SSSS5» ^^--•^^^w^ _ MM 4 <* TT«-»4TT/£H»C*1I' 3-s v&y [BRARY OF THE University of California. C1RCULA TING B K A .V C If Return in *we-wkf; or a week befor oj fcii I:: ■ r 8 ; . ■ ' : :v:::v;M ENGLAND IN UNIFORM STYLE. RUSSIA. By D. Mackenzie Wallace, M.A., Member of the Imperial Russian Geographical So- ciety. With two colored maps, 8vo. I URK.EY. By James Baker, M.A, Lieutenant- Colonel Auxiliary Forces, formerly Eighth Hussars. With two colored maps, 8vo. EGYPT. By J. C. McCOAN. With map, 8vo. ENGLAND: Its People, Polity, and Pursuits. By T. H. S. Escott. Svo. HENRY HOLT & CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. tyfay ENGLAND HER PEOPLE, POLITY, AND PURSUITS BY T. H. S. ESCOTT 'J NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1880. 'P h 6 '<\ AUTHOR'S EDITION. PEEFAOE. The object of this book has been so fully explained in the first chapter, that it scarcely seems necessary to inflict a Preface upon the reader. Yet there are some things which could not well be stated in the body of the work, and which it may not be amiss here briefly to set forth. My purpose has been to present the public in this volume with as complete and faithful a picture of contemporary En- gland as the limits of space and opportunity would allow. That I might do this the better, I have devoted much time to the collection of materials, I have made several visits to different parts of the country, I have conversed with, and lived amongst, many varieties of people. The facts stated are those of observation and experience, and whatever there is of description in this volume may, at least, claim to be a transcript of what I have seen. While I have endeavored to be as accurate as possible in my narrative of the general condition of England, and in my account of the influences which are at work among us, and which may, perhaps, determine our future, so have I studi- ously avoided all historical retrospect when it did not appear absolutely necessary for a right understanding of our present state. Thus, too, while criticism and the expression of per- sonal opinion have seemed occasionally unavoidable, I have aimed at being scrupulously sparing of both. Of the plan of the work, I will only here say these words. Those who honor me with a continuous perusal of its pages » vi PREFACE. will, I venture to think, perceive that its chapters are closely and logically connected by a pervading identity of purpose. There are certain central ideas in the book round which I have endeavored to group my facts and descriptions, and which I have explained at sufficient length in the intro- ductory chapter. Whether the point of view there taken be right or wrong, it is at least that which has been taken con- sistently, and I hope it will have the effect of imparting to the entire work a certain air of unity and cohesion. Again, though I cannot hope to have escaped sins of omission, I would venture respectfully to be allowed to remind those who may not find all their conceptions realized that this book is not an encyclopedia, but a survey ; and I would further crave permission to add that in some cases I have found it neces- sary to treat of particular subjects elsewhere than in those chapters in which, from their titles, such subjects might be expected to have a place. Thus, though there is no chapter exclusively devoted to the literature of the day in all its branches, I trust that a fair general view of that literature and its tendencies will be found in the three chapters, Ee- ligious England, Popular Culture and Literature, English Philosophy and Thought, which should be read together, and to which I might perhaps add that on Popular Amusements. While the information contained in this volume is for the most part the result of study of the facts at first hand, 1 have also profited greatly from the perusal of official documents and other treatises. Whenever a statement is made from Blue Books of a kind likely to challenge criticism or provoke controversy, I think I shall be found to have pointed out where it may be found in the original. In other cases I have not thought it necessary to load my page with those references, whose frequent repetition chiefly serves to distract the reader's attention. The parliamentary papers which I have found of most assistance are the reports of the Com- mission on the employment of children, young persons, and PREFACE. vii women in agriculture of 1867, of the Factory and Workshops Acts Commission of 1876, of the report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Truck system of 1871, as well as the periodical reports of the Educational Department, of the Inspectors of Factories, and of the Poor Law Board, and the journals of the Royal Agricultural Society. As regards the > other works to which I am mainly indebted, they will be found, I think, in almost every instance named in the text or in a footnote. I would here add that I have derived many valuable facts and suggestions from the works of Mr. Clifford and Mr. T. E. Kebbel on the agricultural laborer, as also from the sketches of the same original by the author of the " Game- keeper at Home." I have also to express my best thanks for the invaluable assistance which, in the production of this work, I have re- ceived from many friends, and from some who, till it was undertaken, were strangers. Without this help the book could not have been written. The list of those who have so helped me is long, and I can only here mention a few repre- sentative names. I am deeply indebted to the several eminent noblemen, the management of whose estates forms the subject of Chapter IV., for the facilities afforded me for investigating their sys- tems of territorial administration. I am not less grateful to the following, whose names fol- low in alphabetical order, for much valuable information and advice in different parts of my work: — Lord Carnarvon; Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P. ; Mr. G. H. Croad, Clerk of the Lon- don School Board; Bishop Claughton; Sir Charles Dilke, M.P. ; Mr. Grant Duff, M.P.; Mr. T. H. Fairer, Board of Trade; Canon Fleming; Mr. W. E. Forster, M.P. ; Mr. Harrison, Assistant Clerk of the Privy Council; Mr. E. G. W. Herbert, Colonial Office; Sir John Lubbock, M.P. ; Sir Louis Mallet, Indian Office; Professor D. Marks; Mr. Archibald Milman; Mr. A. J. Mundella, M.P. ; Mr. Albert Pell, M.P.; Mr. C. Lennox Tiii PREFACE. Peel, Clerk of the Council ; the Eev. Dr. Morley Punshon ; Mr. C. S. Read, M.P. ; the Pie v. Dr. Stoughton; Mr. Edward James Smith; Sir Julius Yogel; Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, M.P. Many of these gentlemen have not only given me or assisted me to obtain much useful information, but have most obligingly read through and revised various portions of the proofs. Hence, I trust I have secured a further guarantee against serious mistakes, and so invested the book with an additional value. I have further gratefully to acknowledge more specific assistance than this. The chapter on Commercial and Finan- cial England (VIII.) is the work of Mr. J. Scot Henderson; for that on Criminal England (XIV.) I am indebted to Major Arthur Griffiths, Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons; the Law Courts (XXIV.) has been contributed by Mr. W. D. I. Foulkes, Barrister-at-Law of the Inner Temple; the review of English Philosophy and Thought (XXVII.) is from the pen of Mr. W. L. Courtney, Fellow and Lecturer of New College, Oxford, and author of "An Examination of Mill"; while in the ckaptei on the Services I have been largely assisted in the naval por- tion by Captain Cyprian A. G. Bridge, R.N. T. H. S. ESCOTT. CONTENTS. CHAP. TAGE I. Introductory 1 II. The English Village 8 III. Great Landlords, and Estate Management ... 25 IV. Eural Administration 43 V 'V. Municipal Government 59 * VI. Towns op Business 79 VII. Towns of Pleasure 99 VIII. Commercial and Financial England 110 /IX. Commercial Administration 130 X. The Working Classes 141 XL The Working Classes (continued) 173 XII. Pauperism and Thrift 201 XIII. Co-operation 222 XIV. Criminal England 238 XV. Traveling and Hotels 256 XVI. Educational England 272 XVII. The Social Eevolution 298 > XVIII. The Structure of English Society 310 i/XIX. Society and Politics 326 XX. Crown and Ci:owd 338 X CONTENTS. \ i » - ' - - > CHAP. PAGE XXI. Official England . 355 XXII. The House of Commons 372 XXIII. The House of Lords 390 XXIV. The Law Courts 411 XXV. The Services 431 XXVI. Religious England 452 XXVII. Modern Philosophical Thought 483 XXVIII. Modern Culture and Literature 50(3 XXIX. Popular Amusements 542 XXX. Professional England 562 XXXI. Imperial England and Conclusion 580 // ENGLAN -on >■,-* vo CHAPTER I Ir-cSt*. INTRODUCTORY. The Scope and Purpose of the Present Work — New Forces introduced into the National Life during the Present Century — Social, Political, Moral, and Intellectual Problems of the Day — What are the Duties of the State? — What the Imperial Mission of England ? — The Age not only one of Tran- sition but of Organization — Economy of Forces of all kinds — General Con- tents of this Work, and Treatment adopted. A WORK honestly attempting a comprehensive and faithful pic- ture of the social and political condition of modern England requires small apology. The nineteenth century, in this country as elsewhere, has not only been marked by changes and improvements vast and sweeping in degree, but by achievements wholly new in kind. Methods and institutions long existing among us have been brought nearer to perfection; forces previously unfelt or unknown have been introduced. On the one hand, there may be witnessed the realized result of the complete operations of centuries; on the other, there is visible the as yet unfinished product of agencies still at work. At the beginning of the present century, though we had perfected the stage-coach, no new principle had been applied to locomotion since the Romans conquered this island, or, to go back j to a date still more remote, since Cyrus introduced the system of posting into the empire which he conquered upwards of three thou- sand years ago. Steam, at the same time that it changed the con- ditions of traveling, effected a social revolution throughout the world. Co-operating with the electric telegraph, and equalizing the relations of space and time, as gunpowder equalized the vari- ous degrees of physical strength, it brought the country to the doors of the town, and bridged over the gulf between England and the countries of the Continent. Co-operating with free trade, it raised us to a perilous height of commercial prosperity, and added dignity and influence to the principle of wealth. 2 ENGLAND. Analogous alterations have been -wrought in the political and the intellectual world. A system of genuinely popular government has been established, and in the political Reform Bills of 1832 and 1867 we have had two measures entirely different in scope and principle from any previously passed by an English Parliament. For the first tune in our history the attempt has been made with earnest- ness and success to introduce an effective scheme of popular educa- tion; and for the first time also there has been witnessed the uni- versal dissemination of a popular literature, fettered by no political or religious constraints. As we have seen the enlightenment, so we have seen the upheaval and the fusion of classes. Old lines of social demarkation have been obliterated, ancient landmarks of thought and belief removed, new standards of expediency and right created. The same process has been unceasingly active in the domain of politics, philosophy, liter- ature, and art. It may be, here and there, revival rather than revo- lution; a return to the old rather than a departure to the new; but, in many cases, the idols which we reverenced but a little time ago have been destroyed. We have made for ourselves strange gods, and we live in a state of transition to a yet unknown order. The precise functions of the new philosophy, science, theology, and art, are as loosely defined as the exact provinces of the three estates of the realm, or the future relations of the different component parts of society. We hold enlarged conceptions of our place in the scale of the peoples of the earth, but what England's mission really is we have not quite decided. We are in process of making up our minds what respect or attention, in fixing the destinies of a great nation, is due to the popular will, what obeisance to the Sovereign, what confidence to the Sovereign's advisers. We are in perplexity as to the course we should steer between the democratic and the monar- chical principles. It is a moot point whether the governed or the governors should be the judges of the plan of government that is adopted. It is an open question whether we should accept measures because of the man, or base our estimate of the man upon his meas- ures. The respective rights of employer and employed, capital and industry, are an unsolved problem. A clear and generally accepted notion of the duties of the State has still to be formed. Politicians and sociologists debate on platforms, and in magazines — five-and- twenty years ago it would have been in pamphlets — as to the amount of legislation with which it is necessary to protect the interests of a class and the well-being of the individual. If it falls within the sphere of Government to provide the machinery of education and INTRODUCTORY. 3 health for the community, up to what point is it the duty of Gov- ernment to insist upon its use ? How far are men to be protected against their own vices, or the consequences of those vices? Arc the masses to be taught sobriety by Act of Parliament? Is the drunkard to be condemned, or to be suffered to condemn himself, to close confinement for his drunkenness? Is incontinence of all Icinds to carry with it its own probable punishment ? At every turn some vital issue presents itself in a guise more or less easily to be recognized. Upwards of fifty years ago, the Muni- cipal Corporation Act, which conferred upon ratepayers the right of electing their municipal authorities, the Town Councilors, and thus established the principle of local and representative self-government, was hailed with enthusiasm as the charter of the provincial liberties of England. The necessity of the existence of a central authority in the capital was admitted, but it was half believed that its controlling influence woidd seldom or never be felt. If, in the interval that has elapsed since 1835, free play has been given in many respects to the principle of local independence, a certain later tendency towards its abridgment cannot be ignored. The great provincial towns and cities of England have acquired fresh power and importance. The self-government of villages has almost entirely disappeared. Even as regards the great towns and entire urban or raral districts, the central Government practically claims an authority which is by no means unresistingly admitted. Manchester, Liverpool, and Birming- ham have grown in greatness and in influence; but London has be- come increasingly the metropolis of the empire, and a minute and far-reaching system of bureaucratic authority is exercised from Whitehall, within a radius equal in extent to the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. Modern legislation has created new departments of State. We have entire armies of State inspectors of all kinds. We accumulate annual libraries of local reports. Applications to the executive in London or to Parliament at Westminster are imperatively enforced, upon a multitude of novel and miscellaneous pleas. The govern- ment of our prisons has been vested in a body of commissioners nominated by the Crown. On the other hand, it is a question which perplexes the Government, and of which no satisfactory solution has yet been proposed, whether the administration of counties should be transferred from the hands of the country gentlemen to the nominees and representatives of the ratepayers. These are not the only matters in which the supremacy and responsibility of the State are closely canvassed. Is the State, in addition to its duties as the 4 ENGLAND. champion of the different communities which live under it, to fulfill the function of an accommodating money-lender, on easy terms, for the carrying out of local improvements ? THiat is the exact point at which the State is under an obligation to relieve local rates out of imperial taxation, and when and why does that obligation cease ? Nor is it only the position and the attributes of the English Gov- ernment at home which are the subjects of controversy and uncer- tainty. Tlie duties of the English Government abroad, the place which England should fill in the hierarchy of the sovereign nations cf the earth, the extent to which and the channels by which her authority and influence should make themselves felt, are points on which there is much dispute, much enthusiasm, but no immediate prospect of permanent agreement. It is thought by some that we have already witnessed an emphatic and an abiding protest against the political doctrines which are conmionly associated with the name I of Cobden. The English nation, it is asserted, have loudly test: I to then desire that England should be something more than the emporium of Europe, a place of merchandise and barter for the nations of the world. The popular veto upon an unqualified ac- ceptance of the doctrine of non-intervention is said to have gone forth. AVe are, if this view be correct, thirsting for the responsi- bilities of empire, and panting for the fresh and invigorating atmos- phere which the periodical enlargement of our imperial boundaries brings with it. Strong voices of grave warning have been raised against these ambitions. It lias been hinted that we should pre- pare ourselves for a reduction rather than an increase of our im- perial cares, and that we should witness with satisfaction, since it is approaching with the certainty of fate, a contraction of the foreign dominions of England within narrower limits. If, it is urged by these monitors, we rush forward to the great enterprises which we are heedlessly encouraged to undertake, we shall reap our future reward in bitter mortification, in angry discontent, and, it may be, in domestic revolution. Between these two schools of counselors England seems to halt. It is not necessary here to forecast the selection which she may finally make, or the national consequences which that selection will involve. Upon one or two historical facts, and some of our more prominent social conditions, it may be desirable in connection with these matters very briefly to dwell. If the Englishman wants some more definite and tangible guarantee of foreign empire than a vague boast that the sun never sets upon the British flag; if, instead of a personal devotion to fatherland, the old-fashioned INTRODUCTORY. £ belief that England, and England alone, was abundantly sufficient for all bis wants, be would fain bestride the world like ;i Colossus, it is to be remembered that there is much in the infectious spirit of the age to explain such a sentiment, Is not the present I epoch of immense transactions and colossal speculations? Ti we not imported the idea of vastness from the other side of the Atlantic? and are we not attempting its realization here? Every- where small establishments have been swallowed up in large. The private farm is absorbed in the limited liability company; the pri- vate bank in the joint-stock. The tradesman no sooner finds him- self doing well than he is seized with a desire to extend his prem- ises; and, if matters prosper, he will presently buy up the section of a street. Above all things, it is the era of material triumphs. The miraculous feats of our engineers, the immense development of machinery, the mastery which on every hand man seems acquiring over nature, have brought with them to Englishmen a sense of boundless power — a conviction that they hare the command of re- source, and the fertility of invention, which mark them out as all creation's heirs. Amid the ceaseless clang of hammers and the everlasting roar of human industry, the Englishman unconsciously apprehends some echo of the far-off infinite. Caiiyle is welcomed as a great teacher, because he appeals to this inarticulate feeling, and, without his readers being precisely aware of it, shapes it into ruggedly eloquent utterance. Is it an idle fancy to see in the vague popular desire for an indefinite extension of the dominions and the responsibilities of England an enlarged reflection of the insatiate pas- I sion that is generated by the social conditions under which we live ? But the new spirit of boundless empire means more than this. If it is a reaction against a real or imaginary neglect of the imperial /interests of England in the past few years by England's governors, it is in a great degree the significant product of two separate forces — the one practical, the other sentimental. England is a country whose population is perpetually overflowing her narrow geographi- ' cal limits. She wants careers for her sons; she wants safe opportu- nities of investment for her capital. "With an enormously devel- oped middle class such as we now have, it is felt that there would be no adequate number of avenues of employment if our foreign possessions were reduced. India and the colonies afford occupation for tens of thousands of young men born to decent station. Even thus, more occupation, and that of a dignified or gentleman-like kind, is wanted. Nor is the sentimental force one whose influence can be neg- 6 ENGLAND. lected. The immense influence of wealth with the middle classes has resulted in a larger demand for professions that commend themselves to the polite world. Such a profession is the profession of arms. The soldier has been always a social favorite. The aboli- tion of purchase in the army has resulted in the establishment of a professional army, and, by giving them a kind of family interest in the calhng of arms, has created a wider and more intensely military Bpirit among the middle classes than once seemed possible. The volunteer movement has operated in precisely the same direction. An imperial policy not only means abundance of civilian, but regu- larity of military employment. At the same time that it commends itself to the English mind as a policy worthy of a race which has made its greatness by the sword, it is recognized also as stamped with the more or less avowed approval of the upper classes of En- glish society. It is not the only characteristic of our age that it is transitional. It may further be described as one distinguished by the economy and organization of forces of all kinds. "While science teaches us i how to prevent the waste of motive power, philanthropy encourages us to prevent the wholesale waste of humanity. Thus it is that we are constantly endeavoring to amend our educational system, to provide more effective machinery for the promotion of thrift, for the distribution of charity, and for the cultivation of other social and political virtues. Household suffrage not only exists, but in a vari- ety of ways there is visible the organized effort to insure that its active exercise shall be increasingly productive of substantial results. The working classes are acquiring more and more political power; at the same time they are being taught how that they can make power more directly and definitely felt. "Whatever virtues, capacities, en- ergies, may reside in any part of our population, these are now in process of being drawn forth, and pressed into practical service. •Sides are being formed, specific parts taken, schools of thought multiply, societies for action increase. "What was simple becomes complex, what was always complex becomes more complex still. It will be the chief pari of our duty in the following pages to analyze and explain the constituents of the artificial civilization, and of the minutely elaborated institutions of the time. Such an attempt, it is believed, will at least have the merit of novelty. The laws and polity under which we live have received much of learned comment; their history and principles are written in encyclopedias and in text- books. But they have, for the most part, been treated in the spirit of the constitutional anatomist; they have been examined, not so INTR OD UC TOR Y. 7 much in their practical working and mutual relations while working, as in the theory of their mechanism while at rest. They have been studied more as abstractions than as concrete realities. Hence it is that Englishmen and Englishwomen generally lack a vividly com- plete idea of the institutions under which they live, and have no clear and comprehensive notion of the particular forces at work in the atmosphere around them. Every one knows that we have in England local self-government; few know how in practice it Is ministered. In the same way, it is universally recognized that we enjoy immense commercial prosperity, but it is only those person- ally concerned who have an accurate acquaintance with the details of management on which that prosperity depends. The same re- marks are applicable to all departments of our national life. The names are familiar to each one of us; the realities are familiar only to the comparatively limited number whom they specially affect. What in this work will be done for institutions will be done in the same manner for classes and for occupations, for professions and pursuits; for the refining influences of culture, as well as for the organization of commerce : for our social not less than our mu- nicipal and political system; for the amusements and recreations of the age, as Avell as for its literature, philosophy, art, religion, and law. Necessarily the space that can be devoted to each of these themes is comparatively small, but into that space materials, it is hoped, may be collected which will present the reader with a com- prehensive view of the influences, the tendencies, and the general economy of English life. "We shall pass from the simpler elements of our civilization and government as they may be beheld in rural England to the busier and more highly organized customs and ad- ministration of our great centers of trade and industry. We shall make the acquaintance of typical members of our laboring com- munity in town and country, and of the changes in the conditions of their life, whether actually accomplished or in progress. Having thus seen, in concrete shape, the personnel of the English nation at large, then temper, tastes, toils, and pastimes, it will remain to ex- amine the social organization of the polite world, and the institutions and principles established among us for the administration of the em- pire. At each step we shall be conscious of a gradual ascent. We shall be working constantly upwards, and arriving at the general from the particular. If this method seems to involve the inversion of the natural order of importance, it may not be unattended by some advan- tages, and the whole will be perhaps, the better understood when it has been seen what are the parts and influences of which it consists. CHAPTER II. THE ENGLISH VILLAGE. An English Village a Microcosm of the English Constitution — Eelations of Squire, Clergyman, and General Body of Parishioners — Sketch of the Country Parson : his Day ; his multifarious Duties, Eeligious and Secular — Sketches of Country Parsons who do not conform to this Type — A Disor- ganized Parish — Hostile Estimates of the Country Clergyman of the En- glish Church — His Eelations to the Fanners and Dissenters of his Parish. AN English village may Toe described as a microcosm not only of the English nation, but of the English Constitution. Roughly speaking, there is to be seen in every English parish the miniature pattern and reflection of the three estates of the realm — the lords spiritual, the lords temporal, the commons. The representative of the lords spiritual is the clergyman; of the lords temporal, the squire; of the commons, the tenant and villager; while squire and clergyman between them, like the two Houses of Parliament, prac- tically exercise not a few of those functions which in their essence pertain to the Sovereign only. The normal or ideal state of things in a country parish is one under which there is absolute unanimity between the action and the will of the representatives of the spir- itual and temporal powers — that is, between the parson and the squire — and where the inhabitants acquiesce in the decision and policy of these as in the dispensation of a beneficent wisdom. Nor is the theory of English village life, or the analogy that has been suggested between the State and the parish, destroyed by the fact that deviations fi-om the ideal standard are not unknown. For the most part, the elements to which village life may be reduced com- bine with tolerable harmony in practice; and when there is discord, it is not the system, but clumsiness or error in its administration, which is to blame. Recent legislation, as will be presently seen, has in some respects materially affected the relations between those in whom are vested the secular and religious jurisdiction of English country districts. THE ENGLISH VILLAGE. But the main principles of the system are now what they alw; have been, and completely to eradicate them would entail a social revolution. Just as the squire — the word is used for convenience' : sake, whether the local great man be peer, baronet, small country gentleman, or that combination of minister of the Church of Eng- land and territorial potentate which Sydney Smith has caUed Squar- son — necessarily has a moral iniluence added to his secular condi- tion, so the clergyman has attributes distinctly secular in addition to his ecclesiastical prerogatives. The Church of England lies at » the root of the parochial system of England. The subdivisions of the country are ecclesiastical. The local dispensary, the poor-rate, the way-rate, the vestry, arc parochial institutions in the administra- tion of which the clergyman has, in virtue of his position as cler- gyman, a legal voice. Not merely the village parson, rector, or vicar has definite legal duties and authority, but the clergyman's churchwarden, the parish clerk, the sexton. The unity between Church and State is typified in the administration of an English village at every tu*rn. The squire is a magistrate: not improbably the rector is a magistrate too. The clergyman and the congrega- tion have each their churchwarden. The parish clerk, beadle, and sexton have all of them a legal and civil status, and in a great num- ber of cases share, with the clergyman, whose nominees they prob- ably are, responsibility for the order of the parish. The position and responsibility of the clergyman vary according to circumstances. The growing tendency on the part of the squire is to be elsewhere than at his country home during the greater part of the year. His parliamentary duties demand his presence in Lon- don; his social obligations compel him to make a round of visits; regard for his health and that of his family renders it necessary that he should travel annually for a few weeks. He is, in effect, for nine months out of every twelve, an absentee landlord; but he has, he remarks, the satisfaction of knowing that in his absence every thing is looked after admirably. He has an agenjt in whom he reposes the utmost confidence, and who has carte-blanche to do what is fair and reasonable in the interest of his tenants. He has a clergyman I whom he pronounces a blessing to the entire neighborhood. Thus, one of two things happens: either all local authority, secular as well as ecclesiastical, becomes concentrated in the hands of the clergy- man, or a struggle develops itself between the clergyman and the I representative of the squire — his agent. It depends in each case on the character of the clergyman and the squire which of the two alternatives is realized. In the majority of instances the two author- 10 ENGLAND. ities pull well together. But perhaps the best way of forming an idea of the working of the system in English life will be to take a concrete illustration. / We are, let the reader suppose, engaged in visiting an agricul- tural Tillage, whose population is some five or six hundred souls, situated half a dozen miles froni the nearest railway station. It is the month of June; every feature in the peaceful landscape is in the perfection of its beauty; the fresh deep green of the English foliage — the freshest and deepest in all the world — has as yet lost nothing of its depth or freshness; there is an odor of newly-made hay in the air; the music of the whetstone sharpening the mower's scythe may be heard in the morning, and all day long the lark carols high overhead. The whole village, in fact, is busily occupied with the hay harvest, and the farmers are intent upon getting it in before there comes the break in the weather threatened by certain ugly barometrical signs. The village is a purely agrictdtural one; it con- tains a general store shop, a shoemaker's, a small tailor's, a small inn, and one or two beer shops. The lord of the manor is also the representative of the county in Parliament, and, as is incumbent upon an elective legislator, is, in these da} r s of leafy June, busily engaged in his senatorial duties at Westminster. A better scpiire no parson, as the parson himself admits, could wish. Indeed, the two have been friends together from boyhood. They were compan- ions at school, played in the school eleven at Lord's, went to the university in the same October term. The squire/ is not a very great landlord, for his property in that neighborhood barely produces £3,000 a year, but he has possessions elsewhere, and he is not with- out judicious and profitable investments. He) is liberal, sees that the dwellings of his laborers are kept hi proper condition, gives largely to all local funds, and has just built some very handsome schools. But he has never been guilty of the indiscriminate bounty which is the parent of pauperism. He has been fortunate in secur- ing as his bailiff and agent a respectable gentleman, who has no social ambition of an aggressive character, and no wish to assert his authority in opposition to that of the rector. And the rector himself — what of him ? That is the rectory, two or three hundred yards this side of the church. A substantial building, set in a pleasant garden, girt with a hedge of fuchsias, myrtle, and laurels. The glebe attached to the living is extensive, and from it indeed comes the larger portion of the rectorial revenue. A few fields the parish priest keeps in his own hands, and he too, like his farmers, has been busy hay-making and hay-carrying in this THE ENGLISH VILLAGE. 11 glorious June weather. It is now the afternoon, and tln^ee or four hoxirs in every afternoon — the interval, that is, between lunch and dinner — it is his habit to devote to walking, driving, riding, or, more commonly, pedestrian tours of parochial inspection, and visits to his parishioners. At the present moment he is strolling through one of Farmer A.'s fields, and — he is an authority on these matters — is taking up and smelling, in the approved fashion of the connois- seur, some of the grass which has just fallen ridgeways before the mower's scythe. He has a well-made, upright figure; a clear, open expression of countenance; he is rather over fifty years of age, and his dress is of black cloth, distinguishable in hue but scarcely in cut from that which, were he at home instead of at Westminster, the squire himself would wear. He chats occasionally with the men who are busily employed in filling the carts, or in any of the duties of the field, but you may notice that he is very careful to avoid the appearance of inflicting his company on any one of them. Let us see how he is occupied at other hours of the day. Fam- ily prayers are over by half-past eight, for the rector likes to have finished his breakfast and to get to his study by nine. This morn- ing he is particularly busy; there are letters to answer, a sermon to prepare, diocesan documents to be read and signed, and there, is a great deal of reading which he is anxious to do. He has scarcely sat down to his tea and toast, with yesterday's Tirm s, just arrived, at his side, when a knock comes at the door. It is Martha Hodge, who wants to know when her baby can be christened; or John Giles, who is anxious to fix the day and hour for his Reverence to tie the knot between himself and Sarah Stokes; or it may be that one of the fanners' wives has called round to speak to the rector's lady on the subject of the tunes and hymns which were sung last, or will be sung next Sunday; or it is a laborer's wife, who has a tale of sorrow and want to impart, who seeks relief from great destitu- tion, and who is striving up to the last to keep out of the jurisdic- tion of "the House." At last he has disposed of some half-dozen of these interruptions, and is secure in his library, deep in papers and in thought. But his seclusion is not to remain long unbroken. The inevitable knock at the door comes, and one of the parochial functionaries is announced as waiting to see him. It is his church- warden, whose duty it is to inform him that one of his congregation — a farmer of a controversial turn, or a farmer's wife or daughter, with a nice eye for ritual propriety, has taken exception to some- thing that was said, sung, or done in church last Sunday; protests that he or she distinctly saw the pastor make, or fail to make, some 12 ENGLAND. specific genuflexion at a certain point of the service; complains that in his or her opinion the language of such-and-such a hymn smacks too much of Popery or Calvinism; declares that between the tune to which the organist (who happens to be the rector's eldest daughter) played it, and a music-hall ditty, the ah of which was recently ground out by a nomad Italian organ-boy who chanced to be pass- ing through the village, there was a suspiciously strong resemblance. The object for which the interview is sought may be of a less frivolous character. The parish is disturbed by some crime, agi- tated by some scandal, or is threatened by some nuisance, big with the seeds of death and disease to the inhabitants. The question, therefore, submitted to the parish clergyman by churchwarden, parish clerk, or beaclle, is whether immediate application should not be made to the head of the local constabulary, or to the local sani- tary inspector, or to whatever other official has cognizance of the special cause of danger or offence. Nor do the secular responsibili- ties of the country clergyman end here. If the village post-office is also a savings-bank, those of his parishioners who are of thrifty habits will be able to transact then* own small financial business without his intervention. But it ofteu happens that no such encour- agement to thrift as a savings bank in connection with the post-of- fice exists, and in this case the rector will frequently find himself / doing duty as village banker. Occasionally, too, he discharges in minor maladies the functions of the village doctor. The local iEscu- lapius, or the Hippocrates employed by the guardians, lives at some little distance, and has, it may be, besides, an objection to attending gratuitous patients. There are medicines to be prescribed, sooth- ing drinks and nutritious diet to be sent to the sick-room. No squire who for eight or nine months out of the twelve is an ab- sentee, however well-disposed, and however comprehensive the in- structions which he may have left to his servants, can entirely relieve the clergyman as a dispenser of material comforts and relief. Then, as the rector or vicar is something of a banker and a doctor, so too is he something of a lawyer and general agent as well. He is often invoked to arbitrate in family differences; he is expected to procure occupation for lads and maidens who wish to go out into the world. He is, in fact, looked upon as an oracle whose inspiration is never to fail, and as a source of charity which is never to run dry. Of the ten or fifteen thousand beneficed clergymen of the Church of Eng- land, it is the exception to find one who does not, to the best of his ability and means, discharge most of these duties, and not these only, but many more. THE ENGLISH VILLAGE. 13 TTe have spoken of the documents which our parson has received by the morning's post. Among them are some that come from the Education Office, and relate to his school. There are long and complicated returns to be filled up, which will necessitate a con- ference with the schoolmaster and schoolmistress. Possibly he has no sooner mastered the contents of these documents, and is busying himself upon his sermon, than he receives a call from the school- master. The School Inspector of the district, a young gentleman fresh from the university, has suddenly made his appearance on a surprise visit. This youthful dignitary has to be duly met, and after- wards be invited to luncheon, and discoursed with on the idiosyn- crasies of the district. And this is the lightest portion of the burden which the Education Department and the existing Education Acts impose on the shoulders of the beneficed divine. There are school committees which meet periodically; the parson himself frequently has to do duty as a house-to-house visitor among the parents of his parish, and personally to inquire into the causes of absence: an invidious task this, and one for the discharge of which some other functionary might reasonably be provided. Even yet the catalogue of the secular or semi-secular offices of the country parson is not exhausted. There is many a village clergyman avIio has had quite as much experience as an ordinary solicitor in the drawing of wills, and as habits of thrift increase among the working classes there is a proportionate increase also in the duties of this description which devolve upon the minister of the Church. The average English rustic has a profound objection to, and suspicion of, banks of deposit of any kind. Gradually he is over- coming his prejudice against the Post-office Savings Bank; but as a rule he prefers acting as his own banker, and keeping in some secret place the money which he has been able to put by. If he be of an unusually confiding disposition, he will entrust his accum- ulated hoard to some individual — the clergyman, or his landlord. Banks break, and firms go into liquidation, and from the point of view of the agricultural mind there is always danger in numb; But the squire or the parson is an integral and visible part of the system under which the peasant fives his daily life, and thus it is that the parson, who is always on the spot, is constantly commis- sioned to purchase a cottage, or make some other investment. The treasury in which the precious coins — gold, silver, and copper — are deposited is almost without exception an old stocking, or tea-pot, secreted in some mysterious corner. It is far from unprecedented for the rustic capitalists who resort to this primitive mode of bank- 14 ENGLAND. ing to have by theni upwards of £100. Unfortunately it is by no means always the case that the possessor of this wealth is as wise as he or she has been thrifty, and takes the precaution of bequeathing it in legal form. No will has been made; some friend or relation, having, it may be, an idea of the hoarding which has been in process for years, explores each nook and cranny of the dwelling, encounters the tea-pot or stocking, and secretly exulting in the truth that dead men tell no tales, appropriates the contents. And there are other functions which our clergyman is called upon to perform. He has to attend to various administrative and deliberative duties at stated intervals in the adjoining town. Per- haps he is a member of the Board of Guardians; perhaps, and more probably, he is on the directorate of the county hospital or refor- matory. And yet within the limits of his own village he has hygi- enic occupation enough, as, indeed, has been already shown. He is the dispenser of not a little charity of his own; he is the distribu- tor and trustee of funds which landlords who have property in the place leave to him to manage. The task may not involve much labor, but it is a singularly ungrateful one. He has to contend against a vulgar idea that to the fingers of him who has the man- agement of money, money somehow or other inevitably adheres, and the recipients of the bounty secretly insinuate, or sometimes openly aver, that the sum available for eleemosynary purposes is not what it ought to be. Nor is he without some official connection with two of the chief institutions in almost every English village — the Clothing Club and the Benefit Society. As regards the former he acts as banker and accountant, enters in a book all the payments made by different members to the fund, and when the season for purchases arrives, draws up and signs the orders on the tradesmen in the neighboring town. With the Benefit Society he has less to do in an official capacity. These institutions may be described as organizing the application of the co-operative principle, in some of its most elementary shapes, to the simple conditions of rustic life. The plan of their formation and their operative method are always the same. They offer a pre- mium to thrift, but annuities or insurance against death do not usu- ally enter into their scheme. The average sum paid by the majority of the members is fifteen shillings a year. "When disabled by illness they receive from the common fund nine shillings a week. In case of death, each member is entitled to £3 to £6, as the expenses of his own, and £2 to £4 in defrayal of those of his wife's funeral. The society also employs a medical man of its own, who, in consid- THE ENGLISH VILLAGE. 15 eration of a, certain small salary, usually about. £30 a year, attends to all members without payment of any further fee. In case of per- manent disablement from sickness or age, the society discontinues its relief, while there is a regulation, by no means invariably ob- served, that relief shall be withheld entirely when the accident or illness is the result of vicious and preventiblc causes — has coma from drunkenness or any form of debauchery. An idea may be gained of the prosperity of these associations from the fact thai in an agricultural village of a midland county, with a population of 500, a Benefit Society, which has been in existence for forty years, has at the present moment a sum of £600 invested in the Three per Cents. The treasurer of these societies is usually a farmer. The clergyman is the chaplain, who is often consulted as to the admin- istration of the fund, asked to arbitrate in disputed cases of relief, and occasionally called upon to advise as to investments. A Benefit Society would be nothing without its annual feast; and at the ban- quet — 2s. 6d. per head — given on this occasion it is the natural thing that the clergyman shotdd preside. From this, which is in no way an exaggerated account of the multifarious services that a parish clergyman is called upon to ren- der to his parishioners in their secular life, some notion may be formed of the far-reaching consequences of the good or evil which he has it in his power to effect. In a majority of English villages ' he is, or may be, the soul and center of the social life of the neigh- borhood, the guarantee of its unity, the tribunal to which local differences and difficulties are referred, and before which they are amicably settled. That he is practically all or most of this, is really admitted by the enemies of the Church and clergy of England, when they allow that the great argument against the disestablishment of the Church is the hopelessness of providing any thing like an effi- cient substitute for it in country districts. Its strength, in fact, lies in its parochial organization, and its direct connection with the State confers a dignity upon its ministers, and secures for them a confi- dence which Englishmen are slow to accord to men who are without a public official status. The condition of those parishes in which the resident clergyman does not use the manifold influences at his disposal for good, and neglects or misconceives the plain duties of his position, is the best proof of the extent of clerical opportunities. The country parson whom we have hitherto had in our mind's eye is a conscientious, sensible English gentleman, anxious to do his duty towards God and his neighbor, possessed of no extreme views, and bent upon the 16 ENGLAND. illustration of no subtleties of theological refinement. He lives in his parish for ten months out of the twelve, and he finds that the eight or nine -weeks' change of scene which he thus allows himself renders him the fresher and the more capable of work when he returns. But as there are absentee squires, so there are absentee \ parsons, and these are of two or three types. There is the clergy- man who has an innate dislike to country life, who has two or three marriageable daughters, as many sons who require to be educated, and a fashionable, valetudinarian wife. The worthy couple arrive at the conclusion that they can stand it no longer. The girls all ought to be out in the great world: they are pretty girls, they are good girls; but what chance have they of finding husbands in the seclusion of Sweet Auburn ? Then the boys ought to be at school, but schooling is so expensive ! Moreover, the lady is more than ever convinced that the climate dees not suit her; and as for her husband, she has distinctly heard an ugly dry cough, which ought to be looked after, proceed from his reverend chest in the night watches. A communication is addressed to the bishop, or a per- sonal interview is sought with his lordship, and the rector and his , familj* obtain leave of absence for a year. At the expiration of this term, the application, backed by the same cogent arguments, is renewed, and the leave of absence is extended. Meanwhile, the I curate in charge, installed at the rectory at Sweet Auburn, is one of the many hack parsons who abound in England, and who are satis- fied to do the duty of the place for an indefinite period, in consider- ation of a small stipend, the whole of the produce of the excellent garden, the cheapness of butcher's meat, and the salubrity of the climate. The services are gone through in a slovenly, perfunctory manner. Sunday after Sunday the congregation becomes smaller and smaller. There is very little visiting done by the deputy incum- bent of this cure of souls in the parish on week-days; and the ten- dency of every thing is toward a relapse into primitive paganism. So it goes on from year to year. One morning the news comes that the absentee rector has died at Bath or Cheltenham. In course of time his successor is appointed — an enthusiastic, devout, earnest man. Perhaps it is his first experience. He had expected to find Sweet Auburn all that Goldsmith had described it. He had looked for a cordial reception from clean, smiling, virtuous villagers, and hearty, God-fearing farmers. Instead, he finds that his lot is cast in an atmosphere of want and sin. The villagers are ill-fed, ill-clad men and women, who regard the parson as their natural enemy; the farmers whom his fond imagination had pictured are grumbling THE ENGLISH VILLAGE. 17 malcontents, the votaries of a crass, unintelligent disbelief, who seldom enter church, and who are wholly in ai fco the cultiva- tion of strictness and right. The sanitary condition of the pi. ice is detestable, and the new parson is aghast at the state of things which confronts him. lie had dreamed of Paradise, and here are the squalor, filth, and vice of Seven Dials. This is an extreme case, but it is far from being the only instance which might be given of parochial neglect at the hands of the re- sponsible clergyman. Sloughton-in-the-Marsh is a college living, it is not, indeed, likely to remain so much longer, for the master and fellows of the society on whose patronage Sloughton is are anx- ious to sell it and other benefices, in order that they may have in- creased funds at their disposal for educational purposes, and for the establishment of fresh university centers throughout England. For a long succession of years the spiritual wants of Sloughton have been ministered to by distinguished members of the college to which the living belongs, who have either wearied of the life of the uni- versity, or who have received the benefice as the reward of their educational efforts elsewhere. At the present moment the rector of Sloughton may be a representative of any one of several distinct divisions of divines. He is, perhaps, an ecclesiastical dignitary of some standing — a cathedral canon and eminent preacher at White- hall. He is a bachelor, a member of the Athenseum Club, has his pied-a terre in London, possibly keeps on some rooms at Oxford, and when he is at Sloughton, values it chiefly on account of the oppor- tunities of learned leisure which it offers. In his absence there are a couple of curates who may indeed be blameless, but who, not hav- ing the authority, cannot exhibit the efficiency of their chief. The accomplished rector, when he is there, always preaches once on a Sunday, his sermon being about as intelligible to his flock as an ex- tract from Butler's "Analogy," or the late Dean Hansel's "Bampton 'Lectures"; and, being a kind-hearted as well as a liberal man, visits his parishioners, and makes them presents of money. Or let it be supposed that the rector of Sloughton is in no sense justly open to the imputation of absenteeism. He lives in his rec- tory for nine months out of the twelve, and, when there, is closely and constantly employed. The only thing is that his occupations, which are sufficiently exacting, have nothing whatever to do with his parishioners. The fact is, he takes pupils, and edits school and college classics. He is a man of blameless life, of great natural kindness, of large and liberal culture. But he is a born school- master or professor. He would gladly dedicate his existence to 2 18 ENGLAND. researches into the genitive case at Heidelberg, or he might be trusted to do all that scholarship and industry could do towards improving the standard of Latin composition at a school. At Sloughton he does to its fullest extent his duty by his pupils and then parents. It would shock him infinitely to be told that he failed to do it by his parishioners. He dislikes death-beds, it is true. Surrounded by young people, he is not quite clear that he is justified in entering sick-rooms when there is any suspicion of infectious disease. Yet he has attended several death-beds in the course of the last two years, and he is not aware that in any case where one of his parishioners has been stretched on a bed of sick- ness or pain he has failed to attend when summoned, or to dispatch a curate. As regards his more strictly ecclesiastical duties, the ser- vices in his church are performed with scrupulous neatness and care. His sermons are compact, clear, scholar-like little essays, ca- pable of being understood by the most untutored intellect, on popu- lar religion and morality. It is, in fact, impossible justly to accuse him of anj r specific dereliction of his duty; and yet the organization of his parish is far from complete. Still, the machine is kept in ope- ration — there is no break-down; there may be apathy and indiffer- ence on many points on which it could be wished that a stronger and livelier interest existed; but there is no oj)en feud between par- son and people, such as there is quite sure to be when the former feels himself compelled, for conscience' sake, to run athwart the popular will. It may be matter of satisfaction that the race of orthodox high and dry clerics are disappearing from the face of the earth, and that the clergyman who hunts three days a week is be- coming an anachronism. But it is probable that none of these was the instrument of as much mischief, as much alienation from relig- ion itself, as the country parson who believes that it is his sacred duty violently to break with the ecclesiastical traditions of his par- ish — to introduce the representation of a high Anglican ritual, if the antecedents of the place have been Protestant and Evangelical; or to root out the last traces of Anglicanism Avith iconoclastic fervor and indignation, if his predecessor has belonged to the school of Keble and Pusey. Common sense and infinite tolerance are as in- dispensable in the successful clergyman as devotion to duty, and they are virtues that were perhaps more uniformly forthcoming among the working parsons of the old school than the self-sacrificing but indiscreetly zealous and aggressive apostles of the new. But it will be contended by many persons that the view which has here been presented of the country parson is an illusion born of weak THE ENGLISH VILLAGE. 