on real
necessities or uses, and limited by these, speculation, of which the
object is merely gain, seeks to excite imaginary necessities and
popular desires, in order to gather its temporary profit from the
supply of them. So that not only the persons who lend their money to
it will be finally robbed, but the work done with their money will be,
for the most part, useless, and thus the entire body of the public
injured as well as the persons concerned in the transaction. Take, for
instance, the architectural decorations of railways throughout the
kingdom,--representing many millions of money for which no farthing of
dividend can ever be forthcoming. The public will not be induced to
pay the smallest fraction of higher fare to Rochester or Dover because
the ironwork of the bridge which carries them over the Thames is
covered with floral cockades, and the piers of it edged with
ornamental cornices. All that work is simply put there by the builders
that they may put the percentage upon it into their own pockets; and,
the rest of the money being thrown into that floral form, there is an
end of it, as far as the shareholders are concerned. Millions upon
millions have thus been spent, within the last twenty years, on
ornamental arrangements of zigzag bricks, black and blue tiles,
cast-iron foliage, and the like; of which millions, as I said, not a
penny can ever return into the shareholders' pockets, nor contribute
to public speed or safety on the line. It is all sunk forever in
ornamental architecture, and (trust me for this!) _all that
architecture is bad_. As such, it had incomparably better not have
been built. Its only result will be to corrupt what capacity of taste
or right pleasure in such work we have yet left to us! And consider a
little, what other kind of result than that might have been attained
if all those millions had been spent usefully: say, in buying land for
the people, or building good houses for them, or (if it had been
imperatively required to be spent decoratively) in laying out gardens
and parks for them,--or buying noble works of art for their permanent
possession,--or, best of all, establishing frequent public schools and
libraries. Count what those lost millions would have so accomplished
for you! But you left the affair to "supply and demand," and the
British public had not brains enough to "demand" land, or lodging, or
books. It "demanded" cast-iron cockades and zigzag cornices, and is
"supplied