No, this isn't another post about Vegemite or even an enconium to the peerless Branston Pickle. It's a passage from George Eliot's towering novel Middlemarch about people who make a profit from pernicious activities while promoting themselves as public benefactors. I've no idea why the Hong Kong Jockey Club should come to mind each time I read it. Or the leaders of the People's Republic of China – not to mention their minions in a tiny satellite on the South China coast.
"[Dr Lydgate] may fairly claim approval at this particular stage of his career: he did not mean to imitate those philanthropic models who make a profit out of poisonous pickles to support themselves while they are exposing adulteration, or hold shares in a gambling-hell that they may have leisure to represent the cause of public morality."
"[Dr Lydgate] may fairly claim approval at this particular stage of his career: he did not mean to imitate those philanthropic models who make a profit out of poisonous pickles to support themselves while they are exposing adulteration, or hold shares in a gambling-hell that they may have leisure to represent the cause of public morality."
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