19 partiality for the Establishment, and that even the instances of by • no means model parsons which have been given here are far from being sufficiently unfavorable to be frequently true. Some cler- gymen in rural England, it will be said, are drunken; others are I in a chronic state of insolvency; many are ignorant, unlettered — not merely devoid of knowledge, but devoid of the wish to acquire knowledge. Many, it may be admitted, are indifferent, careless, worldly, putting on piety with their surplices, and keeping their conscience in their cassocks. By some champions of disestablish- ment and disendowment it is admitted that the chief obstacle in the way of disestablishment is the provision of an adequate sub- / stitute for the parochial system of the Church of England in rural districts. By others it is boldly declared that the parson is the reverse of a beneficent institution, that he is not the connecting link between social extremes, that he never takes the edge off class quarrels, that he does not act and cannot act, by his influence with the employer, as an advanced guard of the interests of the em- ployed. From this point of view, the parson represents in matters spiritual the principle of superstition, and in matters temporal the principles of tyranny and greed. So far from being a lavish dispenser of his own charity, or a just dispenser of the charity of others, the country clergyman systematically diverts from its prop- er object to his own pocket the bounty bequeathed by the dead to the living. As he is a grievous impediment in the way of their worldly welfare, so, according to this view, has he been in the past, and is still in the present, a serious, if not fatal, hindrance to the secular enlightenment of the poor. He is, in fact, one of an odious trio — of which the two other members are the farmer and the landlord — leagued against the working classes, and pledged to oppose whatever may conduce to their welfare. It will help you nothing, in arguing with persons who think in this way, to adduce instances within your own knowledge in which such imputations upon the clergy are emphatically untrue. If you mention names, you will sinrply be told that these are exceptions. If you draw attention to cases in which clergymen are doing battle for the peo- ple with the great landlords, not only when there has been an edu- cational issue concerned, but when such purely material issues are at stake as the right of way, or the right of cutting turf, you are at once overwhelmed with an entire catalogue of alleged contra- dictory experiences. The parson, as depicted for the benefit of the agricultural laborer by his champions, is one half a designing mystery-man, and the other half a smooth-speeched bandit. He 20 ENGLAND. has entered into a secret compact with the landlord and tenant of the soil that he will help them to grind the peasant to impotence, and to do his utmost to prevent him from ever learning' to rise to the majesty of manhood, or the active enjoyment of full political rights. To help him in this sinister purpose, he has clothed himself with superstitious attributes, and he invokes a supernatural sanction. If he has seemed actively to contribute to the advancement of educa- tion in the days when no Education Act existed, it has merely been that, by establishing an educational monopoly, he might retard and hinder a degraded peasantry in their struggles towards enlighten- ment. The facts of English history he has perverted to his own sectarian purpose ; the three " R's " themselves he has, in some way or other, made the vehicles of his own reactionary sacerdotalism. The one object of his life is to keep the laborers and their families in a state of ignorance and subjection. Knowledge is power; is it conceivable, therefore, that he should have been the disinterested friend of education? To taste of privilege, or freely to enjoy an undoubted right, begets the desire to taste further and enjoy more; how, therefore, can it be doubted that the parson, in league wit b the proprietor, is always ready to stop up field j)aths, and to enclose fresh acres of common land ? One of the questions periodically addressed by the Agricultural Laborers' Union is, " How many charities are there in your parish, and do the clergy distribute them among those who do not v;o to church, equally with those who do?" And again, "Don't you think the clergy uphold bad laws made by landlords, which are an un- mitigated system of robbery?"* These inquiries are apparently addressed not so much for the purpose of eliciting information as of serving as texts for inflammatory indictments against the clergy- man. The refrain of all is the same. The moral pointed never varies — that the agricultural poor cannot come by their own till the black terror has been exorcised. The clergyman, so his rural pa- rishioners are told, is the self-seeking jackal of station and wealth. He combines with the lawyer to plunder the poor of the larger part of those charities which have been left for the poor man's enjoy- ment. He combines with the parish doctor — as slavish an instru- ment of territorial despotism, as himself — to drive the laborer into pauperism, by a host of base devices. He understands, although * These questions are taken verbatim from a long list addressed by a promi- nent member of the Union, Mr. George Mitchell, to the rural laborers of Eng- land, on the eve of an agricultural demonstration near Yeovil, on Whit Monday. THE ENGLISH VILLAGE. 21 his helpless victims often do not, that any relief from the rates con- stitutes a political disqualification. Therefore he is perpetually contriving that the parish doctor should attend the wife or child of the peasant, providing such medicines as may be wanted at the parish expense. Nothing which can be said with the object of show- ing that neither in town nor in country is the parson any thing but the poor man's enemy is left unsaid. The result of the ideas which are thus diffused by printed broad- sheets and itinerant spouters has still to be seen. It is even admit- ted by the chief agitators themselves, who, arguing from certain periods of the Church's history and certain excesses of the ecclesi- astical temperament, can bring forward some colorable justification for their invective, that the Established Church cannot be success- fully attacked before the working classes have been thoroughly edu- cated. When the Education Acts of 1870 and 1S7G, supjjlcinented by a variety of educational influences not less valuable than legisla- tion itself, have done their work, then, and not till then, will the emancipation of the people from the fetters of priestcraft fairly be- gin. It is further allowed that the Church of England has, and will continue to have, a stronger claim for consideration in country dis- tricts than in towns. And this for the simple reason that the ma- chinery of the self-improvement, which is the most certain enemy of the Established Church, is more easily to be found in towns. For three centuries the Church of England has been on its trial. That probationary period has not yet expired, nor can it ever expire. The Established Church will be judged by its fruits, and directly the quality of its harvests is justly open to general suspicion, directly it is felt that its agency can with advantage be superseded by any other, directly this substitute assumes a tangible shape, and admits of clear definition, the attack upon it will enter on a new phase. It is only the earlier operations of the assault which are now being felt; it is the menace, not the decree, of a change which has been pronounced. "Whether the attack will be successful, and the great experiment of a State Church will be openly declared a failure, de- pends not so much upon the tactics of the party of aggression i a upon the policy of the officers employed in the defense. The future of the Church of England, in town and country alike, is mainly in the hands, not of its enemies, but of its clergy. If the days of priestcraft have gone by, it does not follow that the English peo- ple are at all anxious to dispense with the organized assistance of a national clergy, such as that clergy has here been described. There are two chief difficulties by which the country parson 22 ENGLAND. sometimes complains that his path is beset. Of these one consists of the farmers, the other of the Dissenters of his parish. Both classes are undeniably distinct powers in most English villages. Their attitude towards the parson may be one of active opj)osition, or passive neutrality, or good-will and energetic assistance. Which of these it is to be may sometimes depend upon causes beyond the clergyman's control, but is more frequently regulated by the policy he may himself pursue, and the amount of discretion which he may dis- play. There is as much variety among the farmers of rural England as among any other section of the population. They differ greatly even in closely adjacent parishes, and the interval of a mile often separates a social stratum that is wholly satisfactory, from one which is thoroughly bad. But taking them in a mass, the tenant agricul- turists of England have displayed marked and rapid improvement in the course of the last five-and-twenty years. The small British farmer of the old type, crass, ignorant, wrong-headed, stingy, heavy with beer, or steeped in spirits, superior only to his laborers in hav- ing more money to command the opportunities of self-indulgence, is gradually disapp earing. He is being replaced by a successor of a better type, who reads and thinks for himself, who does not believe that education is necessarily a bad thing, who perceives that to sup- plement wages by the wanton increase of the poor-rate is a short- sighted as well as generally mischievous policy, and is no longer blindly opposed to contributing a reasonable measure of assistance to the village school. He is thus the parson's friend rather than his uncompromising foe, and in villages where specimens of the older and less honored variety of the British farmer still survive, it will usually be discovered that the public opinion of his class is against him. As the farmer's sons are already in training to surpass the vir- tues of their sires, so his daughters are rapidly rising to the higher levels of modern enlightenment. Thev have been well educated, and their education was finished at a carefully selected boarding- school. If there is any thing to criticise in their attainments, it is, perhaps, that they might have received a little more instruction in the plain duties of the housewife. But this will come with experi- ence, and meanwhile, the influence which they exercise at home, with then- taste for music, books, and flowers, is a genuinely hu- manizing agency. They have the ordinary accomplishments of ladies, and they have manners which are quite up to the ordinary drawing- room standard. They represent, in brief, a new and a better force in the economy of rural England, and one which is probably des- THE ENGLISH VILLAGE. 23 tined to do quite as much good in its way as school boards and school attendance committees. With reference to Dissenters, it is necessary to distinguish be- / tween Nonconformity as it exists in rural districts, and as it is in towns. In the latter, it usually assumes more or less of a political complexion, and is often aggressively hostile to the State Church as an institution and to the clergymen who are its officers. In the former, it is seldom tinged with political partisanship of any hind, though its hold upon the rural population, in some parts of England, is exceedingly intense. The influence of Wesley and Whitfield sur- vive to this day. In all those counties where John Wesley preached, i notably in Cornwall, his tradition remains, and, co-operating with the emotional Celtic temperament, continues to be the inspiring ele- ment of a deeply cherished popular creed. Again, in the north of England, Dissent is organized with great compactness and power among the manufacturing classes. But with these exceptions, it will generally be found in rural districts that families have deserted the church for chapel from a real or imaginary failure on the part of the clergyman to supply their spiritual wants, from some lamen- table deficiency of ecclesiastical tact, or from some exceptional com- bination of personal causes. Farmers and laborers alike, in rural districts, are generally prepared to give their preference to the church over the chapel. In cases of birth, marriage, and death, and in all the solemn crises of life, it is to the ministrations of the church that they naturally turn. Yet calling themselves Church- men, they hold that they are free to attend chapel, if the teaching ' in the church seems to them false or profitless. Their social rela- tions frequently tend to confirm this view. Connected by blood or marriage with purely Dissenting families, they share many of the religious prejudices and theological sentiments of their kinsfolk. When kindness, courtesy, judgment, and a discreet tolerance in the inculcation of theological dogmas are forthcoming, when the clergy- man disarms Dissent by showing that he neither fears, hates, nor suspects it, when he addresses his congregation on subjects of prac- tical interest, remembering that even doctrines have then* practical side, in language which they can all understand, when he does not too emphatically accentuate denominational differences; then he will in all probability, unless they happen to be subject to the influ- ence of some very wrong-headed leaders, not merely have no trouble with his Dissenters, but find them amongst the most regular attend- ants at his church. It must always be remembered that English religion — especially 24. ENGLAND. in rural districts — owes a great debt to the beneficent agencies of Nonconformity in past times. When, during the first thirty years of the present century, the activity and efficiency of the Church of England were at their lowest ebb in country districts, Dissent was in many places the only influence that preserved the vital spark of Christianity. The spirit which now animates the clerg}Tiien of the Church of England as a body may have rendered the services of Dissent superfluous. The practical experiences of a great number of English clergymen would indorse this view. The rector of a parish, in one of the most Dissenting districts of the West of Eng- land, remarked not long ago to a woman, at whose cottage he had called, that he was afraid she neglected religion, since he had never seen her at church. She immediately replied, that she " always went to chapel." " I am delighted," he quickly and sagaciously re- joined, "to hear it: I want you to go somewhere to worship God. Pray, be sure you keep your chapel regularly." Repeating his visit after an interval of about three months, he remarked : " I hope you have been regularly to chapel since I was last here ? " "I have never," was the answer, " entered chapel since." " I am sorry," said the clergyman, "to hear it; why have you not done so?" " Have you not," the woman with evident surprise asked, " seen me ? I have been at church eA T ery Sunday since you called last. I thought that as you did not ' run out against ' the chaj>el-goers, I should like to hear you." This is a true story, and it points a moral which is at least a suggestive one. The influences of Dissent alone never yet produced the disruption of a village and the desertion of a church. In most instances, where these things have happened, it will be found that it is the tactics adopted by the representatives and cham- pions of the Church which have organized Dissenters into a power- ful offensive body, and have ranged them in an implacably hostile camp. CHAPTER III. GREAT LANDLORDS, AND ESTATE MANAGEMENT. The Popular Conception of the Life of a Territorial Aristocracy inaccurate — Generally Absorbing Character of the Duties attending Management of Property — The Daily Life of an English Noble and Landlord — General Principles of Administration of Large Properties — The Estates of the Dukes of Westminster and Northumberland — The Alnwick Property — From New- castle to Tynemouth — Farmers on the Alnwick Property, their Management and Supervision — Management of the Duke of Devonshire's Property — Management of the Duke of Cleveland's — Review of Feahires chiefly prom- inent in English Estate Management generally — The Ecclesiastical Com- missioners' Estates — The Management of Smaller Properties. IT is time to turn from the reflection and model of the ecclesiastical power, as it may be seen in the typical English village, to the . department of purely civil and secular authority. "We have seen the parson combining with his sacred calling not a few temporal attri- butes; let us now look at that portion of the machinery of English life which is temporal exclusively, and at the individuals, of varying grades of dignity, who happen to be intrusted with its exercise. If there is one lesson which it seems reasonable that the wealthier members of the great hereditary aristocracy of England should learn from the complex and unending duties of their station, it is that, however extensive and absolute their authority, they can never I escape the cares and responsibilities of trusteeship. The popular notion of their existence and its duties is not unlike the childish notion of the life of the sovereign — the successful pursuit of pleas- ure in all its varied forms by easy and thornless paths. The year of the titled nobility of the realm is thought to divide itself into two parts, of which one is the London season. Fine equipages; great f entertainments ; public banquets ; private dinners ; the clubs ; the park ; casual strolls to the House of Lords twice or thrice a week — these to the multitude are the chief features in the existence of our titular aristocracy between the months of February and August. They are varied by many visits for purposes of sport or pleasure to r 26 ENGLAND. country palaces and mansions, to foreign capitals, to continental lakes. Rather more than half the year is devoted entirely to the race after excitement, elsewhere than in the fashionable quarters of the metropolis. The London season comes to an end, and there is the departure for the grouse moors of the North. The shutters are put up in the great houses of Belgravia and Marfan-, because the noble and fashionable proprietors have gone off to Homburg, are taking the waters at Vichy, or are circumnavigating the globe in the floating palaces known as yachts. The popular fancy may fill in the picture as it will, but the tints chosen are sure to be those of enjoy- ment, luxury, and an absence of all worldly cares. Those who entertain less conventional notions, and have had opportunities of closer observation, would suggest a few alterations both in outline and detail. They know that even the highest rank has its duties and cares, that occupation is eagerly sought by those who could well afford to dispense with it, and that pure idleness is not necessarily the highest bliss to the heir of a hundred earls. They point to the fact that even in the absence of political ambition, other motive of disquiet and unrest agitate the most unquestionably patrician breasts. They notice how the proprietors of immense es- tates and princely revenues plunge into occupations, with as fixed a resolve to succeed as if their future livelihood depended on their success. In spite of the effect of early education, notwithstanding the enervating and sometimes positively noxious influences of the at- mosphere in which their boyhood and youth have been passed — an atmosphere of adulation, indulgence, deference, servile and senseless homage — they see the inheritors of fabulous wealth sternly buckling on then- armor, and eager to do battle with the rough world. "When it is remembered that there is no lot so trying in this earth as that of the youth of one who is, or who is destined in the fullness of time to be, a great English peer, the wonder is not that some proportion of English peers have no other ideal than one of gratifi- cation, but that so many of them set to the nobility of every other European country an example of energetic devotion to public or private duty, j But it is not on the political position and opportunities of our hereditary aristocracy that stress will now be laid. Let us look at their functions and engagements as the lords of the soil. A consid- erable landowner may find enough to occupy every moment of his time in the management of his private affairs and in his social duties. A country gentleman who shoots a little, hunts a little, looks after his property personally, is bent on improving it, and only calls in GREAT LANDLORDS, AND ESTATE MANAGEMENT. 27 the services of a bailiff to supplement his own defective experience, will in reality find that he has as few spare minutes as a city clerk. The higher the personage is in the social scale, the more anxious and laborious the life. It is now beginning to be known that many hours are daily devoted by Her Majesty to the consideration of State documents, and the weighing of Ministerial policy. The Queen's more illustrious subjects can as little afford to be idle as the Queen herself. The gTeat landlords of England are really the rulers of principalities. They are at the head of not one department, but of three or four different departments of State. They are charged with the administration of a miniature empire, which often embraces a number of provinces, whose conditions, resources, and necessities differ as much as if they were separate kingdoms. "What is the daily life of a territorial potentate such as this, even in London, when the season is at its height? As surely as ten o'clock comes each morning he will seek his library, where his cor- respondence is spread on a table for his perusal. The letters are written by all kinds of persons, and with all kinds of objects. Some are from tenants on his country estates, who want repairs done, or apply for permission to make an alteration in their holdings; others are from bailiffs and stewards, and embody reports of their period- ical tours of inspection. Others are mere begging letters from a legion of mendicant correspondents. There is not one of these to which our great man will not give his personal consideration. On the back or margin of each he will note down the nature of the reply to be sent, and when he has thus gone through the entire number, he confers with his secretary. It is easy enough to dispose of the applications from tenants, large or small. In some cases they are obviously admissible, in a few they are transparently the reverse, in others they are referred to an agent who is on the spot. As regards the requests which the post has brought "with it that his Grace will grant of his generosity a sum for the adornment of a church or the building of a school, some of these clearly he outside the area of his legitimate benefi- cence. The decision on some is postponed, and on some is imme- "f- diately given in the affirmative. It is different with the purely eleemosynary applications. Here every entreaty for ahns is prob- ably referred to the Charity Organization Society, but at the same time an acknowledgment of these letters is sent by return of post to the whole host of needy correspondents. But nothing is given till the Society has reported. If that report is favorable, if the case is deserving, a sum is sent to the Society, or the secretary of one of 28 ENGLAND. its local branches, to be distributed in its full amount at once, or in installments to be spread over a certain number of weeks. Let it be further supposed that our great man is not only a great land- owner in the country, but that he is the possessor of priceless acres, on which have been built tine mansions, in London. In this case he has, of course, a central estate office, in which a staff of agents and their clerks are employed. Once a week a board meeting is held, at which the landlord hears a full account of all that is being done, or that it is in contemplation to do, by the lessees of his estate. Documents are examined— opinions of experts are given. The sur- veyor controverts or supports the desirability of a concession; the architect reports favorably or unfavorably as to the outline of a house. Attendance at these meetings is in itself a kind of profes- sional education. The great man takes his place in his council chamber, and at his side is the son who will one day rule in his stead, and who is being thus early trained in the management of affairs. The administration of every department of the property is con- ducted upon the same precise principles. Routine is followed as closely in aU its method and punctuality as in a Government office or a model commercial business. ~~j Take the single question of ac- counts, whether they come under'the head of household or estate expenditure. The turn-over — to employ a mercantile metaphor — is tens of thousands in the year; but there is as little chance of a halfpenny being unaccounted for when the Christmas quarter ex- pires, as there is of the ledgers of Coutts' ba]ik being sixpence wrong on the morning of any given first of January. The accounts of the agents on the estates in the north of England, the south of England, and in London itself, are forwarded at fixed intervals, and are duly audited by. the gentleman who is personally attached to, and who is always in immediate attendance on, the great man, with clerks and deputy agents at his disposal. The books are kept with the exactness of the books of a life assurance office. As it is known what the expenditure upon the property ought to be, so also do the means exist which render it possible to check with infallible accu- racy the expenditure of the household. The steward forwards his statement of money actually expended — or, rather, of bills incurred — once a month, all accounts being settled at monthly intervals. It is not only the actual amount spent in any given period of four weeks and a few days which is entered in these volumes; the num- ber of persons to be provided for is noted as well. Thus an average is struck/ and, given the size of the household during any month, GREAT LANDLORDS, AND ESTATE MANAGEMENT. 29 reference to earlier entries will give the data for a verdict of the reasonableness of the pecuniary statement specially under review. There are fewer points of difference to be noted in the out-door management of the great estates of England than formerly. '] tendency undoubtedly has been to reduce varieties to a dead level of excellence and merit. Picturesque customs and the perpetuation of romantic and feudal traditions will be looked for in vain in all but a few instances. It is worth noticing that whereas such survi- vals are occasionally found on properties which have been from the first in the hands of secular lords, they are practically unknown on estates which first came into the hands of secular lords at the time of the Reformation. It would, in fact, seem as if the aristocracy who profited by the destruction of monasteries, anxious to break at once and forever with the old regime, plunged into the modern and prosaic period at once. This is notably the case with the great House of Bedford, whose property, however, once possessed, in all matters appertaining to its administration, certain marked peculiari- ties. Prominent amongst these was the establishment of an in- dustrial village, which was an integral section of the property at Woburn. The remains of this settlement are still to be seen in the tall factory tower conspicuous among the trees. In the old days, a generation or two ago, the whole place resounded with the din of industry and labor. The property of the Duke of Bedford was then self-sufficient, in the Aristotelian sense of the word. If a house or cottage had to be built, rails or gates put up, repairs ol any kind, whether on the roofs of the tenements above or in the drainage of the ground beneath, the workmen to execute the task were ready and at hand within the confines of "Woburn Abbey. If the same work had to be done on other portions of the ducal estates in differ- ent parts of England, a contingent from the Bedfordshire organiza- tion was drafted off. There was something eminently feudal in the idea, and there was much which, in its day, was not without its practical advantages. But the shrewd heads of the ducal house began to find that the time had arrived when money could be saved, and the work done as effectively, if they resorted to the open labor market. The "Woburn organization was disbanded, and contracts with master builders and others took its place. On the Duke of Westminster's Cheshire estate, at Eaton, a system not unlike that which formerly existed at "Woburn is still in force. Here a staff of workmen are maintained at a distance of two mil from his Grace's house, in a place known as "the Yard." The Yard is, in fact, a small industrial village, and is filled with works; i" 30 ENGLAND. and workmen's dwellings. To become attached to this staff is gen- erally regarded as a piece of promotion and hick. The actual money value of these places is not, indeed, in excess of the wages of la- borers elsewhere. The wage itself may be a trifle lower, but so also is the rent of the houses, while the accommodation and sanitary ar- rangements are perfect in every detail. Men know well enough that they have but once to secure the position, and to behave well, and that their future in life is made. They will be encouraged to practice the virtue of thrift, and working steadily through the years of strength and manhood, they will find that provision has been made for old age, sickness, or death. But the staff of workmen thus maintained at Eaton is not sufficient for the wants of the property at all periods of the year. The Duke assumes, in the majority of instances, responsibility for the repairing of farms and cottages, and the contingent of the Eaton Yard laborers has to be reinforced by help from without. In such cases as these, the necessary arrange- ments are, of course, made by contract, and it would probably be a rare exception to find any large estate in the present day on which the contract sj^stem did not prevail exclusively. If we would see how onerous and complex estate management may be, how nearly the power and responsibilities of a great terri- torial noble approach to those of royalty, what various departments the principality of an English noble may include, how wide is the knowledge and how incessant the care necessary for dealing with each, we cannot do better than go to the most northern county of England. "We will select a district of which Alnwick Castle is the center, and it is the dominion of the Duke of Northumberland of 1 which we shall take a rapid survey. The ancestral home of the Percys may be said in a sense to symbolize the character of their realm. It is a feudal castle, at once in a park and in a town. On one side, opposite the chief entrance gate, is the main street of Aln- wick, a thriving community of some six thousand souls; on the other side, strictly speaking on all the other sides, is the park, holding within its broad limits every variety of woodland scenery of moor and forest, of rugged mountain, of wild coppice, of well-tended shrubberies, and of rich pasture land. A river of uncertain depth and breadth traverses the vast domain — now a rivulet, and now a foaming torrent; here so shallow that the sands that form its chan- nel give it all their color, and here a series of deep, dark pools, where the salmon-trout lie; at one part overhung by trees, at anoth- er flowing on through an unshaded bed of shingle and rock. There are drives, under artificially formed avenues, along a road as smooth GREAT LANDLORDS, AND ESTATE MANAGEMENT. as that running from Hyde Park Corner to the Marble Arch; hut a little distance off the path is steep and rocky, and one is in the heart of a complete sylvan solitude, with a deer park on one hand, while on the other rise the bleak heights which the black game love. The situation of the castle typifies the nature of the estate, be- cause the Duke of Northumberland derives his revenues partly fr urban, partly from rural sources. He is the lord of many acres wholly given up to the farmer; he has also acres burrowed by col- lieries and rich in mineral wealth, and acres which are part of, or which have been already annexed to, the great capital of the dis- trict, the famous port of Newcastle-on-Tyne. As he has farms and villages, so he is proprietor of the soil on which docks and entire towns are built. Midwav between Newcastle and Tvnemouth an army of laborers is briskly employed in excavating and clearing away the soil, admitting the waters of the Tyne further into the land, and in erecting mighty walls of granite, and cement, almost as indestructible as granite, as bulwarks against the river. The works are undertaken by and at the expense of the Tyne River Commissioners. But the land is the Duke of Northumberland's, and has been acquired by the Commission on a perpetual ground rent. The ducal interests are represented on that Commission, and the plans for the new docks have been submitted to the Duke. We go a few miles farther down the river, and at last reach the point where it discharges itself into the German Ocean. We have in fact reached Tynemouth, at once the Brighton, Ramsgate, and Margate of the prosperous inhabitants of Newcastle-on-Tyne. A more breezy watering-place, a nobler expanse of sands, a finer frontage of sea could not be desired. It is plain that Tynemouth is a pleasure- town of modern growth. It is plain also — from the predominance of the word " Percy " in the names of the new streets, crescents, and gardens — to whom Tynemouth belongs. One of the last titles which may have caught the eye of the traveler as he drives in a cab to St. Pancras Station is perhaps Woburn Place, or Tavistock Place. Sup- pose that he leaves the train at Bedford, Tavistock or Woburn is still the legend on the first trim row of houses which meets his glance. The influence and power of the great families of England , are ubiquitous. There is no escaping from them; they are shown alike in city and country, in town and suburb. At one end of Tyne- mouth a new building has just been constructed, with adjacent pleasure-grounds and picturesque walks: it is a winter garden and aquarium, built by the inhabitants of the place on ground which is 32 ENGLAND. given them by the benevolent despot of the district, the Duke of Northumberland, for a nominal rent. A splendid new road has just been completed: it is the Duke of Northumberland at whose ex- pense the work has been done. Yv'hat Eastbourne is to the Duke of Devonshire, that Tvnemouth is to his Grace of Northumberland. There is an obvious advantage in the supreme control of a town being thus vested in one landlord. The place is sure not to be dis- figured by hideous buildings, and not to be spoiled by an irruption of undesirable visitors. At Eastbourne and at Tvnemouth there are laws as inflexible as those of the Medes and Persians against the erection of houses which do not come up to a certain standard of beauty and solidity. Make a circular tour of twenty miles in the neighborhood of Tvnemouth, and you will perpetually find yourself on the property of the Duke. It is not a picturesque neighborhood, but it is covered by snug homesteads and farm-buildings — the perfection of cleanness and neatness. The soil is fairly fertile, but the chief wealth of the land is underneath. We are, in fact, now on the mining property of the Duke. The colliers have just finished their spell of work, and are going home to their pretty cottages with the well-cared-for gar- dens behind, and their porches covered with honeysuckle and roses. The mine is in the hands of a company, the Duke receiving a royalty on its produce, and that is the arrangement usually adopted where the soil of a property is rich in minerals. For extent and variety combined, the Duke of Northumberland's property is perhaps un- equalled in the United Kingdom. A drive of thirteen miles from Acklington to Alnwick will take you through a tract of country utterly different from that in the vicinity of Tynemouth, which be- longs entirely to the same great potentate. It is a rich farming district, the average acreage of each farm being four or five hundred acres. Some of the farms on the Northumberland property are nearly ten times this size, but inasmuch as the ground let with them is for the most part sterile moorland and highland, then* size is in an inverse ratio to their value. England could show no better spe- cimens of farming than are here to be seen, no better-built farm- houses, no more capacious and scientifically arranged out-houses, stables, and farmyards, no more comfortable houses for the farm- laborers themselves. The Duke's tenants are thorough masters of then* calling, and are in what is spoken of as a large way of business. There is no improvement or new invention relative to the tillage of the soil or the increase of its capacities that is not speedily adopted, no precaution possible to human foresight and experience for re- GREAT LANDLORDS, AND ESTATE MANAGEMENT. 33 ducing the evil consequences of ungenial and inclement seasons •which is not taken. It is a peculiarity of the Northumberland prop- erty that in almost every case the laborers live within a few minutes' call of the farmer who employs them. Each farm is in fact a com- pact, self-contained, industrial settlement. There is the i'ariuhoiis" itself — a complete modern mansion, with all the improvements of modern times, furnished within like what it is, the residence of an educated gentleman of the nineteenth century — the farm-buildings, with their copious supply of light, air, and water, granaries, barns, and the most approved apparatus for the prevention of waste in any, shape; and finally, grouped around or flanking these, the dwellings of the laborers with their porch, oven and tank, cool larder, and little plots of garden ground before and behind. Such are the external features of a typical English property of the first order of magnitude. What is the principle of its internal management, and the s} r stem of its general administration? The chief agent or commissioner of this vast domain, with its manifold industries and opportunities, its physical characteristics and re- sources as diverse as the features in the vast landscape which it includes, must necessarily be a man of wide experience, great prac- tical knowledge, a quick eye, a tenacious memory, an apt judge of character, a thorough farmer, a first-rate man of business, equally fitted for the supervision of purely agricultural and purely commer- cial affairs. He is responsible to his chief for the protection of his interests and the improvement of his property, of whatever kind. He has to negotiate with river commissioners and town corporations. He has to negotiate for the conclusion, and superintend the execu- tion, of contracts. He has to listen to applications from tenants, to see to the redress of grievances, to decide what demands are reason- able and what suggestions are wise, to judge whether it is desirable that repairs in any farm-builings or farmhouse shall be undertaken this year or shah be postponed until the next, to know accurately what are the works in any particular department of which the state ,of the ducal exchequer will admit at any particular time, to commu- nicate on all these matters periodically with the Duke, to keep an eye over the expenditure and income of what is in itself a little empire. How does he set to work to do all this ? The entire prop- erty is mapped out into provinces called, in the case of the North- umberland property, bailiwicks. It is for the commissioner to see ' that at the head of each bailiwick is placed a proper and responsible person. Applicants for the position are, as may be supposed, over- whelmingly numerous. Estate management has become a profea- 3 34 ENGLAND. sion, and the younger sons of the great families are among those who seek employment in it. But the agents superintending the bailiwicks are only one divi- sion of the commissioner's staff. Entering the courtyard of Alnwick Castle by the town gate, one finds immediately on the right hand the Alnwick estate office. Here once every week the commissioner sees any one of the Duke's tenants who desires an interview, on what- ever purpose. Here, too, he meets his representatives. It is from this office that all orders are issued as to the repairs which are to be done ; and if a builder wishes to contract for any work on the estate it is to this office that his application is made. The official who is directly concerned with this branch of the office is the " clerk of the works." The agents on the separate bailiwicks report that on such- and-such a farm it is desirable that such-and-such things shall be done; the Duke's commissioner at once instructs the clerk of the works to consider the feasibility of the proposal, and this gentleman j>roceeds to look at the matter from a technical point of view. He too, in his turn, makes a report, which includes an estimate of the expenditure and other observations. This document comes before the commissioner, who, if he is of opinion that the time is ripe for the enterprise, and that the Duke's hands are not already too full, forwards the entire series of papers, or a precis of them, to his Grace, who writes his answer, "Yes" or "No," "I approve" or "I disapprove," in the margin. It may, and does occasionally, happen that there is a conflict of opinion between the bailiwick agent and the clerk of the works, or architect, as to the expediency of some specific proposal. They may disagree as to the exact spot on which certain buildings are to be erected; the extent to which certain repairs are to be carried; the necessity of carrying out any repairs at all. In such cases the commissioner himself will be called upon to arbitrate, and his decision in that stage of the business is final. The Duke reserves to himself the right of sanctioning or rejecting the idea; but direct communication between the Duke and his agents, or the Duke and his tenants, there is none. Next to the Duke of Northumberland's Northumbrian domin- ions, the Duke of Cleveland's Durham estate is probably the largest owned by any one great proprietor in any single county. It com- mences four miles to the west of Darlington, a town which contrasts in every respect with Alnwick. Here there are no visible signs of that feudal influence which we have seen outside the walls of the Percys. Factory towers, which are to the great manufacturing cen- ters of England what the forests of masts are to its great harbors, \ GREAT LANDLORDS, AXD ESTATE MANAGEMENT. 35 are visible from afar. The atmosphere is heavy with smoke, and the streets swarm with factory hands. Look where you will, there is nothing- to remind one of the old county town, dominated by the social iniiuences of a ruling house. Darlington is twelve miles dis- tant from Baby Castle, which is as nearly as possible the center of the ducal principality. There is nothing quite like Baby in Eng- land. It is a huge pile of castellated granite architecture, which bears the stamp in every part of no mock antiquity, and is sur- rounded by a moat centuries old, filled with water. Here there are mediaeval courtyards and quadrangles, and it is a peculiarity of tho house that, at the chief entrance, there are doors that, on being opened, admit a carriage bodily into the hall, by a passage which runs across the spacious chamber into the courtyard on the other side. The portion of the Duke's property in the immediate neighbor- hood of Raby, amounting to some 25,000 acres, is held by tenantry whose occupations range from 100 to 500 acres each. Much of this land has been newly laid down to grass, the Duke of Cleveland being generally disposed to encourage the conversion of tillage into pasturage, and assisting his tenants in the work. The seeds are given, free of all charge, to the occupiers of the soil by the landlord, whenever the land is pronounced to be in a suitable condition for their reception. In the upper part of the ducal estate, bordering upon Cumberland, are the lead mines of which his Grace is entire owner, leased to the London Lead Company and other lessees, upon terms that will presently be mentioned. Here most of the agricul- tural tenants are connected in some way or other with the min- ing interest. A few years have witnessed great improvements and alterations in this part of the property. Large sums have been expended in the rebuilding of dwelling-houses, in the laying down of main roads, in the reclamation of land by drainage, planting, and enclosure. The result of these operations is that, as on the Scotch estates of the Duke of Sutherland, the whole surface of the country has been transformed, and what was once a barren solitude is a fer- tile and prosperous tract. The pasturage of this region has increased by the addition of hundreds of acres of grass, while thrice the num- ber of cattle which it could formerly with difficulty support now crop its abundant herbage. These works have been conducted greatly, of course, to the in- creased value of the property, at the expense, in the first instance, of the owner, and by workmen esj^ecially retained and employed for the purpose. It is the regular organization of such a stall" as this purpose requires Avhich is the first thing noticeable in the man- 3G ENGLAND. agernent of the Baby property. There are distinct sets of work- men, regularly employed either at a weekly wage or else by piece- work, in separate yards in the immediate neighborhood of the Castle. Close to the building is an inclosure in which are situated the house of the clerk of the works and several carpenters' and joiners' shops. The work done here is exclusively devoted to the Castle itself, and has nothing to do with any of the operations on the general estate. At a little distance from this is a much larger yard, where the estate work proper is carried on. Here there are wheelwrights' stalls, carpenters' benches, and smiths' forges, where wood fences are made or repaired, carts mended and even manufactured. But the men thus employed represent only a small proportion of the perma- nent staff retained upon the Duke's estate. No visitor to Baby and its neighborhood can fail to be struck by the admirable neatness with which the hedges are trimmed and the palings preserved, or by the excellence of the macadamized roads. This is entirely because the Duke of Cleveland keeps them in his own hands. A consider- able contingent of men, skilled in every thing that has to do with hedges, stone walls, fences, and highways, is perpetually at work. Any tenant may, on payment of their wages, avail himself of the services of these, the landlord having the satisfaction of knowing that the necessary repairs will be properly carried out. In the case of drainage the landlord bears the entire burden of the expenditure, charging the occupant of the soil interest, at five per cent., on the money expended upon the work. Inside Baby Park itself 900 acres of land are retained as a home farm, and not far from this is another farm of 500 acres, which, held by the Duke's agent, is intended as a model for the farmers of the surrounding district. Here, as else- where, the covenants between the landlord and the tenant are in the shape of yearly agreements: the landlord reserves to himself the sole power to kill every kind of game, and the tenant knows that so long as he farms upon sound principles he enjoys practical fixity of tenure. These different operations and properties have correspondingly distinct departments in the management of the Duke of Cleveland's estate, and the control over all is rigidly centralized in the office of j the chief agent, which is within the castle walls, and from whom all authority issues. The system here pursued is more purely bureau- cratic than in the case of either the Duke of Northumberland or the Duke of Devonshire. Instead of administering, like the latter, his estate by several agents of co-equal power, or, like the former by a chief commissioner with immediate authority over a number of gen- GREAT LANDLORDS, AND ESTATE MANAGEMENT. :?7 tlcraen, the Duke of Cleveland is directly represented only by <>no chief agent, who, without the same assistance from a staff of subor- dinate officials, is responsible for the control of the whole of what is called the "settled estate," and whose head-quarters are at Raby itself. Thither come all accounts in connection with the Shropshire, Staffordshire, and Northamptonshire properties to be audited, nor would the agents or bailiffs on any of these engage in any consid able enterprise without communicating with the chief agent or with the Duke himself. Weekly and monthly returns are made at Elaby by the forester and his staff, by the hedging and draining staff, by the foreman of the laborers employed on the home farm, and by the controllers of the house, park, and gardens. Entries are made of all in ledgers kept with the greatest neatness and nicety; a brief absi ract is prepared at the end of the financial year and submitted to the landlord. There are other features in the administration of this admirably managed property which deserve mention. Rents are paid in twice a year, first by the tenants to the Duke's head repre- sentative, secondly by the agents to the Duke's bankers. But from the total of this rental there has, before it reaches the ducal coffers, been previously deducted the expenditure upon repairs and perma- nent improvements, according to the estimate which, at the begin- ning of the financial year, has been submitted to his Grace. The expenses, therefore, of the estate are really paid before their propri- etor is in receipt of his revenues, and all those revenues, in the shape in which they eventually come to him, represent a margin of clear profit. The Raby estate office is also the head-quarters of the adminis- tration of the mines and quarries. For the conduct of all of these, or rather for the incoming from them of the royalty for which the Duke has let them to lessees, the chief agent is personally respon- sible. As this gentleman contrives to keep the territorial dominion of the Duke of Cleveland in a highly satisfactory condition, with only an estate bailiff as a general overseer under him, so by the simple instrumentality of a mineral bailiff, he effectually protects the interests of the Duke, vested in coal, lead, iron mines, and si one quarries. On special occasions, when the produce of a mine is weighed, the mineral bailiff is personally present, but the general plan is for the authorities of the mine to forward to the Eaby es- tate office an estimate of its yield, the Duke's agent having it in his power to examine the company's books as a check upon their figures. As has been already remarked, there are few exceptions to the 38 ENGLAND. rule in the case of the great landed estates, that while a limited staff of workmen is permanently retained for doing johs in connec- tion with the house of the great landowner, most of the work is performed by contract with local mechanics and artisans. Thus, the Duke of Devonshire, whose properties, if their acreage is not so extensive as the Duke of Northumberland's, are much more widely scattered, keeps a small contingent of plumbers comfortably housed above the stables at Chatsworth, while in the adjoining wood-yard, house-joiners and estate-joiners are settled. The Duke of Devonshire himself undertakes the execution of all repairs for the tenants of his estate — a plan which has the great ad- vantage, that under its operation there are no perpetual claims upon the landlord for improvements. It is a marked feature on the Duke of Devonshire's Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire properties, that in very many instances as much as two acres of land is attached to the laborers' cottages. This not merely gives them constant occupation of a profitable kind, enabling them often to keep a couple of cows, but attaches them to their homes, and invests their homes with a special and enduring interest. It has been the immemorial custom on the Devonshire estates to let farms by annual agreement, subject to a revaluation at the end of every twenty-one years. This arrangement comes to very much the same thing as a lease for that term. The tenants know perfectly well that so long as they do then duty by the land they will not receive notice to quit; and here, as elsewhere, the archives of the estate show many cases in which farms have been in possession of the same families, from father to son, for many generations, and not unfreguently for two or three centuries. When the revaluation is made, a full report of the condition of all the farms and other portions of the property is drawn up. Any thing that can throw light upon the management of a particular holding, and the qualities displayed by a particular tenant, are duly noted down, as, also, are the improvements which it may be consid- ered desirable to institute, or which the tenant himself may have suggested as necessary. It is then for the Duke and his agents to consider whether the property shall remain in the same hands, and what repairs shall be effected. In consideration of such repairs as may finally be carried out, either a permanent addition is made to the rent, or else the tenant is charged a percentage on the money expended. The estates of the Duke of Devonshire lying in several counties, GREAT LANDLORDS, AND ESTATE MANAGEMENT. 39 it would, not be practicable to apply to thorn the principle of con- centration which works so well in the domains of the Dukes of Cleveland and Northumberland. Such a thing as an absolutely best system of territorial administration is no more possible than an absolutely best form of government; and just as the relit ions between the great landlord and his agents will depend upon the degree of mutual knowledge and confidence, so the principle on which estates are controlled will be fixed by then geographical pecu- liarities. The Duke of Northumberland is a territorial magnate who has one prime minister as his commissioner, and as much may be said of the Dukes of Westminster and Cleveland. The Duke of Devon- shire has probably more than half a dozen responsible controllers, each independent of the other, possessed of co-equal and co-ordinate powers, and each communicating directly with him. These gentle- men make reports to his Grace on the condition and requirements of their separate departments, but only at intervals of nearly a year, and not on paper only or chieliy, but in personal conversation. The business year begins and ends at different times on the different properties, and consequently the season of the annual audit of each is different too. Like the Duke of Northumberland, the Duke of Devonshire owns not merely many varieties of farms as well as mines and mills, but a prosperous and thriving township. His Grace, indeed, has two watering-places in which his power is supreme — one the inland spa of Buxton, the other Eastbourne on the south coast. At both of these places the land is let out for building pur- poses, the landlord — as was the case with the Duke of Northumber- land at Tynemouth — permitting no house or structure of any kind to be erected which has not received his approval or that of his responsible agents. Such is a synoptical view of the natural characteristics, and the general principles of management, of three or four of the largest properties in England — the Westminster, Northumberland, Cleve- land, and Devonshire estates. There are other general features in the administration of English properties which might be studied with advantage by many continental landlords. The strictest method is, as we have seen, the very soul of the organization, and the archives of the property are preserved as carefully, and are in their way as important, as those of a department of the public service. There are, in the case of every well-conducted property, piles of agree- ments between landlord and tenants; tin cases containing the bud- gets of the property for a long series of years; estimates of ex- penditure, monthly and annual; masses of manuscript containing 40 ENGLAND. the data on which these estimates are drawn up; abstracts of ac- counts, with marginal references to ledger folios, and a perfect li- brary of volumes made up of the correspondence between the land- lord and his agents on the affairs of his estate for a number of years. And there are other official papers than these relating to the ad- ministration of the property. One is " A Return of the Progress of New Erections, Alterations, and Repairs made under the Superin- tendence " of the architect for the estate in any given month. It is in effect a little manuscript book in which is noted the progress that has been made in the works undertaken on the different holdings, the sums that have been actually expended, and the further sums which it is estimated will yet have to be expended — first, in the course of next month; secondly, in the course of the next year. Some at least of these figures — those which indicate the sums estimated as necessary during the coming month — have a place in another printed form, "Estimate of Expenditure." On this sheet there are further entries, such as "Additions and Repairs," "Household Gardens and Pleasure Grounds." There is yet another class of documents, of even greater impor- tance than any which we have yet examined. They are those which lay down in legal phraseology the relations existing between land- lord and tenant. Here there is no absolute uniformity, but there, as we have seen, is an approach to uniformity. There is a general indisposition on the part of landlords to grant leases or to contract except out of the Agricultural Holding's Act. Some landlords there are who give their tenants the option of a lease or an annual agree- ment, and some who permit to them the right of killing ground game. But as a rule the tenure of farms on the great estates is a matter of annual agreement. Improvements in the way of drainage, buildings, roads, and fences are either done at the expense of the landlord, or if the tenant immediately defrays their cost he receives compensation from the landlord. In all leases there are special clauses reserving to the landlord property in the minerals under the surface of the soil. The landlord stipulates that the farmhouse shall be regularly inhabited by the tenant. The cost of repairs is generally a matter of private arrangement between landlord and tenant, but in the majority of cases it is upon the shoulders of the former that the greater part of the burden falls. The great estates do not always have as then- owners titled or untitled proprietors. The Crown and the Ecclesiastical Commis- sioners are at the present moment the most extensive landed pro- prietors in England, having the management of properties with a GREAT LANDLORDS, AND ESTATE MANAGEMENT. 