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The Psychology of Jingoism

with air and sentiment. By such process of artistic suggestion the fervour of Jingoism has been widely fed, and it is worthy of note that the present meaning of the word was fastened upon it by the popularity of a single verse.

Nicer critics may even be disposed to dilate upon the context of this early use of the new political term – the affected modesty of the opening disclaimer, the rapid transition to a tone of bullying braggadocio, with its culminating stress upon the money-bags, and the unconscious humour of an assumption that it is our national duty to defend the Turk.

Indeed, without descending to minute analysis, we may find something instructive in the crude jumble of sentiment and the artistic setting which it finds –

'We don't want to fight,
But, by Jingo, if we do,
We've got the men,
We've got the ships,
We've got the money too' –

crowned by the domineering passion blurted out in the concluding line –

'The Russians shall not have Constantinople.'

How many of the audiences who cheered this sentiment to the echo, and were heated

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