That honourable ambition would now have to be sacrificed.
With the universal adoption of Colour, all distinctions would cease;
Regularity would be confused with Irregularity; development would
give place to retrogression; the Workman would in a few generations
be degraded to the level of the Military, or even the Convict Class;
political power would be in the hands of the greatest number,
that is to say the Criminal Classes, who were already more numerous
than the Workmen, and would soon out-number all the other Classes
put together when the usual Compensative Laws of Nature were violated.
A subdued murmur of assent ran through the ranks of the Artisans,
and Chromatistes, in alarm, attempted to step forward
and address them. But he found himself encompassed with guards
and forced to remain silent while the Chief Circle in a few
impassioned words made a final appeal to the Women, exclaiming that,
if the Colour Bill passed, no marriage would henceforth be safe,
no woman's honour secure; fraud, deception, hypocrisy would pervade
every household; domestic bliss would share the fate
of the Constitution and pass to speedy perdition.
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