41 rental of upwards of £400,000, situated in all parts of the United Kingdom. These are administered upon practically the same prin- ciples which obtain in the case of the large landed nobility. The responsible agents are two eminent firms, officially designated as surveyors, one of whose jurisdiction is the north, and the other the south, of that portion of Great Britain which is this side of the Tweed. These have head offices in London, a large staff of clerks, secretaries, and architects, and a variety of local bailiffs. Each of the surveyors is constantly traveling, receives frequent reports from his local agents, and communicates a general statement of affairs to the Commission, to which he may be said to stand in nearly tin; same relation that a managing director does to the other members of a business firm. Under the present Ecclesiastical Commission the value of the Church lands has nearly doubled in the course of thirty years. The surveyors are constantly in communication with the chief agents of the great private estates of England, and are. quick to adopt any improvement which suggests itself as desirable or practicable. The government of properties which are in the possession of the great City Guilds is, for the most part, equally excellent and effective, and in this case, too, the method adopted is that in force upon the large estates which we have seen. It must not be supposed that these immense properties, which are in their way principalities, are the only instances of first-rate estate management in England. Many of the smaller properties of country gentlemen and of noblemen, are controlled with an effi- ciency and ability that leave nothing to be wished. The same amount of organization there cannot be, for the simple reason that the opportunity and necessity for it do not exist. Neither can it generally be expected that the laborers' cottages, the hedges, drain- ing, and roads, should be in the same perfect condition in these as in the case of the kingdom of a great territorial noble. Uniform and considerable improvement there has ever here been; but where the supply of cajntal is necessarily limited, operations cannot be conducted on the same extensive and magnificent scale. In com- paratively few estates with a rental of less than £10,000 a year does the landlord keep a chief agent, who is exclusively deAoted to the affairs of his property. In many cases where the revenue is much in excess of this sum the agent charged with the superintendence of one property is responsible also for the control of a second or a third. There is, indeed,, always resident on the estate a bailiff of considerable knowledge, and eminently trustworthy, who duly re- ports on the condition of affairs, either to the agent, or possibly to 42 ENGLAND. the landlord himself. "When the estate is a much smaller one, say from £3,000 to £7,000 per annum, the official who receives the rents is probably an estate agent by profession, and has the charge of a great number of these domains, often at some distance from each other. Experience proves the wisdom of employing such a repre- sentative in the management of estate business, and experience also proves that the attempt to delegate the authority which that man- agement implies to the bailiff, who is in social station inferior in all probability to the tenants, does not answer well. The custom, which was once common, of placing estates in the management of county solicitors, is gradually falling into desuetude, though still very far from being obsolete. CHAPTER IV. RURAL ADMINISTRATION. Government of an English Village— Elections of Guardians of the Poor expected : Local Interest taken — Extent to which Boards of Guardians have assumed Powers previously vested in the Vestry — Candidates for the Election, and Principles at issue — Defective Sense of Personal Responsibility and Duties of Citizenship among all Classes of Englishmen —Influence of Great Nobles on Squirearchy, and indirectly upon Boards of Guardians — Meeting of the Board : Kinds of Business discussed, and various Functions discharged — Magistrates at Quarter Sessions — Kinds of Business done, and Way in which it is done — Opportunities of the Institution, and some Reforms in it suggested. IT is the smaller squires, a gradually diminishing class, and the farmers, who do the daily work of the government of rural En- gland, and who form the rank and file of the local officials. How does the administrative machinery thus constituted work when it is actually in motion ? It so hapj^ens that there is some little excitement noticeable in the village or parish which we are now visiting. During the past fortnight there has been much' disputation, mainly of a personal r character, among the ratepayers who compose the parish vestry; a good deal more, indeed, than might have been expected, seeing that the parish ratepayer has comparatively little authority himself di- rectly to exercise. He has been compelled to acquiesce in the cen- tralizing tendencies of the times, and to delegate to a few trusted individuals the power which was once absolutely deposited in his own person. Every parish officer, Mr. C. S. Read said not long ago \ in the House of Commons, has been disestablished in the last fifty years except the parson. The remark is scarcely an exaggeration. The churchwardens continue to exist, but their sphere is purely eo- \ clesiastical; the parish constable became an anachronism by the Act of 1872, though the gradual disuse in practice of his office may be traced to the at first gradual, and then compulsory, institution of a county police force, dating from about 1850, or alike later; the over- seers are only officials for, in technical parlance, "making " the rate, / 44 ENGLAND. for which the guardians, like county justices, merely issue a precept. It may be mentioned, however, that the overseers have also one other important function: they make up, in the first instance, the roll or ratable property which, subject to the revision of the Assess- ment Committee, determines the assessment of the parish. In vari- ous valuation bills it Las been proposed to give them the aid of the surveyor of taxes in doing this, but they do not like the idea, which will in all probability ere long be carried out, while there are pro- posals to abolish their assessment functions altogether. The miniature image of our representative system may be seen in the English village, and it is a question of representation which is now exercising the little community. The parish is one of about twenty * in the district which are about to send a delegate to a body that, with more appropriateness than the vestry, may be called the local Parliament — the Board of Guardians. The principle at issue is one of real importance, and considerable interest has been taken in the names inscribed on the nomination papers, which have been already forwarded to the clerk of the Board. Every voter, in other words every ratepayer, has a right of nomination, and, ex- ercising this right, a simple agricultural laborer has had the au- dacity to propose a gentleman — perhaps the parson of the parish ■ — who is known to look at affairs of local administration from a point of view that is not too popular in the neighborhood. The miniature polity, in fact, is divided into parties by an embittered dispute as to whether the guardian to be elected shall be a candi- date who is in favor of, or opposed to, the system of out-door re- lief ; whether he shall be one who would make stricter regulations for securing the minimum of out-door relief by more rigidly enforc- ing the test of the "house"; whether, in other words, as we shall see hereafter, he is to be the advocate or antagonist of a practice which, as facts and figures abundantly prove, promotes chronic pau- perism among the working classes, tends more than any thing else to degrade the character of the lower orders, and absolves the higher from individual responsibility in relation to their humbler neighbors. Fifty years ago, this kind of contest was unknown in English village life. The autonomy of the parish was then unim- paired; the jurisdiction of the vestry, or, at least, of the overseers, who on this matter were the great parochial authority, though un- der the old poor law they were sometimes overridden by the rul- * There are 15,000 parishes and 050 unions in England — hence the average is about 23 parishes to a union; some unions have 40 or 50, and there are others with as many as 70 "or 90. RURAL ADMINISTRATION. 45 ing power of the magistrates, was in theory absolute. During the greater portion of the first half of the present century, e ich pariah not only had the management of its own poor, but also in matters relating to its sanitary condition its local taxation was a strictly self- governing institution. Roads are intentionally excluded from the above list, seeing that over 6,000 of the rural parishes of England (nearly half probably) retain their management of roads by elective parochial surveyors, and that highway districts arc permissive only. One after another, these parochial prerogatives have been lost, and little more in the way of the active duties of admin ion is Lefl to the vestry than the collection of rates which they have no power themselves to fix. The Board of Guardians having concentrated in themselves the chief administrative and executive functions of the ratepayers, as weU as having added to these other powers which overseers and vestry never possessed, it is natural that considerable local ellbrts shoidd be made to influence its composition. Accordingly, when the village vestry met, a rather rare event, a couple of weeks since on parochial business, some allusion was made to the forthcoming contest, and the cpialifications of the different candidates, which led to a keen and even acrimonious debate. Since then the discussion has been continued in the village tap-room, at cottage hearth-sides, in farmhouse yards, in the market towns, and wherever else the electors or their nominees have happened to meet. The struggle, it is clear, lies between two competitors for the sometimes coveted distinction; a farmer of some substance, who, rising superior to the prejudices of many of his class, believes that out-door relief is an unmitigated mischief to the poor themselves, and a local publican in a brisk way of business, who regards all recipients of out-door relief as potential accessions to the ranks of his customers. It may be that there is a sentimental philanthropist who is also in the field, but he will only divide one party or the other, and the election mainly reduces itself to a struggle between the principles that have been indicated. Because the name of the parson has not been mentioned in con- nection with the competition, it by no means follows that he neces- sarily holds himself aloof from it. He may be a candidate himself; or he may, in his capacity of chairman of the vestry, which con- stitutes the electoral body, be using — as it is perfectly legitimate he should use — his influence in support of a particular candidate. After not a little experience he has come to the conclusion thai moral, social, and educational welfare of the neighborhood isjeop- 46 ENGLAND. ardized by the indifference of the farmers, who compose the great majority of the Board, to the questions which very nearly concern them. For it is the farmers who are the real local legislators of rural England, and the British farmer who takes an extensive, a liberal, and an enlightened view of the duties of his position is less commonly met with than might be wished. To put it differently, he seldom proposes to himself a higher standard of responsibility than that which is common to his class; and to say this is to bring no worse charge against him than that he regards existence and its duties from the same point of view as do most of his social betters. The conception of the duties of citizenship has yet to be quickened among all classes of the community. The great local magnate, the representative of monarchy in his own provincial world, the apex and figure-head of English local government — the Lord Lieutenant of the county himself — sets the example which the squirearchy imitate, and to which the yeomanry unconsciously conform. The Lord Lieutenant is a nobleman of great wealth and birth, of blameless reputation, of beneficent inten- tions. He is the patron of local societies, of schools, of charitable institutions beyond number. He is generous, philanthropic, and probably something of an autocrat. He contributes largely to the support of all local movements, if they are in what he considers the "right direction"; whether they are right he claims himself to decide, and the principle of their conduct he rigidly prescribes. If a neighborhood in which he has property wants a dole out of the great man's purse to enable it to build a school, he will take the whole expenditure upon his own hands, and will start the parents and ratepayers of the district with a school building complete down to the smallest particular. But he will do this only on condition that the inhabitants should adopt a School Board immediately, or should pledge themselves not to adopt it, according to the color of his political opinions. And in seventy-five cases out of a hundred the great man carries his point. The demagogues of the village beer shops, and revolutionary tillers or tenants of the soil, may talk as they will, but the " Castle " — if such be the name and style of the ancestral dwelling of the great — has but to express its wish, the wish becomes law, and eager effect is given to the law by the veriest Thersites of the district. The son of our typical potentate is not perhaps a young man of great natural aptitude for affairs, and he is certainly the professor of an anti-popular and exclusive political creed. But his she considers that the time has arrived when he should represent a division of the county in Parliament, and a RURAL ADMINISTRATION. 47 meeting is accordingly held at which it is unanimously decided that the noble lord is the only eligible candidate. The resolution is proposed by one Boanerges, who has recently been inveighing in his own circle against the influence of the territorial aristocracy, and has been seconded by another who is locally credited with an aim and mission of a still more subversive character. All this, it may be said, is as it should be, and if all that could be advanced against the duke, marquis, or earl, who is the king of the county, were that he was an amiable desjiot, it would amount to very little. But he is also, unfortunately, for the most j^art an absentee, and when he is at home he is apt to be too much occupied with his guests, his foxhounds, and his battues, to attend to the more irk- some responsibilities of vast possessions. There are certain ances- tral charities on his estate which must be kept up, and his agent has to keejD them up accordingly. There are certain institutions in his villages known as almshouses, which have been endowed from generation to generation by charges on the great man's estate, and he ignores the fact that these establishments are for the most part hot-beds of pauperism, and of helpless, hopeless want. It is not to his taste to take a leading part in the business of the county, and accordingly the gentry who live about him, the squires of various degrees of wealth and dignity, practice a similar abstention. If his grace or his lordship goes to a county meeting, then the minor ter- ritorial riders, the untitled squires, will go also, because, in conven- tional parlance, it is "the right thing to do." But the country gen- tlemen, being in the great majority of instances magistrates, are ex officio members of the local Board of Guardians — are, in fact, in vir- tue of their position, responsible for the pauperism, the financial, the sanitary, and the educational state of the neighborhood. Their power for good or evil is practically unlimited, and if it is to be for good, it must be actively exercised, and its active exercise means constant attendance at the meetings of the Board, not merely rare periodical appearances for the purposes of patronage, or perfunc- tory participation in the discharge of the functions of the mag- isterial bench. If, therefore, our local Parliaments sometimes do their work imperfectly, it must be borne in mind that the cause of their defects is closely associated with a hundred deeply rooted habits and traditional prejudices. "What is wanted is a keener and wider conception of duty, and if the parish parson can help to create such a sentiment, and actively make it felt either at the election of Guardians or at the meeting of the Board itself, happy is he, and well will it be for the neighborhood. 48 ENGLAND. Meanwhile the election itself is over; the new Board of Guard- ians is complete, and its sittings have begun. The magistrates, par- sons, farmers, tradesmen, and publicans who constitute the Board — if it happens, indeed, to include so many varieties of English life- have come together on the occasion of one of their weekly meetings, at the regular place of rendezvous. There is plenty of business to discuss, and there is likely to be some rather sharp debating of the rougher sort. The chairman, it may possibly be, is not quite punc- tual in his arrival at the scene of action, and it is beginning to be a question whether his place will not have to be filled by deputy. He comes at last, genially apologetic or transparently indifferent, as the case may be; a representative English gentleman, more at home in the field than in the council-chamber, and slightly disposed, perhaps, to push the principle of leaving well, or perhaps bad, alone, further than might seem desirable even to some languid reformers. He owns a fair property in the neighborhood, is honestly desirous to do his duty, and believes that on the whole this duty is best done by allowing matters pretty much to take their own course. Contrast with him yonder clerical member of the Board, who sees in it a great agency for effecting those reforms which have, as he believes, a directly religious sanction. He is a gentleman of some determination, knows what he means, and has a tolerably clear idea as to the manner in which what he wants is to be secured. There is a look about his eyes which stamps upon him as clearly as could words the legend, " No surrender ! " On his face there are visible those lines of quiet resolution which proclaim that, if fighting is necessary, fight he will. He is noticeable. in many respects among his colleagues in the Board-room: the petty squire, in somewhat straitened circumstances, who has just strolled in, but who has no idea in particular, and who is secretly absorbed in calculating whether he can afford a hous^ in London during the coming season, or a continental trip in the autumn; the publican or tradesman, who, compliant and servile in his business, has views of his own, which he intends to stand up for among his brother guardians; the ordinary specimen of the British farmer, whose notions are summed up in the simple formula that nothing must be done which seems to threaten an increase of the rates. He has allies and he has enemies at the Board. If there are those who see in our parson an intermeddler, there are those also who know that he is earnestly and courageously working out a faith which, in process of time, is destined, if effect be given to it, to lighten the earth by removing from its surface several tons of human misery. It may also be that more than one RURAL ADMINISTRATION. |;i of the landowners in the district not only recognizes but utilizes the opportunities of his position, and is a member of the Board m reality as well as in name; or that among the tanners there are some who actively sympathize with the good work. Lastly, there are few Boards of Guardians which do not count among their mem- bers one or two of the smaller kind of tradesmen, who are al once the most fussy and revolutionary of the body. AVhat is the work on which our guardians are engaged to-day? It may belong to one or several of many varieties, for the functions of guardians are only less numerous and complicated than the au- thorities under which the inhabitant of a rural parish lives. The simple English villager is the creature of a highly complex economy. He maybe defined as one who lives in a parish, in a union, in a highway district, or in a county, according to the point of view which is taken, while in three of these he always is. It is, further, far from unlikely that he should be subject to six kinds of authority : the Local Board, the vestry — whose officers, as we have seen, are the overseers — the School Board, the Highway Board, the guardians, and the justices. As is the multiplicity in the possible modes of government with which he is acquainted, such, or almost such, may be that of the taxation which he has to pay, even much of this taxa- tion, so far as it is levied for local purposes, is called by the generic name of "Poor Rate."* Three kinds of authority there are which are universal from one end of England to the other: the poor law authority, the highway authority, and most noticeable of all, the sanitary authority. The bodies exercising these powers in town and country are not the same, but there is no corner of the land over which the}'" are not spread. In rural districts, such as that which we are now considering, the sanitary authority is the Board of Guardians, and we may suppose that it is a sanitary question which engages its attention to-day. Our guardians then, let it be understood, have considered the reports of particular cases of distress made to them by their agents, the relieving officers; have disposed of sundry demands for out-door relief; have decided what admissions shall be made to the work- house itself. In their capacity of guardians of the poor pure and * Although by no means the whole of taxation for local purposes is com- prised under the name of Poor Rate, that rate does generally comprise tho County or Borough Rate, the School Board Rate (in rural districts), tho Sani- tary General Rate, and where Highway Boards exist it will include the Highway Rate. In other cases, the Highway Rate is a wholly separate charge; and so, where it exists, is the rate levied by Local Boards. 4 50 ENGLAND. simple they have thus exhausted the catalogue of their duties. But they have much else to think of. In some instances they have the functions of a School Board to discharge, as members of the local School Attendance Committee; they have to revise valuation lists; they have to look closely after sanitary matters, and to consider the reports of paid sanitary officers. They may be sitting in full con- clave, or as members of one of the committees to which they have delegated their functions. Their business, we will assume, on the present occasion is sanitary. They have received the unwelcome intelligence that a deadly epidemic has broken out at some point in the union area, and shows every disposition to spread; or they have reason to fear that the drainage is not quite satisfactory; or they are puzzled to know why the sanguine anticipations of their medical officer should be falsified with such lamentable emphasis by results. One of their number ventures to suggest that perhaps the reason is to be found in the fact that they push the doctrine of delegated responsibility to an indefensible extent. And in truth there may be something in the theory. They have intrusted to a medical expert, paid by a handsome salary, duties which it would be infinitely better they should fulfil themselves. The medical expert has assured them that all is right, but there can be nothing more unconscionable or perverse in their action than the pestilences and sicknesses to which humanity is heir. One guardian has every reason to believe that the district in question is from a hygienic point of view all that could be desired. It is true, for some time past there has been a nasty sore throat about, but then it is in the air. It may be that the drainage is defective, but then our guardian will argue that the most perfect drainage in the world cannot make the unclean clean, though he omits to notice the truth that when j)ollution is systematically promoted by imperfect drainage, cleanli- ness is impossible. Much ingenuity is expended in framing hypotheses to explain the origin of the evil; more money is voted for patent drainage pipes; the experienced medical officer is exhorted to keep his eyes particu- larly wide open. Every thing, in brief, is done but the one thing necessary. The guardians, who constitute the sanitary authority, are not persuaded that so long as they abdicate in any degree their own personal functions a satisfactory result is impossible; and that, if they would insure the neighborhood against noxious maladies generated by preventible causes, they must not fear to thrust their presence into unlovely corners, or to hold their nostrils above un- savory smells. It is in sanitary matters as it is in matters of pau- RURAL ADMINISTRATION. 51 perism, and as it is to some extent in educational matters: the sense of individual and personal responsibility is lacking, and the vigorous spirits are few and far between that bring the need of the sense of responsibility home to those breasts from which it should never be absent. The machinery which, it may be argued, ought to have this effect is at work — this is, the Local Boards are responsible to the central government. The Local Government Board in Louden de- mands and receives statements of annual income and expenditure' from the Board of Guardians in the country, despatches its inspec- tors to report on all they see or can ascertain, only helps the local authorities with loans at three and a half percent, when the purpose for which the loan is wanted has received its official approval. Yet something more, it is plain, than this is necessary if we are to see uniformity of law or practice established at our Boards of Guard- ians, and if the customs of one Board are to be brought into any decree of accord with those of another onlv five miles off. On the representation of then medical officer, the guardians give in- structions that drains shall be enlarged, or that new sewers shall be made. It is obvious that the benefit of these reforms, while in a general sense felt by the whole community, is specially and imme- diately experienced by the landlords of houses. A well-drained tenement has a higher marketable value, commands a greater rental I than one which is ill-drained, and the better drainage is no sooner effected than the rental goes up accordingly. Naturally the conse- quence of this is to diminish the sense of responsibility which at- taches to the landlords; and thus the many are taxed for the direct and peculiar aggrandizement of the few. Thus much of vestries and Boards of Guardians. We rise grad- ually to a higher sphere, and approach a more august authority, the County Magistrates assembled in the Court of Quarter Sessions. Of the duties of magistrates, or, to give them their more dignified title, Justices of the Peace, in Petty Sessions, more will be said elsewhere. There are in all some 820 Petty Sessional divisions in England and Wales, which only accidentally correspond with any other areas, and which come within the jurisdiction of these unpaid administrators of the law. The business of Petty Sessions is purely judicial, and comprises all such minor cases as can be summarily disposed of without the summoning of a jury. But it is not the privilege or the duty of attending Petty Sessions, and dealing out immediate retrib- utive vengeance to trespassers and perpetrators of larcenies of the lesser kind, that makes the position of a County Magistrate envi- able in the eyes of the ordinary Englishman. As Boards of Guard- 52 ENGLAND. ians have spoiled the vestries of their authority, so now is there an organized movement to rob the magistrates of most or all of the prerogatives which they prize. The centralizing tendency of the times is irresistible, and when the establishment of County Boards has reduced the administrative power of the justices to zero, the ancient glory of Quarter Sessions will be gone, and one of the main reasons of the applications now made to the Lord Lieutenant of the County for the Commission of the Peace will be found to have dis- appeared. The Court of Quarter Sessions is a grand judicial tribu- nal, but the fame which Quarter Sessions bestows on country gen- tlemen comes from their achievements less in the judicial than the administrative field; and when magistrates cease to manage the business of their county, they will cease also to care for its official honors. At present, however, that is a contingency of the future. Quarter Sessions may be menaced, like much else, with disestablish- ment. Meanwhile the Court exists, and the right to affix the letters "J. P." to one's name is yet esteemed a distinction. It is respect- able, it is ancient, it is closely associated with territorial position and proprietorship. It is, therefore, held out as an inducement to the gentlemen who, having made their fortunes in trade, desire to purchase estates in the country, by the ingenious agents who make their profit out of such negotiations. Here is a copy of a litho- graphed circular which not long ago accompanied the glowing de- scription of a Lancashire property then in the market: — "A high social prestige attaches itself to the purchaser of this estate, as there is no resident squire in this or the adjacent parish. There is no superfluity of magistrates in the district, and the honorable office of Justice of the Peace would most undoubtedly be conferred on the new owner after the lapse of a decent interval of time."* This cunningly devised statement supplies, perhaps, the one con- sideration which was wanting to make Mercator close the bargain. He becomes duly installed in the great house, and " after a decent interval " is an applicant for the honor of the County Magistracy. The application, however, is not made in his own person. Etiquette requires that the request shall be vicariously made to the Lord Lieu- tenant of the County, and if that eminent personage views it with favor, the request is practically granted — practically, but not accord- ing to the letter of the law. In law the refusal or the bestowal of the honor rests with the Crown, advised by the Lord High Chan- cellor. t As a matter of fact, it is the Lord Chancellor who appoints, * This is a literal extract from a circular in my possession. RURAL ADMINISTRATION. frl and the Lord Lieutenant who recommends. Cases, indeed, are not. unknown in which the authority of these two dignitaries comes into collision. A district memorializes the keeper of i he monarch's© science against the ratification of the Lord Lieutenant's nominati or an individual appeals to the Lord Chancellor against his rejection by the Lord Lieutenant. But, as a rule, the system works harmo raously, and in rural England the doctrine may be said to be firmly established that the administration of the law — like the admi tion of other local business — shall follow the ownership of flic land. Lords Lieutenant of counties take different views of their responsi- bility in recommending candidates for the magistracy. Political and religious motives have their full weight given them, and Ni conformist and Liberal justices would be at a discount in a strong • Tory shire. Others, again, are disposed to take the qualification of magistrates aspirant as sufficiently proved by the partial certifica- tion of the friend who mentions them. Others institute a just and critical inquiry into personal aptitude as well as social claims. Oth-' ers carry circumspectness to the verge of caprice, and at the same time that they appoint a magistrate, gratify a crotchet. But all this time the Court of Quarter Sessions has been assem- bling in the county town, and the justices are entering the chamber in which the decrees are to be registered that will constitute for the • next three months the law of their little province. It is a long, lofty room, down whose center runs a long green-baize-covered table, which manifestly means business. In they come, the men of metal and many acres, from the Marquis of Carabas down to the well-to-do country farmer. Here is the representative of a house which has been settled in the neighborhood for upwards of a cen- tury, and whose first founders helped to conquer the kingdom for William the Norman. Here, too, is the gentleman who represents the principle of plutocracy, and who is a new-comer from Liverpo< .1 or Threadneedle Street. Then there are the county squires, big and small, a few professional gentlemen, one or two retired military and naval officers, a few clergymen, and several younger sons of great noblemen. It is the affairs of the county, and not the administration of the law, which now concern them. They have met, not to try prisoners but to test accounts, and to discuss local matters, and the chances are that they will display much ability, industry, and shrewdness in the conduct of the various business. There is, perhaps, more than one gentleman present to-day who thinks that Quarter Sessions are not what they were, and dwells with admiring regret on the compo- 54 ENGLAND. sition and the procedure of the court in the fine old time now gone. The speeches made, the counsel given, the masterly manner in which every thing was done, were worthy then of the Imperial Parliament at Westminster, for the simple reason that the most prominent men at Quarter Sessions were the master-minds of St. Stephen's. It is not impossible that the local court contained one or two Cabinet Ministers as its active members. Probably a clear majority of those who did the real work of the meeting had seats in the House of Commons or House of Lords, and were versed in the art of political management, which experience of these assemblages is calculated to teach. It may be that the chairman of the court was none other than the Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament, the first Com- moner, and the best shot, of England; or that the justice who pre- sided over his brother justices to-day was the statesman who had saved an entire political party from catastrophe last week.* Be this as it may, there they were. Peers, Cabinet or ex-Cabi- net Ministers, members of the House of Commons, squires big and small, professional men, parsons, a yeoman or two, gathered togeth- er to transact the business of the county. The conference was as salutary as its results were effective. It was an education for many; it was an advantage to all. It disciplined and cultivated the minds of the country gentlemen who spent then' time amid then- paternal acres. It brought distinct classes into contact; it smoothed off an- gularities of character; it taught moderation, tact, discretion. These are virtues still inherent in the institution, but they fail to impress the spectator in the same degree. In a majority of English counties Quarter Sessions are not what they were. The members of Parlia- ment, the eminent statesmen, the Cabinet Ministers, will be looked for in vain. The naval and military half-pay officers are more nu- merous, and if they are also commendably energetic, are. not gen- erally thought correctly to understand the genius of the place. The smaller country squires are a class that is rapidly dying out. The / larger country squires and great nobles have other things to do. The representatives of commerce and plutocracy have gained a pre- ponderating voice. Finally, the sphere of the operations of Quarter Sessions has been materially contracted, generally by the fact that all eyes are now turned to London, and specially by the transfer of prisons to the State, with only a remnant of supervisional powers left to the justices. * Among contemporary Cabinet Ministers who are or have been Chairmen of Quarter Sessions are the late Mr. G. Ward Hunt, Lord Carnarvon, Mr. K. A. Cross, Lord Salisbury, Sir Stafford Northcote, Lord Derby, Lord Hampton. RURAL ADMINISTRATION. RS >.» The mere meeting in Quarter Sessions is only a small pari of the work which falls to their share. There are still many very im- portant matters brought up by notices of motion, and young men still hud in the sessions the opportunity of winning their spurs. Throughout the year some, at least, of them are hard al work on committees charged with the consideration and adjustment of finance, with the special investigation of county bridges, shire halls, county buildings, police, asylums, licensing, the execution of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, the Weights and M. . ures Acts, the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, and the control of minor local authorities. Lunatic asylums, police, bridges, and licensing are the subjects which are most keenly discussed.* Reports of committees in all these matters are read and debated, the report which is lirst taken being that of the committee of finance. There is the county rate to be fixed, and it is these reports which regu- late its amount. The committee has been ascertaining the total of the net ratable value of the parishes which make up the county aggregate, and the guardians have been estimating the amount wanted for poor relief. Thus there is a long array of figures to come before the justices in the Court of Quarter Sessions assem- bled. It is, in fact, a kind of local budget, which is read, and when read and sanctioned, the guardians have to supply the funds, which are raised by the rates that the overseers collect.')" Such, in outline, is the system which it is now in contemplation materially to modify. The general arguments on which such a ' change is based are, first, the disregard of the representative prin- ciple in this department of the national life; secondly, the economy, as well as the simplicity, which would result from the substitution of one authority for several. Now, as regards the former of these points, it is the fact that the Village Reeves, and Port lleeves, who corresponded to our County and Borough Justices, were at the Anglo- Saxon period chosen by popular election. This custom disappeared to a great extent at the Conquest; but even as late as the 28th * Roads, except -where quasi-judicial Acts are required, or an adoption of the Highway Act is proposed, seldom give rise to much debate. t The magistrates in Quarter Sessions have, as such, neither knowledge of nor any concern with the sums required by the guardians. All that comes be- fore them is simply the County and Tolice Rates; thus their finance deals with by far the most insignificant portion of the local funds. The County and Police Rate may be only about 5d. in the pound; the charges borne by the ratepayer in consequence of calls for guardians, Highway, and School, &c, authorities will be about 2s. 6d. or oh. in the poxind. The County Assessment Committee does assess the county, but their valuation is only used for County Rate. 56 ENGLAND. Edward I. an Act was passed, asserting for the people the right of the election of sheriffs in every shire "if they list"; nor was the right taken away before the 9th Edward II., on the plea of the dangers of "tumultuous assembling." As regards the justices or conservators of the peace, they were elected by the freeholders of the county up to the commencement of the reign of Edward III., when that monarch took the commission of the peace into his own , hands, and at the present moment the coroner is the only ancient officer whose election is vested immediately in the people or free- holders. The desuetude into which the representative principle has fallen in county matters is aggravated by the fact that, while the popu- lation is growing in density and concentration, there exists no satisfac- tory method of taking its voice in local affairs. The Lord Lieutenant, indeed, has the power of convening the county by special summons. Theoretically, also, presentations, or statements of grievances, may still be made to the grand juries of the county at Assizes and Quarter Sessions. But the first of these expedients is only resorted to for the relief of public feeling when it is profoundly moved, and is inappli- cable for the sober discussion of business; the second, the presenta- tions, seldom get farther than the court to which they are presented. It is the multiplicity of concurrent authorities, and all the con- fusion which this concurrence generates, the independence and the consequent conflict of local governing bodies, which are the chief , causes of mischief and inconvenience. This distribution of powers is equally fatal to efficiency and unfair to the ratepayer. "If," as is stated by Mr. R. S. Y/right in the admirable memorandum on the subject of local government drawn up by him under the super- vision of Mr. Rathbone and Mr. Yvliitbread, " one simple unit of local government were adopted for all purposes, there would be a single governing body, elected at one time, and in one manner, and by one constituency; and this body, by itself or by its committees, would manage all the affairs of the locality on consistent principles; its proceedings would be subject to effective control by the ratepay- ers, and last, though not least, it would have one budget of expend- iture and debt of the whole locality." We should, in fact, get rid of the perplexing distribution of action between overseers, guar- dians, Highway Boards, Burial Boards, Justices of the Peace. Sim- / plification would bring with it to the ratepayer the power of con- trol. It may further be regarded as desirable that there should be a channel of trustworthy communication between the ratepayers, the people, and the Local Government Board, the central authority. This there cannot be till we have genuinely representative as well RURAL ADMINISTRATION. .-,7 as generally responsible local bodies. Once let these exist, with no needless impediments in the way of their good working, and 1 necessity for interference by the central authority will be dimin- ished, while the use and value of the information which it can fur- nish will be materially increased. The balance will, in fa struck finally and satisfactorily between independence judiciously regulated and perpetual anarchy, from which there can he no out- come but severe centralization. It is impossible to discuss this part of the subject without bri< I'- ly glancing- at the objections which are taken to the di of their. purely judicial duties by magistrates who have no special Legal knowledge, and who, when abstruse points of law arise, are obliged to trust to the wisdom and experience of their clerk. Here again it must be allowed that the censors of the existing regime have, to a certain extent, antiquity on then* side. The original statute ot 1 Edward III., which gave the right of the nomination of justices to the Crown, provides that they (the justices) should be "good nan and lawful" — skilled in law. A later statute, 31 Edward III., or- dains that one lord with three or four men of the best reputation, together with men learned in the law, should be assigned to each county. Various statutes were passed in the reign of Richard IL, enacting that the justices should be selected from " the most suffi- cient knights, esquires, and men of the law." As a definite prop- erty qualification was not determined till the reign of Henry VI., it follows that for nearly two centuries good reputation ami legal learning were the two necessary and qualifying attributes of jus- tices. Nor even did the property qualification, fixed at the posses- sion of lands or tenements of the annual value of £20, abrogate the condition of legal learning. And it was a condition which, as a matter of fact, continued to be required till the days of George II., when the qualification was altered to its present form — landed property of the clear annual value of £20, or the immediate rever- sion of lands of the annual value of £300. Those who are dissatisfied with the existing system of adminis- tration in country districts declare that there can be no guarantee of impartial justice where the judges are personally acquainted with the parties, and where the same persons practically do duty as judges and prosecutors. All county justices are ex offvh> guardians of the union in which they reside; the chairman of the Board of Guardians being, perhaps, usually a squire. The same individual who hears from the Clerk of the Guardians the particulars about a defaulter charged with neglect of his relatives, and orders the de- 58 ENGLAND. faulter in question to be prosecuted, may, as a justice, in a few days be sitting in judgment on him. Again, it is urged, the justices, being country gentlemen, and game preservers, have a direct inter- est in putting down poaching. But recent legislation (the objection continues) has recognized the inexpediency of allowing magistrates to adjudicate in special cases in which they have a class interest. Thus, no mill-owner can hear a charge under the Factory Acts; no mine-owner, under the Mines Inspection Act; no miller can adjudi- cate under the Bread and Flour Act; no brewer and distiller can take part in the granting of licenses. Why, then, should game pre- servers try game stealers ? This, it is said, is an anomaly; and it is an anomaly which causes a suspicion of and disrespect for what is sometimes stigmatized as "justices' justice " in the rural mind. Further, it is asked, is it in human nature for an amiable, tender- hearted country gentleman, not educated in the stern traditions of legal impartiality, to decide without any bias in favor of the man whom he knows as an orderly, well-behaved, sober peasant, if the case brought before him is that of a quarrel between such a one and a dissolute " ne'er-do-weel " ? As regards the statement, which is sometimes urged as a sufficient vindication of the institution of an unpaid magistracy in country districts, that the cases disposed of at Petty Sessions are so trivial and plain as to render precautions for insuring an absence of biassed opinion unnecessary, it must be remembered that small cases do not necessarily make easy law, and that a paltry perversion of justice may jeopardize the peace of a village. A well-known Indian official, of large judicial experience, once remarked that " any fool could try a murder — the evidence was usually so clear and direct — but that it took a born judge to distinguish between the merits of a despicable squabble between two ryots for possession of half an acre of land." This argument is eminently applicable in the present instance, and it is certainly con ■ ceivable that the presence of a carefully grained legal intellect at Petty Sessions would be of material value. Of course the obvious and, as it may turn out to be, conclusive answer to the suggestion of a staff of stipendiaries in rural districts — going circuits after the fashion of county court judges — is the burden which would be placed on the rates or taxes. On the other hand, if this would give us a guarantee against the costly blunders which are now committed — if it would prevent the despatch to prison of men only to be released immedi- ately — to say nothing of the dangerous contempt into which, as a consequence, justice is brought — it is far from certain that a nomi- nally extra expenditure might not mean a real retrenchment. CHAPTER V. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. Local Boards — The New Relation between County Towns and Surrounding Neighborhood — General Results of the Municipal Corporation Act — Rela- tions between Municipal Governments and Central Government — The May- oralty in London and in the Provinces — Town Councils: their Jurisdiction and Offices — Trades Councils — Debate in Town Council described — Educa- ting Influences of the Life — Borough Magistrates— Politics in Municipal Mattel's — Citizenship in London and the Provinces — The Government of London — Possible Reforms. THE connecting link between rural administration and municipal government is to be found in the institution known as the ! Local Board. This body is frequently to be met with in what are called populous places — districts, that is, in which some of the characteristics and feelings of country and town are combined, and which may be described as standing midway between the Vestry, or the Board of Guardians, and the Town Council. The Local Board is elected, as are the guardians, by the ratepayers of *■ the community. Its members are charged with some of the func- tions of the guardians, and also, hke the guardians, transact most of their business by committees. Upon them devolve the superin- tendence of roads and highways, responsibility for the sanitary con- dition of a district, for the removal of nuisances, and the general provision of fresh ah' and pure water. It remains for us to advance a step farther than this, and to cross the inteiwal which separates rural administration from genuine municipal administration; to quit the neighborhood where matters are managed nearly as much by tradition and precedent as by principle, and visit the local capital, whose authorities are guided at all points by written law, and which I is itself a miniature pattern of the realm. The village grows by imperceptible stages into the town, and urban institutions are es- tablished almost before 6-ne seems to have left the properly of the rural squire. This interfusion is increased by the paramount inllu- 60 ENGLAND. ence which some of the great governing families of England exer- cise over its towns. The shadow of the castle or the abbey is pro- jected over the borough; the political representation of the borough is often vested, and has been vested for generations, in the ruling family; the chief hotel of the place takes its title from the broad acres of the same great county house. And 3 r et there is a very visible difference between country town and country village life. There is scarcely a borough in England i now which is not something of a manufacturing center as well. New sources of mineral wealth are forever being discovered be- neath the surface of the inexhaustible soil; special virtues are found to reside in local fountains; sequestered vales are constantly proved to afford the most eligible sites for textile factories or brick-yards. It is the tendency of towns of all kinds to develop into trading cen- ters — depots, each of them, of some particular commerce. What- ever their produce may be, it is an instinct with the producers to organize it, and to assert for themselves a distinct position in the great hierarchy of English traders. Thus, the place which thirty years ago was only the medium of distribution for local products in the locality itself, is now a kind of petty emporium of the empire, the head-quarters of whose business no longer he within the bound- aries of the borough, but are in London. The produce of the neigh- borhood, whether fish, flesh, or fowl, milk, butter, or cheese, goes to London as a kind of clearing-house, through which it passes, some- times before it finds its way to the local consumers. Consequently, many, even most, of the chief representatives of the local business are immediately identified with London. As might be expected, this development has largely changed the relations that once ex- isted between the great county families and the county town. Even in the most remote districts of England something like an attitude of antagonism, or at least of self-assertion, seems to be betrayed on the part of the town towards its rural neighbors. The chief hotel- keepers and shopkeepers of the former are anxious to conciliate the good-will and secure the patronage of the latter. The advent of the county people on market days, and on other occasions, is still an event. But it is not the event. Town remains deferential towards county, but, in the most inoffensive manner in the world possible, it wishes to give county to understand that the tie of dependence which once bound them together, making town the creature of county, is permanently and considerably relaxed. There is not, indeed, in most cases any real enmhy between the two. In very many country towns there will be found gentlemen MUN1CIPA L GO] '/■: RA WENT. i I engaged in commerce or trade who have pedigrees that extend over centuries, and who are directly or remotely connected with thi most illustrious of their county neighbors. But though this isle some extent a sentimental tie of union, it is one whose very affinity sometimes acts as the provocative of rivalry. The townsman thinks of himself as a member indeed of the county family, but as beloi ing to a branch of it which has gone into a different line of business, and which has created new centers and conditions of interest of its own. Insensibly the most unsophisticated of country towns have become more or less isolated from the purely rural districts that sin-round them. There is a commercial traffic between the two — farmers and cottagers bring in their produce, and sell it. The great county folk, as has been said, repair thither at stated inter- vals, though they do little towards patronizing the trade snian — a fact which is largely accountable for the growing divergence and divorce between the two districts. And there are blood ties as well as business ties uniting them. But the prevailing sentiment in towns is a desire on the part of the citizens to show that they are members of an independent community, capable of choosing their own municipal authorities and generally managing their own concerns. The legislation which is now more than forty years old has done much to strengthen and encourage this feeling. The Municipal Corporation Act of 1835 marked a new epoch in the history of English local governments. The measure gave municipal govern- ment, as it now is, to upwards of 200 English towns. It was adopted by Manchester first, and there, as well as wherever it was adopted subsequently, it commenced to diffuse an entirely new spirit. It brought home, or it has since served to bring home, the sense of citizenship to all who are living under it. The institutions which have directly been its products have generated an intense spiiit of corporate energy and freedom; a new motive has been given for local improvements, and a fresh incentive to private and public beneficence. Legislation supplies a continuous stimulus to local activity. Not a session passes in which Parliament does not confer some new right, or impose some fresh duty and responsibilities on local authorities. Thus, during a period of four years ending in 1878, the following, among many other public Acts, were passed, ail involving increased local obligations: — Public Health, Weights and Measures, Contagious Diseases | Vni- mals), Canal Boats, Local Loans, Artisans' Dwellings Improvement, Adulteration Act Amendment, Explosives, Petroleum, i\:c., &c. I 62 ENGLAND. These measures are in some cases permissive, in others impera- tive, but their number, and in many instances then- magnitude and importance, largely account for that steady growth of local expend- iture and local indebtedness which periodically excites the unrea- sonable surprise of honorable members who have supported these various proposals as they have been submitted to them, but pre- sumably without any idea of the cost which then* execution would entail. There is no appearance that this stream of legislation will cease to flow, and at the present moment municipal government in England is full of infinite possibilities. For its actual effects it de- pends almost entirely upon the men who are its administrators. Signs are not wanting that what the Municipal Corporation Act of 1835 was to the men of a past generation, the Education Act of 1870 will, in years to come, be considered by men who are not yet middle-aged. The pride which many a citizen of Sheffield, Birming- ham, and Bradford takes in the institutions of his town is increased by the fact that he can recollect the return of the first member of the borough, and the first Mayor of the municipality. It does not seem impossible that the time may be coming when the Education Act will suggest in many places a similar sort of honorably gratify- ing retrospect. Precisely the same stamp of man who took an ac- tive part in the assertion of municipal rights and privileges is now engaged in the development of our educational system. School Boards have been formed in many places where they are the only really representative authority of the district. By their means schools are raised everywhere at the expense of the ratepayers, who are thus being educated in the work of self-government. In the towns where this experience is not new, and where men have long been accustomed to take a broad view of then- civic duties, and have already tasted the advantages of common action and co-opera- tion for important common objects, energetic citizens are doing their best to secure not merely an effective system of primary education, but also of secondary instruction. It is with this view that they have in some cases, with the consent of the Education Department, traveled outside the letter of the Act of 1870, and that they have also at their own expense made tours of Germany, France, and Switzerland, noting down all that was best in the educational sys- tems of these countries, with a hope of applying it to Leeds, Shef- field and elsewhere. Nor is it; necessary to suppose that in these oases the local educational jurisdiction will always be separated from the exercise of more general municipal powers. The ten- dency is everywhere to increase the authorities of the Town Coun- MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 63 cil, and it is even now a question whether the management of !!,. ;u -(l Schools, which are concerns of quite as much local interest and im- portance as markets, fairs, gas-works, and water-works, i not conveniently be intrusted to a committee of the Corporation, The legislation of 1835 was, within certain limits, of an essen- tially centralizing character. It superseded the power of v< by a Town Council whose jurisdiction has subsequently increased. till at the present moment the Town Councillors, subject to authority of the Mayor, have absolute control over the government of a town. They have, indeed, to ask the consent of Parliami when they contemplate any changes which affect the tenure of property. They have to forward their accounts to the Home S retary, and these accounts have to be laid before Parliament But, with the exception of these general limitations, they are the masters of their own actions. It is incumbent upon them to see that the streets are well lit, that