His family had, however, remained in
London even after it had grown rich and not retired to the country, like
so many "warm men" to use the eighteenth century _argot_. I
remember well Austen Chamberlain telling me that he had taken up his
membership of the Cordwainers Company by right of inheritance. His
family had been connected with that company in tail male, so to speak,
since the time of Charles II.
This connection with the city companies had an interesting result. In
the '70s and '80s it was a mark of a Radical to demand the abolition of
the Livery Companies of London and to say hard things about the
Corporation and the City. A Radical meeting was hardly complete without
an attack on the City and its "fat and feasting Tories." When you were
on a Radical platform you expected indeed as Shakespeare says:
"... to hear the City
Abused extremely, and to cry 'That's witty!'"
Mr. Chamberlain, however, whether in the House of Commons or on the
platform, did not like his Colleagues to abuse the City Companies, but
instead, gave them, as all sane people will now agree quite rightly, the
benefit of his support. We should all be the poorer without the
picturesqueness lent to London Municipal Life by its livery.
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