The blood of
one convicted of high treason is "attaint," and his deprivations extend
to his descendants, unless Parliament remove the attainder.
4 14 PARIAHS: The fate of social outcasts seems to have taken early and
strong hold upon De Quincey's mind; one of the _Suspiria_ was to
have enlarged upon this theme. Strictly speaking, the Pariahs is that
one of the lower castes of Hindoo society of which foreigners have seen
most; it is not in all districts the lowest caste, however.
5 6 OBJECTS NOT APPEARING, ETC.: _De non apparentibus et non
existentibus eadem est lex_, a Roman legal phrase.
5 16 "SNOBS": Apparently snob originally meant "shoemaker"; then, in
university cant, a "townsman" as opposed to a "gownsman." Cf. _Gradus
ad Cantabrigiam_ (1824), quoted in _Century Dictionary_: "_Snobs_.--A
term applied indiscriminately to all who have not the honour of being
members of the university; but in a more particular manner to the
'profanum vulgus,' the tag-rag and bob-tail, who vegetate on the sedgy
banks of Camus." This use is in De Quincey's mind. Later, in the
strikes of that time, the workmen who accepted lower wages were called
_snobs_; those who held out for higher, _nobs_.
7 33 FO FO... FI FI: "This paragraph is a caricature of a story told in
Staunton's Account of the Earl of Macartney's Embassy to China in
1792.
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