all quarters of the town are well drained, that the thoroughfares are kept in decent repair. They control the police, they have the election of the borough coroner, and of the stipendiary magistrate, and in some places their recommendation is accepted by the Lord Chancellor in the appointment of gentlemen to the commission of the peace. They manage the baths and parks of the town, and its free libraries and museums; the}' superintend the markets and fairs, and levy tolls therein; they maintain the lunatic asylum, the industrial school, and possibly the cemetery; they pro- vide a borough hospital, and establish a fire brigade. They are manufacturers of gas, purveyors of water, farmers at the sewage farm, and chemists in the analyst's laboratory. The whole district under their jurisdiction is frequently inspected for sanitary pur- poses; nuisances are removed by their orders; new buildings sur- veyed, and old ones ordered to be repaired or pulled down. Finally, they have their representation on many of the educational and char- itable foundations of the town, and possibly control by the votes of their members the administration of the local grammar school and other similar institutions. The best way in which to gain an idea of the municipal adminis- tration of the United Kingdom will be to watch its machinery in active motion, and this we shall most successfully do by visiting one of the great provincial capitals in which it is at work. We are en- tering, the reader will suppose, a very handsome block of newly- erected buildings — the municipal offices of a busy, prosperous com- munity. The Town Hall itself is accidentally, not necessarily, a separate edifice. The rooms in this present structure consist of a 64 ENGLAND. spacious chamber in -which the Town Council holds its periodical meetings, of committee-rooms, of the Mayor's private parlor, fur- nished in a style calculated to impress visitors with a due sense of the dignity of the representative of the citizens; of clerks' offices; of reception-rooms, and a smoking-room; of a spacious kitchen at the top of the building, placed there that the deliberations of the coun- cilors and the occupation of the officials may not be invaded by the odors of the cuisine. Under this roof are the head-quarters of every department charged with the administration of the town and the well-being of its inhabitants. Here it is that the architects and sur- veyors, with their respective staffs, are domiciled, here that the Town Clerk— an official who may be compared with the Permanent Secretary in the great offices of state, the Mayor being the tempo- rary head of the system — is seated in his bureau, transacts his busi- ness, and gives the council and the committees of the council the benefit of his legal knowledge. To each of the departments of the public work there is assigned its own special committee of, probably, eight in number. The en- tire council, whence these committees are chosen, consists, let us say, of sixty-four members, three being elected triennially by the ratepayers of each of the wards into which the town is divided, making in all forty-eight, and sixteen being aldermen, who are the nominees of the Town Council, and have received that titular dig- nity, in recognition of some signal merit or distinguished service. The different committees of the council are responsible to the gen- eral body for the superintendence and execution of the tasks dis- tributed amongst them. Before any work is taken in hand, an estimate of its expenditure is submitted to the council, is ratified or amended, as the case may be, and is not to be exceeded without the council's special consent. In each committee there is a finance sub- committee, which examines its accounts and reports them to the finance committee of the entire council. The expenditure incurred through the instrumentahty of these bodies suggests one of the chief points of contact between the Imperial Government at Westminster and the Local Government in the provinces. Successive Parlia- mentary Acts, of which the latest are the Public Works Act of 1875, and the Artisans' Dwellings Act of the foUowing year, have mate- rially enlarged the independent jurisdiction of the municipalities. The most fervent advocates of the principle of municipal autonomy would allow that such centralization as still exists in the relations between the provinces and Whitehall is indispensable for the protec- tion of the interests of provincial communities. As to the merits of MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 65 that specific measure of new legislation which lias transferred the control of the prisons from the local bodies to a commission, differ- ent opinions exist, and probably the time has not ye1 come when it is possible to express a decided verdict. The only thing which now seems certain, is that the local inspection which was reserved by the Act to municipal authorities is gradually being suffered by these authorities themselves to become a dead letter. Such interference as the Central Government exorcises in the , municipalities is designed with the exclusive purpose of checking precipitate action, or a recklessness of expenditm-c which might involve generations of ratepaj'ers as yet unborn in heavy finani ial embarrassments. If the authorities of the large towns only display the same prudence as the shareholders in a company demand from then- trustees and managers, they whl have no reason to complain that their action is hampered by the Local Government Board, to which they are subject, and acquiescence by this Board in the pro- posals of the municipality may be expected as a matter of course. Some great local work, let us suppose, is in contemplation or prog- ress, which involves the sale or transfer of land, and probably in addition the borrowing of a considerable sum of money. What is the mode of procedure which the municipality adopts? Formal application with full particulars of the scheme is made to the Local Government Board to sanction the undertaking, to allow the expend- iture, and to authorize the loan. In a little while an official from "Whitehall, having previously made it known to all whom it may concern by the medium of advertisements in the local papers that he will attend on a particular day, at a particular j)lace, for hearing the objections which may be advanced by dissentients from the en- terprise, arrives in the town. He proceeds to examine the nature of the contemplated work, weighs the arguments which are advanced for, and against, the compulsory sale of particular properties, judges for himself whether the security offered is adequate to the amount required, and duly reports the result of all this to his department in London. In cases where the action of the municipality interferes with the right of private property, it is the approval of Parliament, expressed in legislative enactment, which has to be gained. When, in addition to this, a sum of money is required for the accomplish- ment of any enterprise, there are two modes of action which may be resorted to. In the first place, there is the simple expedient the municipality going into the money market, and starting a Loan of its own upon the security of its rates and works, which Loan it can usually get at about four per cent. In the second place, resort 5 66 ENGLAND. may be had to the Public "Works' Loan Commissioners, who are authorized to lend sums of money at not less than three and a half per cent., to be paid off in terms not exceeding fifty years, to munici- palities, with a view of facilitating improvements in the sewage, gas, and water arrangements of big towns. It may be remarked that the theory underlying this procedure is, that the Commissioners borrow on consols, payment of which might of course be indefinitely deferred. As a matter of fact they borrow on exchequer bonds which very speedily fall due. There is an obvious disadvantage ,, incidental to this arrangement in the fact that the sudden payment of these liabilities might in times of great financial stress involve considerable inconvenience. It is, therefore, a question whether the loans made by the Commissioners ought not rather to be on ter- minable annuities. As for the security which the municipalities in these contracts provide, it is indisputably sufficient. Seeing that the Commissioners never lend more than the amount of the total value of two years' rating, it is clear that nothing but the most scandaloxis carelessness can ever result in a realized loss. Even supposing that this neglect were at all a likely contingency, there would still be the safeguard of that extreme jealousy of local expend- iture entertained by the representatives of the Central Government. These details, which, troublesome as they may seem, it is quite necessary that we should not ignore, have kept us waiting for some time on the threshold of the really gorgeous chamber in which the members of the Town Council have assembled for the purpose of debate. It is the House of Commons in miniature, with some of the features that remind one of the Chamber of Deputies at Versailles. Councillors and aldermen are collected in little knots, discussing with each other, and with their constituents, the ratepayers, the issues of the coming debate, in the rooms and lobbies contiguous to the place of actual deliberation. The apartment dedicated to their purpose is an exact amphitheater. Stout oak chairs, with stout oak tables, in continuous line before them, are ranged tier upon tier, and last of all is a gallery with some half-dozen rows of seats, exactly resembling the dress circle in a theater. Opposite these, at the other end of the apartment, where in a theater the stage would be, is a raised dais, in the center of which sits on the chair of state the Mayor of the municipality, supported on the right hand by the Town Clerk as his official interpreter of vexed points of municipal law or deliberative procedure, and on the left by a couple of aldermen who have been his immediate predecessors in office. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. G7 The orders of the day have now been read, and the active busi- ness of the day begins. A good deal of it is already cut and dri< <1. prepared by the different committees of the council at their respective sittings, and only waiting the final registration and formal sanction of the entire body in full council assembled. Then the council, ! the House of Commons on analogous occasions resolves itself into a committee, and, unlike the House of Commons, appoints by a unan- imous vote as its chairman, its ordinary speaker or president — in other words, the Mayor. A Bill is presented which it is proposed to ask Parliament to pass in the ensuing session. The clauses are gone through one by one with some discussion, and then the council resumes, and the Mayor reports that the committee has passed the Bill without amendment, whereupon a resolution is adopted, author- izing the Town Clerk to take, on behalf of the council, all such pro- ceedings as may be necessary to promote the Bill in Parliament. Not much excitement can be said to attach to these routine transactions. It is evident, however, from the manner in which the seats in the strangers' gallery are filling, that something in the na- ture of a sensation is expected. Before long it , comes. An impor- tant committee brings up a report involving recommendations, the policy of which has apparently been keenly contested outside the council. It soon appears that the principle at stake is complicated by a purely personal controversy. Mr. Councilor or Alderman A. is vaguely conscious of a grievance at the hands of Mr. Councilor or Alderman B. He has nothing very specific to allege in the way of complaint, but he has a distinct idea that the comments of his fellow-townsman on his words or actions upon a recent occasion were charged with a subtly caustic flavor, and had the effect of making him appear in a rather ludicrous light to the local public. This is true human nature. The Briton will forgive a direct in- sult, and forget a well-planted and indisputable blow, but the rapier- thrust of a phrase, which, apparently innocent or unobjectionable, in reality hits him in a vital part, is an outrage that he cannot en- dure. His wound is made worse because for a long time he hi the weapon which inflicted it. At last the moment has arrived when he must liberate his soul. He watches his opportunity, rises to address the assemblage, and is pronounced by the Mayor to be in possession of the house. The honest controversialist is too acutely sensitive of the bitter sting of the viciously turned sentences of his critic, too indignant with the accusations he can detect in them, to be epigrammatic or even relevant in his retorts. Instead, he is very prolix, very prosy, and is perpetually wandering into themes, not 68 ENGLAND. wholly akin to the subject in hand. Reminded at infrequent inter- vals by the Mayor or some other member of the assemblage that he must be more pertinent in his observations, he sits down for a mo- ment, and rises, hot, angry, and nervous, to renew the attack, which he is firmly persuaded is a defense necessary to his honor as a citi- zen and as a man. Meanwhile, the occupants of the strangers' gal- lery are beginning to display signs of sympathy or disapproval; this, of course, is as much in violation of the estabhshed rules of muni- cipal procedure as the applause of spectators in a court of justice, or the cheers of an appreciative phalanx of the recipients of orders to the Speaker's gallery in the House of Commons. The Mayor in- terposes a mild but firm rebuke, the intrusive shouts are silenced, and the excited rhetorician continues his discourse. This is only an incident, and by no means too common a one, in the debates of the Town Council. As a rule the proceedings of this body are conducted in a severely business-like spirit and with a full sense of that responsibility proper to a body which is intrusted with the expenditure of a sum not much less than one million annually. An ordinary Town Council displays an abilhy in debate quite equal to that witnessed in the House of Commons when sitting in com- mittee on some question of domestic legislation. Naturally the po- litical influences and advantages of such municipal training as this are considerable. The citizen, who has served his apprenticeship to the active work of the corporation, who has borne a prominent part in the criticism and advocacy of local measures in the council, who has worked actively on the committees to which he has been elected, has received a valuable preliminary training as a member of the imperial legislature. On the other hand, though this very training may enable him to take a broader and more comprehensive view of the wants and institutions of England, though it is quite certain that it will prevent his ignoring, as there is always more or less of a tendency in members of Parliament to ignore, that com- plex provincial system which lies outside the metropolis, it is beset by certain obvious drawbacks. The man thus educated grows up indeed with actively developed ambitions and with invigorated ca- pacities. But strongly convinced that the provincial corporation is the true unit of imperial government, he may be apt to forget that the same positive certainty and precision are not possible in impe- rial as in municipal affairs, that when the complexity of the subject matter is infinitely increased, the method of procedure which was once applicable is applicable no longer, and that the burden of larger principles cannot be supported in the same attitude which MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. G9 was adequate to maintain the affairs of :i town. Yet, if lie has a native elasticity of mind, lie will soon adapt himself to the new con- ditions. Municipal statesmanship will prove but a transient ph of his political development, and he will gradually become a in the House of Commons by the exercise of the Belf-same gifts, ac- commodated to the changed circumstances that have secured him pre-eminence in his own municipality. Meanwhile, what of the functions of the august individua] who presides over the deliberations of the council- his Worship I \ Mayor? The Mayor of a great town is carefully to be distin- guished, as to his position and power, from the chief officer of the corporation of small provincial boroughs on the one hand, and of the City of London on the other. Onerous and exacting as arc all Ins labors, the Lord Mayor of London has a host of duties to 1 1 charge, which for the sake of distinction may be indicated by the epithet ornamental. While, in conjunction with the City aldermen, he is the chief administrator of justice and law w T ithin the City pre- cincts; while almost every national movement for the relief of na- tional distress may be said to emanate from the Mansion Hon . which is the Lord Mayor's palace ; while he is the one officer of the realm whose initiative and sanction are the main-springs of Eng] charity, the decorative attributes of the post are not less conspicu- ous, and in their way important. Large independent means have become essential for the support of the state in which the L<> I Mayor is expected to live, and for the pageants and hospitalities of which he has to bear the chief burden. Periodically he entertains as his guests distinguished visitors from abroad, now an Asiatic des- 2)ot and now a European prince. There are few days in the week in which he has not, clad in the insignia of his office, to take his place at some public meeting, or to occupy a prominent position at some public dinner. In these duties he is frequently accom- panied by the sheriffs, but they only enhance the magnificence of the effect, and do not relieve the chief magistrate of the City of any of his actual work. The mayoralty in provincial cities is a position not less coveted 1 and honorable than in the capital city of the empire. In small towns it may have sunk into disrepute, but in towns like Manchester, Liv- erpool, Bristol, Birmingham, and many others, much inferior to them in importance and influence, it is regarded as the h mark of distinction winch can be offered to a citizen. In all th cases, with the notable exception of Liverpool, the ornamental attri- butes of the office are somewhat in abeyance. At Liverpo< i. \ 70 ENGLAND. wliich, as the great port of communication with the New World, abounds in opportunities of doing honor to illustrious strangers, the Mayor has to participate in entertainments and pageants which involve an expenditure that is only partially recompensed to him by the salary which he is paid. Elsewhere in the provinces the Mayor is generally an unpaid officer, and when his yearly term is over he can scarcely hope to find himself less than £1,000 or £1,500 out of pocket. It is the chief function of the provincial Mayor to be presi- dent of the Town Council; and the feeling of his fellow-townsmen is, that he should not sink his business work in this capacity in the mere pomps and vanities of his office. The routine labors of the post occupy his entire time, and if he happens to be a member of any great business firm, he cannot hope to give more than an hour a day to its affairs, and will probably have to make some arrange- ments with his partners during his twelvemonth 'of office. He rep- resents the council and the town on deputations to ministers of state, while if the Central Government want information on any local matter, it is to the Mayor that they will apply. He presides over public meetings of all kinds, whether held for political or char- itable purposes. At purely town meetings he fills the chair in virtue of his office. He takes his place on the rota of magistrates, and in virtue of his office presides over all their meetings. In ad- dition to this, he is a member ex officio of every committee of the council, and is thus held, as, indeed, from the necessities of the case he must be, responsible for the general working of the entire muni- cipal machinery. Passing to the administration of justice in municipalities, the Mayor, as has been seen, is always ex officio the chief magistrate of the corporation. Provincial aldermen, unlike London aldermen, have not, in virtue of their titular dignity, any magisterial power, while most of the practical duties of the magistracy are often dis- charged by a stipendiary officer, whom it is optional with every cor- poration to create. The borough magistrate differs from the county justice, in the fact that he is not required to possess any prop- erty qualification, and that he need not even be a burgess of the municipality in which he acts. The sole legal qualification which exists is that he shall reside within seven miles of the borough. On the other hand, various practical disqualifications have gathered round the office from time to time, at the discretion or caprice of different Lord Chancellors, with whom — and not, as in the case of counties, with the Lord Lieutenant — the ajipointment of borough magistrates rests exclusively. Lord Westbury was the first keeper MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. ~\ of the Sovereign's conscience to exclude brewers from the commis- sion, and this disqualification has been subsequently (-.tended to all persons engaged in any branch of the liquor trade. It is also cus- tomary to disqualify practicing solicitors, and, sometimes, gentlemen connected -with the local press. The Mayor continuing to hold magisterial office during the year succeeding to that of his mayor- alty, it follows that the borough bench is always occupied bj I magistrates elected by the burgesses — a fact which the champions of popular privileges and the principle of popular representation naturally cite as the explanation of the general superiority of urban to rural justice. For this superiority there is a further guarantee in the circumstance that the administrators of urban justice live in the full fight of public opinion, are subject to the criticism of an active and inquisitive press, and belong to a complex body animated by great diversity of interests and convictions. In one respect at least the borough magistrates are sometimes at a disadvantage. Although a political bias, more or less strong, occasionally possesses the county bench, it is kept discreetly in the background; but in the case of the borough bench the appoint- ments are habitually made from political motives. Hence arises much rough criticism of a purely partisan character, which is not calculated to promote a spirit of respect for the administration or administrators of the law. The Lord Chancellor, unlike the Lord Lieutenant, is not the incumbent of his office for fife, and it conse- quently happens that, as each successive Government acquires place and power, a fresh batch of magistrates is made by the incoming Chancellor, for the purpose of satisfying the claims of ministerial supporters in the different boroughs throughout the kingdom. Town Council debates, and occasionally debates in Parliament itself, show how the vehemence of parties is aroused by these ju- dicial appointments. In some instances — and it must be remem- bered that in such matters as these, which depend wholly upon an infinitely varying social usage, it is impossible to lay down an abso- lute and comprehensive rule — the Lord Chancellor allows the Town Councilors little or no option in the matter, and the corporation has only a nominal veto upon applicants, or finds that the list of names which it submits is disregarded. To such a system certain abuses and disadvantages are inevitably incidental. It does not add to the dignity of the magistrate's office, or to the popular regard for justice, that the commission of the peace in boroughs should be be- stowed as the reward of political service, and that new magistral should be indefinitely multiplied in consequence of political e\i-i' Lon- don local government under vestries can be imagined. Westminsl 76 ENGLAND. for instance, has five Boards equal in the aggregate to only one in Marylebone, with five administrative staffs; and the multiplication of vestries involves, of course, in such a case a multiplication of offi- cial salaries. In the same way, vestry haUs are multiplied for small areas. The action of medical officers is controlled by vestrymen, who are the owners of house property, and it is painfully significant that the total which the vestries have considered adequate to expend in sanitary work for fifteen years is Is. 6d. per head of the whole population. Gas companies, water companies, and parish authori- ties, act in the matter of repairs independently of each other — a fact which is some explanation of the phenomenon that two hundred trenches are annually opened in Eegent Street. In that hmited area which is coincident with the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Board of Works these inconveniences are minimized. But even the Board of Works has no municipal status: in other words, where- as Manchester, Liverpool, and every English town, under the Muni- cipal Act of 1835, which was withheld from London, can procure from a standing Parliamentary committee the permission for im- provement — the application for such permission being treated as unopposed private business — no kind of substantial reform can be effected in the capital without the risk of a long Parliamentary debate. On the whole, London has reason to be thankful to the Metropolitan Board of Works. It has improved drainage, made new roads, cheapened and improved the gas supply. Thus, be- tween the years 1861 and 1873, it effected for the consumers of the gas supphed by the companies which it had amalgamated, a sav- ing of £625,446, and the present saving is estimated at £900,000. What are the difficulties in the way of the establishment of a mu- nicipality which shall cover all London? First, the jealousy of the vested interests, not so much of vestrydom as of the Court of Com- mon Council, 'which latter body would have to be reduced to forty- five. Secondly, the supply in adequate numbers of men qualified to take their seats in the great local parliament of London. This is a difficulty which was anticipated in the case of the London School Board, and the anticipation of which experience has proved to be superfluous. A seat at the new Municipal Council could scarcely be the object of less ambition than a seat at the London School Board. Thirdly, it has been suggested that a body as powerful as that now contemplated — which had at its disposal and subject to its authority the pohce — might overawe the Imperial Parliament itself. The answer to this is, first, that the man who will control London in the event of a great crisis arising is not the man who governs the MUNICIPAL GO VERNMENT. i i police, but he who holds the guns at Woolwich; secondly, thai expe- rience does not show life and property to be more insecure in those countries where the police is in the hands of the local authorities than where it is in the hands of the Government, but the reverse. The third difficulty is the more general and perhaps the fatal one of reconciling so many interests and justly redistributing so many financial burdens over so immense an area. But if the dream of a single municipality for the whole of Lon- don is rendered impossible of fulfillment by the vastness of the capital, and if that sense of citizenship and individual responsibility, which it is one of the chief objects of municipal government to gen- erate, must almost be despaired of in the case of a population of upwards of four millions, it by no means follows that the only alter- native is the continuance of the present regime. If the capital can- not have one municipality co-extensive with its farthest limits, this is no reason why it should not possess- an aggregate of municipalities, each of them coterminous with one or other of the parliamentary boroughs which are its political subdivisions. The dimensions of these might be manageable, and it is exceedingly doubtful whether any thing in excess of them would be. The borough of Westminster has a population almost equal to that of one of the largest provincial towns in the kingdom. It is, moreover, conceivable, and even prob- able, that this plan of grouping municipalities would secure whatever advantages could be gained for the spirit of local esprit de corps and competition. The ratepayer and Town Councilor of Marylebone might feel an intelligible interest and pride in knowing that he was better governed than his neighbor of Chelsea or Finsbury. Yet before even this lesser reform can be accomplished, there are inter- ests so numerous, substantial, and conflicting to be reconciled that the enterprise can scarcely be considered one of* the immediate future. With corporate enterprise and private energy combined, London is undergoing a triumphant process of rehabilitation. In the Albert and Victoria Embankments it has the finest riparian boulevard in the world. When the mansions which will stand upon what once were the grounds of Northumberland House are finished a superb avenue to the Thames will be opened. The new thoroughfare lead- ing from Sloane Street to Walton Street is rendered imposing by Queen Anne mansions not more spacious than picturesque. A com- plete transformation has been wrought in the district winch \. once called West Broinpton, but which is now known as South Kensington, by the mile after mile, the acre after acre of miniature 78 ENGLAND. palaces, whose lowest rental is more than equal to a middle-class income. On every side, in almost every quarter of the great city, something like this is going on. Imagine the feelings of Addison, could his shade revisit the earth, gazing down upon what once were the fields and woods of his " Old Kensington," and seeing instead of sheep-cropped meadows and leafy trees an infinite expanse of houses, each of them rivaling in splendor and dimensions the biggest and finest that he knew. Nor are the triumphs won by the spirit of modern improvement in London material only. "We have made great advances of late years in the matter of taste. There is visible in summer a large expanse of well-diversified and well-distributed color in the admira- bly-kept flower-beds that fringe the road between Hyde Park and the Marble Arch. Nor is it only the parks and the Thames Em- bankment which have received a new grace by the care bestowed upon them. CoUections of gay geraniums and scented mignonette ; hanging gardens, as fair as any which can have added their charm to the old Babylon, are the common ornaments of the houses of the new, and the horticulture of windows is as much of a fine art as the horticulture of the inclosurea in the London squares. Kensington Gardens, indeed, demand more attention than they receive, and a walk through what is really as noble an urban pleasaunce as any in the world is too often, to all who love trees and know how they should be tended, a succession of melancholy experiences. Before London can vie in natural beauties with such capitals as Paris or Brussels, it is necessary not only that she should be better supplied with trees, but that those trees which she already has should be better cared for. CHAPTER VI. TOWNS OF BUSINESS. General Characteristics of Commercial and Manufacturing Districts of England — Humanizing and Educating Influences at work in the Great Towns of the North— Employed and Employer in Lancashire and Yorkshire— Manchester and Liverpool generally compared— Aspect of Life in the Cotton Manufac- turing Districts— Newcastle-on-Tyne— Birmingham. EVERY city, it lias been remarked, symbolizes in concrete form some great idea; and the large commercial cities of the En- gland of to-day are the embodiments of human science applied to facilitate the processes and augment the results of human industry. The external aspect of these vast hives of toil is seldom picturesque. There is little or nothing pleasing to the eye in the approaches to them, yet there is much that is profoundly impressive in the appear- ance of their outskirts as the traveler enters them by night. Look- ing forth from the windows of the railway train, after having en >sse< I miles of barren moor and deserted fields, the passenger becomes suddenly aware of the flaming beacon-lights of a never-ending labor. In the distance he descries pillars of flame, lost in huge spiral exha- lations of murky smoke. At first the glowing sentinels which guard the portals of his destination are few; soon they multiply, till at last his entire track seems to be a line of fire. Above him are the same peaceful moon and silent stars which he saw when he was being hurried through the desolate levels of Yorkshire, with nothing save the mighty rushing throb of the stean. sngine, as it whirled him along, to violate the serenity of the nicht. But every thing else is changed, and as he is shot across the giant bridge spannis reat river he cannot only descry an endless vista of watch-tires of indus- try, but can hear the tremendous reverberation of forges mightier than those of the Cyclops. Yet though man, by his all-powerful enterprise, is perpetually transforming the face of Nature, though it is tins interminable Beries of swift transformations which strikes the traveler through England so powerfully, the continuity of national life and feeling is present 1 80 ENGLAND. unbroken. This is mainly due to the very suddenness of the change from manufacturing England to agricultural England. The deni- zens of the two districts may have little in common, whether in the way of personal characteristics or mutual acquaintance. Yet as an hour* and a half will take the traveler from the heart of the Black Country to a typical agricultural neighborhood, so, in the higher social influences dominating town and country is there a near rela- tionship. The fact that the great country landlord is also, in many cases, the great proprietor of mines and factories, is at once a guar- antee and a symbol of the fusion between the different elements of English life and the diverse sources of our national power. The new is ever being incorporated with the old, and the result of the process is a growing identity of interests and of feeling. If the visitor to the large manufacturing towns of the kingdom is struck by the gloom of then' atmosphere, and by the squalor of some of their quarters; if he sees, or thinks that he sees, around him a race of men, half of whom are preoccupied with the anxieties of opulence, while the other half are consumed with the cares of poverty; if he finds upon the surface nothing but the worship of Mammon and the desolating influence of want, he has but to exam- ine a little more closely into the system, and he will find that there I is no lack of humanizing influences at work. It is a popidation which may seem to live for nioney and material success, but it is also stirred by higher thoughts, and its dreams of the prosperity which is reckoned by the ledger are abundantly tempered by tastes and pursuits of a more softening and elevating kind. The teaching of art and letters is not wanting to the members of these commun- ities. Science has attractions independently of the power over Nature with which she invests man. The workers may appear as wholly absorbed in the pecuniary successes of their tasks as the artificers of Dido with the walls of rising Carthage. But there are the instruments of culture as well as the greed of gain; and if Man- chester is to England all and more than Carthage was to Africa, the graces and ornaments of Athens are not quite forgotten. A century ago the Avhole of Lancashire was in a condition little better than barbarism. Life was unsafe; property was insecure; strangers were attacked simply because they were strangers. Sixty years since the favorite siiorts of the inhabitants of Blackburn and Oldham were bull-baiting and compelling old women to race in sacks. The improvement which has taken place in the inteiwal has been confined to no single class of the population; and if native refine- ment of mind has not in all cases proved a grace within the reach of TOWNS OF BUSINESS. M art, there is at least a very considerable amount nol onlj of mat< rial but of intellectual civilization. Such towns as Manchester ai I Liv- erpool may be fairly described as being at once capitals of Rngliqh commerce and centers of English culture. There ma] be in them something of that tendency to glorify the acquisition of wealth which is so common in America, but this wealth is not exclusively sought for mere wealth's sake. Many thriving representatives of Lam shire trade and manufacture regard the vast pecuniar} reward of their energy and enterprise as a means, not as an end. It builds the edifice, but it is not considered to crown it. The aim is not even mainly seltish, and the Lancashire merchant hopes above all things to transmit the fortune he has made to a son, who will add to it the graces of an education and a training which he himself has not Music, painting, the drama, collections of art-treasures, science, are regarded, not merely as the superfluous embellishments, but as the indispensable accompaniments of prosperous existence. The Han- del Festivals, and the other great choral jubilees, are never so suc- cessful as when they are held in the great cities of the North. Opera- singers and actors meet there with the most sympathetic and the most critically appreciative audiences. Without the patronage of th cities the studios of London would languish. China, bric-a-brac, and the whole world of antiquarian curiosities, find in them their most ready and generous purchasers. The books which are read in the metropolis are read, not so much simultaneously as previously in the large towns of the North. Lectures on science, history, and literature meet with hearers as numerous and as attentive, if not as distinguished, as at the Royal Institution in London. It would be a mistake to suppose that the. only type of prosper- ous manufacturers is that of the showy and luxurious plutocrat, with his picture galleries, his well-stocked cellars, his graperies, his con- servatories and their precious contents of delicate exotic plants. 'There is an old proverb in Lancashire — "Four generations from clog to clog " — which means that the cycle of gradual rise and fall, the process of crowning the edifice of success and bringing it down to the dust, are comprised within the lives of father, son, grandson and great-grandson. The adage probably had a good deal of truth in it when the wealth and prosperity which followed the introduc- tion of free trade had the dangerous attractions of novelty. It is only verified to-day in those instances in which the successful Lan- cashire manufacturer pays little attention to the education of his son, who in his turn will beget a more ruinously reckless o'ffepru But spendthrifts and profligates, whether in spite of parental solici- 6 f 82 ENGLAND. tude or in consequence of parental neglect, are not exclusively con- fined to any one portion of the population, and the proportion of young men who squander the patrimony which they have inherited is not larger among the manufacturers of England than amongst any other class. It will be found that the fortunes of which the founda- tions have once been laid in manufacturing families are often of an enduring character, and undoubtedly the tendency is, not for the circular progress from "clog to clog," but rather to the translation of a newly created family to a higher social sphere. It may be that for the simple thrifty manufacturer, who is as much a representative man as the merchant living in princely state, we should go rather to Yorkshire than to Lancashire. In some hinds of manufacture, minute care, judgment, and frugality do the work which is done in others by enterprise, courage, and capital. Natu- rally enough, these two distinct kinds of undertaking tend to develop two corresponding kinds of character. We have glanced at the great cotton lord and mill-owner living amid all the pomp of wealth, and sparing none of the lavish expenditure which that pomp entails. Take the case which is equally real of a gentleman, who in a much smaller way of business — -a proprietor, it may be, of a gold and silver smelting factory — realizes, by dint of incessant care and unflagging personal attention, something like £3,000 a year. He inhabits no gilded mansion with marble staircase and corridors, decorated with costly canvases; his drawing-room is not furnished with the choicest articles of vertu, and as you leave it to pass into the garden, you do not find yourself in a fragrant grove of oranges, blossoming under a crystal roof, nor are your ears lulled by the murmurous plash of fountains. The establishment is not wanting in refinements, but they are the refinements of a somewhat austere simplicity. The house is furnished more in the style of the thrifty tradesman of fifty years ago, or the clergyman of straitened means in our own day. Yet neither education, nor culture, nor moral grace is wanting to the household. Though the private expenditure of the head of the family is probably less than a thousand a year, no trouble or money is spared to secure for his children the highest and most complete instruction which they can have. The girls are under the care of the best of governesses as well as of the best of mothers; and when the boys are old enough, they will be sent to a judiciously selected public school. In such a household as this there is no lav- ish dispensation of hospitalities, there is little visiting of any sort, there is much severity of atmosphere, and there is, perhaps, not enough of sweetness and light. It is probable that the family is TOWNS OF BUSINESS. ,v:l brought up on the principles of a rigid teetotalism, and thai wine, beer and spirits are never seen upon the table. It is aoi Less lik.lv that the whole household is dominated by a distinctly religious spirit, and it will be probably found that the religion is one of the creeds of Nonconformity. Doubtless, whether in Yorkshire or in Lancashire, the prevailing tendency is in the direction of an increasingly luxurious style of life. As Manchester and Liverpool have their suburban palaces, so are the environs of Bradford studded with the costly homes of Bradford manufacturers, while at Sheffield, a couple of miles Erom the heart of its busiest industry, the Eccleshall and Radmore districts abound in really superb houses, solid stone structures, placed in the midst of park-like grounds, splendidly furnished, highly decorate. 1, often enriched with modern masterpieces of painting and sculpture. Again, though the traditions of primitive simplicity linger with a more visible influence in Yorkshire than in Lancashire, there are tastes and habits peculiar to the county and common to the York- shire merchant and a territorial aristocracy. Every Yorkshireman loves a horse. Most Yorksliiremen have no objection to a bet Both of these idiosyncrasies of the Yorkshire character are illus- trated to a very conspicuous degree in two of the towns of the county — Sheffield and Doncaster. At Doncaster the race for the St. Leger is more of a genuinely popular institution than the race for the Derby on Epsom Downs. It attracts Yorksliiremen from far and near, and especially from the neighboring great towns, where there is always an unlimited indulgence in wagering. But cricket and football are the pastimes of which Sheffield may be considered the metropolis, as much as it is of cutlery and of iron and steel manufacturers. It is also the capital of pedestrianism; running matches and walking matches are perhaps more plentiful here than in any other town in England, and these matches pro- voke much gambling. AH the approaches to the ground which is the scene of the contest — and miserably squalid and dirty many of these approaches are — are densely crowded. Hundreds of men throw up work for the day in order that they may get a glimpse of the contest, and make their books, or get the opportunity of back- ing their fancy. The interest taken by the women is scarcely less keen — though the mothers and wives of Sheffield workmen can have but little reason to feel pleasure in the sport, for wages are reck- lessly squandered in betting and drinking on these occasions, and the natural consequences are hunger and want at home for a Long time afterwards. The more respectable working men of the plfl 84 ENGLAND. tell you, with evident bitterness, that betting is one of the curses of their order. In other respects, Sheffield, like other central towns in the districts of the mineral industry, shows but little of that thriftiness which is to be seen in the cotton districts of Lancashire. The explanation probably is that the fluctuations of prosperity and adversity are within much narrower limits in the textile than in the metal industries. Lancashire earnings are not so large and are much more regular than in mining neighborhoods; consequently the expenditure of the working classes is much more carefully made by textile artisans and then- families than by miners, and, as might be expected, the co-operative movement has never attained in York- shire any thing like the same successful development which has fallen to its lot in Lancashire. While the balance of social and economical advantages is thus rather on the side of the textile workers, they do not fare equally well from a physical and sanitary point of view. The great steel and iron works of Sheffield and Middlesborough, with the tremendous demands that they make upon the muscles of the workers in them, have been instrumental in giving us a far finer race of men than the textile factories; and as are the men, so are the women. There are marked points both of difference and similarity in the social life of London and the social life of Manchester and Liver- pool. Like London, they have their suburbs and their clubs, their hansom cabs, omnibuses, and tramways, their theaters and music- halls, their mainly fashionable and their purely business quarters. But there is infinitely less concentration of trade, industry, and their representatives, within certain districts, in the case of the cap- itals of the provinces than in the case of the capital of the empire. The sense of labor and of poverty pervades these great towns to a much more conspicuous extent than it pervades London. In Lon- don one may spend the day in walking through streets, squares, and entire neighborhoods, without encountering any, or many, visi- ble signs that the wealthiest and most luxurious capital of the world is also the scene of the most numerous and in the aggregate the busiest human industries ever collected together. In Leeds and Manchester, the presence of a nation of toilers is much more gen- erally perceptible, and the contrast between squalor and splendor is sharper, more sudden, more ubiquitous. It is possible in Lon- don, by a judicious ordering of one's movements, to keep almost all that is suggestive of misery and destitution out of sight. This cannot be done in cities where the haunts of luxury and toil inter- penetrate each other. The shadows of the great factories and of TOWNS OF BUSINESS. 88 those who work in them are cast over the whole place, and al cer- tain hoars of the day there is no street which is qo1 more or L surrendered to the patrol of factory operatives. It follows from this that in towns like Manchester and Liveri I the working- classes are a much more visible power than in London. In other words, there is in these cities more of the impressive asser- tion of a complex corporate life than in the capital London maj have its working- men's mass meetings in Hyde Park, and LI tarian demonstrations in Trafalgar Square. Hundreds and even thousands of London artisans and operatives assemble on occasions in the East End, and make more or less of a triumphal progri 98 to the West. But none of these celebrations produce an\ thing like the effect of a gathering of Lancashire or Yorkshire working men in a Free Trade Hall or Corn Exchange. The reason of course is that in London the vastness of the adjoining area dwarfs the signifies!] of the spot in which the particular gathering is held, and the con- sciousness of the almost infinite hosts around and about who do not participate in it, prevents the imagination from answering readily or vividly to the popular appeal. The composition, character, and customs of the working classes in thefr two representative capitals are entirely different. In each of these respects very distinctive peculiarities exist at Manchest while Liverpool possesses most of the features common to lav towns. "What the mill-hands are to Manchester the dockyard pop- ulation and the sailors of all nationalities are to Liverpool. Both cities have necessarily many occupations in common — the flour-mills, rice-mills, oil-mills, refineries, and foundries, in which they abound, as well as the trades of the ordinary artisan classes, bricklayers, carpenters, and joiners. But in Manchester these classes seldom come prominently before the eye, being to a great extent merged in the overwhelming number of factory employes. Few things more remarkable in Manchester than the vast crowds of mill-hands which dominate the streets and monopolize the pavements when the hours of work are over or suspended. The manner of these busy toilers is marked by little superficial polish. There is nothing in their address which recognizes the existence of social gradations. To touch the hat is a thing unknown, whilst "Sir" is rarely used even to their employers. But, bluntness and roughness notwith- standing, these mill-hands are a well-read, a thrifty, and an intelli- gent race, good citizens, and kindly fellows. Their dialed is un- couth, but they take pride in it, and are encouraged to do so by their masters. High wages, and the adaptability of the work to 66 ENGLAND. women, girls, and boys, give them comparatively ample means, while improvidence and extravagance are either exceptional, or else come only in infrequent outbursts. When these occur, the manifestations are often curious, sometimes taking the form of a lavish indulgence on the part of men in the luxuries of school-boys.* The niill-hancl is not infrequently of diminutive stature, this physical defect being the result, in some degree, of indoor and com- paratively sedentary employment, but more often of early marriages. A young man of eighteen can earn 25s. a week, a girl of sixteen 14s. On the basis of this income the two take each other for better or worse, and continue to work at the mill until the woman is detained at home by maternal cares. The pair will now find it difficult to make both ends meet, until their chiklren begin to earn wages: and when these in their turn have arrived at adult age, they will marry off-hand as their parents did before them. The factory housewife is saving, cleanly, loquacious, and very often extremely shrewd. As a rule, there is among the women very little that can be said to be positive immorality. Theaters, music-halls, and excursions around Manchester pro- vide ordinary amusements, while literary institutes and entertain- ments are very popular with the mill-hands, who are often great readers, and frequently keen politicians. Some of the pastimes are sufficiently primitive. At the fetes held in the Pomona Gardens, in Manchester, on the Saturday half-holiday, men may be seen danc- ing together, turning slowly round and round; whilst others, mostly youths of eighteen, will stand face to face in couples, and do a lim- ited clog movement to a monotonous tune, then- companions stand- ing round to watch and take their turn. It is, in fact, the negro tom-tom dance without the savage exuberance. But it is a neces- sity that, though the average intelligence is high, there must be, amongst the stunted produce of early marriage, a certain amount of congenital imbecility. At "Whitsuntide the mill-hands go in crowds to Liverpool, but mix little with the inhabitants. The chief object is to cross the river, and have a dip in the sea. The ordinary dress on these holiday occasions is a drab moleskin, while men and women alike are much given to bright silk neckties, scarfs, and shawls. But although in Manchester itself the masses of the niill-hands outnumber the representatives of all other trades, yet the latter are not so completely lost to sight as in the adjoining districts. The * I have myself seen in Manchester two factory hands (men) enter a confec- tioner's shop, buy a piece of wedding-cake, price is., to eat with their mug of beer TOWNS OF BUSINESS. 