Thanks to Gregory for posting the superb paragraphs from Barnaby Rudge.
A twentieth-century novel that shows young British people engaged in wanton destruction is Evelyn Waugh’s ‛Decline and Fall’, in which the sporty toffs of the Bollinger Club create havoc after a boozy celebration.
Waugh’s Bollingers are based on the celebrated
Bullingdon Club (founded 1780). According to Tom Driberg, Waugh’s description was a ‛mild account of the night of any Bullingdon Club dinner in Christ Church. Such a profusion of glass I never saw until the height of the Blitz.’ Typically, Bullingdon dinners end with the trashing of the restaurant, and sometimes other mayhem. Since all the members are very wealthy, financial restitution to tradesmen and others is made quickly after the incident.
Past members of the club include David Cameron, Boris Johnson, George Osborne and David Dimbleby, all of whom have been waxing moralistic about the current disturbances. Occasionally over the centuries the Club's exploits have been so spectacular that it has had to go underground for a while, but it has always re-surfaced eventually.
Among the Club’s mottoes is ‛I love the sound of breaking glass’, a sentiment that might find a warm echo in the hearts of many young people in Tottenham and elsewhere.