e to adopt
the posterial luxuriance of a Hottentot.

'"4. There is safety in a swallow-tail.

'"5. The good sense of a gentleman is nowhere more finely developed
than in his rings.

'"6. It is permitted to mankind, under certain restrictions, to wear
white waistcoats.

'"7. The trousers must be exceedingly tight across the hips."

'All which Propositions I, for the present, content myself with
modestly but peremptorily and irrevocably denying.

'In strange contrast with this Dandiacal Body stands another British
Sect, originally, as I understand, of Ireland, where its chief seat
still is; but known also in the main Island, and indeed everywhere
rapidly spreading. As this Sect has hitherto emitted no Canonical
Books, it remains to me in the same state of obscurity as the
Dandiacal, which has published Books that the unassisted human
faculties are inadequate to read. The members appear to be designated
by a considerable diversity of names, according to their various
places of establishment: in England they are generally called the
_Drudge_ Sect; also, unphilosophically enough, the _White Negroes_;
and, chiefly in scorn by those of other communions, the
_Ragged-Beggar_ Sect. In Scotland, again, I find them entitled
_Hallanshakers_, or the _Stook of Duds_ Sect; any individual
communicant is named _Stook of Duds_ (that is, Shock of Rags), in
allusion, doubtless, to their professional Costume. While in Ireland,
which, as mentioned, is their grand parent hive, they go by a
perplexing multiplicity of designations, such as _Bogtrotters_,
_Redshanks_, _Ribbonmen_, _Cottiers_, _Peep-of-Day Boys_, _Babes of
the Wood_, _Rockites_, _Poor-Slaves_; which last, however, seems to be
the primary and generic name; whereto, probably enough, the others are
only subsidiary species, or slight varieties; or, at most, propagated
offsets from the parent stem, whose minute subdivisions, and shades of
difference, it were here loss of time to dwell on. Enough for us to
understand, what seems indubitable, that the original Sect is that of
the _Poor-Slaves_; whose doctrines, practices, and fundamental
characteristics pervade and animate the whole Body, howsoever
denominated or outwardly diversified.

'The precise speculative tenets of this Brotherhood: how the Universe,
and Man, and Man's Life, picture themselves to the mind of an Irish
Poor-Slave; with what feelings and opinions he looks forward on the
Future, round on the Present, back on