87 warehouses in Manchester employ large numbers of "packers,' 1 whose business is the haling and casing of goods, as well as pi i : and carters. In the outlying manufacturing places, on the other hand, at such towns as Hyde, Staleybridge, Blackburn, Bolton, and Oldham, and in the scattered villages, the factory Land of the pur- est type will be found, whether employed at a mill, a factory, a print-works, or a bleach-works. Here there is not, as in the chief center, any degree of mixture, any blending with other Bocial or in- dustrial callings. Coal-fields, indeed, are sprinkled throughout the neighborhood, but colliers, wherever they may be, hold little gen- eral intercourse with the surrounding population. If there be any perceptible difference between the habits and ways of those resid- ing in the smaller towns and of those settled in the country villa- it is that there may be observed in these districts all the independ- ence characteristic of the Manchester mill-hand in an undiluted form. The result of town life — at Blackburn, for instance — is to weaken the bonds of the friendly association existing between mas- ter and man in rural districts. Though the operative may live in one of his employer's cottages, and call him "John," there will be no personal cordiality. On the other hand, in the village of Conip- stall, in Cheshire, for example, the whole place belongs to one great concern, every inhabitant being directly or indirectly in its employ. A church and clergyman, schools and lecture-hall, are provided by the firm, who in various ways personally interest themselves in the amusements of their people. The daily life of the factory operative is nowhere so characteris- tically seen as in these villages and towns. At six o'clock on a March morning, just as the sun, yet struggling through a bank of clouds, catches the high roofs and taller chimney, the loud clanging of a bell summons the factory hands to work. The numberless win- dows, facing eastward, of the group of gaunt buildings known as " the mill," reflect back the bright rays as with the vivid glow of mirrors. Beneath them, close under the wall, runs the canal, across which, through the row of poplars fringing the towing-path on the farther side, are seen undulating meadows and leafless woods stretch- ing to the hills beyond. Similar buildings, the windows looking out on the streets of the busy little town itself, face north and west; whilst to the south the square is completed by a high wall, above which peep the roofs of engine-house and offices. Between these latter the wide entrance-gates stand open, disclosing beyond the lodges the paved and gravelled quadrangle within. Outside, and at a considerable distance, seemingly unconnected with the build- 88 ENGLAND. ings it serves, the great chimney rises from a grassy mound to the height of 160 feet. This, briefly, is the appearance presented by the exterior of one of the great factories or cotton-mills situated in Lancashire, in which are carried on both spinning and weaving — the two distinct pro- cesses that convert the raw fiber into calico. Rows of neat cottages with grimy walls, but scrupulously clean doorsteps, sills, and in- teriors, line the paved streets without. Here and there the gayer window of a dwelling turned into a shop adds variety; and, in such small towns as we are now describing, on one side will rise, story upon story, a huge factory. As the bell resounds, these streets are peopled with a moving throng pressing in the direction of the entrance-gates. Men and boys, girls and a few women, the former making the pavement ring with the patter of their clogs, the latter protected against the raw air by a shawl drawn over head and neck, form a crowd too eager to reach the work of the day for idle talk. Nevertheless, there is not wanting an occasional greeting to the housewife, who, through the open cottage door with its footboard, is seen busy in the duties that have taken her away front the occupation of girlhood and early married days. The bright fire, the clean children, the chest of drawers with its painted tray and array of books, the special pride of the good man who has just risen to join the human stream with- out, reveal something of the comfort of the mill-hand's home. But the entrance is reached, and pressing past the lodge, not without a friendly word to overlooker, foreman, or the watchful timekeeper, the crowd disperses across the graveled square. Whilst some go to the warehouse, the greater portion enter the tall build- ings where the spinning is carried on, and others, these chiefly women, cross to the three-storied building ending in the low weav- ing-sheds with their pointed semi-glass roofs. "Within, the preliminaries are quickly completed. The operatives have got rid of their superfluous clothing. In the various rooms for scutching, lapping, carding, and roving the raw fiber which lies in a snowy heap in the first of them, the spinner or minder has seen that his mules and frames are in working order, and stands in the narrow path which divides and gives access to the different ma- chines. In like manner, in the shed the weaver is at her post be- side the power-looms that are her care. In both places, the space above is full of driving-wheels and enormous leathern bands to transmit the motive power. In the engine-house, through whose long windows beam, crank, and fly-wheel of the machinery within TOWNS OF BUSINESS. are visible, all is ready; and as the finger of (ho clock touches the hour, the first labored beat of the engine proclaims thai the work of the day has commenced. Inside the factory, (he gianl strength that has lain quiescent is, all at once, in motion. In mid ail the great leathern bands commence their endless course. Below, mi and frames move quickly backwards and forwards along the ground, cylinders revolve at various speeds, the countless spindles and bob- bins turn round and round; whilst in the other department the looms work up and down as the quick shuttle flies from side to ride. In the one place the minder narrowly watches the machines tor which he is specially responsible, and in the other, the weaver is equally as careful to control the action when any hitch shall threat D a flaw in the work; whilst their subordinates attend to their indi- vidual tasks. And so, with a short interval for breakfast, the absorbing pro- cess continues until the dinner-hour, when the mill is deserted and the streets are again enlivened by a throng now inclined to linger and chatter, and, in their broad dialect, crack their rough jokes. Home has been reached, dinner eaten, the comforting pipe enjoyed . by the men as they saunter back, and once more work begins, to '' cease at six o'clock. Then, as the clock chimes, the busy hive jours out its workers — weary it may well be, but yet content as they plod homewards to the welcome that awaits them as the fairly-ear reward of a long day of watchful tod. Of Liverpool the marked feature in the industrial population is, as has already been said, the nautical class. Quite distinct from the longshore men are the sailors — many of them foreigners— engaged in the real mercantile marine for long voyages. This is scarcely a class of persons calculated to add respectability to a neighborhood; and though a Sailors' Home has been provided for them, and oth r attempts to reform them have been made, low public-houses, disrepu- table lodging-houses, and other noisome dens still nourish. Another prominent community in Liverpool are the Irish, who inhabit a neigh- borhood of their own, of which the center is the locally notorious Sawney Pope Street, a spot enlivened by perpetual disturbani The Lish in Liverpool, for a time, increased at a very rapid rate. As each new batch of immigrants found employment, they were followed by friends and relations from then- native land. Bui as Ireland has grown more prosperous, and an Irish middle class bas begun to develop itself, this movement has been arrested, and it has ceased to be probable that the Irish may constitute a pr< pon- derating element in the Liverpool population. Another point to be 90 ENGLAND. noticed among tlie Liverpool working classes is the prevalence of the representatives of unskilled labor. Since the city on the Mersey is the depot and point of departure of imports and exports, it follows that the unloading and loading of ships and storing of warehouses is the principal labor, employing lumpers, cotton-porters, and carters. No technical skill is required in this industry, a fact which, combined with the direct steam communication with Ireland, is mainly respon- sible for the many immigrants froni the other side of St. George's Channel. Liverpool, as statistics and reports show, has by no means a good character for morality and decorum. But in judging of this evidence, it is always necessary to remember that the repressive measures enforced by the Liverpool magistrates are exceptionally severe, and that the police often apprehend upon charges which would be deemed trivial elsewhere. The shipwrights of Liverpool, who form a distinct class, are an industrious, intelligent body of men. One or two regiments of volunteer artillery, which in effi- ciency have few equals elsewhere, are exclusively recruited from then' number. "With these exceptions, the working classes of Liv- erpool have no characteristics that separate them from the work- ing classes of other large towns. Theaters and music-halls, both thronged nightly with enthusiastic but more or less critical audi- ences, provide the staple of their amusements. The town has been beautified by the extension of a belt of fine parks, well wooded and admirably kept. Here in summer the inhabitants find their rec- reations, whilst there are other opportunities of enjoyment in the excursions easily made by the cheap ferries to the Cheshire side of the river, where at Eastham rural, and at New Brighton seaside pleasures are offered. As Manchester and Liverpool, whether in respect of their work- ing classes, or their superiors in the social scale, differ from London, so they each of them differ from the other. Thus, although therf are in Manchester few families whose connection with the town in any notable way could be traced back to the beginning of the cen- tury, yet that city has more hereditary worthies still associated with it than Liverpool; in which latter place, in the course of a genera- tion, not only are there new faces, but changed names. There is an obvious reason for this difference. Success in manufacture — the kind of success that is achieved in Manchester — implies extensive property in building, land, and plant, a property not only produc- tive but readily transmissible from father to son. In the operations of mercantile business, of which Liverpool is the seat, there is less permanence and more vicissitude. The builders of a fortune bid TOWNS OF BUSINESS. \\\ farewell to the place in which thej have buili it, or, dying, have do freehold to bequeath, but simply money and credit A di a trous fluctuation sets in, trade is had, and the m< nej vanishes. This distinction between mere buying and Belling and manufacture is inevitable, and will always continue. Again, Liverpool, one of the most cosmopolitan capitals in the world, ma\ be called the Marseilles of England. In a Liverpool morning paper a name such as Manuel Garcia or Christino Nicopoulos, sure evidence of the nationality of its owner, will almost certainly be found figuring in the lists of police-court celebrities of the previous day. Ascending in the social scale, there will be seen in Liverpool sum. tiling like a reflection of the mixture of races which is visible in the migratory nautical popu- lation. From Scotland and Ireland, from the United Stat< J, Erom all parts of the continents of Europe and Asia, there is a perpetual stream of new blood circulating through the community. The aliens and foreigners soon become permanent settlers, and the old Liver- pool families are merged in the hybrid mass. This infusion of new- blood occurs to a very much smaller extent in Manchester. Germans and Levantine Greeks are the most conspicuous among the strangers who make that city their home. But these seldom become assimi- lated to the native population. The latter in particular Form a distinct class, perpetuating the peculiar habits of then native land in the country of their adoption. A healthy, quickening, and instructive element in Liverpool soci- ety is to be found in the number of gentlemen who having been abroad in India, North and South America, China, the colonies, and elsewhere during pai"t of then lives, come to end their days on the banks of the Mersey. Often, as part of Lis commercial trainu a Liverpool youth will pass some years in a foreign laud, necessarily having his wits sharpened in the process. The very different char- acter of the Manchester trade affords only a few accidental experi- ences like these. On the other hand, there are more men, young and old, at Manchester who have received a public school and uni- versity education than at Liverpool. The very best society in Man- chester or Liverpool is not more accessible to residents than in London, and is very seldom entered by families who have made for- tunes by shopkeeping, never by those whose fathers have been shi >]»- keepers in the town itself. The social antecedents of strangers are less critically examined. Military or naval officers, clergymen, and barristers, are general favorites, and in Liverpool there has been of late years a perceptible importation of scions of noble houses who have taken to trade. 92 ENGLAND. There has existed in Liverpool for more than half a centmy a select and fashionable institution framed after the model of the old Almack's of London, known as the Wellington Rooms. Election to it is by ballot; the claims and positions of candidates are closely scrutinized. To be a member of the society is to obtain a sort of hall-mark of social consideration. Dances are given once a fort- night during the winter, and the building is used for no other pur- pose. Parties from the different noblemen's seats in the neighbor- hood attend frequently, and always in the race week. In Manchester an attempt of the same kind has been made in a series of balls given at the Free Trade Hall, but the experiment has not proved equally successful. There are other social attractions possessed by Liver- pool which in Manchester are wanting. The Manchester races are entirely given up to the mill-hands; but at Liverpool the Grand National, the Autumn Cup, and the Altcar Racing Meeting collect brilliant assemblages of fashionable sportsmen and the fair sex. Liverpool attractions are further increased by its several yacht clubs; the River Mersey thus helping to give the town a social and fashionable distinction of its own which Manchester lacks. Liverpool and Manchester toilets are equally costly matters. The gentlemen of both places, ambitious of the reputation of dan- dies, patronize London tailors; but ladies' dresses are abundantly provided by local modistes, and it is only occasionally that cos- tumes are procured from London or Paris. In consequence of com- mercial vicissitudes and a floating population, Liverpool has never had the wealth of Manchester. Liverpool life has been showy, Man- chester extravagance has been marked by a certain solidity. The ball-rooms of Liverpool are always excellent and enjoyable. The invitations are restricted to dancers, the music and appointments are good, there is plenty of available room. The form of entertainment most popular in Manchester society is the dinner-party, at which London hours are kejDt, and the fruit and other table luxuries are purchased at London prices. Probably there is little to choose be- tween the dinner parties of the two northern cities. In both the wines produced will usually be of high excellence, as the habit of keeping an extensive cellar obtains widely among those whose hos- pitalities are upon any considerable scale. A two years' supply of wine matured for drinking, in addition to wine in the process of maturing, is usually to be found in the house of the Manchester or Liverpool Amphitryon. Of late years, private carriages have become almost universal amongst the richer classes in both places. In each of them the TOWNS OF BUSINESS. elite of society usually inhabit fine houses with conservatories i elaborate gardens in the outskirts, though in Liverpool Bonn those who are called " the best people " live in the town. Many of the richer families have houses in London, to which thej come for the season; and some dwell all the year round at a c able distance from the capital in which their business is, in the rural tricts of Cumberland and Staffordshire. The risil to London late in the season is equally common to the local aristocra ■ of either town, as is the trip on the Continent, often extended as far a Fishing, shooting, and hunting are the regular pastinu a of the gen- tlemen; Liverpool has two local packs o\ harriers, and, as has been said, its yacht clubs as well. Cricket and football, which are com- mon among all classes of the youths of manufacturing and commi r- cial England, are played as much by the IrweU as the Mersey, Man- chester being undoubtedly superior in cricket, while th< palm at, football must be given to Liverpool. The change of the hours of business in the two cities has resulted in a species of social revolution. Formerly merchants were at their work by nine in the morning, and seldom left it till eight or nine at, night; now the universal closing hour in Liverpool is live p. m.; and hi Manchester, although the warehouses may be open till seven, the principals leave about the same time. This alteration has naturally proved favorable to the development of club lit", which is marked by special features of its own in the two places. In Manchester there are many clubs of which the chief — a very large one, and a fail- spe- cimen of the remainder — is the "Union." Here the old practice oi dining early is still in force. Between one and two, warehouses are universally deserted, and the club is full, though the early club dinner of some members may be only the substantial lunch of a tew, which is to support them during the interval that has to elapse be- fore a seven or eight o'clock dinner at home. Formerly the wealth- iest manufacturers coming in from the country on market-days (Tuesdays and Fridays) were accustomed to dine at inn ordin between one and two, when, after dinner, spirit-bottles would be put on the table, and long clay pipes produced. But to-day the club coffee-room has taken the place of the inn ordinary. On the market-days business with many is supposed to be over at dinner- time, and cards and billiards are played during the afternoon, but on other days, and almost invariably in the evening, the Manch club-houses are deserted, except at this mid-day interval. In erpool it is very different. The "Palatine," a small ami Belect dub, which takes precedence of all the others, has comparatively fe* 94 ENGLAND. quenters at the luncheon-hour. At seven or eight o'clock it is always full, and both after and before dinner there is plenty of card-play- ing and billiards. Loungers fresh from the theater drop in, and it is much frequented by officers of the garrison, who, as well as the leading barristers of the Northern Circuit, are honorary members. Altogether this club endeavors, not unsuccessfully, to imitate the clubs of London. If there is thus more of social pretension at Liv- erpool than at Manchester, such pretension is not without its influ- ence on social education. Clubs are the cradle of sound public opinion in matters appertaining to manners, if not morals. Rowdy- ism and club life cannot co-exist. It should be added that the Gun Club and the Polo Club, both recently thoroughly established, make the resemblance between Liverpool and London still closer. It is a marked peculiarity of the Lancashire mill-owner, educated and traveled though he be, to affect a certain humility or homeli- ness in his native place. He will know all his mill-hands personally, call them by their Christian names, nor be offended when he is sa- luted " How are you, John ? " in return — a more respectful address, as has been said, not commending itself to the employed. The art connoisseur of Manchester — -his cultivation often no mere pretence — will in business affect the Lancashire patois: will answer his neigh- bor when a bargain is being struck, "I'd loike to, but I canna do't." This has probably given rise to the proverbial saying, " Liverpool gentlemen and Manchester men." The extent to which freedom of manner and independence of mien on the part of the mill-hands is carried at Manchester is not without its disadvantages. A free and easy mill-hand is apt in his sports to bear a disagreeably close like- ness to the London rough. At the Manchester race-course, as has been said, and even at every open-air meeting, they muster in formi- dable force; and the stranger fresh from the United States might be disposed to compare the streets of Cottonopolis on the Saturday half-holiday to New Orleans on Sunday, where the colored pedes- trians monopolize the pavement, to the entire exclusion of the shrink- ing whites. There may be no reason to suppose that the morality of Liverpool is exceptionally high; but the rigid system of police in- spection enforced at the great English seaports renders the signs of public immorality few in number, and when visible not of a kind to attract the fastidious voluptuary. Vice, when it is permitted to flaunt itself for the allurement of mixed nautical nationalities in the public street, only on the condition that it shall submit to the sur- veillance of the law, can scarcely fail to become a monster of a mien sufficiently hideous to insure a very genuine amount of disgust. TOWNS OF BUS IX ESS. .,- Perliaps the least agreeable feature in the social life <>f LiTerpool and Manchester — and it is to the formei town thai the remark ap- plies with especial force — is the establishment ofdrinkui and the extent to which they are patronized. This is an American im- portation, and it does not exercise a wholesome influence upon the young men of the place. Wine-shades, bodegas, and saloons abound both above and under ground. If they do not result in much ac- tual drunkenness, the amount of tippling to which they lead, and the wanton waste of time which they involve, arc deplorable. Twen- ty years ago the habit of drinking during business hours was com- paratively unknown at Liverpool: now, it is so common as sea: to attract attention, and certainly not to carry with it an adeq degree of stigma. The opportunities of'the higher education arc abundant and ex- cellent at each of the two capitals. Liverpool has its i;, >\ ;( | I imita- tion and Collegiate School, Manchester its Grammar School and Owen's College. An idea may be formed of the assiduity and cess with which music, as well as art and letters, is cultivated, from the attendances at fortnightly concerts during the winter months at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, and at the concerts under .Mr. Charles Halle in the Manchester Free Trade Hall. Debating so- cieties and literary clubs are also forthcoming, while both Liverpool and Manchester boast the possession of a newspaper press which, in utility, influence, and enterprise, is scarcely second to the press of London. Generally, indeed, and in Manchester in particular, at the present day the journalism of the provinces is provincial only in name, and, both in purely literary qualities and universality of well- digested intelligence, reaches the highest standards of metropolitan excellence. Almost as much may be said of the theaters of the two cities, which are the rehearsal grounds of pieces destined for the London stage, and, on the occasion of their frequent visits, are the profitable empyrean of London stars. It is the stately river on which it stands that gives Liverpool peculiar, and in some respects unique, position among C towns of England. The forests of masts, the spacious dorks, the daily dispatch from its harbors of grand ocean steamers bound to all parts of the world, the constant arrival of ships laden with b ures, the stir and bustle of a thousand wharves, the incessant and audible throbbines in the machinerv of a commerce condu< ted with every quarter of the earth and every nation under heaven— these things are to be seen at Liverpool as they are to be seen now! in England. Hull, Plymouth, and Newcastle-on ! jhty 96 ENGLAND. enrporia of trade, whence argosies are sent forth to all points of the compass, each with some special trait of its own. Plymouth is iden- tified with military transports and emigrant ships. Hull is identified with the spirited business carried on by the descendants of Danish forefathers — the stock which predominates in Yorkshire generally — and in the happy ventures in the Norwegian timber trade. If the great capital on the banks of the Tyne has a gloomy atmosphere, it is remarkable as the battle-field on which some of man's mightiest triumphs over the colossal obstacles which nature has opposed on his path have been won. For mile after mile stretches the long line of black factories. In that dark row of gaunt sheds, covering an area of upwards of two hundred acres, the implements of destruc- tion that annihilate armies, the Armstrong cannons, are forged. Such as these continue to be the ornaments of the banks on either side till Newcastle has been left behind, and a place has been reached where operations are going on, which, when completed, may bring a second Newcastle upon the scene. But what we are chiefly concerned to see in this coal-blackened, antique Northumbrian capital, with its immemorial past, and its infi- nite future, its old buildings, venerable churches, hoary traditions — its inventions, improvements, and devices of yesterday, its busy plot- tings and cunning contrivances for to-morrow — is the influence ex- ercised by science upon the course of the river. The Tyne is no longer the stream which nature made it; its bed is deepened, its channel changed. Headlands and ju-omontories have been removed, and thousands of tons of soil have been uplifted from its depths, in order that ships of heavy and still heavier burden may float up to the very walls of the town. The chronicle of the work accomplished under the auspices of the River Tyne Commissioners alone is one of the most interesting and significant of the narratives of modern en- ergy and enterprise — the record of a long war patiently and suc- cessfully waged against difficulties that the mightiest machinery in the world, guided by clear heads and steady hands, has alone sur- mounted. Fifty-one millions of tons of material were dredged out of the river in the three years between 1871 and 1873, were taken out to sea, and were finally deposited two or three miles from the entrance of the river, in a depth of water exceeding twenty fathoms at low tide. The width of the river has been increased in different parts, from one hundred and fifty to four hundred feet. A point, or cape, seventy-five feet above high water, which was a most dan- gerous obstruction to navigation, and which prevented those in charge of vessels from seeing vessels approaching on the inner side, TOIVXS OF BUSINESS. has been cut away. Existing docks have I new dock, with an enclosed water-space of nin< !.. four by o,G50 lineal feet of dry water quays, is being built The com- mercial consequences of these colossal operations are Been in the increased size of the vessels frequenting the port In twenl the average tonnage of vessels has risen from 11!) tons I" more than 5U0. Of the great towns of the North, Leeds, perhaps, 1ms the Ian, future in store for it. For certain reasons, the counterpart of Leeds in the Midlands may be said to exist in Birmingham. Birmingham lias made immense strides in wealth and importance during the last fifty years, but in point of opulence it is behind either Manchester or Liverpool. If there is in the Warwickshire capital a high aver- age of substantial fortunes, there are few of the colossal incomes which have ceased to be remarkable in Lancashire. The social life; of Birmingham, which gives a fair idea of the social life of Li Is, differs materially from that of Liverpool or Manchester. The fash- ionable thoroughfares of the capital on the Mersey, with their long queues of carriages and footmen waiting in attendance about t la- shops which ladies love, present much the same appearance as the fashionable thoroughfares of the West End of London. In Bir- mingham, equipages planned on any thing like the same scale as those of Liverpool are comparatively rare, and it maybe doubted whether, twenty years back, there were more than a score of per- sons in Birmingham who kept their own carriages. Again, even at the present day, men-servants, with the exception of coachmen and grooms, are rare in the most opulent of Birmingham households; and where in Liverpool the front door is opened by a butler oni of livery, in Birmingham the visitor is announced by a neat waiting- maid in her plain dress of blaek alpaca or merino. Yet Birming- ham is not without its comforts, its luxuries, its great houses with handsome and gracefully laid-out gardens and artistically decorated interiors. There are many good picture collections in Birmingham, but they have been slowly, lovingly, and appreciatively acquired, not purchased ready-made as in Liverpool or Manchester. The Birmingham art connoisseur sets to work slowly ami deliberat buys for himself, judges for himself. Thus, whereas in a represen- tative mansion in a great town in Lancashire paintings, ornaments, and furniture are often without a history, in a corresponding home at Birmingham these are the center of many memories and associa- tions, and have been the object of a chase, itself more pleasurable than possession. 7 98 ENGLAND. Of the two there is more which Birmingham has in common with Manchester than with Liverpool. The capital of cotton and the capital of hardware supply materials both for parallel and con- trast. As Manchester was the head-quarters of the National Edu- cational Union, so was Birmingham the home of the National Education League. On the other hand, as Manchester — which also, by-the-by, first put forth the programme of the Eree and Open Church system, the abolition of pews — is the cradle of Free Libra- ries, so is Birmingham the town in which the experiment was adopted with conspicuous energy and very little delay. Again, as Manchester has a reputation for picture-galleries and institutions, so, too, has Birmingham. These are probably the two towns in the Kingdom in which these institutions — the most beneficent that a great city can have — flourish best. The industrial products of each capital are unlike. Manchester has few manufactures, but all of them on an immense scale; Birmingham many, some of them on an exceedingly small scale. On the Irwell cotton is everywhere; while in the metropolis of the Midlands the industries and trades of the entire earth seem collected. Every thing that assists, graces, or destrovs life comes from its teeming warehouses. There is no kind of implement used in war which Birmingham does not make, just as it makes the most delicately-pointed of needles and the coarsest, as well as the finest of locks, pins, jewelry, thimbles, watch-chains, caskets, awl-blades, buttons, screws, every variety of gun, and every tool which the manual worker knows. The man- ufacture of many of these commodities requires an exceedingly modest " plant," and the consequence is that Birmingham abounds in small, independent manufacturers, who contrive to make a living out of the work which they can carry on in the courts and alleys that they inhabit. As at Leeds so at Birmingham, ladies organize themselves into social as well as religious missionaries for the benefit of the work- ing classes. They endeavor to inculcate the laws of hygiene, the rudiments of wholesome cookery, the simple laws of domestic econ- omy upon the dwellers in the poorest districts of the town. Lec- tures, with the same or analogous intentions, are given in the schools that belong to the School Board at frequent intervals. In Birmingham, if nothing else has been done, the secret seems to have been discovered for utilizing every available opportunity, and the entire sum of existing human intelligence. CHAPTER VII. TOWNS OF PLEASURE. University Towns and Cathedral Towns — The New Oxford— Settlers in the ( '.i- thedral Close — County Towns and Garrison Towns— Exeter, Plymouth, Clifton, Cheltenham, Bath — Peculiarity in the Social Life of English Water- ing-places — Essentials of the English Pleasure Town— Sports and Games: their Influence upon English Society — Rapid Multiplication of English Seaside Watering-places — The Genesis of the English Watering-place- Common Features of these Towns — Scarborough — Buxton. LEAVING- now the great manufacturing centers of England, we may proceed to visit a few representative places, which, if not towns of pure pleasure, are neither exclusively nor chiefly de- voted to the pursuit of business or trade. Country towus, cathe- dral towns, scholastic towns, and garrison towns — one very often uniting in itself the characteristics of all — may be described ;is hold- ing a position midway between the abodes of pleasure and business. Of country towns and the influences visible in them, something has been already said.* The cathedral towns of England are mainly pervaded, as might have been expected, by the ecclesiastical ele- ment, and the visitor to such a city as Salisbury has no sooner set foot within its boundaries than he is conscious of something like that lingering medisevahsm, not yet completely expelled from Oxford. Indeed, the ordinary English cathedral city has about it a more distinctly old-world ah than the great academic capital of the comt- ^ try. The last ten years have wrought a complete change in Oxford, and have assimilated it in many of its social aspects to a London suburb. When, several decades since, it was first proposed to i tend the Great Western Railway line from Didcot to beneath i\<.f august shadows of the spues and towers on the Isis, it was objected by the champions of the old regime that irretrievable injury would be done both to Oxford manners and Oxford morals, by bringing * See Chap. V., Municipal Government. 100 ENGLAND. the place into immediate contact with outside existence. The towns- men, it was urged, would be less passively obedient subjects of the academic rule. Undergraduates would be constantly relieving their studies with trips to the Metropolis; even the common-room — that apartment consecrated to grave talk or discreet humor, and crusted port — would soon acquire a perilous likeness to a London club. All that was feared, and more than was feared, have been accomplished. Town and gown still lead tolerably harmonious lives, but town has an independent existence and trade of its own, which it had not in the pre-railway days. College fellows, and even college fellows who are tutors, live almost as much in London as in Oxford; while among the guests at the high table in college halls, London guests, very often of great distinction, may frequently be seen. The insti- tution of married fellowships has brought to Oxford an element of domestic life which is entirely new. The establishment at Oxford of a military depot has given Oxford a society which it little dreamed of in bygone da}*s. There are dinner-parties and dances in nearly as great abundance during the term-time as at Bath or Cheltenham. An entire colony of professors, tutors, and lecturers, with their wives and children, has sprung up on what twenty years ago was vacant ground. "Where once the pale student paced solitary are nursery- maids and perambulators, while audacious engineers have even dared to unite these outlying suburbs with one of the most pictur- esque thoroughfares in Europe — the Oxford High Street — by a tramway such as runs from Islington to Holloway, or from West- minster to Woolwich. In none of the typical cathedral cities of England is there any thing like this amount of busy, bustling, various life. Even in those where there is a considerable quantity of business done, such as Chester, Lincoln, Durham, and Peterborough, there is always a quarter of the town that seems never to lose the deep charm of unruffled quiet which an Oxford college garden seldom knows ex- cept in the heart of the long vacation. Round the cathedral itself is a close — here an open expanse of well-kept turf, and here dotted with a group of forest-trees. The shadow cast by the tall Gothic tower extends to a row of houses, ranging in space and design from the cottage to the mansion, but aU equally comfortable, dignified, and inviting to repose. These occupy, perhaps, three sides of the entire enclosure. Some of them are inhabited by the ecclesiastical officers of the place — canons, minor canons, and chaplains. Others, again, have as their inmates families who are attracted by some tie of kinship or sentiment to the spot, and have settled there tranquilly TOWNS OF PLEASURE. ' lol to spend the residue of their days. Few echoes from the outer world break the calm of this hallowed precinct In the afternoon the noise of carriage-wheels is heard at intervals, and perhap in one of the corners of the close stands the cathedral school, whither twice a day hoys with their satchels go, and whence t \\ i se B dai they issue with clatter and laughter. But the most familiar sound to those who have pitched then- tents in this peaceful Bpot, and which chiefly strikes the stranger's ear, is the note of the cathedral hell summoning worshippers to prayer, and the musical chimes thai ring out once or twice a day. The most noticeable sight is the officiating clergyman walking to the cathedral, clad in Burplice and college cap. To some of the dwellers hard by these spectacles are not only the best known, but, next to the cathedral itself when service is being held, the only spectacles they care for. There many aspects of social life in a cathedral close, and more than one novelist of the day has given us a series of clever and effective pic- tures of the mutual jealousies and heartburnings which are con- cealed in episcopal and diaconal breasts. But Mrs. Proudie is not necessarily the predominating spirit of the place, and here, under the cathedral shadow, there could probably he found ladies to w the world contains very little but that cathedral and its sacred tunc- tions. Life is to them but one religious exercise, and th i; reared by the piety and devotion of centuries ago is the only earthly object which sorrow and affliction have left them as the visible cen- ter of their existence and aspirations. The cathedral city may have indeed an aspect of its life very dif- ferent from this. It may be a great commercial city like Bristol, where the consecrated fabric looks down upon a busy river, crowd- ed wharves, and thoroughfares choked with traffic; or like Durhai .. where the stately pile is blackened with the smoke from furnaces and factories; or like Exeter, which is a county capital and a rison town as well. Exeter, moreover, has not only a considerable trade of its own, but is a picturesque metropolis of western pleas- ure-makers as well. It is, to begin with, a great center for all West of England tourists, and it has no lack of regular residents, many of them attracted from a great distance by the health and beauty of the neighborhood, many locally associated with it, and pOB8< ; of friends, near whom they wish to be, already settled in that pari of the world. Clergymen, military and naval officers, retired civil- ians, swell the list of residents. There is much to do, to see, and talk about. Even without the regiments, or sections of r< - in- quartered here, there would still be plenty of life and gay< fcy, tor / 102 ENGLAND. Exeter is as good a specimen of an English county town at once prosperous in business, and with, a quiet air of aristocratic distinc- tion about it, as could be found within the four seas. There are balls, concerts, flower-shows and promenades, picnics, excursions, and pleasure expeditions of every kind. Here, too, as elsewhere, the military element coalesces happily and closely with the local or purely county element. Gentlemen who have been quartered in Exeter — and what is true of Exeter is true of many other garrison towns — when bearing Her Majesty's commission, have been so much struck by the attractions of the place, that when their term of ser- vice has expired, they have become permanent inhabitants. There are various and substantial educational advantages for their chil- ' dren, and there are possible alliances for their marriageable daugh- ters. Of Plymouth it may be said that all which Exeter has it boasts also. Indeed, Plymouth, of the two, thoiigh it has not a ca- thedral, is a focus of even more social movement and variety, seeing that it is not only, like Exeter, a county town, but in addition a great commercial, naval, and military station. The same conditions are forcibly realized in the cases of Canterbury and York. Both are garrison towns and cavalry stations; the latter also the head- quarters of the Northern District. There is a close intimacy be- tween officers and the county or city gentry, and these cathedral towns boast always of a pleasant semi-military and official society which keeps them generally full. A majority of the purely pleasure towns of England are of very modern growth. Their development in every instance presents nearly the same features, and is marked by much the same inci- dents. The chief elements in then- composition are identical, and the objects which belong to one are common to aU. It is indispen- sable that they should possess certain physical qualifications and aptitudes, that they should have a more or less organized machinery of amusement and pleasure; that they should be endowed with cer- tain distinct hygienic qualifications, such as mineral springs or a particularly fine climate ; that the}' should have one or two tolerably good schools, a popular preacher, a fashionable doctor, and that they should, if possible, be within tolerably easy distance of the meets of a good pack of foxhounds. Bath, Cheltenham, and Leam- ington are all indebted for much of their prosperity at the present day to the qualification last named. They are capitals of pleasure and also of health, but they are in addition capitals of sport. Bath, indeed, is not quite so conveniently situated for the fox-hunter, but Cheltenham and Leamington have each many of the recommenda- TOWNS OF PLEASURE. 1d;{ tions of Market Harborough or Meltou, as well as no lack of attrac- tions for intending settlers all the year round. These towns b too, a reputation of some antiquity. Bath was for years a national as well as a provincial capital, and still continues gallantly to bold its own as one of the great inland spas of the kingdom. Chelten- ham and Clifton "belong to the same category, bul a1 Cheltenham there is probably more fashion, and at Clifton there is certainly more wealth. Than these three towns, Cheltenham, Clifton, and Bath, there is none more beautiful to be found in the United Kin"- dom. So far as picturesqueness of architecture and of situation is concerned, there are few cities in the world with which Bath need fear comparison. Its houses, considering the period in which t] houses were built, are as good as the London houses. With the exception of Portland Place, there is no street in London \shi<-h is as line as Pulteney Street, and no scpiare or terrace to be compared with the Circus in Bath. Nor are the natural and artificial beauties of Clifton and Cheltenham much less striking. The great feature in Cheltenham, in addition to its delightful public gardens, is the r< ally superb boulevard leading from the Queen's Hotel into the High Street, known as the Promenade, with its shops and trees on either side. In Clifton there are not only the natural beauties of the Downs, with the glimpses and breezes of the Severn Sea, but there are also stately mansions, inhabited mainly by Bristol merchants, in their own perfectly ordered grounds on the central highway lead- ing to the table-land beyond. It is not "enough that the English pleasure town should possess a fine situation, good houses, picturesque views, and popular clergy- men; it must have also good schools, and the favorable opinion of eminent doctors. The medical profession can do more towards mak- ing or marring the fortune of an English watering-place than archi- tects, land agents, or even Nature herself. To give a place a had climate is to take certain steps towards inflicting a calamity of (inde- finable extent upon the landlords; and in any town once popular in which rents have suddenly depreciated in value it will usually be found that the malignant influences of the medical profession have been at work. Having obtained a favorable certificate from the facuhvy, the watering-place which wishes to be popular musl next contrive to equirj itself with one or two popular churches, and :it least one successful school. The" proprietary college which ma; may not subsequently succeed in obtaining a royal chart, r is a eotyped feature in the modern watering-place. Tin the spa, the boiling, hot, and tepid waters invaluable for rheumatic 104 ENGLAND. patients, the chalybeate so unpleasant to the taste and so "beneficial to the system, but unless there is the great school it will be as idle to think of the place prospering as it would be to dream of its exist- ence without the great hotel. Cheltenham, Malvern, Leamington, Clifton, Brighton, and Bath — though in the last-named place there has not been the same amount of concentration as in the others- are each of them names suggestive not only of the hygienic value of waters and atmosphere, but of schools which will compare not unfa- vorably with those of older foundation. The significance of the fact is not affected by the relation in which the school may stand to the prosperity of the place, whether, as at Cheltenham, it has been one of the efficient causes of the prosperity; or whether, as at Leam- ington, Clifton, and Brighton, it has been one of the material con- sequences : the great thing is to have the school. Nor is the church, or rather the variety of churches, less essen- tial. Every English watering-place or town of pleasure is also a center of English religious thought, a representative battle-ground of English theology. "University professors and doctors, ecclesiasti- cal controversialists holding important offices, may preside over the evolutions of the combatants from afar, and may supply the princi- ples which are the armory whence the weapons of local disputation are drawn. It is not the function of the great leaders to mix in the heart of the vulgar fray. If hard fighting, dexterous tactics, skillful maneuvering are to be seen, it is to the pleasure towns of provincial England, where there is enough of leisure, idleness, and spinsterdom for militant ecclesiasticism, that one must go. Roughly speaking, there are two demarkating lines which mainly divide the community in these places. Both of them are of venerable antiquity: one is the geographical and the other the religious. "When Solon first took in hand the legislation of ancient Athens, he found a state of things in which the inhabitants of hill, plain, and vale were separated by the most embittered contentions. There is hardly a pleasure resort in England in which the outlines of an animosity based upon the same principles may not be traced. The inhabitants of the cres- cents and terraces may, for example, consider themselves superior to, or may be looked upon as natural enemies by, those who have established themselves on the plateau at their feet, or in the still lower lying ground beyond. The religious sentiment is an even more prolific parent of cliques and coteries. It has greater power than social rivalry or professional jealousy. Yet even thus, though supplied with its sanitary credentials, its big hotels, its educational institutions, its local rivalries, its religious TOWNS OF PLEASURE. [05 enmities, the English town of pleasure lacks something to be quite complete. It requires an entire machinery <> 1 amusemi Some account will be given in another chapter of the pastimes ami the recreations of the great masses of the people. It is to tin pi ure towns of England that we must go to witness, in fcheir most highly finished shape, the amusements of which polite society i pecially fond. Every form of recreation that of late years I come popular in England has, if not originated in, been cultii with conspicuous success at these local capitals of select enjoyment Croquet, ranking, lawn-tennis, each have had their day, and a long day too, at some one or other of these provincial pleasure capitals of the kingdom. The immense popularity of each in succession serves to emphasize a fact, which in this busy, hard-toiling age we may imperfectly realize, that there is amongst us an immense num- ber of persons of both sexes who are not merely ready but anxious to make, by their patronage and favor, the fortune of any one who will be good enough to invent for them a new mode of agreeably, and more or less athletically, beguiling the passing hours. Almost all the more important pleasure towns are in turn the scenes of tournaments between proficients in some one of these pastimes. Archery was a few years ago the favorite sport of society at Chelten- ham; but we move quickly nowadays, and archery was soon voted slow. Later there have been contests from time to time for <•' pionships and grand prizes at lawn-tennis, just as a few viously the game was croquet at every place at which pleasure- seekers congregate. The second noticeable fact suggested by the great development of these recreations is the superiority which we are gradually e lishing over many of our insular prejudices. In these; games En families, whose members are at first mutually strangers, mix freely with each other, and speedily find themselves on terms of more or less intimate acquaintance. Naturally this process has had the < of very materially modifying the relations which formi ' I between young English gentlemen and young English ladies. Wh< Q a number of young men and young women meet each <•, after day, on skating-rinks and lawn-tennis ground.-;, whatever the effort to keep parties distinct, some amount of fusion is inevitable. The casual acquaintances made at these games arc perpetual id on the promenade, and improved in the ball-room; and the daughter of the English middle-class parent, who, twenty years a - liv- ing in a state of almost vestal seclusion, has now acquainl - on every side. Her parents may approve or disapprove of fchifl state 106 ENGLAND. and tendency of things, but it is very seldom that they can hope successfully to fight against it. The social consequences of the insular position, and the pictur- esquely indented coast-line of England are quite as important in their way as the political. The impulse which drove George IV. to Bright- helmstone, as it was then called, and Brighton, as it is called to-day, is the same which now urges the entire English people to the shores of the sea when summer has come. The desire animating all sec- tions of the population to scent the fresh odors of the ocean is so great that wherever nature presents the slightest opportunities and capacities, there a watering-place is at once created. Where one of these resorts is fairly established, a number of others are sure to follow in an inconceivably short space of time. The consequence is that the whole littoral of the island is, with occasional intervals, a fringe of seaside towns of pleasure. On the north-west coast, Rhyl, Llandudno, Penmaenmawr, Llanfairfechan, Bangor, Beaumaris, are presently followed by Barmouth and Aberystwith. The south-west- ern coast of England, on the large island bay made by the Bristol Channel, from Portishead, at the mouth of the Avon, to the Land's End, presents the same succession of pretty and popular resorts. On the south coast one passes Plymouth, Torquay, Dawlish, Teign- mouth, Sidmouth, Seaton, and Beer, and only leaves Devonshire to find one's self in a superb bay, with shining sands, with a magnificent breakwater in front, and a handsomely-built town inland. This town is Weymouth. Passing thence eastward, one skirts the Hamp- shire coast and the Isle of Wight, the bluii's of Sussex, and the cliffs of Kent, witnessing the repetition of the same picturesque phenome- non at intervals of scarcely a league. Between the North Foreland and Flamborough Head are situated at least fifty similar pleasure, towns, whose population in the season would probably be in excess of that of the whole of the United Kingdom a hundred years ago. All this provision for the pleasure and health wants of the people represents a great deal of business enterprise, much profit, and some loss. These new watering-places have often restored the fortunes of impoverished proprietors of neighboring estates, or increased to fabulous amounts the incomes of astute landed gentry, who have realized the possibilities of the place and developed its capabilities with much enterprise and judgment. Not seldom, the advantage is reaped by some go-ahead speculator, whether in bricks and mortar or in land. The way in which the edifice of success has been reared is in many cases the same. Having discovered some available local- ity, fronting the sea, the watering-place creator at once sets to work TOWNS OF PLEASURE. 107 to cover it with houses. He has, at a venture, obtaim and- rent of the soil upon tolerably easy terms; be ha :h in the development of his property— 1 >y adv< rtisem< at [J is desirable to procure from some recognized medical authority a certificate as to its singular salubrity. If he can also discover a mil pring in some unsuspected recess, he will materially have improved the chances of the new experiment It is much to be wished that the scene of his operations should be toleral b> on ■ or two thriving towns, and that it should be, if possible, on t he main line of railway to and from the metropolitan terminus. If it has no rail- way station at all — and in this case he will have been a bold man to have selected it — he will labor night and day until In has secured the requisite railway extension. Once the new venture is fairly started, all will follow in due time, and in pretty regular order of succession. The streets, shops, and hotels having been built, and a promenade having been established, the next thin-- is to secure tho services of a band of fairly competent musicians. Pleasure-gardens will then begin to be laid out, furnished probably with a skating- rink, and certainly with the inevitable lawn-tennis courts. J'., long the admiring visitors and the inhabitants, hungry after novelty, will perceive that a building, which is to consist of an aquarium, winter-gardens, and concert-room, commences to rise. It will be finished with great promptitude, and covered with a crystal dome. Standing on a lofty cliff, the edifice commands a line view of the sea; and the next thing will be to establish, by subterranean p communication between the shore below and the terrace walks above. Meanwhile, in the more frequented portions of the town, great changes and improvements have been taking place. A town- hall has been built, which is alternately used for concerts, recita- tions, and religious, literary, and scientific lectures; a branch oi Mudie's library has been established at the post-ohice; the rows of pony-chaises and donkeys for lure have increased; and the Lodging- house keepers are doing a brisk business. There is a constant suc- cession of arriving and departing guests, and the place, if it prospers, is only quite deserted in the depth of winter. If, however, the tlemen who have authority over the spot are really as a they ought to be, they will at once establish a winter season. This is being done now at most of the chief watering-places of the United Kingdom. It is natural that the descendants of Norsemen and Viki should display the same spirit, though in a different ahap adventurous enterprise which was the boast of their for 108 ENGLAND. close to the sea whose empire they have inherited from their fore- fathers. Every well-to-do seaside haunt is a faithful testimony to the bold activity that has descended to this century from prehistoric times. English watering-places are the most determinedly go-ahead places on the face of the earth. No sort of improvement is intro- duced in architecture or drainage which is not immediately taken up. Very often there are not merely new works to be done, but old abuses to be rooted out. When a quiet fishing village is suddenly exaggerated into a large pleasure town there are many sanitary defects in existence to be remedied, as well as new sanitary precau- tions to be taken. It is curious to notice how in some of these cases the new town is visibly an excrescence upon the older settlements. "While at Hastings, St. Leonard's and Brighton the development has been equable, the old town spreading out in all directions, the East- bourne of to-day is at some little distance from the Eastbourne of old times, and in the middle of the new streets there may be seen growing forest trees of remote antiquity. There are other features which the seaside towns of England generally possess in common. For most of then- patronage they are dependent on the middle classes — the highest have little to say to the pleasure resorts of their own country. When the London season is over they go abroad, or on a round of country-house visits, and this occupation is enough till the season for their return to London arrives. Flving visits are indeed paid to Brighton, Folkstone, Hastings, or else- where, by the most distinguished representatives of English rank and fashion, and places of mainly sanitary resort, like Torquay, have always a fan proportion of titled or patrician denizens, ordered thither by their doctors. It is further to be noticed in connection with the pleasure towns on the English coast, that though exten- sively patronized by visitors from all parts of England, they consist- ently preserve their local character. Scarborough is still mainly the pleasure town of the North of England, just as Brighton is the great holiday resort of London ; as Folkstone and Dover are mainly peopled with the natives of Kent and the neighboring counties; or as Barrow-in-Furness or Morecambe Bay are with the representa- tives of Lancashire manufacturing industry. There are also certain aspects and seasons common to all these watering-places. However exclusive they may pride themselves on being, they are still scenes of periodical holidays and cheap excursions, and Margate or Graves- end cannot upon certain occasions boast a more genuinely cockney appearance than Brighton. They have, too, their stated tunes for particular classes of visitors, and the Scarborough or Brighton TOWNS OF PLEASURE. hotels or lodging-houses are full of very differed Borts of people respectively in the early summer, the late rammer and autumn, the winter months. In their social life there are at once marked points of similarity and difference. They have all of them their clubs, their picturesque drives, their promenades on the pier, and most of them have really noble concert-rooms and institutions which, without the card play ing, are very much like the EtaMissements of Continental waterinc- places. In all there is pretty much about the same amount of flir- tation and love-making, of gallantry and scandal of pleasure parties by sea and land. The same average of gentlemen inhale the is ing virtues of the sea breezes by the highly rational procei spending their days in the tobacco-lades atmosphere of billiard- rooms. There are the same eccentricities and extravagances of cos- tume and possibly of conduct. But in small mat mis of social etiquette each place has more or less a definite code of its own, and as much may be said of social amusements upon a larger Bcale. The interchange of hospitalities, including dances between the inmates of different hotels, is hardly known except at Scarborough \. Buxton something of the sort takes place, but not to as equal ex- tent. On the other hand, Buxton has advant i n 1 recomm* n- dations which are exclusively its own. Standing a thousand feet above the level of the sea, it not only boasts a purer and clean r atmosphere than is perhaps to be breathed on any other p the United Kingdom, and a warm mineral spring of virtue BO power- ful that it is unsafe to bathe in it without having previously taken medical advice, but public gardens of extreme beauty, in which is situated a concert-room where music that is not surpassed in any pleasure town of England or of the Continent is to be hear< I. CHAPTER VIII. COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL ENGLAND. Capabilities of the Subject for Popular Treatment— Relations of Finance and Commerce — Their Cosmopolitan Character — London the "World-Center— Representatives of our Financial System— Bank of England and Lombard Street— The Stock Exchange— How Loans are granted — London the Center of Commerce— Characteristics of English Trade— Signs of Change— Possible Causes of Decline — Hope for the Future. THE mechanism of the money market and the mysteries of the organization of credit may seem abstractions to the many, yet in some way or other they make themselves felt as the most concrete of realities by all. They constitute not merely a system of proced- ure, but an aggregate of individual men. Above all things their growth has coincided with the development of English influence and power in the world at large. It is credit which lies at the founda- tion of English trade, and which has chiefly enabled us to rear the edifice of national prosperity that is the result of centuries. A prac- tical investigation of the different component parts of this colossal fabric will bring us face to face with the changing aspects of our financial and commercial system, and will reveal the fact that in this, as in other regions of activity and enterprise, England is now in a transitional state. It is not necessary to unthread the maze of causes that have con- tributed to place England at the center of the finance and commerce of the world. Enough for our purpose that she is there; and as London is the heart of the British Empire, it is the heart of imiver- sal enterprise, which regulates and feeds the pulses of life that beat throughout the whole vast framework. All roads may be said to lead to London, and all impulses to trading activity, all outgoings of enterprise and energy that build up markets in the most dis- tant parts of the earth, make their effects risible and palpable in the metropolis. An abundant harvest in the wide sweeps of the West- ern States of America cheapens wheat in Mark Lane; famines in COMMERCIAL AXD FINANCIAL ENGLAND. Ill India and China, which diminish the ability of the natives of t! countries to purchase our cotton goods, reduce the demand for manufactures, and make our produce markets ilaf and stagnant; bountiful supplies of the precious metals or scarcity in the output of the gold and silver mines of California and Australia affecl is the first instance the money market, and afterwards, by their action on prices, carry their influence into the whole range of the relatio] supply and demand in the market values of all sorts of commodi There is a reflux of influence from England and from London well as an influx of mingled agencies flowing from all parts of the globe towards the same common center. The movement is one of action and reaction; but so closely are the streams of counter influ- ences intermingled that we cannot lay a finger on any one spot and boldly affirm