" The substance of
the story is, that a Boston merchant proposed to gild the lamp over his
street-door, but was dissuaded from so doing by the suggestion of a
friend, that by savoring of aristocracy the ornamented gas-burner would
offend the tyrannical people and provoke violence against it! This, the
latest joke in the solemn Quarterly, has led many of its readers here to
recall the days of Madame Trollope and the Reverend Mr. Fiddler, those
veracious and "well-known travellers." There are, we are sorry to say,
many gilded street-lamps, burnished and blazing every night, in Boston.
But instead of standing before the houses of our merchants, they
designate quite a different class of edifices. Our merchants, as a
general thing, would object, both on the score of good taste and on
grounds of disagreeable association with the signal, to raise such an
ornament before the doors of their comfortable homes. The common people,
however, so far from taking umbrage at the spectacle, would be rather
gratified by the generosity of our grandees in being willing to show
some of their finery out of doors. This would be the feeling especially
of that part of our population which is composed of foreigners, who have
been used to the sight of such demonstrations in their native countries,
which are not democracies.
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