes on. Look at the dentists,
read their advertisements, hear of their doings;
then judge of the chance which your molars and
bicuspids have of fair play in their hands. For in
civil war nothing suffers more than the cause or
the person for whom that war was originated, and
the strife which the scalpel and the pharmacopœia
generate among the users thereof, benefits no
one on earth, but still less the patient than the
prescriber. It makes one excessively uncomfortable
to think that one's own unfortunate body
is the battleground of some hundreds of men, and
a few score of systems; and that one's most
mysterious and most secret ailments are the trophies
for which they are contending! It is as bad as
being eaten by a legion of locusts, or trodden to
death by an army of ants. But there is no escape
from it, no neutral ground; we all must belong
to one or other of the fighting factions; and if
we change sides often, we simply run additional
danger when "crossing the open," protected by
no banner at all. For, there are always certain
companies of free-lances, bashi-bazouks or
independent warriors, the Ishmaelites of the profession
—quacks in the vernacular—who hover round
the main body ready to pick up the stragglers.
Those whom they have once picked up, seldom
get over their capture; the bone-setters, and
the herbalists, and the hygeists, and the patent
medicine makers of all kinds, being as deadly foes
to the outside community as they are to each
other.

The civil war between professions extends
to all, of every denomination whatsoever; and
the members of all, respectively, fight together,
with a violence only equalled in ants and
moles; about the fiercest belligerents in nature.
No lawyer finds another's law tenable; no priest
proclaims a brother priest sound from head to
heel in a doctrinal sense; the rawest beginner
at military engineering could have taught Vauban,
or added to the defences of Gibraltar; and
the youngest sea captain on the list would have
handled "The Fighting Téméraire" with more
seamanship, and to a better result. Dog eats
dog until the canine platter is full to overflowing,
and the civil war going on in all ranks and
everywhere, enlists some of its most notorious
Goliaths from the members of professions which
ought to have taught them better things.

There is civil war between the superfine and
downright; between the lady by the patent
of blue blood, and the lady by the patent of
yellow gold, and with both, coalesced, against
the lady in her own right with neither blue
blood nor yellow gold; there is civil war
between the ladies who keep footmen and
the ladies who keep pages; between the
mistress of many maids, and the mistress of but
one; between the wearers of jaunty hats and
impudent feathers, and the wearers of
old-fashioned bonnets and limp petticoats;
between the marrying girls and the non-marrying
girls; between prudes and coquettes; between
the girls who like balls, and the girls who affect
schools; between the girls who go out to every
gaiety of the season, and the girls whose ultima
thule of dissipation is the front row at a solemn
oratorio; there is civil war between the two
aspirants of the one fair hand and between the
twenty aspirants of the goodly fortune; and
between all of both sexes who stand in higher
favour with the other sex, whether married or
single, appropriated or to be appropriated.
There is civil war between the drivers of a
stately barouche and pair, and the drivers of
an under-taxed one; between the drivers of an
under-taxed one, and the hirers of cabs;
between the hirers of cabs and the riders in
omnibuses; between the well, and the roof;
as between the respectability of the old-fashioned
sixpence, and the shocking vulgarity of the
democratic twopence.