that here is the primum mobile; at this point is the main- spring of the universal system. Efflux and reflux, action and reac- tion, ebb and flow, are at work throughout the entire Bcheme; and so closely, pervasively, and intimately do they co-operate that no quickness and delicacy of discrimination can detect the beginnings of them separate workings. We can only track them in their mul- titudinous results. We find out, sometimes, through the sn snapping of a weak link in the complex organization, that there has long been a flaw in one part or the other of the huge machine. It may be the failure of a bank, or the collapse of some great firm, bringing in its train ruin to thousands, and multiplying failures throughout the length and breadth of the land. We are then able to trace the causes which have been slowly fretting against the \ spot till at last it gives way with a crash, but it is always difficult, if not impossible, to isolate any one set of agencies and decide with dogmatic assurance that they and nothing else have brought about the interruption — that it has been the panic in the United Stati I a few years previously, or the famine in the East, or the de- wars in the West, or the gradual reaction from over-inflation under a false currency system, or the bad harvests of successive years, or changes in the habits of populations that supplied markets for our goods, or any other of the hundred and one causes which may have all contributed in them degree to induce the final catastrophe. streams of commerce may have been flowing languidly to the i mon center, and in its turn that center, with diminished pow( r absorption and reduced capacity to scatter the beneficent products throughout other lands, may have failed to discharge the functions that were easy in times of vigorous health. But we shall rarely l>e able to set apart the intermingling currents and unravel the inter- 112 ENGLAND. twining threads so as to fix upon each its precise share of the re- sponsibility. It is with commerce and with the finance which is partly the creature and yet in great measure the creator of com- merce, as with the phenomena of life — we can follow the processes by and through which it works and produces its effects, but when we reach the border line between life and death, we are bathed, and the original obscurity remains as impenetrable as ever. Of late years in particular the most prominent feature of trade and commerce, as of finance, has been then increasingly interna- I tional and cosmopolitan character. The laws under which they act and the tendencies they are ever striving to realize are peculiar to no country or people, for they are illustrated by all. To this fact is due the universality of their effects and influences. This universality is in great measure due to their diversity; so that what is lacking in the forces and elements supplied by one nation is sup- plemented from another. There must be a common meeting point for all these varying and counterworking factors, and this is found in the British metropolis. Not all London, however, but only as to geographical extent and locality one comparatively small section of it. If England be the heart of international trade and cosrnoj)oli- tan finance, and London be the heart of England, the City is the / heart of London. The City, too, has its peculiar nerve-center. Within the superficial area on which stand the Bank of England, the Stock Exchange, the various edifices of which Lombard Street consists, and, on the other hand, the several spots where dealers congregate, and which constitute the metropolitan markets, may be said to be ranged the congeries of local habitations and names that give regulations to the finance and commerce of the whole world. Eor the sake of distinctness, although, as in regard to other phenomena already spoken of, the diverse series of influences run into, overlap, and reciprocally act and react upon each other, it may be useful to take the broad distinction, which we shall work out into clearer detail, of Financial London and Commercial Lon- don. Ah the facts, laws, influences, and tendencies of trading, enterprise, mercantile or monetary speculation, credit with its wide- spread and mtdtifarious ramifications, and exports and imports of luxuries and necessaries, together with their means of distribution in virtue of which as made exchangeable they become economical phenomena, will fall into their places under one or the other of these heads. Without attempting to establish which of the two series has pre- cedence in the order of time — for it would be difficult in regard to COMMERCIAL AXD FINANCIAL \\;\ this cas to the other facts already adverted to, to draw any broad I of demarcation — we select, for convenience' sake, Financial Lond< which -will mean, it is hardly necessary to say, Financial England. To give a vivid sense of reality to the subject, Lei as then take the Bank of England, with its surrounding feeders and suckers in the hanking circle of Lombard Street, as the one leading reprea Na- tive, and the Stock Exchange, the great mart for dealings in all kinds of stocks and shares, as the other. The Stock Exchange is pre-eminently cosmopolitan. Among its members are brokers and "jobbers" of many nationalities. Specially conspicuous among tin m are the descendants of the greal Semitic race. The Bant of ling- land, on the contrary, is, or is supposed to be, national, and as agent of the Government and the keeper of the Government bal- ances it ought to be so. Yet little consideration is required to ahow that the Bank of England is very much more — though in some re- spects it is also very much less — than its name would seem to indi- cate. Outside and beyond the specially national functions which the Bank is bound to discharge in being the banker of the ( tovern- ment, the issuer of notes that, under certain conditions, are ], tender and therefore national currency, in taking charge of Govern- ment securities and paying the dividends thereon to the hold. and in discharging the other various offices of a bank for the pub- lic, there are other multifarious functions which it is compelled by its position to fulfill. Bills from all parts of the world are drawn payable in London, as in other capitals, because it is convenient to have recognized places at which the international trading balai and the balances between the merchants and traders of differ countries may be settled; while, by mere force of geographical cir- cumstances, London has, in a special degree, drifted into the p tion of international Clearing-House of the world, and the hanking functions connected with it are largely, though not exclusively, dis- charged by the Bank of England, which is known as the banki bank at home. This is not all. In the final resort, when balani remain to be discharged as between one nation and another, after all the complicated mechanism of bills set off against each other has accomplished its utmost, they must be paid in gold. There is no other means of settling the final outcome of the mass of transactions in international commerce except through the precious metals gold and silver; and while silver is mainly employed in the E gold is chiefly used in the West. London consequently, as the con- venient center that may be drawn upon from all parts of the woi must possess a stock of gold sufficient to meet the demand. I 8 114 ENGLAND. may be made on it. The Bank of England, as the banker of the nation, is the custodian of this treasure; and being thus constituted a bullion storehouse, to it flow all supplies of the precious metal that reach our shores. Circumstances have thus caused it to become a dealer in bullion as well as a banker. The Bank of England, in fact, discharges wider than national banking functions. Along with the joint stock and private banks by which it is surrounded, and with which its relations are close and intimate — for as the central institution it keeps the reserves of the other bankers as well as its own— it represents the banking of the metropolis, and therefore, in the final issue, of England. Owing to England's world-wide com- mercial relations, this same banking system, and the subsidiary agencies by which it is buttressed, acts as the general international Clearing House; and bearing in mind the duties that further de- volve on it from the fact that London is the great bullion center, we can form some faint idea of the multiplicity and complexity of its operations, and the vastness of the weight which presses on the cen- tral pivot around which the entire commercial and financial system revolves. It will make the points we have indicated more distinct, as well as help the course of our argument afterwards, if we explain here the way in which the financial position which London has thus come to occupy was gained. Its mission as the international Clearing House and the bullion center is not, it may be observed, necessarily permanent. It is only within a comparatively short time that Lon- don has assumed these cosmopolitan functions. Going back little more than a century we find that Amsterdam was the center of in- ternational commerce, and the place where international balances were settled. Still later, at a period when London had assumed more prominence than formerly, the honors were divided; Paris being one of the two centers, though London was steadily gaining on the French capital. By degrees, owing to the greater security of capital in our insular abodes during eras of wars and revolutions on the Continent, the supremacy passed wholly over to the British metropolis. It depends upon the co-operation of very various lines of influences and streams of tendency whether or not the British metropolis is to maintain its autocratic position. It is possible to suppose that England — and therefore London — may remain the head-quarters of the world's capital, and the settling-place of the cash differences of nations, after writing off international debits and credits, merely because it is convenient that there should be some such recognized spot. But there would be very little security in COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL ENGLAND, in the pre-eminence of this international harbor of refuge it' its w rested on no more secure basis. If convenii d se alom eide, why might not New York, or N.w Orleans, or Cincinnati, or some other American city, do as well as London; for are no! the United States at least as likely to be free from the disturbaj foreign war? The only assurance of the permanenl maintenanoi its position by London must lie in the coincidence of t 1 era! convenience with the continuance of our own mercantile activity, by f retaining the lead we have in general enterprise. Thus the finan- cial and the commercial dovetail into each other again here. Our supply of skilled labor and our supply of capital are the two main considerations that have given us our advantage; and should tl, continue to be happily directed all may be well Turn now to the second representative of England's cosmopoli- tan finance — the Stock Exchange. It is difficult for city men to conceive a London without a Stock Exchange; yet it is only half a century since it became an institution of much magnitude, and \ much less than that since it assumed anything like its present * 1 i - mensions. Primarily — as already indicated — it is the great mart the sale of various classes of documentary securities. Its organiza- tion is such, that there is a ready market within its walls for all sorts of stocks and shares that may be offered for sale; and any intending buyer of any particular kind of security maybe reasonably confident that by employing one of its recognized members, or brokers, ho will get what he wants. This is the main service which is rendered by the Stock Exchange; and it is facilitated through the pn in the building of a class of middle-men called "jobbers," who are always buying and selling, and make their profits out of minute "turns" in the prices of the market, but rarely hold what they pur- chase beyond the day. It is the "jobber's" function to "make a price"; that is to say, a broker who is instructed t<> buy or sell a certain number of railway shares by a client will not go to another broker acting for other clients. It would take a long time t" find out any one who might have, and might wish to dispose of, the par- ticular kind of stock which he or his client wanted. Instead of spending his time in trying to find that out, a quest which might prove futile, the broker goes to a "jobber" and asks him to "m a price," to buy or sell, as the case may be. It becomes the "job- ber's" business to conrplete the transaction in such a was a-. securing a minute fraction in his own favor, to make a profit out of it; and the presence of "jobbers" has thus the effed of making read} r dealings nearly always possible. 116 ENGLAND. Most people who read the newspapers must have formed in their own minds some vague conception of what the Stock Exchange is like; but probably few who have done so would not feel then fancy- picture sadly disturbed if they were to make their way any day to one of the several entrances to the large building — in the immedi- ate neighborhood of the Bank of England — in which the business we have described is carried on. The public are not admitted within the turbulent precincts of " the House," and all the anxious inquirer can do is to scan it from one of its several exits and en- trances, at Capel Court, or Hercules Passage, or Throgmorton Street. Stationed at the open door, he sees busy men — the brokers and "jobbers "■ — thronging in and out, occasionally stopping to speak to a client by whom he has been " called " out — a process performed by attendants, who shout with stentorian voices through a tube the name of the individual wanted, until the word is taken up inside, and made by a second stentorian voice to reverberate through the room. The building is parceled out so that separate quarters are assigned to the dealers in different classes of securities; thus we have the Foreign, the American, the Home Railway Markets, and so on. The din and clatter inside are deafening and confusing; though in this respect the Paris Bourse bears away the palm from the London Stock Exchange. In this building, out of and into which flows almost uninterrupt- edly the stream of brokers and jobbers, dealings for the sale and purchase of all kinds of securities are carried on ceaselessly from morning till afternoon. But, in truth, Ave have gained a very par- tial conception of what the Stock Exchange is and does when we have only learned to understand so much as this. It, too, like the Bank of England, has other varied, vast, and complicated work. In addition to men selling shares of banks, railways, or gas com- panies, for which they wish to get the value in money, and others performing the counter-process of buying such securities for invest- ment purposes, so as to obtain a good return in the shape of yearly interest for their money, there is a mighty array of what are called speculative transactions. Speculative accounts are opened by re- spectable brokers on behalf of clients, in whose ability to meet pos- sible losses they have confidence, or from whom, if there is any shade of doubt, a sum of money is exacted, under the name of " cover," to assure the broker that he shall not lose, however the speculative business may turn out. Baying or selling speculatively — being, that is to say, in Stock Exchange parlance, a " bull " or a "bear" — does not mean that the client for whom the broker buys COMMERCIAL AXD FINANCIAL EN wishes to purchase the stock he has directed to be b m become its owner, or that lie has any supply of thi to sell, so as to be able to hand it over to th< p , who i bid the highest price for it. The "bull" buys in the h wl en the time for arranging the nexl fortnightly accouni is called the settlement— comes round the price of the si have risen, in which case he will poc hia profit the ence " between the price at which he bought and the pri account-day, minus the broker's commission. And in Li] inner the "bear" sells, hoping that by ac< v the pric< he offered may have gone down, when the "diffi " b< fcween two prices — again less broker's commission —will go into bis po As, however, instead of rising the price may fall, or it may rise, the " bull " or the "bear" must pay the "diff rem when they are against him. So that in reality this kind "I dealing by means of speculative accounts comes to be a mere - wagers that stocks will fall or rise, and is justly held to be gambling by the law, so that the "differences" cannol he recov< process. But although this introduces an additional .t of uncertainty into the business, since the law cannot he Bet in mi to enforce the completion of gambling bargains, speculate 1 on in such a variety of ways, and to such an enormous through the machinery of the Stock Exchange that no description of our financial organization would be complete without Borne n fer- ence to speculative accounts. In addition to being a market for investment and the Stock Exchange is also the intermediary through which pul loans, home and foreign, are raised. This function has develop 1 naturally out of the other functions spoken of. The Stock Exchange is the place where investors, having money which they wish t ploy to good purpose, meet and bargain, through ag< i.is. with who have securities to sell that yield returns in interest to tin ir holders. Consequently, it is part of the duty of those who have the regulation and control of the Stock to arra conditions on which stocks, shares, and other securities are alii to be dealt in, so as to be brought within reach of in culators. As it is scarcely conceivable that any loan on tin of a foreign state or a home company would be taken up. thai say, subscribed for, unless it could ] • in on the Stocl I change, the authorities of that institution, who are represented by the committee for general purposes, have large p »f pron or frustrating the very largest financial operations on the ] 118 ENGLAND. foreign governments and home corporations. A foreign country in need of a loan always tries to domiciliate it in London, so as to have a wider area from which to attract subscribers than can be found anywhere else in the world, and so as to obtain a quotation from the Stock Exchange that will make the scrip of such a loan capable of being dealt in readily. It may simplify matters yet further if we sketch in outline the steps of the process of issuing a foreign loan. The enumeration of these may suggest the necessity for reforms; but it is no part of our business to consider that matter here. The first step taken when a foreign state — let us say Egypt, for example's sake — has applied to some well-known financial house whose name is a power of itself, is the drawing up of a secret " contract " between the government wanting the money and the London bankers, who will on the faith of the anticipated success of the loan give advances on terms profitable to themselves. A prosjoectus is then made ready by some competent firm of London solicitors, setting forth in as glowing terms as possible the advan- tages which will accrue to investors if they lend then- money in return for the bonds of the said foreign government. Copies of this prospectus are forwarded several days in advance to an enter- prising advertising firm having wide connections, which undertakes to do the advertising for a consideration. But these agents in Lon- don do a great deal more than the advertising. Most of them keep their " literary man," whose business it is to write a series of para- graphs which set forth the good points of the forthcoming loan, and which paragraphs are dispatched to the city editor, together with the advertisements, usually late in the afternoon of the day pre- ceding the date of issue of the loan. The prospectus duly appears next morning in the newspapers, and simultaneously in the city arti- cle there appear those commendatory notices, either as furnished, or rewritten by the city editor or his clerk upon then' model. So far, then, the means for creating the conditions of a favorable reception for the loan have been provided. The manipulation of the outside world has been provided for, and now the manipulations commence inside the Stock Exchange. Two or more "jobbers" who deal in the particular market the loan is connected with — foreign, American, or home — are secretly employed by the "contractors" to bid for the bonds 1 or 1J premium; that is, £1 or £1 10s. above the price at which the loan is nominally issued — the price, that is, named in the prospectus. The fact of this being done superinduces the belief that these new bonds must be a valuable security, seeing that ha- COMMERCIAL AXD FINAM Z I /. /' \ « 7LA YD. \ 1 1 1 bitual dealers ou the Stock Exchange have already offered mi than the government which is responsible for Hum Ltseli asked I Outsiders are induced to apply to the contractors for a numb t ol the bonds, in the expectation of securing the premium bj afterwardfl selling at the higher price already quoted in the mark* t. Thus, bj the help and with the co-operation of stock-brokers and "jobb< i the loan is gradually worked off upon the public; and English in- . vestors and capitalists give their hard-won earnings to construe! some impracticable railway in the wilds of South Ajnerica, to feed ' the cravings of semi-barbarous Oriental monarchs for Wesfa rn lux- uries, or to do something still more wasteful The vueA sum-, that have been lost in foreign loans of late years shew thai this is QO exaggerated picture, though of course many of their number are perfectly legitimate, and the proceeds may be applied to useful purposes. The art of loan-mongering has advanced to great perfection, and has almost been raised to the dignity of a separate profession. This will be illustrated by the fact that as a rule not more than two-thirds of the amounts which the various persons apply for, who are willing to lend their money to the state or corporation in want of help, are what is called "allotted"; that is to say, if they ask for £1,000 of bonds they will only get perhaps £700 or £800; and the impression is thereby produced that the new bonds are in great demand. As the bo)iaJzde subscribers do not get all they asked for on application, they are tempted to employ a broker to buy more for them on the Stock Exchange. There they have to pay the premium; and thus the demand is kept going, and the price is kept up until the eon- tractors have profitably disposed of all the bonds they had under- taken to issue to the public. One of the witnesses examined before the Foreign Loan's Commission stated as his opinion that it would be impossible to float a loan in London without the use of the Stock Exchange machinery, because the real English investors, mosi of whom live in the country, always look to the London market quota- tions, and are guided by them in deciding what stocks and shan a to buy. It will thus be seen that the Stock Exchange is an essential part of the machinery of credit. It is indispensable as an intermediary for facilitating purchases and sales of existing shares and stocks; and its services are equally necessary in "floating" the shares ol new enterprises, or the stocks of new loans Bought for bj fori governments. The financial machinery would be incomplete with- out it; indeed, it is difficult to conceive how borrowings and Landings 120 ENGLAND. to any very large extent could be carried on without the medium of the Stock Exchange. There are, in addition to the London institu- tion, provincial exchanges throughout the country; but these all look to London for guidance ; and metropolitan prices regulate prices at the minor establishments. Having explained the nature of the two leading representative institutions by which the accumulations of capital are stored up or lent out, and by which therefore the double process is performed of collecting the surplus earnings that result from the profitable employment of industry, in order to divert them in reproductive streams into other channels of enterprise, there to fructify and fer- tilize, we shall have formed some general conception of the province and functions of finance in Financial London and Financial England. It is through the discharge of these important duties that London is the financial center of the world, for without its banking system, of which the Bank of England is the head, we should not have the head-quarters of international business here, and we could not therefore be the financial center. And in like manner without the Stock Exchange there woidd be difncultv in making the stores available for widely diffused use. Yet financing, on however large a scale, with its twin agents of accumulation and distribution, is rather the efflorescence than the root of true national prosperity. We can conceive a state which is rich and, in a sense, prosperous through finance alone. We can conceive our own country as an extensively commercial state, having ceased to cultivate agriculture, and being wholly dependent upon other communities for the supply of the wants of her population. It is conceivable that England might in such a state of things be rich and prosperous; but she would not be the England we have known in the past. We have attained to our pre-eminence among the nations because we have cultivated self-dependence, and have secured a population of skilled laborers who have been able to turn out goods of first-class quality. Agriculture and manufactures have gone hand in hand; and by developing the spirit of enteiprise we have secured the position we hold in the markets of the world. This is not the place to enter into elaborate arguments as to the claims and merits of varying schools of economists; but we may assume that the pre-eminence England has attained has been chiefly due to the fact that it knew how to take advantage of all openings, and that while our own soil was diligently cultivated, our manufact- urers succeeded in making other countries tributary by buying from and selling to them on advantageous conditions. If we were to cease COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL EN \ J] i to be a great manufacturing community, if mwei on the markets of the world, am! were 110 longer able to ■ imp our own population with any considerable amounl of the lu and necessaries of life, we might remain powerful and \ ealtl a state, but our power and wealth would resi on a m w foun lion. We should have become transformed into the mer< for other countries that had taken our place and outstripped iu manufactures and agriculture. We should be great as bai • the international Stock Exchange and hill and bullion cent< should enjoy the profits derived from these sources; but w< sh< no longer be the proud leaders of the world's industry. We ah be reduced to live in a great degree upon our past accumulate of capital; and it may be questioned if when our own industry I ceased to be our mainstay, we should lnu-- continue to solace our- selves with pleasant prospects of national stability. Be this as it may, it is as an industrial and commercial Btate thai England has prospered so wonderfully in the past, and that her wealth has accumulated from year to year. We have 1" en a ] ducing community, adding to the sum of the general wealth by enormous masses of manufactured commodities for the mpplj of the wants of our own population in the first instance, and then be sent aU over the globe for sale or exchange. Thron prise of her sons and the industry of her laboring clfl gained, for examine, the command of the cotton trade. Thi pro- ducts of the looms and spindles of Lancashire have provided fabi for the inhabitants of India and the East, as well as for i' countries nearer home. By adopting ami adapting all im ments in machinery, and by turning out of our mills and good articles of workmanship, we were able to take the nations. It was the same with regard to iron and i tee! and the in- numerable objects which were made of iron and steel. Sheffii I cutlery became famous all the world over just as Lanca ihir< goods did. With our supplies of coal we could manufacl are cheaply, and as Ave had the start of other communities because we I enterprising and industrial population, we began to accumulat ital in advance of other nations, and the more capita! i command the greater became our facilities in earn in- dustries, which came to be our staple exports to for. Circumstances were favorable to Great Britain in man\ ways. '! foundations of her prosperity were laid by the enterpi of her sons and by the industry which these Bona ■ ble to dir and employ. Within the last thirty or forty years we ha I 122 ENGLAND. enormous harvests of profit by the adoption of the system of free imports, through which we came to command the resources and industrial products of other nations. The simultaneous vast exten- sion of the means of intercommunication by railways and telegraphs for a time contributed to the further development of our trading activity. The products of our manufactories were passed into all countries; and all countries to some degree responded by sending us the products they could best turn out. In this way came the mighty commercial growth of the last quarter of a century, which culminated in the excited prosperity of the years 1872, 1873, and 1874 Under the system of free imports England opened her ports to the goods and manufactures of all the world, but unfortunately she has not been able, on the other hand, to secure the abolition of the protectionist duties imposed by foreign nations. As it hap- pened, first the xVmercian Union and then the continent of Europe were engrossed with war or the expectation of war, which had the practical effect of a stringent protective system in our favor; for other nations had not the needful time and energy to give to corseting with us in industrial efforts while they were fighting the battle of self-existence, or struggling to extend then- national power under the promptings of ambition and aggression. Little wonder if with the start we had we were able to make such good use of our opportunities as immensely to extend our commercial preponderance. The prosperity of England which has enabled her to accumulate vast wealth thus rested on an industrial and commercial basis. Her great financial system has grown out of her commercial resources. We have spoken of our banking system as one of the two most im- portant factors in the financial mechanism which is so dehcately or- ganized in Lombard Street. But though this is true in regard to banking as the outcome and the instrument of the complex organi- zation of credit, without which mercantile transactions on a large scale would be difficult, if not impracticable, banking comes into the field at a much earlier stage than might be inferred if this were its sole function. No sooner, indeed, does commerce by bringing in jn'ofits attain any considerable proportions than bankers are needed to -transmit money from place to place, and to keep in safety the bal- ances that are accumulated as the profits of trading, as well as to sup- ply — it may be— the circulating medium which may be used to sup- plement gold and silver coin. In this aspect of banking, in an earlier phase of commercial society, it is the interconnecting link between commerce and finance; although in its complete organization it is COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL ENGLAND. \i\ the culmination of the matured financial system. The close connec- tion between commerce and banking, and the .1. r, e in which they are interdependent, is illustrated by the effects produced U a bank failure upon the general community. Whenabani stops which has supplied loans to mercantile firms and traders, the withdrawal of the usual facilities that had been afforded by it to its custom, the stability and resources of the merchants who had been depend- ent on it; and if serious enough may induce a general Loss of confi- dence and consequent diminution of credit throughoul the business community. When this is carried to a certain point we have what is called a panic. From what has been said regarding England's commercial and financial systems, and the intimate connection there is between them, it wiU now be intelligible to me reader how both are liable to fluc- tuations and great changes. Such changes have been alreadj wit- nessed in this countiy, and there are many signs which appear to indicate that we have yet greater before us. "We have spoken of the excited prosperity of the years 1872-74, and have shown that it was due to a variety of causes wholly apart from the impetus given to commerce by free trade. Since that period — which is familiarly known as the time of "leaps and bounds" in our material pro — we have had a still more protracted era of depression. The oat of that have also been numerous and various. It is not in England alone that there have been industrial depression, commercial decline, and the gradual curtailment of our purchasing powers as a com- munity. The commercial panics in Vienna and Berlin, and those in the autumn of 1873 in the United States of America, were the pre- monitions of what was coming, and about to involve nearly all na- tions in severe suffering. It is not surprising in view of this lapse of commercial and trading energy, leading to a final decay of enter- prise, and the loss on the part of the general population of the re- sources out of which they were able to purchase the luxuries and necessaries of life, that the epiestion has been raised on the Con- tinent whether that from which we are suffering is a "definitive crisis," or only one of the series of periodical alternations which illustrate the law of action and reaction, or ebb and llow, so that we are now passing through the time of rebound from a period of over- inflation. It would take us too long to discuss this problem. For ourselves, we see no reason for regarding the mercantile d< of the present time as different in nature from that of the usual periods of reaction that follow inordinate confidence and ovea velopment as surely as the night the day. The grounds relied upon 124 ENGLAND. to prove the opposite are unsubstantial. "Why should it be supposed that all the world has at this precise year of grace come to the " end of its tether " in regard to the development of its industrial resources ? It is true that railways and telegraphs have been everywhere multi- plied, and that English money has been used in taking to remote parts the machinery of civilization — in the construction of roads and canals, the introduction of gas into towns, and the formation of mighty systems of water-suppiy for largo populations. It is also true that it has been in consequence of the number of these indus- trial works all over the globe that wealth has multiplied with the amazing rapidity witnessed during the last quarter of a century. "We have sent money to foreign countries for employment in these and other ways, and have received in return immense imports of goods and products of every clime, which have stimulated trade. It may be a question whether England has not done this too exten- sively for her means, whether her enterprise has not been stimu- lated to precipitate and excessive developments. There are rea- soners among us who assert that this has been so, and they support their averment by pointing to the growth in the excess in the value of the goods and industrial products that are imported from other countries into England over the value of the goods, and native pro- ducts that have been exported from England to all the rest of the world. The figures which are published every month by the Board of Trade furnish an index bv which we may know how things commercial are going with us. In former years we used to export more than we imported; and therefore we received from other countries, in return for the manufactures and goods we sent to them, more than we gave away. There was thus a margin of profit on the whole mass of our foreign trade ; and for a long time econo- mists looked upon the amount of the profit thus received as the surest test of national prosperity. As, however, our population and our wealth grew our wants increased, and within recent years we have bought so much from other countries in necessaries and luxu- ries that the exports of all our manufacturing products have not sufficed to pay for them, and the " balance of trade," as it is called, has accordingly been thrown against us. Instead of being consid- ered a bad sign, as would have been the case long ago, a new school of economists has arisen, who tell us it is the best sign of our wealth; that we import thus, enormously beyond what we export, because we have such a large accumulated capital; and this capital, they say, has been increasing yearly bv gigantic strides to the extent of hun- dreds of millions. It is, no doubt, quite true that a country can- COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL ENGLAND. 125 not, any more than an individual, go on buying goods beyond what it can pay for. It may do so for a time on credit, but ruin musl be the result if too long persisted in. The excess of English imports of articles of merchandise over exports is at once a proof of English wealth and of the indebtedness-of foreign countries to Great. Britain. But, at the same time, it is evident that that wealth is not an inex- haustible quantity, and if the excess goes on continuously increas- ing there must be danger of exhaustion, unless wo are able to mul- tiply our capital even quicker than we are spending it. We do not wish to encumber our pages with figures, but to illus- trate our precise mercantile position we may give here the amount of the excess of our imports over our exports, and show how it has been growing recently. In order to get at the true figures we must make allowance for various disturbing elements that require us to alter very considerably the gross amounts stated in the Board of Trade returns. For example, there are the differences between what is called the " declared value " or the estimated worth of our exports and imports, and their actual selling prices after freights and transport charges and all other expenses, with fair margins for profits, are allowed for. We must also remember that the mere enumeration of quantities and values will give only an approximate idea as to the national progress or decline. Excess in exports over imports may be satisfactory when the result is a remittance home in cash or an addition to our investments in property or loans held abroad. On the other hand, excess of imports is satisfactory when it is the result of the receipt of goods of greater value than those sent out, or when it is paid for by income accruing to the importing country from investments sent abroad. Bearing these facts and views in mind the following may be relied upon as an approxima- tion to the amounts of the adverse balances of trade which England has had to provide for : — 1871 £15,000,090 1870 34,000,000 1869 30,000,000 18G8 37,000,000 1867 27,000,000 1866 36,000,000 1873 £19,000,000 1874 29,000,000 1875 54,000,000 1876 83,000,000 1877 100,000,000 1878 say 100,000,000 The nominal balances against us have been a great deal more ; and these estimates do not certainly err in making the figures unduly small. It will be seen that of late years the adverse balances have made great strides, so we need not be surprised that grave anxiety ha i I 126 ENGLAND. been excited. It is certain that a part of the debt we have thus in- curred has been met by an export from this country of bonds of indebtedness from other countries held here. This may not prove that our wealth as a nation is declining; it may mean that the money winch the bonds represent is being employed in a different way, al- though still in investments, but that is only an hypothesis, and if true at all is only to a partial extent. The fair conclusion is that we have had to part with these bonds because we had to pay away so much more money than we could provide for out of profits and out of the returns from our investments. We have, in fact, been living to some extent upon our capital. If we look closely at the figures we have given we shall find some important lessons taught by them which are by no means wholly reassuring. It will be seen that there was a balance against us of from thirty to forty millions— roughly speak- ing — each year during the period starting from the year of the bank- ing panic in 18GG on to 1870. In 1871 that balance was reduced as low as £15,000,000, and in 1872 it was wiped out altogether. In 1873 it was only £19,000,000, and in 1874 it was £29,000,000; but it has multiplied with such rapidity since, that three years afterwards it was nearly four times the latter amount. Now the years in which the adverse trading balance was uniformly low were those in which this country enjoyed the greatest trading prosperity it has ever known. A change set in in 1871, and from that time till now we have been going from bad to worse until trade profits have almost disappeared, and Ave are passing through a testing time of great severity. Yet the time in which we are most seriously depressed is the time in which we have had to pay enormously more to other countries than we ever did before. Even the vast accumulations of English wealth cannot stand for an indefinite time the tremendous drafts represented by adverse trade balances of hundreds of millions sterling. If it could be proved that we are still meeting these drafts out of the interest on our capital, it is yet plain that we must have ceased to be accumulating fresh capital. The export of foreign bonds already alluded to, however, is in all likelihood a direct drain upon capital. Matters have thus been brought to this crisis : that with our growing tastes for luxuries as a people, and the enormous additions to our national expenditure in consequence, we have come to occu- py a position in which we are no longer progressing, but rather appear to be standing still, if we are not even falling back. And . at this precise time it is that we find other nations able to compete with us to an extent such as we have never before experienced. COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL ENGLAND. 127 It does not need resort, therefore, to any theories of "definitive crises," such as are bruited abroad on the Continent, to show that things are in a critical way with us. The progress of the human race would not be arrested even if English progress were. There are other great industrial works to be done in addition to the rail- ways, telegraphs, canals, and important public, enterprises thai h been constructed during the past quarter of a century. A new world is opening in the east, and America in the west lias an almost boundless future of expansion and development. Continued stag- nation in trade would bring universal paralysis, and that is death; but partial stagnation often clears the way for a new departure. Besides the new countries that are being opened up as a field for the employment of capital, there are also signs of the multiplication of new and vast scientific forces, such as the electric light, for in- stance, which will probably lead to an immense development of enter- prise. The depression which we have seen to exist is the natural rebound from overactivity, and it has continued till all spring ami elasticity seem to have gone out of our trade. It has been deepened and intensified by numerous other agencies and causes — the losses to individuals through foreign defaults, the reaction upon England of the severe depression that has been felt in the United States ever since the panic in 1873, recent political troubles, the depreciation of silver, and the consequent disorganization of our Eastern trade, the famines in India, the lock-up of capital to excess in machinery and other* means of production. It needs no theory of physical cau- sation, such as the spot in the sun, on which Professor Jevons has been bestowing anxious thought, to account for the long drawn out crisis though which we have been passing. The question which is of primary importance, however, is whether over and above these more or less transitory causes there are signs of a permanent loss of trade. It is certain there will be no perma- nent stoppage of the demand for the goods which England has hitherto supplied. So far as our own population are concerned, they have of late years attained to a higher level of average comfort than formerly; but who will say that even yet they are clothed as they ought to be? Were the times brisk and wages high, their de- mands for cotton goods must increase; and it would be well for themselves as well as for the trade of the country if they would spend more of their earnings in this way and less at the public- house. Temperance enthusiasts exaggerate when they attribute the depression of trade to the drinking habits of our population; lmt it cannot be doubted that if half the money that is wasted on drink / 128 ENGLAND. were spent upon the comforts of life, a lasting impetus would be given to trade. As it is, there is little reason to fear the extinction of the demand, and our own home markets will always furnish our manufacturers with the means of disposing of a portion of their goods. But it is much harder to say whether England is likely to continue to supply the demands not merely of her own population, but of the inhabitants of foreign countries, in the same large pro- portions as formerly. Although the alarm professed in some quar- ters is unwarranted, seeing that nearly the whole decrease in exports shown by the Board of Trade returns is accounted for by the fall in values, the quantities remaining nearly the same, yet in many branches of manufactures in which we could fairly claim the su- premacy not long ago, we have now to fight against competi- tors who run us hard in the race. The United States, steadied and made careful by recent suffering, are increasing their exports largely, and have lately turned an adverse trade balance into a fa- vorable one. We must expect, as capital increases in America, that more of it will go into machinery, and that thus we shall have power- fid rivals in our American friends. If cotton mills were established in the Southern States, near where the cotton is grown, the Ameri- cans would be able to manufacture more cheaply than we can. Al- ready, indeed, the vast Mississippi valley, which used to be wholly agricultural, is studded over with manufactories. It is the same in India, where cotton-spinning has assumed large proportions; and England is being beaten by her own dependencies. It is in great degree the fault of our own people that this is the case. Our man- ufacturers and merchants, or rather perhaps our manufacturers tempted by merchants and brokers, many of whom are aliens and interlopers, under the stimulus of competition, and greedy of profits, have carried adulteration to a terrible extreme. Their cotton goods have been adulterated with China clay in many cases to the extent of two hundred per cent. It is for this reason more than any thing else that we are losing command over the Indian and Chinese mar- kets. The natives of Eastern climes are shrewd enough to know and value good materials, and having found the cloth they bought from English makers turn out badly, they resort to other traders. It is doubtful if we shall ever recover the supremacy we have thus lost in the Eastern markets, and we have ourselves for the most part to blame. It is the righteous punishment of those who have revelled in " cheap and nasty " goods. But though England may not resume the scepter of an autocrat in trade, it will be wholly her own fault if she ceases to be one of COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL ENGLAND. 129 the large producers of the world. What threatens to wred the reins from her hands is not so much foreign competition, or the waul of reciprocity, as the practice of adulteration, and the high pii< English labor as compared with foreign. Our work-people must either submit to further reductions in their wages or to loi hours of work, or to a further expenditure of effort which will insure a better quality of work during the present hours. Unless adulteration is stopped, however, nothing will save English for trade from ruin; for people will cease to buy from us when they find they can no longer depend upon the quality. We must is anj case expect to have to face greater competition in the future than we have had in the past, now that we have so many rivals in the field; but if England be only true to herself, and her trailers prac- tice the virtues which once distinguished them, no one is likely to take her pre-eminence from her. She may not sit as queen among the nations, but she may always at least be prima inter pares, 'rimes of depression will pass away; trade will resume its activity, and prosperous times will be again seen. These days will not conic, however — or, if they do they will not abide — unless our trailers abandon the ways of trickery and deceit, and learn the virtues which distinguished their forefathers in the proud days in which English mercantile honor was unstained, and when the name of English goods was a synonym for excellence. CHAPTER IX. COMMERCIAL ADMINISTRATION. General Principles of Business Administration — Typical Instances selected : (1) Common Trade, (2) Iron Trade, (3) A Banking House— Gradation of Responsibility in the Management of Cotton Mills — Different Responsible Officials and their Several Provinces — The Managing Partner — Yorkshire Iron Works — Organization traced from Pit's Mouth to Sale of the Article — Business of a great Banking House in London described — Functions of the Separate Partners — Capital employed, Political Influences, and General Principles to be observed in the Management of each of these Businesses. IT may be said of every great business, that it is a microcosm of our civil polity and the embodiment of principles which are recognized in the conduct of the highest departments of State. It has been shown in a previous chapter that the possessions of the territorial nobility require in their management not a few of those qualities displayed in imperial administration. The conduct of the great commercial concerns of England involves the same centraliza- tion of authority, delegated by regular gradations throughout the whole system. The cotton and iron trades of Lancashire and York- shire, and the chief banking houses of the city of London afford the best instances of the organization of that private enterprise which is the mainspring of English commerce. We will select our first illustration from the large cotton indus- tries of the north. The unbaled cotton, already mixed so as to secure uniformity in quality, passes through a series of machines, leaving the first in the form of a fleece and the second in rope-like coils, until it is thoroughly cleaned and carded, or combed into rudi- mentary threads of an even thickness. In this form it is twisted by the roving machines and throstles and wound on bobbins (or reels) in its finished state as yarn; and as such, is moved to the weaving shed, where it is woven into the finished material. The whole pro- cess is done by machinery; for in the shed the threads are arranged in warps, dressed with size, the loom is worked, the shuttle thrown. \ COMMERCIAL ADMINIS TRA TI( W. 1 : ; 1 the warp unwound, and the finished doth wound on the roller ready for the warehouse, by steam-power. Except in the removal of the material from one machine to the other, the intervention of mas is restricted to supervision, to the control of the speed of the machine, to an unceasing watchfulness to arrest ii, when any hitch threatens damage, and to the removal of the obstruction. With this supervision the responsibility commences. An indi- vidual minder or weaver controls a certain number of hands, and is accountable to the overlooker for the work turned out by so many mules in the one case, or by so many looms in the other. Of these overlookers there is one to each room, who, again, is responsible to the foreman of the spinning or of the weaving department for.the material delivered from his room, the foreman himself being account- able to the factory manager. The woven material, or cloth, when removed from the looms to the warehouse, is inspected, and imper- fect lots are rejected. This is the duty of the warehouseman, who, too, will have already examined the cotton on its arrival at the mill; the bales (the original packages shipped at New Orleans or Charles- ton) have been opened, compared with sample, carefully examined throughout, all inferior cotton, all stones and the like, being sepa- rated by the women or young men employed under him. To his care, also, falls the due delivery of the finished material to the canal or railway which takes it to the warehouse in Manchester. Steam- power is under the control of a foreman engineer, accountable for the true working and repair of the machinery, for the supply of coal, for the lighting of the factory where gas is made on the premises, and for the conduct of the engineers and gasmen under him. The ware- housemen and engineer, like the foremen, are directly under the factory manager, as are the watchman and the timekeeper ; the former looking to the safety of the buildings, the latter to the due attendance of the hands. Here, so far as the actual production is concerned, ends the organization. If we follow the cloth to Manchester, we find a man- ager at the warehouse, who sees to the delivery of the goods ii to order; or sells them if made for stock. It is his duty to look to the prices obtained, the orders he takes and their due transmission to the mill, the collection of accounts, and the duties respectively per- formed by the salesmen, clerks, and porters under him. Bui the counting-house at the mill is under a separate head, responsible the book-keeping, the rendering of accounts, the due collection of money, the correct disbursements in purchases and for v. well as for the efficiency of his staff. 132 ENGLAND. The chiefs of the three departments of manufacture and sale— the factory manager and the heads of the Manchester warehouse and of the counting-house— are in their turn severally responsible to the managing partner, the supreme controller. But the purchase of the raw material is so important a point, involving as it does two-thirds of the whole expenditure, that it is very rarely intrusted to a subordinate. It is one of the special occupations of the manag- ing partner, who visits Liverpool on market-days or as occasion may require, goes round with his broker, and buys such cotton as in quality, quantity, and price may suit him. The cotton itself has been picked on the plantations of South Carolina, baled, and sent down to the seaport, whence it is shipped to Liverpool, either pur- chased by, or consigned to, the merchant at that place,— the mer- chant landing, warehousing it, and placing samples in the hands of his broker, where it is seen by the buyer, in the manner already described. Occasionally these intermediaries are dispensed with; an order for a certain quality of cotton being given by the manu- facturer directly to the merchant at Liverpool or Charleston. But although in this case the expenses of brokerage and of the Liver- pool warehouse are saved— no inconsiderable items where every thing is calculated to a nicety— this is not the ride. Such a trans- action is legitimately the trade of the merchant. It will thus be seen that the managing partner is the pivot on which the organization turns. All the departments are reviewed by him. He settles all disputes, and specially sees that all transactions are carried out with the scrupulous fairness that has made the repu- tation of the house. He decides the proportion of each particular "make " of cloth which the factory shall turn out, and instructs the salesman as to prices and credits. He in his turn consults his part- ners as to a common view of the future course of the markets, as to the advisability of restricting or extending sales of cloth on the one hand, or of purchases of cotton on the other, and as to the credit given to large customers. Such is the system of central organiza- tion characteristic of the wealthy partnerships in the cotton trade. The cases in which the managing partner is relieved of a portion of his responsibilities occur most frequently when the supervision of the counting-house and Manchester business is undertaken by some other member of the firm. The aspect of one of the great ironworks of Yorkshire is very dif- ferent. The barren treeless waste, the lurid fires of the everlasting furnace, the overhanging bank of smoke, the begrimed appearance of the inhabitants, the railroad running into the works with 'coal and COMMERCIAL ADMINISTRATION. \\\\\ iron Laden trucks moving to and fro — these mark the neighborhood Within are seen the numerous calcining ovens and conical bli furnaces, the puddling furnaces and rolling-mills with the great steam-hammer, vast stacks of coal, of coke, and of fire-bricks, the foundry with its chimney, and the open spaces where lie th< pro- ducts of mill and furnace. But the premises are not, as in a cotton manufactory, self-contained. In adjacent parts of the country arc situated the coal-mines, the ironstone pits, the limestone quarrii which, the property of the concern, produce almost every t! i quired in the process of manufacture, the chief exception being the fire-bricks, usually obtained from Staffordshire. The organization commences at the seats of production, the mines, pits, and quarries, each of which is presided over by a re- sponsible head. In the former, a manager controls his subordi- nates and the miners, sees that the wages arc duly paid, that pro- duction is on a fair scale, that the coal is turned into coke in the ovens at the pit's mouth in such quantity as may be required, and that both coal and coke are sent off as wanted. His duties arc. in fact, those of any other coal-mine manager; and in the same way, the foreman at the ironstone pits, and the foreman at the limestone quarries, are responsible for the work done by the miners and quar- rymen respectively. The transport of the material to the works and of the manufactured iron for delivery, by means of the short lin of railway which are owned by the concern, is a matter important enough to require the special supervision of a traffic manager. The locomotives and rolhng-stock, the engineers and firemen, again, the separate charge of a chief engineer, to whom also falls the super- intendence of the extensive machinery used for the blast-furnaces and rolling-mills. The processes of manufacture at the works are ordinarily, in- trusted to two distinct managers, whose general supervision in their respective departments includes care that coal, coke, and mat rial are supplied as wanted, j)revention of waste, the regulation of the order of work, and the delivery of the goods according to < b act, in proper time, and of the specified quality. The one restricts bis attention to the production of pig-iron, having under him a foreman directly responsible for the work done by the hands employed at the ovens, where the ironstone goes through the first process, thai of being calcined with coal, and at the blast-furnaces, in which, with a due proportion of coke and limestone, the calcined ore is smelt and run into pigs. This "pig-iron" is sold as such, or converted into manufactured iron in one of its two forms — malleable or c;. 134 ENGLAND. These latter processes involve, as has been said, a separate depart- ment, distinctly under the charge of another manager. Under the latter are two foremen. The first of these is responsible for the out- turn of the puddling furnaces, steam-hammer, and rolling-mills, by means of which the iron is made malleable, and manufactured into rails, ship and boilerplates, bars, angle and T iron. His duties are not light, because in the first operation he has to do with the pud- dlers, the most independent of workmen. For a puddler must not only be 'skilled in his work, but have exceptional powers of endur- ance ; and he knows his value. He works or not, and for a longer or for a shorter time, at his own caprice, and when work presses, the humoring of these lusty sons of toil is not the least difficult of the foreman's duties. It may perhaps be here explained that the puddler, having first " fettled " his furnace, puts in a charge of pig- iron, and works, or " puddles," it in a molten state into a ball, which is taken to the steam-hammer, and from it, as " a bloom," is rolled by the mills into bars, when it is cut up, reheated, and again rolled into the marketable forms enumerated above. A second foreman has the control of the foundry, of the smiths and their assistants, of the forges for the casting of railway-chairs, and various other parts of machinery. The watchman and the timekeeper will be directly under the managers, who, again, with the other head men (the managers of the mines, pits, and quarries, the engineer and the traffic manager), are responsible to the chief director or managing partner, to whose authority also, as in other manufacturing concerns, the head of the counting-house at the works, intrusted with the care of the accounts, is subject. The sale of the goods in London comes within the prov- ince of the London representative of the house, who has a staff under his control, charged with the supervision of the delivery and ship- ment of the iron, and with the collection of accounts. But the Lon- don manager, as well as the agents employed for similar purposes at the outposts (Liverpool, Hull, and other places), as a ride take all their orders from the managing partner, the intercourse often — in the case of the agents almost invariably — being carried on by correspondence. It will be seen that here, as in a cotton mill, it is usual to place the control in the hands of one man, who has a practical knowledge of every department. To him fall the decision of the proportion of each kind of iron to be made, the instructions as to sales, and the entire supervision. He consults with his partners as to the general line of business and probable course of the markets, and is some- COMMERCIAL ADMINISTRATION. 1:;- times assisted in one or other special department, or replaced in his absence, by one of them. But, as a rule, he baa less need of such aid than the director of any other equally important business; be- cause in a wealthy ironworks establishment the area <>f production is its own, and, its manufacture being usually sold for cash on deliv- ery, the necessity of financial combinations is of rare occur] Much more tranquil, and presenting in its serene exterior a marked contrast to the bustle and agitation which pervade thi centers of manufacturing industry, is the scene that we may d visit. Quitting one of the busiest thoroughfares of the busiest city of the world, we turn through the corridor into a house that, in years gone by, has been the dwelling of one of our merchant prim but now is used only in the daytime as the office of his successors. The quiet and order of the great room first entered, with its thirty or forty clerks separated from the public by a long mahogany coun- ter and plate-glass screens, gives a pleasant relief to the nerves wearied by the turmoil outside. In both the previous cases the ma- terial employed and the process of manufacture are visible enough. But here, the center whence radiates an even larger business than. either of the others, the machinery is restricted apparently to pens, ink, and paper. It is in fact, a directing center self-contained, and this principle is carried from the highest to the lowest. For in the City, the business of the present day is so subdivided — the railway and dock companies filling the offices of carriers and warehousemen, the brokers and shipping agents attending to the produce dealt in and its disposal — that in the merchant's office itself there is hardly any sign of the nature of the special trade of the firm. Here as in the other concerns, there are frequently partners who visit the office, have then* private rooms, interest themselves In spe- cial departments, and are periodically consulted. For the mi part, however, they delegate then* responsibility. As a const quence of the more varied nature of the business, the delegation is not, in this instance, entirely left to one person. There is a working or managing partner of capabilities and experience, such as are de- manded in the other administrations, on whom devolves, practically, the general control; but one department, the finance, is distinctly the charge of a single partner gifted with a special aptitude. In wealthy manufactui'ing concerns, finance, properly so-called, is not known. The premises belong to the manufacturers themselves, w bo have ample working capital, and seldom are confronted by a more impei*ious necessity than that of a temporary overdraft from the banker on emergency. But in a merchant's bui however lai 136 ENGLAND. the capital, there are occasions when transactions are entered into involving amounts of much greater magnitude. In fact, a firm that would limit its operations strictly within the amount of its capital would not be availing itself of its legitimate opportunities. Now, as it is a principle with the largest and wealthiest houses never to ob- tain advances on their produce, and on the other hand, always to keep a round balance with their bankers and a large sum at call with one of the great discount houses, it is clear that some special finan- cial ability is required to provide for the engagements of the future, so that this position of unassailable solidity may be at all times maintained. This is the duty of the partner indicated, who has directly under him the head cashier. The latter, presiding over the cash department, is responsible for the correctness of the ac- ceptances and checks which the partner signs, for the due pay- ment into the bank of all incomings, for disbursements of all kinds, and specially, a correct list of the acceptances of the firm for giving into the bankers from time to time. Another distinctive feature of a merchant's business is, that all letters and documents must be signed, and all important visitors seen, by a partner. As the managing partner is frequently out and occasionally absent, it follows that it is as a rule arranged that one or other of the less active members of the firm shall be present to act in these capacities if required. But with these exceptions, the centralization of authority is the same as in other great busi- ness establishments. Besides the duties enumerated, the manag- ing partner has to review all business, to read ah letters before they go the round of the departments, to see the more important customers, and to consult with the other partners on all sjoecial occasions. Responsible to him for their several departments are the following head clerks: — The head of the office, who takes charge of the general correspondence and all matters that do not refer to a special department, having under him also the clerks intrusted with the postal and telegraph services. Directly answerable to him, too, are such subordinates as the messengers, porter, and housekeeper. Then there is the chief of the shipping department, accountable for all charters made, and for all matters connected with freightage. In the produce department, again, another expert superintends the sale and due delivery of all produce consigned to the house, though acting to a certain extent under the immediate control of the managing partner, who as a rule treats immediately with the brokers. For the convenience of communication with the controlling head, these departments are not unfrequently to- COMMERCIAL ADMINISTRATION. \\\~ gether in the one large room or general office; but separate rooms are generally allotted to the book-keepers, the cider office, and insurance department. At the head of the first is tin- chief book- keeper, responsible for the correct keeping of the b ioks and ren- dering of accounts by the numerous staff under him. The I of the order department has charge of the due execution and ship- ment of all orders received by the firm, whether it be an order for a railroad or for a case of wine, referring in only the more imp taut transactions to the chief. And lastly, the head of the insu- rance department is intrusted with the important duty of seeing that all goods and produce, at sea or in warehouse, are lulls cov- ered in the one case by marine, in the other by tire, insurance. In each of the departments there are numerous clerks answ liable to then- respective chiefs; and it only remains to be said that the lat- ter are men specially qualified to secure the discharge of the dif- ferent services in the best and least expensive fashion. It is in the selection of fit men for these posts that the administrative ability of the responsible head of all is proved. This then is the organization of a banking house. It will have been observed that these firms have their special bankers, and it will be expedient here to explain the difference exist in-- between the two classes of business — a banking house and a bank. Bankers proper carry on a trade which is often larger in amount and is made up of more numerous transactions, but which knows nothing of the complex oj)erations familiar to the former. A banker mainly receives money on deposit to lend it out on sufficient security, making his profit from the difference of interest paid and received . The largest London merchants entitle themselves banking hotels because then* business, although distinctly embracing that of a merchant, chiefly consists in finding the means for the trade of other merchants, having houses either in the colonies or in foreign countries, with remuneration by commission and not by results. Of the nature of their dealings a fan* notion has been given, and, it may be added, their business connection is always carefully se- lected and exceptionally well treated. For in great crises, when the value of produce threatens to fall below that of the advance made upon it, such a firm will not sacrifice its customers to save itself, but will hold the depreciated article for a recovery with a foresight doing credit alike to its honor and courage. The term millionaire might, without some explanation, give a false impression as to the amount of capital embarked in the lo industries. It is a rare occurrence — such instances might, in fact, 138 ENGLAND. be enumerated in a few lines — when an individual partner has so much as one million sterling invested in his business. But applied to the richer partners in wealthy concerns, the title is not a misno- mer, for these will have considerable property, in land and person- alty, in other directions. In truth, manufacturing limits by its very nature the amount of money that can be usefully employed. Thus in a cotton factory it may be said that a capital of £500,000 actually invested in buildings, plant, and current business, would represent one of the very largest concerns, and in an ironworks estabhshment, double this sum. In the former trade, this limit is seldom exceeded; in the latter there are one or two cases in which the capital is greater. The simplest way of giving a notion of the magnitude of the dealings of such firms will be to remark that the capital invested is turned over not less than twice in the year: this would represent a mini- mum average daily expenditure for material and wages of over £3,000 in the one case, and of over £6,000 in the other, and of receipts of like amounts. And it may be added that a return of 7| per cent, on the total capital, or of £37,500 and £75,000 respectively, would represent the amount which in ordinary times would be an- nually divisible amongst the partners. It is more difficult to esti- mate the resources of a representative banking house, because the opportunities which offer of large operations hardly inrpose a limit on the amount that can from time to time be made use of. The percentage of profits, too, has a wider range from year to year. In one or two cases, the means employed are exceptionally large. Apart from these, a house with a working capital of two millions would stand in quite the front rank; and as this capital is turned over more frequently, if at smaller profits than in manufacturing, and as the transactions are not confined to cash, advances being fre- quently made by acceptances, it will readily be perceived that the average daily volume of business of such a firm wall amount to a more than considerable sum. A second notable peculiarity is, that although there may be many partners, yet, as a rule, the practical management of a large concern is left to one managing partner responsible to the others for what is done, and who is not only a man of proved capacity, but one thor- oughly acquainted with the working of each and every department. The exception is, as has been shown, in a merchant's business where finance is required. There are instances where the different part- ners take each his special department and its responsibility. In many concerns, too, there is a senior partner whose stake is the largest, and whose right of veto is almost absolute. But, generally COMMERCIAL ADMIXISTRA TION. 1 1 :: i speaking, the partners, though present when they III ! con- sulted on all important occasions as well as on the general lint - of business, and probably interesting themselves in one or othi r department, do not interfere with the working of the business. The veto and the right to interfere are not surrendered, but are held in abeyance so long as it seems that, in the interests of all the direct- ing control should be in the hands of one, and of the ablest, There are, necessarily, questions which will arise that cannot be dealt with except by a consensus of opinion. National movements, as they may affect the general interest, specially fall within this category. Whatever may be the bias of the individual members of a firm, all can keenly appreciate, not only fiscal measures, but the general policy of a ministry as affecting peace or war. Although war may temporarily benefit this or the other industry, vet a more lasting and necessary element of prosperity is that security which alone guarantees a proper outlet for the whole trade of the country; for depression in one trade will inevitably, sooner or later, react on the others. Manufacturers have, in particular, to watch with jealous care the proceedings of their Continental rivals, so as to keep pace with them in all improvements; and the spinner has specially to look to the state and prospects of trade in the United States. But the merchant, it may be said, must have steadily in view the position of affairs in all parts of the globe. Disturbances in the colonies or at home, anticipations of Continental warfare, a quarrel with the distant Chinese, revolutions in South America: — all these things mean to him limited trade, lower prices, distrust and loss. He must also have an exceptional power to gauge the movements of the money market, so as not to be led to mistake a warning that indi- cates temporary disaster for one which is the herald of that m< >st terrible of mercantile evils, a crisis, with its attendant perils, not only of heavy losses, but of absolute collapse to even the strongest houses, if their ramifications are too wide. Another special aspect of the matter is the advantage possessed by the largest concerns over then- smaller rivals. This is an impor- tant element of their success. Their means and the amount of their dealings give them the command of markets, whilst their old estab- lished connection and repute for fail" dealing secure them the 1 customers. The proportion of their incidental expenses, and espe- cially of the withdrawals of the partners, to the amount of busin done, is much less, and this tends to rapid accumulations. And lastly, they are not forced to sell their goods, and so to accept pur- chasers of doubtful solidity. They have thus immunity from bad 140 ENGLAND. debts, and from that dire necessity to make ends meet which often in smaller concerns takes up time urgently required in other directions. In leaving the subject of the administration of the representative businesses of the country, it is perhaps well to say that the systems which superficially would appear to be severally the outcome of a master mind, are not so in reality. They have grown piecemeal from small beginnings to the completed structure. The organiza- tion which turns out millions of pounds of cotton in perfect cloth, or from tons of coal and ore produces our iron roads, or constructs a railway or a dry-dock in a foreign country, has been built up bit by bit, as occasion has seemed to demand. CHAPTER X. THE WORKING CLASSES. Numbers find Influence of English Working Men — Great Variety of the Work- ing Classes and Happy Results of the Variety— Attitude of the Working Classes towards the State — Difference between French and English Worl Men in Congress— Principles on which the State in England interferes be- tween Employer and Employed— Factory Legislation — General Working of Factory Acts, and the Evils which they have prevented— Relative Powers of Factory Acts and Education Acts — Educational Reforms .till wanted in Manufacturing Districts — Social and Industrial Reforms yet wanted — The Truck System not entirely removed by Legislation — State of the Working Classes in the Black Country — Mining England : its General Characteristics and Varieties — Special Types of Miners and Features of Mining — Relatione between Employers and Employed — The Good Siile of Trades Unions bitration and Conciliation — Working Men in Parliament — Differences be- tween the Working Classes in London and the Provinces. ■*t> ENGLAND, which has been called the nation of shop-keepers, might with equal truth be described as the empire of working men. They bear a larger numerical proportion to the rest of the population in England than in' any other European country; they have more freedom; they exercise more direct political inliuence. They comprise about half the inhabitants of Great Britain south of the Tweed, and may be estimated at a total of from fifteen to seven- teen millions. There is hardly a city in the realm which, if they were resolutely minded to do so, they could not turn into a state of siege. A well-concerted rising on then part in any of the g] centers of manufacture and commerce woidd not merely terroi a district, but paralyze the trading system of the empire. As they are the ultimate depositories of physical, so are they also of political power. The parliamentary suffrage has been carried into the squalid alleys and the mean courts of our large towns — the abode of the com- pound householder and the lodger voter. It cannot be long before the humblest cottagers in agricultural England will enjoy the same privilege, or claim successfully the same right. Yet absolutely su- preme as, in the last instance, the working men of England are in the government of England, our rulers, and the ruling classi I 142 ENGLAND. erally, do not recognize in that supremacy the source either of politi- cal or social peril. We have agitators and firebrands about us who talk of a trembling constitution and a tottering dynasty. But we think we have reason to know that wild words like these awake no responsive echo of insurrectionary enthusiasm in the breast of the great majority of that audience to which they are addressed. We believe in the stability of the regime under which we live. In other words, we have faith in the good sense, the good feeling, and the political docility of the English working man. How is it that we have in England so well-grounded a confidence in the orderly conduct of that preponderating element in our pop- ulation, which is the cause of alarm, danger and restrictive legislation abroad '? One answer is to be found in the very fact which makes a comprehensive survey of the English working classes, in any thing like a limited space, almost impossible. There is as much variety of opinion and of ambition among the working classes in England as among those above them. They include as many sections and schools, differences as wide, and divisions as deep, as the upper classes, or as that complex multitude known as the middle classes. It is therefore impossible to label them with any single epithet or any one characteristic, unless, indeed, it should be said that they are law-abiding. This diversity of thought, belief, and aim amongst the toilers of England is at once the consequence and the cause of exceptional national advantages. It results mainly from the abso- lute and unfettered freedom of opinion and speech which is enjoyed in this country. The right of public meetings and demonstrations is established. We have a press which may even verge on license with impunity. No attempt is made to check free discussion and conversation on the part of working men who assemble together in club-rooms or at lectures. There are associations of working men who take their stand upon the " true principles of democracy," and who decline publicly, or in the printed declaration of their political faith, to pledge their adherence to the existing constitution in Church or State. They aim at " self-government in the fullest sense of the term," in other words, at universal adult suffrage, and they propose to consider " any system of representation upon a narrower basis to be nothing less than disguised despotism." Since " virtue and ca- pacity, not wealth or birth, are to be recognized as the essential attributes of the legislative body," it follows that "all hereditary privileges are to be abolished."* After the enunciation of points * These -words are taken from the prospectus of the Eleusis Club, Chelsea— a fairly representative and well managed institution. THE WORKING CLASSES. \\\\ of the new charter so drastic and uncompromising as these, il will surprise no one to be told that there are included in the programme such demands of minor revolutionary import us the shorter duration of Parliaments; payment of members of Parliament from the Impe- rial taxation, and of election expenses from local taxation; complete separation of Church and State; compulsory secular and free edu- cation. Such a propaganda as this may sound appalling, bul is really harmless. Its promoters may speak daggers, hut they use and desire to use none. The association itself which is commits 1 to such principles is social more than political, and belongs to an order of institution which, as we shall a little later see, is a son of unmixed good to the working classes themselves — the working man's club. The simple truth is, that the rather full-flavored pro- spectus acts as one of the many constitutional safety-valves with which this favored country is provided. In a land of civil liberty, in which political discontent seldom advances beyond the negati stage, or when it assumes a positive form, and is not without b< justification in fact, immediately commands the attention and the action of the Legislature, words can have no alarming sound i c the powers that be. They are the mere exhibition of transient hu- mors, or, at worst, exaggerations and caricatures of fitful phases of the popular mind. As this variety of feeling among the English working classes is the result of a state of things under which free play is allowed to every mind and to every tongue, so is one of our chief guarantees against domestic troubles, and democratic discontent, to be found in its effects. To coerce the multitude is too often to consolida sedition. Englishmen are law-abiding, because they are persuad that it is the honest intention of the law to be fair to all alike, and because they believe that in the long run the Legislature docs not neglect their true interests. If this belief did not exist the spirit abroad would be that, not of reverence, but resistance to the law, and there would be a real danger lest the working classes should organize themselves into a compact mass of antagonism to the ing state of things. Once destroy this infinite complexity of thou and feeling, and a real step will have been taken towards uniting these heterogeneous groups and loosely coherent sections into one solid mass, which may form a serious menace to the institutions of the State. As English workmen differ in their opinions, so do they in their worth. There is the honest toiler, who has his machine ready to begin work on the first beat of the engine, and the saunt< rer who, 144 ENGLAND. as Mr. John Morley in speaking of Lancashire puts it, " matches the minutes like a lazy schoolboy." The best type of artisan in a mill is as good as the best type of active humanity anywhere else, and the best type abounds. The fact is that the British working man, however energetically the attempt may be made to lash him up into revolutionary fervor, cannot divest himself of the conservative instincts of his race. He may be liberal, or radical, or even demo- cratic; but so long as the shoe does not pinch he has no wish to change it for another that perhaps will. This rough estimate of the English ouvrier must be accompanied — there are certain preachers of the industrial revolution who would say corrected — by reference to particular traits. Both his vices and his virtues haye been un- necessarilv and unwarrantablv looked at through a magnifving glass. He is no more uniformly sober than he is uniformly drunken. He is no more exclusively the creature of club life — important though the club be as a factor in his civilization — than he is of pot-house life. The public-house continues to be the house of call for a too large percentage of his order, and the publican's pocket the bot- tomless pit into which an undue proportion of his wages finds its way. A socially and morally perfect and faultless working man is as impossible as the irredeemably vicious baronet in novels, or the spotless angelic child in nursery story-books. There is much on which we may congratulate ourselves in the conceptions which the working man entertains of the functions of the State, and, in a general way, of the position of its governors. He may call himself a democrat, but he is in practice a very good subject of the monarchy. He may profess belief in the perfectibil- ity of mankind as a consequence of the establishment of a republi- can form of government, but he has not the slightest wish to do violence to the tenure of the Crown. There are, indeed, two things that have become customary among us of which he does not approve, which it may be even said he does not understand. He declines to admit that the resettlement of the financial relations between the people and the Crown, which was made at the commencement of the present reign, justifies the grants that are voted by Parliament to members of the royal family on such occasions as marriage. He will, indeed, admit that this is preferable to the periodic demands which were formerly presented to, and conceded by, Parliament for the payment of debts incurred by princes of the blood, but he is not satisfied as to the justice or necessity of these substitutes. He is equally unable or indisposed to see that placemen and pen- sioners are any thing else than abuses incarnated in human shape. i THE WORKING CLASS! :s. ] < -, He wishes that high officials of State — Primp Minister, Lord Chan- cellor, and the like — should be paid, and well paid. Bui when the season of work is over he considers that their claim upon the j ublic funds is at an end. He applies the principle of a good day's v, for a good day's labor in the most generous sense i,> fche learned professions, but he is emphatically opposed to the Bolid remunera- tion of -well-earned leisure. Tenacious of his own rights, he is the last person in the world/to deny the possession of rights to his employer, and he displays no inclination to impose fancifully exacting duties upon Government for the enforcement of what is due to himself. Here it is thai tie English working man may be compared advantageously with the working man of other countries. There is less tendency to social- ism here than amongst other peoples of the old world or of the new. The English working man takes, for the most part, a view admirably practical and temperate of the functions of the State. The national workshops of revolutionary France have no attraction for him. He makes none of those extravagant claims upon the protection of the State in the regvdation of his daily labor and of the rate of his wages which are current among the working classes of America and Trance, and which cause a certain form of socialism to be equally the pest of the Great Republic and the greatest military empire the world has seen. When a congress of English working men discuss their con- dition, they do so in its relation to the State. "When a congress of French working men meet, the State and its legislation are entirely ignored, and the assumption which underlies the arguments of all speakers is that the economic relations of society must be trans- formed if civilization is to advance. The difference between French and English working men could not be better put than in a passage froin an article on a French working man's congress, contribnt ed by Mr. Frederic^ Harrison to the Fortnightly Review of Julv, 1878: — 1 "The Frencli Congress is in marked contrast to the English assemblies. With ns the discussions turn entirely on matters of practical legislation; cer- tain bills before Parliament are to be supported or opposed; certain official inquiries, regulations, or concessions are demanded. Nine-tenths of wh on in an English Trades Union Congress has relation to the House or the Home Office. There is nothing of the kind at Lyons. There not a single bill pending at Versailles is even mentioned throughout the discussions; no reference t • a single parliamentary party or even politician; there is not a public man, no! a single employer, not a public writer with whom the Congress has the smallest relation, or in whom it seems to put the slightest confidence. The Badioals, the extreme Left, are all treated as being just as hostile as the extreme I tight ; t most ultra-republican journals, including that of M. llochcfort, arc utterly re- 10 146 ENGLAND. pudiated; indeed, M. Rochefort is called the Red Jesuit; nor is there a single capitalist who seems to be in the slightest degree of contact with them. Now in England we know there are dozens of members of Parliament, and even members of governments, and that on both sides, from whom the bills of our workmen's congresses receive active support; at every annual meeting there are great employers and great capitalists, public men and public writers, in con- stant intercourse with them. Men in the same position as Mr. Brassey, Mr. Mundella, Mr. Forster, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Samuel Morley, Lord Lichfield, Mr. Hughes, and the like, are utterly unknown in the French movement. The idea of popular conservative employers is still more completely incomprehenrji- ble. Such a man as Mr. Cross, a Conservative Minister of the Interior, legaliz- ing trades unions and codifying the vast network of factory legislation, would indeed be a portent in France. It is clear that the legislature in France is im- mensely behind that of England in its interest in labor questions; that the political and powerful classes in France are in no sort of real contact with the workmen; and that great employers or great landowners having their confi- dence can hardly be said to exist. One cannot fail to see how far more truly the governing classes in England in their own way sympathize with, and work at, the great social problems; how much less sharp is the antagonism of class here; how much the English laborers owe to that mass of protective legislation, against which the men and women with a crotchet are so urgent in protesting. At Lyons, M. Gambetta is simply a bourgeois politician; M. de Marcere is sim- ply a continuation of M. de Fourtou; Victor Hugo is simply a poet; and Jules Simon is merely an intriguer. The French workmen still cling to their old idea of fashioning the future by themselves alone — though now, be it said, without subversive measures, without legislation, and even without the State." In the course of the last fifty years we have had an entire series of legislative enactments devised for the protection of women and children engaged in different kinds of industry. The form which this State interference has assumed has been of various kinds. It has prohibited the working of women and children beyond a cer- tain number of hours, and in the case of children it has even en- forced a certain qualification of knowledge as well as of years. The principle on which the State in these matters has throughout pro- ceeded is that it is bound to protect those who cannot protect them- selves, and that within this category children and women come. The observance of these laws is guaranteed, so far as it is possible to guarantee them, by an elaborate system of State inspection. In- spectors are continually paying surprise visits to see that there is no infraction of the laws regulating the employment of women and children, and that the sanitary condition of the factories and the workshops in which men are employed is satisfactory. Thus every thing which could encourage the idea that the State is under the most minute and positive obligations to the working man has been done by the Legislature. Could there, then, be any more con- clusive testimony to the sanity of working men's views of the re- THE IVOR KING CLASSES. M7 sponsibilities of the Govcrruent than the circumstance that in all this time not one petition has been presented to Parliament praying for any interference with the conditions of adult male labor? Fur- ther, it must be remembered that the demand for factory legisla- tion came, not from the operatives in factories themselves, but from eminent philanthropists outside — Lord Shaftesbury ami others. ! Public opinion amongst the working classes does what it docs not do in America, Germany, France, or Switzerland; it draws the line, short of which legislative interference must stop, at the daily work of full-grown men, and the right of free contract between employed and employer. Wherever it has been tried, interference beyond these limits has proved a blunder and a failure. In the United States it has broken dowm. In Switzerland, where it was introduced in 1877, it is the reverse of a success. In Germany and in France it has paved the way for the propagation of Socialism. It is contended by Mr. Fawcett and other authorities that the responsibilities with which the law charges itself in the case of the labor of women are an infraction on the right of free contract. Practically, the vindica- tion of such interference seems complete. In the first place, it works well; in the second, it cannot be asserted that the average woman is at any period of her life a free agent in the sense that a man is a free agent. Up to the age of eighteen she is subject to the au- thority of her parents, and a very grinding despotism that authority often is. If at the age of eighteen she marries — and early marriages are the rule among the working classes — she becomes little more than the chattel of her husband. Though it does not come within the scope of this work to trace the history of factory legislation, it is necessary briefly to summarize certain central stages in its progress. The factory legislation of to- day is the work of rather more than three-quarters of a century. Starting from what was merely an Apprentices' Act in 1802, when the factory system was in its infancy, and nearly all for whom it pro- vided employment were regularly apprenticed, it reached, in the Consolidation Act of 1878, a culminating point of efficiency and comprehensiveness, beyond which, in the present century, it is likely to advance. The Act of 1802, which provided for the better clothing, better sleeping rooms, and the separation of the sexes in the case of apprentices only, was extended eight, and again twenty- three, years later to all boys and girls engaged in factories, whether they were apprentices or not. But none of these provisions, how- ever admirable in design, accomplished much in practice, ' simple reason that the law did not supply the means f 148 ENGLAND. them. It was a further defect that they only applied to cotton, and not to woolen or worsted factories. In 1833, all textile factories were included in the Act, inspectors were established, and the hours of labor, of young persons and children only, were limited to twelve a day, it being left entirely to the discretion of the employer between what hours the work should be done, subject to the one condition that it should not be carried on during the night. It was not till eleven years later, 1844, that any legislation at all adequate to the complexity and vital importance of the matter be- came an accomplished fact. In that year, the principle was asserted that the law owed the duties of protection to women as well as chil- dren, and since that date factory legislation has applied to female workers as well as to then* youthful sons and daughters. At the same time the machinery guaranteeing obedience to the law was improved; regular holidays were established in addition to Good Friday and Christinas Day. It was also enacted that the machinery should be fenced. Yet even thus the parliamentary statute was fre- quently evaded, and, as the employers worked by relays of women and children, the insj^ectors could never certainly know what was the precise hour at which the operations of a particular group had commenced. Meanwhile the Factory Act had been extended to print works, and the ten-hours movement had made great advances, but ten hours as the limit of time for the employment of women and young persons was not conceded till twelve years after, and, instead, a compromise of ten and a half hours daily was admitted. In 1801 bleach-works, and in 1864 paper-staining, lucifer match making, potteries, and cartridge-making, and all deleterious employments were brought under the operation of the Act. In 1867 the Factory Acts Extension Act and the Workshops Regulation Act were both passed — the practical effect of the two combined being to bring all occupations in which women and young persons were employed under regulation and restriction. Especially was the influence of the Act beneficial in its effect upon the employment of young women in the dress-making trade. Still, one great defect in factory legis- lation remained — the Workshops Act was entirely in the hands of the local authority. In 1870 this shortcoming was remedied, and henceforward the Workshops Act was enforced by the Government factory inspectors. Four years later in every kind of textile factory the number of hours a day was limited to ten. It was further en- acted that no child should be employed under ten, and that no young person under thirteen should be employed full time without an educational certificate. Although, up to this time, attendance at THE WORKING CLASSES. \\\\ school had more or less been enforced upon the half-time princi] between the ages of eight and thirteen, no certificate had b i quired, and in the case of many trades — such as print-work - !ul- dren were permitted to keep their half-time attendances when and how they pleased — an option which frequently resulted in school being systematically shirked. The Factory and Workshops Act of 1878, while it repealed or consolidated upwards of a hundred pieces of different le on, brought all kinds of factories, iron and hardware as well as textile, within the province of the Act, but did not extend to them the ten- hours limit, the reason being that the proportion of women and chil- dren employed in these industries is much smaller than in the Ci of textile mills. Legislation, however, seems scarcely wanted to en- force the ten-hours rule. Practically, custom has already fixed that as the period beyond which neither men, women, nor child' should work. "When on sudden emergencies — such as the necessity for executing an order before a given time, or of anticipating a fall in the market — empkryers arrange with their hands to prolos usual spell, they find that the rate of extra production is not such as to repay the expenditure of the extra wage. Ti over- whelming testimony on all hands to show that the men have quired the habit of putting forth all their energy within the limits of the ten hours. It is the same with the women, children, an ! young persons engaged in bookbinding and other trades to which special immunities are granted. The labor may be continued, but the spirit and care with which it is performed are relaxed. Ex- hausted nature refuses to respond to the undue demand.* * It may perhaps be as well succinctly to summarize, for the convenience of the reader, the chief heads of the factory legislation now in force. A factory i i defined to mean any premises in which mechanical power is used in a manufac- turing process, or in which certain trades such as lucifer match making, percus- sion caps and cartridge making, bookbinding, letterpress printing, tobacco and cigar manufacturing, are carried on. It follows from the above definition thai r H corn-mills and nearly all breweries and distilleries have now become factor] The number of protected persons employed in such establishments as these —that is to say, of women, children, and young persons — is not large, and the cl ■;e of inspection as applied to them will consist in the additional protection ich will be thereby given to the people employed from dangerous mad inery or from preventible dust and effluvia arising either from the process of manu- facture itself, or from defective sanitary arrangements. "Fa "under the Act of 1878 are classified "textile" and "non-textile." There is male in the number of hours in which women, young persons, and childn n may be employed in either case. In textile factories it remains at fifty-six and a half hours a week, as fixed by the Factory Act of 1874, while in non-b stile factories 150 ENGLAND. For the full results of factory legislation we shall yet have tc wait some time. It is impossible to make the effect of a law coinci- dent with its passing. But the work already accomplished by the Factory Acts is immense. While they have certainly cured ah the evils existing in the first half of the century, they have, in addition, created a strong public feeling in favor of then- humanizing agency. They have been the foundation of the Factory Acts of ah other countries, and if it is wanted to know what are the evils which the existence of such measures prevent, an idea may be derived from the condition of the factories of Belgium and India. In each of these countries many of the revelations contained in the Report of the Children's Employments Commission (1862), long since hap- pily obsolete in England, are matters of daily experience. La the pottery districts of the United Kingdom, less than fifteen years ago, 11,000 children and } T oung persons were employed under conditions fatal alike to mental and bodily health. They commenced work in childhood — some between six and seven, and others between seven and eight, eight and nine, and nine and ten. Their hours of labor were from five a. m. to six p. ml, but in numberless instances they were required to work on till eight, nine, or ten p. ml, and this in an atmos- phere varying from 100 to 120 degrees, and in a few instances as high as 148 degrees, in rooms, or rather " stoves,""about thirteen feet square, and from eight to twelve feet high. In the winter these children were sent abroad on errands, with the mercury twenty de- grees below freezing point, without stockings, shoes, or jackets, and with the perspiration streaming from then* foreheads. As might it will continue sixty hours a week as fixed by the Act of 1867. The provisions of the Act of 1874, which apply to the employment of children and young per- sons, are now extended to all non-textile factories and workshops. A child can- not legally be employed in future under any circumstances under ten years of age. At thirteen a child may be employed full time provided that it can pro- duce a certificate of having passed the fourth standard fixed by the Committee of the Council on Education. In the event of a child not being able to produce such a certificate it must continue at school half time till it reaches the age of fourteen. The choice is given under the Act of 1878 to all occupiers of factories, whether textile or non-textile, to work throughout the year either from six to six or from seven to seven, as they may select. The privilege of working from eight to eight is given to a limited number of trades and occupations, which do not appear to embrace all who enjoyed it under the old Act. The Secretary of State has power to give this permission to a trade when the necessity for it is proved, but a representation to him on the subject must be forwarded through the chief inspector. Various modifications relating to holidays and meal-times are granted to meet the special emergencies of particular trades. The occupier of a factory is bound to send notice to the inspector should he fail to be visited or to receive official notice. THE WORKING CLASSES. 151. have been expected, numbers of them died from consumption, asthma, and acute inrlainrnations. This condition of things is ab- solutely non-existent now. The children of tender age are to bo found employed at this labor no longer. The law has given work- ers in these places protection to life and health generally, unproved ventilation, and respite from toil at regular intervals, in, employ- ers have discovered that improved ventilation means economy production, and that unless provision is made for the es< moisture from the clay the articles are not properly dried. Def< ive ventilation«there of course still is, and for some time must, remain. Whether in the pottery districts or elsewhere, the old workshops were seldom constructed upon sound principles, and till these have been replaced by new workshops built upon an improved plan some abuses-must continue to exist. Meanwhile, a vital reform has been effected by the construction in every instance of the stove outside the workshop, and the factory inspectors bear witness to the laud- able readiness with which all the larger employers are adopting the newest and most effective improvements. In the same way the scandals which once disgraced the paper trade are no longer to be met with. We shall look in vain now for . parents who have to carry children of seven years old on then back through the show, to work sixteen hours a day, kneeling down to feed them at the machine. The business is at the present moment in the hands of large employers, who have executed the provisions of the law with equal fidelity and promptitude. The same process of improvement has been going on in the lucifer match trade. Fac- tory legislation has killed the small manufacturers, whose establish- ments were the hot-beds of systematic abuse. Thus one factory, employing six men and fifteen boys, consisted of two small sheds, the latter shed being about 20 by 11 feet, with no ventilation what- ever. This place served for both " dipping " and drying room, as well as for mixing and heating the sulphur and the phosphorus composition. The other shed, also without ventilation, was about 30 by 10 feet. Here all the remaining processes were carried on, the number of processes varying altogether from about ten to twenty. Hither children brought their meals, and here they ate them, suiting the time of eating to their work. While in London there were, ten years ago, between thirty or forty match manufactories of this kind, there are probably at the present moment not more than hall' a dozen on a small scale and even these are well conducted. The large manufacturers being able to produce the article more cheaply, the smaller employers have inevitably gone to the wall. 152 ENGLAND. In the brick-making trade there were, for some time after the above abuses had been remedied, from 20,000 to 30,000 children employed between the ages of three and four and sixteen and seven- teen. George Smith, of Coalville, has said of himseK that at the age of nine he was employed in continually carrying about forty pounds of clay upon his head from the clay heap to the table on which the bricks were made. This work had to be performed, almost without a break, for thirteen hours daily. One night, after his customary day's work, he was compelled to carry 1,200 nine-inch bricks from the maker to the floors on which they harden. The 'distance thus walked by the child was quite fourteen miles, seven of which were travelled with eleven pounds' weight of clay in his arms, and for this labor he received sixpence. It is only quite recently that brickyards have been brought within the operation of the Factory Acts. Until that was done the factory inspectors had no power of enforcing the "Workshops Act, and many brickyard proprietors purposely subjected themselves to the operation of the latter measure, by keeping the number of hands employed under fifty. At the present day the em- ployment of girls under sixteen is absolutely forbidden in brickyards: in point of fact, very few girls are employed in these places at all; and pending the settlement of the question, whether the employ- ment should not be forbidden, to all women also, the number of women thus occupied is decreasing daily. There is one gross blot upon the social condition of industrial England which has yet to be entirely removed. It has been esti- mated that there are about 22,000 men, 22,000 women, and 72,000 children floating up and down the country on its rivers and canals. It also appears that some 26,000 of the 11,000 men and women are living in an unmarried state, and that about 10,000 of the 72,000 children are illegitimate.* Although these barges, for sanitary pur- poses, are by the Public Health Act considered houses, it is quite impracticable to exercise due supervision over such a floating and fleeting population, and thus when disease is on board, which is frequently the case, barges act as centers whence infectious mala- dies are propagated throughout the country. In the condition of workers in shops there is still room for con- siderable improvement. Here the factory inspectors have great obstacles to encounter, and are called upon to exercise much judg- ment. It is exceedingly hard to prove, without a degree of inquisi- torial interference which would enlist public sympathy on behalf of * Factory Keports for the half-year ending October 31, 1875, page 128. THE WORKING CLASSES. I.-', the breakers of the law, that the law has been infringed. Magis- trates have a strong objection to interfering with people who un- engaged in the making of a livelihood. The signal success of the Factory Acts is in a great degree due to the discretion with which they have been administered. It is because the inspectors he been uniformly willing to hear both sides, to act as arbitrators be- tAveen employers and employed, before proceeding summarily I > arraign the former, that they have produced amongst the class of employers generally a disposition to execute and assist the A. The Saturday half-holiday, prescribed by the law, lias in some in- stances given rise to considerable practical difficulty. The empli tyer, when it has been pointed out to him that the law requires him to give all the young women in his establishment the benefit of the Saturday half-holiday, has replied that this would inevitably compel him to reduce the number of his hands. In these cases the inspec- tors have sometimes been able to recommend a compromise. The Saturday half-holiday has been taken alternately by the different employes, with entire satisfaction to all concerned. The consideration of the working of the Education Acts of 1870 and 1876 must not be separated from the working of the Factory Acts. Both have been indispensable agencies in the great task of reforming the condition of the manufacturing districts; arid while the number of instances in which they are systematically infringed is shown by the report of the inspectors to be annually diminisbi the feeling against those guilty of such infractions is more pro- nounced. The law as it now stands prohibits and penalizes the employment of all children under ten years of age, and the employ- ment of children as half-timers of less than thirteen, and who have not passed in the fourth standard — who cannot, in other wordSj read and write, compose a simple essay or letter on a familial- subject, who have not mastered the chief rudimentary facts of the history of their country, and the geography of the world, as will as the art of keeping plain accounts. How satisfactorily this system works may be judged from the reports of the school inspectors. " The Factory Act of 1874," writes one of the inspectors in his report to the Education Office of 1876, "contains a clause which is directly educational, and is likely to work important results. Hitherto every child might, at the age of thirteen, cease attending school, and com- mence working full time at the mill, without any question b( i asked about the state of his education, and, accordingly, thousands of children have passed through their half-time career without higher than Standard I. or II., or even without passing any atari lard." 154 ENGLAND. It is further the opinion of many -who are entitled in such a matter to be considered experts, that the wits of children working half-time are sharpened, and that they can compete not unsuccessfully with the whole-timers. The reason probably is that the half-timer is compelled to be regular in attendance, and it thus often happens that a child who spends not less than thirteen or fourteen hours a week aU the year round at school, derives greater benefit than the child who is at school twenty-five hours a week with indifferent reg- ularity. Add to this that the influence of the school teaching con- tinues when the teaching itself is not actually in progress, and that the half-timer is unceasingly exercising his receptive powers when he is at work in the factory. Although the Factory Acts have froin the first contained edu- cational clauses, they have never primarily had an educational pur- pose. It was their object to prevent the child working before a certain age, and as the best of all proofs that he was not at work was the fact that he was at school, school attendances were required by the law. Thus, from one point of view, the provisions of the Edu- cation Acts of 1870 and of 1876 may be regarded as supplementing the educational clauses of the Factory Acts. The School Boards can do any thing which is not contrary to the Factory Acts; they may exceed the letter of those laws, but they cannot violate their spirit; they may go beyond them, but they must not fall short of them. Where the Factory Act prescribes a certain standard, the School Board may raise that standard, but cannot reduce it. Thus, the School Boards can override the labor laws, but only on con- dition that their edicts go farther in the direction which the labor laws contemplate. Considerable discretion in industrial matters is thus reposed in the School Boards; they frequently refuse to grant certificates to half-timers, unless they are satisfied that the parents are in a condition to render the child's labor necessary. It is clear, however, that on the educational side of the Fac- tory Acts certain reforms are still wanted. In the first place, it is desirable that permission to begin to work at the age of ten should be conditional on a certain educational standard having been reached. This condition is imposed by some School Board authorities, but it is very far from being universal. Secondly, ex- cept in cases in which factories and schools are far apart, only one form of half-time attendance should be allowed to count, namely, attendance on the morning or afternoon of every day. The obvious disadvantage of the alternate, or whole-day system, is that when they are not at school children are employed for a length of time entirely THE WORKING CLASSES. If,.-, unsuited to their strength and for which no c> ition is forth- coming in the comparative physical vest of an entire day's schooling. There is a third and more serious abuse ^i which the possibility will always remain until some considerable alteration has been ma in the existing law. There are many parts of England, e pecially the midland counties, in which agricultural and manufacturing districts mutually overlap. Parents living in such neighborhoods as these are not slow to take advantage of the difference between the educational legislation of manufacturing and of agricultu England. So long as this difference is not removed there will be a natural temptation to parents to send children at the age of ten yeax*s to work on farms and in the fields, having, of course, satisfied the modest requirements of the educational standard fixed in the case of rural labor. At the end of three or four years the child will be of an age which qualifies him to obtain the higher wages paid in manufacturing labor, but as his school days have come pre- maturely to an end he will not have reached the educational stand- ard prescribed by the Factory Acts. By bringing a child under the jurisdiction of the Agricultural Children's Act in the first in- stance, and of the Factory Act in the second, the parents have satisfied the letter of both laws, while violating the general purpose of each. It is difficult to see how this is to be obviated, unless complete uniformity between our educational statutes in town and country is established. The truck system is another of the abuses which legislation has aimed at removing, for whose removal the legislative machinery exists, but which, in consequence of the difficulty of putting that machinery into force, lingers on in some few districts. It may 1 m • justly urged that the expense of prosecution under the Truck Act should not be borne by the workman, who would be sure to lose his employment, while the penalties for breaches of the Truck Act by the masters are too small to counterbalance the influence of consid- erable profits. Truck is a mischief of long standing, and is in its origin contemporary with the growth of the staple manufactures of the country. Some idea may be formed of the lucrativeness of the system to those who are, or were, its promoters from the fact that at the branch establishment of a certain company in "Wales the entire wages earned amounted to about £200,000; that of this £130,000 in round numbers was paid before pay-day in advance, of which £62,000 was taken to the shops, that the total purchases of the shops was £70,000 for the year, and the sales realized £84,000, thus leaving a gross balance of £14,000. 156 ENGLAND. It would be, perhaps, safer to say that truck is steadily dying, than that it is actually dead. There are collieries of the midland districts in which what is practically truck, though the name is not used, is far from unknown. When stoppages of wages are made for com- pulsory club and school payments, which are in the hands of the proprietors, and out of which the proprietors sometimes make a profit; when deductions are made from wages if children fail to at- tend church or chapel schools on Sunday, it is impossible to speak of truck as entirely non-existent. On the other hand, it is probable that flagrant violations of the Truck Act are chiefly confined to the | nail trade. The petty nail masters, in many instances, keep provi- sion and other shops, at which then- hands are expected to trade; the wives get into debt at these establishments, and the debt is Hquidated by the stoppage of a certain portion of the weekly wage. Instances, moreover, could be mentioned in which employers still . give orders on these shops in lieu of wages. In an area of some fifteen or twenty miles round Dudley in Staffordshire about 25,000 hands are employed, and, speaking roughly, about 14,000 are trucked. The average wages for a nailer making common nails, working fourteen hours a day, would be 9s. to 10s. a week, and where there is a wife and children to help him 12s. a week may be earned. These people live in hovels, and are perpetually in dis- tress. They complain to this day that they have to pay 5d. for soap which could be got elsewhere for 3d., and lOd. for bacon which, of better quality, elsewhere costs 7d. Unable to get cash, these men resell at a loss articles purchased at the "fogger's" shop. They have been known to pay rent by reselling flour to their landlord. The state of things disclosed by truck in the watch-making trade is not less painful. One of those employed in this industry remarks, " If men did not take watches from their employer they would get no work. He himself had been in the habit of taking £5 watches and getting £2 10s. for them." Another workman says, "I have had three watches from . He charged me £6 10s. for the first — a gold Geneva watch. I kept it for some time, and then I pledged it for £1 10s., and I sold the pawn-ticket for 10s." There are other specific abuses which, the beneficent operation of Factory Acts and the vigilant system of factory inspection not- withstanding, have yet to be rooted out. In the case of white-lead manufacture, many improvements have recently been adopted by which the illness and disease of those engaged in it have been im- mensely reduced. Such a reform is the casting the lead into frames, to facilitate carbonization by machinery instead of by hand, and the / THE WORKING CL washing and brushing of the pots in winch Ihe load is formed l>v m a chi n ery. The means have yet to be devised to prevent the in- halation of the white-lead d\ist by the workers. Her.', as elsewhere, incalculable mischief is done by the absence of anj definite and uni- versally enforced rules. It is practically too often left to the discre- tion of the manufacturer whether the sanitary condition of factories is good or bad. In some establishments gloves and respirators, caps and dresses for women, canvas browsers and boots for the men are provided — in others there is nothing of the sort. In a report dated October, 1ST"), Mr. Redgrave makes it dear that there are other industries almost as dangerous in their condi- tions, and disastrous in their results, as white-lead works, e ipecially the silvering of looking-glasses, and the cutting and pn paring of mill-stones. He writes: "In a shop where mill-stones are prepared are to be seen men in every stage of siiffering. The robust young countryman, attracted by good wages, thinking probably that he may be able to weather the storm; then he who was robusi hut is now pale, and harassed by cough; then through the various phaa up to the shrunken hectic invalid, whose frail body is actually wrenched by that cruel cough, and as to whom we are told, 'Oh, he won't last above two months.'" Mr. Redgrave's practical con- clusion is that Parliament will not have discharged its full dul v until it has insisted upon the universal use in these establishments of gloves, resrrirators, clothes, caps, and boots. Factory legislation, as we have already seen in the case of shops, if it is to be either just or effective in its working, must be conducted upon elastic principles. It is impossible to apply the same restric- tions to all kinds of industries, and it is therefore necessary to g the inspectors a considerable amount of discretion in the making of recommendations which are to carry with them the force of law. Thus, one of the inspectors, Mr. Baker, says that in the ease of woolen mills where cloth is manufaetured or finished, several of : processes can only be earned on in daylight, and therefore, in the winter months, when the days are very short, and all such work is done by piece, he has given permission that the meal-hours of such workers shall not be limited to the general meal-honrs of the rest of the workers. He has further permitted the same alteration in a few other works, with satisfaction to both masters and workers. Again, at a meeting of the sub-inspectors of Birmingham and the surrounding country, it was decided (1870) by a majority of six to one, that there were no industries to which the clause of the Fac- tory Extension Act of 1867, making from six to six the compu 158 ENGLAND. working hours during the summer, and from seven to seven the optional working hours during the whiter, should he applied; hut that whether from six to six or seven to seven should be left to the choice of the workers all the year through. The Manchester sub- inspectors were also of opinion that in the case of the various de- partments of the clothes manufactories the option should be given of working from eight to eight. These recommendations of the officers of the law have since become part of the law itself. Speaking generally of the practical results, and the actual work- ing of the Factory Laws at the present moment, it may be said that the latest reports of the inspectors point conclusively to two things: first, it is plain that the portion of the law which provides for the fencing of machinery, as a protection to the workers, requires to be more precisely worded and more stringently and uniformly enforced. Secondly, the reports of the inspectors of factories dated October, 1877, prove that the law restricting the hours of employment of women in factories works well, that it has recommended itself both to employers and employed, and that none of the evils or inconven- iences or injustices which were anticipated as its possible results by Mr. Fawcett, and other competent critics, have actually arisen. " I have found," writes Mr. Redgrave, " the limitations imposed upon the hours of work by women most cordially approved, and the greatest anxiety, and positive alarm, entertained at the prospect of any relaxation which would expose them to the irregular and uncertain hours of work that prevailed prior to the passing of the Factory Act of 1867." Mr. Redgrave quotes many testimonies of working women in support and illustration of this view. "I de- cidedly prefer," says one, " to work the hours fixed by the Factory Acts. I never had any illness since the Factory Act came into operation." "I certainly do not wish," says another, "to see the Factory Act repealed, and permission given to women to work later." " The Factory Act," says a third., " is regarded as a great boon by all the women that I know in the trade. I find I can earn more money under the Factory Act than when we had no regula- tions." It is thus that Mr. Redgrave sums up the general moral results of this legislation : — " That the Factory Acts have a direct tendency to encourage morality and steady behavior I can establish very clearly. More than once letters have reached me from parents of young girls em- ployed in factories, complaining that they did not reach home till long after the legal time for closing. On tracing these complaints to their foundation the fault was found to rest with the girls, and THE WORKING CLASSES. l.V.) not with the employers. To parents who exercise a watchful care over their children the factory regulations, it is obvious, must be of great value, as they cannot be deceived by the excuse that such chil- dren have been kept late at work. " The argument that the tendency of the Factory Acts is to pi an artificial restriction on the employment of women, and thus to depreciate the market value of their labor, is refuted on every hand by practical experience in the textde manufactories. Here the re- strictions upon women's work are the most stringent; and vet the tendency for a long series of years has been the opposite, the propor- tion of women employed has steadily increased. The same observa- tion applies to many of the trades and occupations carried on in London. As for the rate of wages paid, there is not an employer in the metropolis who will hesitate to acknowledge that there has been during the last ten or fifteen years a very substantial and important advance in the remuneration given to women for their work." The social and moral condition of our manufacturing classes, and the physical deterioration of factory workers, are facts as lam- entable as they are indisputable. Physical deterioration must be attributed quite as much to the vicious habits of parents, to the intemperance which transmits enfeebled constitutions to the next generation, as to the actual employment in factories. Thus, while it is true that " the physical strength and appearance suffer much in factories from confined, heated atmospheres, loaded with fine cotton fibers, fine flinty sand, and cutaneous exhalations; the number of gaslights, each light destroying oxygen equal to one man; and tran- sitions from the mills and their temperatures to their dwellings," there is no doubt that as serious injury is done by the injudicious dieting of infants, who instead of being fed from the breast of their mothers are nurtured on pap, made of bread and water, and a little later on coffee and tea. It is bad enough that, as competent medical authorities tell us, the skin should secrete all the noxious qualities of an Indian climate, but it is even worse to hear "the off- spring are reared with the bottle, and drugged by the mother. N 1 1 doubt factory physique is not good, but it is made worse by factory associations of vice and iniquity." The culminating point of social scandal is probably reached in the Black Country. As a consequence of a state of things under which we read of publicans sallying forth from the Black Country to a township not far distant " to court and corrupt the girls of I place," it is not surprising to hear that bastardy is enormously prev- 1G0 ENGLAND. aleiit. The following are a few illustrations of tlie current abomi- nations of the neighborhood.. Nine paoplo of both sexes and of all ages have only two bedrooms. A man and his wife, with three lodgers — two msn and the other a woman within two months of her expected confinement — have two bedrooms. Working men on leaving the public-house have exchanged wives on the road home, ! the bargain has been adhered to, and the neighbors have not been shocked by the circumstance.* These are features in the contem- jiorary life of the Black Country which clearly indicate a state of things that calls for further legislative interference in such matters as women's and children's labor, overcrowding of houses, and the arrangements of houses. The State has already decided that «uch matters come within its due province, while they obviously belong to a category in which legislative machinery has been found by ex- perience beneficent and effective. Every improvement in the Black Country during the last forty years, we are told by Mr. Baker, " has been either originated or at least fostered and helped forward by the law — e. g., the repeal of the old Poor Law, the suppression of bull-baiting, of women's work in coal-pits, the partial abolition of the truck system. If under a revised or new law a man finds he cannot screw as much out of his wife's and children's work, he will be compelled to work on Monday and Tuesday instead of going out to amuse himself. Doubtless the wives and mothers among nailers will recover strength from having their hours of labor curtailed, and be able to keep house and nourish their babies. In short, English homes and English families might again become the rule instead, of the exception." Analogous improvements to those accomplished in manufactur- ing England have also been effected by legislation in mining En- gland. By successive measures of reform which have become law since 1850, it has been provided that each colliery should have a certified manager, who, with the owner and agent, is responsible for the due observance at the pit of the regulations prescribed by law. Government inspectors have been empowered to visit the mines and report upon their condition; the working hours of boys, and of women and girls, have been restricted; the employment of the latter underground has been absolutely prohibited, and, with certain lim- ited exemptions, the double shaft made compulsory. The compul- sory appointment of a certificated master was a reform of much importance. That official now passes an examination, which, though * Factory Eeports for the half-year ending October 31, 1875, pages 120 et seq. THE WORKING CLASSES. 1C1 it varies materially in different districts, is always thoroughly effect- ive. Sometimes the examiners base their decisions on the candi- date's qualifications as a mining engineer; sometimes on his general intelligence and education; in other cases, on the aim mi it ol his experience in coal-mines. The system of inspection is an exceed- ingly important one, though it is not universally, and, indeed, very rarely, carried to the extreme point originally contemplated by the Act. Existing legislation, however, has about it an indefiniteness which it is most desirable should be remedied, and the fact that different ''readings" of the Act are in vogue in the same localities is a suggestive commentary on the need of revision. Once we have made our acquaintance with the mining popula- tion of England, w r e shall find ourselves in the midst of many con- trasts and startling varieties. The conditions under which the pit- men work are far from uniform, their scale of pay is diverse, their condition, tastes, and character vary as much as do the localities and the circumstances of their labor. The Welsh miner is unlike the Staffordshire pitman, while Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire each has its peculiar type of subterranean toiler — the Lancashire mi- ner being for the most part a keen politician, and the Yorkshire miner a keen sportsman. Going northwards, we shall encounti r tribes of men ecpially distinct in Northumberland and Durham, while, if we were to cross the border, and to make our way into Scotland, w T e should be in another world of fresh experiences. Gen- erally it may be said that the miners of Northumberland and Dur- ham are the best specimens of their class, the most intelligent, the most enlightened, humane, thrifty, and devout. In Northumberland there will be found a greater purity of stock, in Durham there is to be seen a larger admixture of foreign blood. The one county is aboriginal and exclusive; the other, though it adjoins it, is cosmo- politan and comprehensive. From the south, east, and west of England, from Scotland, and from Ireland, and even from the con- tinent of Europe, the great army of Durham miners is perpetually being reinforced. In Northumberland, on the other hand, there is to be seen no such continuous and voluminous stream of immi- grants. Yet, though these facts cannot fail to have made them- selves felt upon the ways of life and thoughts of the miners in the two counties, there are many resemblances to be observed between them. Both in Durham and Northumberland — as for the matter of that, in other counties where mining is carried on — the external appearance of the mining settlement does not greatly differ. Eea . as elsewhere, there is the same incrustation of coal-dust upon I 11 162 ENGLAND. stunted vegetation — sure sign of the contiguity of a battle-ground on which man is contending against nature ; the same long, straight, parallel rows of one-storied houses, the dwellings for the most part studiously neat within, and the gardens well and tastefully deco- rated without, for scrupulous tidiness seems a general characteristic of the miners of England. As a rule, too, the pitmen in all parts keep themselves distinct from the rest of the population, a fact which is partly to be attributed to the distance of many colliery colonies from towns. Even where they are in the immediate sub- urb of a considerable center of industry, the miners show little disposition to amalgamate with the rest of the population. It is a hard and perilous life, though science and humanity have done not a little to mitigate its lot. If the average acje of the miner is considerably less than that of the worker in textile factories, it is not so much because he is the peculiar victim of fatal diseases as \ because he is, in a special degree, exposed to calamitous accidents. On the contrary, although the average life of the miner, which may be generally computed at thirty years, is considerably shorter than that of the factory worker, which may perhaps be estimated at thirty- eight and forty, which, again, is ten years less than that of the pro- fessional man, he is a prey to comparatively few diseases. Nor do asthma, bronchitis, and other forms of zymotic malady prevail among his class to any thing like the same extent that they do among the factory workers. If the work itself is exhausting, it must be remembered that not only is it not continuous throughout the week, never engaging more than eleven days out of fourteen, frequently not more than eight, and in bad times not more than six, but that the domestic life is marked by much healthiness and com- fort. In the large collieries of Durham and Northumberland, the owners provide cottages for the men over and above their regular wages, to each of which a little garden is attached, wherein is a pig- sty. The pigs are the objects of friendly rivalry and competition amongst then proprietors, who sometimes parade them on holidays and in leisure hours down the streets of the little colony. Again, amongst the miners, it is- a point of honor as well as of duty for the wife — who very seldom, unless in the neighborhood of big towns, goes out to work — to look after the house and to keep it wholesome and comfortable. The colliery districts, too, are well supplied with medical men, while in many cases the infantile diseases, which were caused by want of milk, have been extirpated by the institution of dairies established by the men themselves, and in a few instances kept by the foreman or manager of the mine. THE WORKING CI ' It is also no small thing thai these strenuous w< ' ihould be as richly supplied as they are with the means of healthfully absorb- ing recreation and amusement. It is a mistake I i miner, the whole of whose affections are centered on bis I who feasts on champagne and spring chicken, while his wife and children starve, is a representative specimen of his order; a i a m ter of fact, the Durham and Northumberland pitman is frequi ml\ a teetotaler, and has no more favorite place of occupation for his leis- ure hours than the reading-room or the mechanics' institute, which is sure to exist in every mining district. The minim; youth are also given to athletic games, and are often good cricketers and quoit players. Nor do they organize brass bands unsuccessfully, and often exhibit very considerable taste and skill in music. The hu- manizing influences of religion, science and literature have been signally displayed amongst the mining population. It would be difficult to discover a more Grod-fearing race of men than the miners of the north, and bishops and clergy of the Establisl Church have borne striking testimony to the elevating and purify- ing effect of the religious tenets of that Primitive Methodism which is the spiritual faith of hundreds of "flic colliers of Northumberland and Durham. As for secular culture, they arc earn isi politicians, and keen newspaper readers. Here one of the advantages of union- ism may be seen. While part of the action of the unions has been shown in the power which they have given their members at tin of pressure, when work has been scarce, to migrate to neighbor- hoods where employment is more plentiful, so their influence 1 not been less signally or satisfactorily displayed in the indue ements which the organization has offered to its members to watch closi ly the events of the day, and to deduce from them sound political morals. All the applied sciences are much studied, geology espe- cially being a favorite. The working life of the miner may be said to begin at fcw< years of age. Before the Mines Regulation Act came into force -, ' age was often ten, and ten still is the number of hours a day whi -h he is on duty, beginning work usually at six a. m. and leavinj foiu- p. m. The phases of industry to which the miner's exist* ace is at successive stages devoted are pretty nearly as follows: —He serv< a his apprenticeship for the first three years, being charged dur this time with the duty of driving the horses thai draw away ' loads of coal from beneath the axes of the men < tach it in huge blocks. This style of toil is technically ' as thai of "putting." Really exhausting work is seldom begun till the physi- 1CI ENGLAND. cal system is fairly set, and at the age of eighteen or twenty the lad who has hitherto been fulfilling comparatively light duties as " put- ter " will be promoted to the more arduous calling of a " hewer." This pursuit is the normal business of the full-grown miner, and he continues at it in the ordinary course of things till he has arrived at or has exceeded the limit of middle age. Sometimes he continues a "hewer " till he is upwards of three-score years and ten, but it is exceedingly seldom that his system stands the prolongation of the strain beyond the age of fifty or sixty. Even when he is superannu- ated there is still work for him to do on the establishment of the mine; thus he may be employed as a shifter when he is too old to do active work as a hewer, and in this capacity he will have to clear the ground for the hewers after the regular day's toil is over. It is difficult to speak comprehensively as to the wages of the miner, which vary not only according to localities, but according to the condition of business, which is itself a very fluctuating quantity. The " putters," who are paid by the score, earn from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. a day; the "hewers," who are paid by the piece, may make as much as 5s. a day: the "shifters" are seldom remunerated at a higher rate than the "putters." It is to be noticed, however, that in those cases in which, as in Northumberland, the daily wage ia higher, it very often happens that the total annually made is lower, for the simple reason that the work is less continuous. Something has already been said of the general attitude of the English working man towards his employer. Though daily experi- ence testifies to a great and growing improvement in the relations between the representatives of capital and labor, we are still a long way from the ideal which the patient resignation of the operatives of Lancashire and the north, with admirable composure to the mel- ancholy results of the paralysis in the cotton trade consequent upon the American civil war, led some persons rather precipitately to ex- pect. The truth is, that the Lancashire working classes, during this great struggle, curbed their discontent, because their political in- structors told them to recognize the issue between two grand prin- ciples in the war — freedom and slavery. The want and distress, they were taught to believe, were the insej^arable accidents of a con- test which could only end in the triumphant assertion of the rights of human nature and the sanctity of human freedom. On the other hand, whenever the attitude of the working classes, under pressure of sore distress, has been less tranquil, it is illogical and unjust to recognize the motive or source of trouble in unionism, and to look back regretfully to the period when the laws prohibiting combina- THE WORKING CLASSES. lo- tion were in full force. Considerable restrictions were imposed upon industrial combination till within the last quarter of a oenttu but with results that can scarcely be considered advantageous t.> the relations of employer and employed. In 1811 the town, neighbor- hood, and county of Nottingham were terrorized by nanus «>!' oper- atives in the hosiery trade on strike, who went about destroying frames at the rate of two hundred a week. They made their attacks in parties of from six to fifty, armed with swords, pistols, sled hammers, and axes. On one occasion they held the town against the regular soldiers, who were called in to quell the disturbance, and peace was barely maintained by the concentration of a military force of about 800 horse and 1,000 foot around Nottingham. Still the destruction of frames increased. At the Nottingham March As- sizes, 1812, four frame-breakers were sentenced to fourteen, and three to seven years' transportation. In the same month an Act was passed punishing with death any person deliberately breaking a frame, a measure memorable, if on no other account, for the pro- test which it elicited from Lord Byron. "Whilst," he said, speak- ing in the House of Peers, "these outrages must be admit ted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress. The perse- verance of these miserable men in their proceedings tends to prove that nothing but absolute want cordd have driven a large and once honest and industrious body of the people into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the com- munity." Meanwhile the outrages continued. In October, 181 1, the house of a man who had caused the apprehension of a " Lud- dite " was attacked, and an encounter ensued, in which one of the assailants was shot. Altogether about 1,000 stocking frames and so lace machines were destroyed during this period of popular frenzy. Disturbances almost as serious were repeated more than twenty years later, with the additional accompaniment of incendiarism upon a formidable scale. There are many persons living who can well recollect the ominous spectacle, visible from Nottingham Castle, <>f nineteen ricks simultaneously in flames; and the great feature in all this is that it did not provoke any strong outburst of public indigna- tion, as trade outrages of all kinds have recently done. In the present day, if ten men are on strike in any manufactur- ing town in the United Kingdom, the circumstance is immediately reported, probably commented upon, in the daily newspapers, and gloomy prognostications are drawn of an impending war between capital and labor, and its possible results. It is not to be claimed 166 ENGLAND. on behalf of trade unions that they have wrung from the working classes a rigid determination to recognize in their demands and in their acts the undeviating operation of inexorable economic laws, or that they have exorcised completely the evil spirit of violence and outrage. But in the last decade there have only been two notable instances of unionist scandals — the first, that of the Broadhead riot at Sheffield in 1867; the second, that which culminated in the firing of Colonel Jackson's house in Lancashire eleven years later. In both it is no exaggeration to say that these crimes were bitterly regretted and unequivocably condemned by the majority of the class which had to bear the burden of their reproach. To what is it legitimate to attribute the undoubted improvement in feeling between employers and employed in England ? It may be inferred from the few but essentially typical data given above that whatever the charges of conspiracy and violence brought against unionists and unionism, they are entirely eclipsed by the outbreaks of popular frenzy in those days in which no such organizations as trade unions existed. The fact is, that though the trade union is comparatively an institution of modern growth, it is in eveiy way an improvement upon its predecessor, the secret society. Combination is an instinct which, as the law cannot eradicate it, it is sound policy on the part of the law to recognize. It exists in professions as well as trades and industries, in the learned professions as well as in the unlearned; in the medical, legal, and clerical professions, as well as in the commercial.. The trade union is, in fact, only an application of that principle of association which is part of human nature. This the Duke of Argyle has pointed out with considerable force in his chapter on association in the " Bcign of Law." Combination has its origin in the inborn impulse of self-defense. Take the case of Pres- ton, or Blackburn, or any other center of the cotton industry. All the enqiloyes are engaged in much the same kind of labor, fine spinning or coarse spinning, as the case may be — for it is a notable characteristic of the extent to which the principle of the division of labor has been carried that it not merely concentrates the same kind of labor in given localities, but the same qualities of work pro- duced. The hands in one mill are threatened with a reduction of wages at the hands of an employer, who thinks he sees the way clear to a substantial increase in his profits. Why, is the natural question, should they work for less than their neighbors ? When this state of feeling is once arrived at, and this question asked, you have potential trade unionism. One mill communicates with another, and the next thing is its actual existence. There is no re- THE WORKING CLASSES. 1(J7 sisting the contagious sense of united interest which is generated Employers may like it or dislike it. It is the inevitable response on the part of the laborer to a sentiment which is quite as natural and quite as sure in some way or other to assert itself on the part <>f the capitalist. Society being subdivided as it aovt is. unionism and the spirit of unionism are its certain and necessary outcome. How is this resultant force to be met ? How is the crash of the collision between the two antagonistic interests to be removed? Just as in human nature the instinct of sympathy is the comp< o ating principle to the instinct of selfishness, so in the system of trade and industry do arbitration and conciliation act as the counterpoisi ' unionism. In arbitration, as it is perpetually exercised in industrial England, there may be found a practical fulfillment of the "Conseil des Prud'hommes." Twenty years ago the idea was first suggested by Mr. A. J. Mundella, a little later was actively espoused by Mr. Rupert Kettle and Mr. David Dale, and after twenty years of trial it may be pronounced a fact. It was, indeed, at first equally opposed by masters and men. Mutual jealousies and embitterments threat- ened permanently to bar the way to any thing like friendly settle- ment and peaceful compromises, nor was it till after the report of the Trades Union Commission that the experiment made any very marked degree of progress. Since then the new idea that trade dis- putes can be settled without resort to the internecine war of strikes by mediation and argument has strongly possessed the working man of England, till now it may fairly be said that the strike, instead of being the first expedient to employ for obtaining industrial rights, is regarded as a last resort. It is to be remarked that it is of the essence of this scheme that conciliation and arbitration should go hand in hand, that the conference between the representatives of the two interests should not wait till the struggle has actually assert- ed itself, but that periodical meetings, whenever occasion may seem to render them desirable, should be held between associated work- men and associated employers. The most intelligent of the union- ists perceive that many of their laws have been thoroughly had, unjust, and therefore impolitic both in their results to labor and then- political bearing. The wisest of the unionist teachers, on the platform and in the press, do not fail boldly to point out where the defects of such laws are, and what must be their consequent a. Thus ttie regulations and conditions of unionism have been gradu- ally brought into something more like accord with economic laws, and the tendency has been established to regard the natural rela- tions between employed and employer, not as a state of supprt B» d 168 ENGLAND. war ultimately to be decided on the starving-out principle, in which full freedom to light to the bitter end was the privilege and the right of either combatant, but as a condition in which there is much real identity of interests, while apparent differences can be adjusted without any abrupt declaration of hostilities. The progressive development of this idea can be traced geograph- ically. It asserted itself successively at the three great centers of the iron trade; first, among the Cleveland, or the northern iron- workers; secondly, among the Staffordshire ironworkers; thirdly, among the ironworkers of South Yorkshire. In the case of the northern ironworks its results have been visible upon a very con- spicuous scale. Actively adopted by the exceedingly intelligent op- eratives in this district ten years ago, it has stood the test of the two extremes of uncommon commercial prosperity and depression. Since its adoption it is to be noticed that there has been no repeti- tion of the desolating strikes, such as in 18G5 created misery and havoc throughout the district for the space of eleven months. In every bad strike of recent years the men have either asked for arbitration, or a resolution in favor of arbitration has never been met by a counter-resolution. Thus in the South "Wales strike of 1873 the men implored arbitration, and the fact is the more signifi- cant seeing that it was the employers who ultimately lost the battle. Again, in the masons' strike of 1877 there was the same undoubted desire for arbitration; while it was believed by the best authorities that the Lancashire cotton strikes of 1878 could have been en- tirely prevented if the proper machinery for arbitration had existed, for if the machinery is to be effective in time of trial, it must be because it has been carefully prepared in time of peace. As regards the masons' strike of 1877 in London, one of its least agreeable features was the violence offered by the English work- men to those whom the masters had imported from the Continent. Hence the inference was drawn that the English workman was ani- mated by a fierce desire not to tolerate the presence of a foreign rival upon any consideration, and that the demand was for the pro- tection of native industry at any cost. Yet examples of British and foreign working men plying their tasks in perfect peace and harmony side by side are not rare, and it may be doubted whether the outrageous manner in which the London masons resented the pres- ence of the new-comers was inspired by any deeper feeling than irritation at the beginning of a new order, or genuinely British prejudice against the stranger and the alien. The cry of protection to native industry has been raised, but there is no prospect of its THE WORKING CLASSES. becoming- the watchword of a really groat organization. The En- glish working man is in these matters much as his social superior. He does not like foreigners in the mass, and he is particularly jealous of the introduction of any individual foreigner. But alter a time he accepts the inevitable. The multiplied opportunities of higher and technical education which he enjoys render him the more dispo i I to do this. The lectures on various subjects connected with art and industry given in our great towns — many of them local centers of university teaching — the various other agencies of secondary edu- cation, the study not only of books but of the contents of art mu- seums, have largely extended the industrial purview of the English working man, have been as the key which has unlocked to him a new- world, and are gradually impressing upon him the possibility and expediency of increasing the value of the labor of his hands by the application to it of the finish and graces of art, and of thus utilizing art as a new source of industrial wealth. Of the political questions which periodically agitate the working classes, there are three that may here be mentioned. The working man likes the idea of a big England rather than a small, for he E in it the assertion of the dignity and power of his country on a scale worthy of its historical antecedents, and he sees in it also a long vista of increased opportunities for his class. It is an idea which grati- fies his pride as a patriot, and commends itself to his interests as a laborer. But there is something that is of more immediate concern to him than a big England. Trade and labor — such is the burden of his complaint — are too generally ignored by the whole body of Parliament. Why does not, he sometimes asks, the Governmi it create a Minister of Commerce — a portfolio whose holder shall be specially charged with the transaction and the superintendence of whatever affects the well-being of trade, commerce, capital, and labor? Again, how long, he inquires, will labor continue to be handicapped by the unequal burdens which the repudiation of i trade by America, by the great nations of continental Europe, by the chief of our own colonies, imposes? If it is asked how far the working classes sincerely look to Parliament to remedy thi and other grievances, the answer is not quite easy to give. Tin re is undoubtedly a disposition on the pari of working m< n of many shades and varieties of political thought to promote the movement I for the direct representation of the interests of labor in the Bo of Commons. But it cannot be said that working men are funda- mentally agreed as to the probable efficacy of this scheme. < >n the contrary, working men do not as a rule seem to believe in working- 170 ENGLAND. men members of Parliament. They are also apt to be somewhat jealous of leaders who belong to their own number. If their man gets into Parliament they are troubled with a misgiving that he will in some undefined way or other be "got at"; that he will not be permitted to vote " straight " ; that social pressure will be brought to bear ivpon him; that he may prove a renegade to the good cause. Yet the dream still vaguely flits before the vision of our English workmen of sending to Parliament a number of representatives who shall form a labor party at Westminster, just as there is already a Home Ride party. When one comes to the personality of the English working man in towns, one is met not only by the fact which has been already noticed — the multitude of typical varieties — but by the noticeable difference between the working man as he exists in London and in the provinces. One great distinction is that, whereas in the major- ity of instances the provincial working man leader is more or less prominently identified with some form of religion, the leaders of the London working men are more often professed secularists. Tak- ing the industrial classes of England as a whole, there is no reason to think that the influence of religion is declining amongst them. Whatever may be their own professions, they have no idea of edu- cating their children in infidelity, and when mortal sickness comes, they will ask the ministration of some church or other for them- selves. Mr. Bradlaugh and other " free thought " lecturers fail to command in the provinces any thing like the audiences they secure in London. On the other hand, whereas a lecture on political econ- omy, or some other subject of commercial or industrial interest, would be listened to by two or three thousand eager hearers in Blackburn or Preston, Sheffield or Manchester, it would be ad- dressed to little better than an array of empty benches in the capi- tal of the empire. Generally it may be said that in the matter of religion, as in so many others, the working classes reflect the condi- tion of their superiors. If there is more active aggressive disbelief in England at the present time than formerly, there is also more active and genuine religion. It is the profession of disbelief which is quite as characteristic of this age as the spread of disbelief. Sides are actively taken where once the spirit of partisanship was domi- nant, and the battle of the creeds is fought where formerly the bel- ligerents were lulled in an indolent neutrality. The London working man possesses many of the best points of his order, while at the same time he has not a few of then- failings. He is proud of living in the metropolis of the kingdom. He is sen- THE WORKING CLASSES. 171 sible of a geographical superiority over his provincial brethren. Be is very often ludicrously self-conscious and grotesquely vain. He is, at the same time, exceedingly plausible, and not less shallow quick to perceive those features iu any subject of the day which are cal- culated to affect him most, anil in answering questions, skillful in making his replies subservient to the interest of his own case, and very careful to conceal all which he considers can in any way tell against that case. In matters relative to organization he is, as wo have already seen, at a great disadvantage as compared with bis provincial brother. The immense number of industries collected together in London, the corporate feeling of the men engaged in which is exceedingly strong, go far to neutralize each other. In addition to the diversity of employments a further force of segrega- tion is due to the distance at which those engaged in them live from the scene of then- labor, and above all to the competing attraction of the legion of popular amusements. Another cardinal distinction between the working man in Lon- don and the working man in the provinces is that in the former he is almost always a lodger, and in the latter, with very few excep- ' tions, a householder. At Sheffield, or Birmingham, or in any of the manufacturing towns or mining districts, .it would be considered scarcely creditable to the workman, unless he was a bachelor, if he did not inhabit a house of his own. Built of red brick or gray stone, these houses are for the most part kept astonishingly neat and clean, and it is seldom that evil odors assail one's nostrils, except when the dwelling is in the heart of one of those rookeries which are now gradually disappearing. Frequently, too, the lodging of the Lon- don workman is as well ordered as the home of his provincial broth- er. " In some of the London suburbs — such as Chelsea, or Kensing- ton — it is no uncommon thing to call upon the mason or joiner who is making thirty shillings a week, and to find him settled in the base- ment of a roomy house, let out into lodgings, the window of his sitting-room commanding a view of a fernery improvised in the area, which is made picturesque with flowers and evergreens. But even thus the domestic sentiment has but slight force amongst the work- ing classes of London, in comparison with that which it exercises in the country. Music-halls and other entertainments are as popular amongst the working men of London as they are the reverse with the better stamp of working men out of it, and these distractions render the concentration of the working classes in London, up >n any given occasion and for any given purpose, exceedingly difficult To post on the hoardings of London enough bills to reach the bulk 172 ENGLAND. of the working population would cost over £100, and the conse- quence is that the attempt is very seldom made. Hence one of the reasons why co-operation, which has succeeded so well in the great towns of the north, has never proved successful amongst the work- ing classes of London. Frequent periodical meetings, during its earlier days, and continued concentration of interest afterwards, are necessary for the success of such an enterprise. These are just what cannot be had in London, where the complaint is that the working classes cannot be got to act together and keep together. On the other hand, there is perhaps more sociality and good fellow- ship amongst the working classes in London than in the country, though the institutions of the Sunday dinner and Sunday tea, both of them eminently characteristic of the English working classes, are common both to London and the provinces. The former of these is a function of some importance. It is the culinary event of the week. There are better dishes, and some variety of them ; the fur- niture of the table and the manners of the company — for two or three friends are invariably invited — are of a corresponding order of superiority. Tea is a meal less ceremonious, but equally impor- tant in its way, since it is found by experience to furnish the chosen opportunity of the matrimonial diplomatist. 1 CHAPTER XI. THE WORKING CLASSES (continued). General View of Changes and Improvements in the Condition of the Agri- cultural Laborer — Type of the English Peasant — His Career traced from Cradle to Grave — His Daily Life — Different Kinds of Farm Laborers — Meals and Food of the Class — Various Specimens of Peasant Population in English Villages — Changes which have come over Village Life — The Co-operative Store — The Dawn of Knowledge — How the English Peasant- ry are Domiciled — Scandals removed and Evils remaining- Allotments: their Uses and Danger — Different Modes of Hire and Manners of Payment of Rural Population — Hiring of Families — Labor of Women— General Sys- tem and Progress of Agriculture in England — Mutual Relation of Tenant Farmers and Landlords — Property of Tenant Farmers — Wages of Agricul- tural Class — Improvement and Fluctuations — General Position and Pros- perity of the Rural Working Population. THE combined influences of science and commerce have scarcely more transformed the surface of the earth than modern rural improvements, whether they have had their origin in legislative sanc- tion or in a growing sense of the responsibilities of ownership, have changed the moral and physical aspects of the country villages of England. That neat new building, with the courtyard round it, and a compact as well as picturesque dwelling-house in a carefully cultivated garden hard by, is the new village school. Many thou- sands of these structures dot the length and breadth of rural England. "Well ventilated and well equipped with school furniture, maps, and I educational apparatus generally, they answer other purposes than that of being places for the instruction of boys and girls during the day. It is as likely as not that night classes are held in tl I throughout the winter months for the benefit of the unlettered adults. The secular village school on week-days is probably the religious school on Sundays. Lectures, penny readings, and con- certs will also be held within the same precincts. The sch< »ol is often the assembly-room of the district, as well as the symbol and the center of its intellectual enlightenment. Nor is the improving hand of time seen less plainly upon the cottages round about. The p< ant's home is gradually ceasing to be the human sty in which for 174 ENGLAND. generations he dwelt. The squalid cottages, constructed and in- habited in defiance of every known sanitary principle, are disap» pearing, and their places are being taken by neat rows of brick houses, mostly built in sets of two, each being nearly the exact counterpart of the other, with kitchen, pantry, and sitting-room on the ground floor, and above three well- ventilated bedrooms; a yard behind, and in it a small outhouse for the stowage of fuel. In no part of England does the rent of these cottages probably exceed os. a week. In the rural districts of East Anglia it is rarely on large estates more than Is. 6d. a week, and never more than 2s. In addi- tion to his house and garden — the latter yielding enough vegetable produce for the family — our laborer may perhaps have within an easy distance of his dwelling an allotment of a quarter of an acre, held on a rental, it may be, of 10s. a year. Here he grows more vegetables, or maintains a cow or a donkey upon the pasturage of the soil. Such allotments frequently adjoin each other, and it is a sight not unknown in some more favored districts to watch, on Sunday evening, the tenants of these slips of ground walking round their property and inspecting its condition with evident satisfaction and pride. The regular hours of day labor are ten, and as half an hour is deducted for breakfast, a working day consists of 9^ hours. In the haymaking season and harvest-time, when extra pay is given, or the work is put out by the piece, the hours are longer. In winter eight hours, and in some cases only seven, represent the daily aver- age of toil. The diet of the cottager and his family consists chiefly of bread, potatoes, bacon, and cheese. He has usually had a cup of tea and a piece of bread, with bacon as a relish, before he leaves home in the morning. At his early dinner he has vegetables and pickled meat, and if you enter his cottage about the hour of supyper, your nostrils will detect a savory appetizing smell, and your ears will catch the suggestive sound of frying. . In many parts of En- gland, notably in the north and in the midlands, there has been a sensible improvement in the last few years in the art of rustic cook- ery. The wives and daughters of the clergy and resident gentry have done much towards carrying the principles of scientific cookery into the homes of the poor, by giving friendly lessons and hints, by writing out receipts for them, and practically illustrating their exe- cution on the joccasion of their periodical visits. Nor must the bene- ficent influences of the spread of cheap and instructive publications be forgotten. "Hints on Cookery"' are a regular feature in the journals which make their way into the dwellings of the rural poor. THE WORKING CLASSES. 17.", That the reader may easily learn who and -wind manner of man the English country working man is, it may be well personally to introduce him without further delay upon the stage, to accompany him not merely through his ordinary round of daily toil, but also through the successive vicissitudes of his career from infancy till old age. Here then, let it be supposed, he stands before us, long ere he has arrived at the threshold of his actively working existence — a sturdy little urchin, with face reddened and browned !>;,• the com- bined influences of wind and sun. The distinctively rural dress which children in agricultural districts once used to wear is seldom seen now. The small boy we are looking on is not clad in the rough smock with which we were formerly familiar, but in a suit consist- ing of a little round jacket and knickerbockers, bought at the mar- ket town. His sister, who is at his side, wears a costume which has equally little that is specially Arcadian about it, and which is com- posed of a cheap material made up after the London fashion The great ambition of this small girl will be, before her schooling days are over, to go into domestic service, and then to find a husband in some gentleman's footman, or butler, attaining finally to the dignity of landlady of some country-town inn, or thriving public-lions.-. For the boy a different future is reserved. At the jxresent moment he is, let us say, eight or nine years of age, and in the old da; , before Education Acts were heard of, he would have been already at work as a bird-tender, or scarer in the fields. He would have grown up utterly unlearned and illiterate, but before he was twelve he would have mastered many a valuable lesson from the book of nature; would have the names of all the horses employed on the farm, and the peculiarities and strength of each, by heart; would have become an authority on the homes and habits of the birds of the ah' and the beasts of the field; would have been able to tell at a distance that defied the penetrative power of ordinary ej-es, the spot on which the hare was crouching, or the bird had settled. Night schools and Sunday schools might have taught him somet : but if he grew up to manhood tinctured with the simplest rudiments of reading and writing he was esteemed a paragon, and spoken of as a "rare fine scholard." All this is changed now. Our future agricultural laborer is pre- vented by law from being sent to work at all before he is ten ; of age, and the tendency of School Boards and Boards of Guardians, who in some rural districts have practically the powers of School Boards, is to impose as a qualifying condition of work a standard not only of age, but of attainments. On every day of the week, 176 ENGLAND. except Saturday and Sunday, lie is, or ought to be, at school from 9 a. m. to 12 noon, and from 2 to 4.30 p. m. At Christmas there are two weeks of holidays, and during harvest-time a month or more, in order that the children may assist in the ingathering of the grain. "When he commences life as an agricultural laborer, it will probably be not in the capacity of scarer — bird-scaring is now generally done by inanimate scarecrows — but of driver of horses, or plow-boy. In some parts of England he will during the stage of his appren- ticeship lodge upon the farm where he is employed, receiving per- haps £13 a year in addition to board and living. For the most part he will not be resident under the actual roof of his employer, but will be placed in the cottage of the hind, who receives 8s. 6d. a week from his employer. In the performance of these duties he will continue for some years — not the less fortunate if he does not happen to be promoted out of the ordinary routine of a farm ser- vant's duties. Indeed, the ordinary dav-laborer on an English farm, who is expected to put his hand to any work which may present itself, is, by comparison, the best paid, as he is also the most in- dependent, of all agricultural workmen. The shepherd is really never off duty at all. He is liable to be summoned from his sleep at any hour of the night, and when he is once out he knows not when he may expect to return. The carter, too, is up and about betimes with the first gray of the summer dawn, and long before the stars have disappeared from the heavens on the winter morn- ings. Again, the milkman has to be at his post with undeviating regularity when the day is in its infancy throughout the year. Each of these laborers has probably left home breakfastless, and has been busy for two or three hours before the rank and file of the farmer's staff are astir; if they have broken their fast it has merely been with a piece of bread, and perhaps a drink of cold tea or of milk and water, but the general hands are not necessarily bound to these hardships. There is nothing in the hoiu* at which their duties begin to prevent them having had a satisfying meal before they have left home. But we are anticipating the development of our typical laborer. He has now reached the age of two or three and twenty. He stands five feet eight inches in his shoes; he is spare but well knit of figure, healthv in look, and sinerularly deliberate in manner and mien. The English agricultural laborer, indeed, is never known to be in a hurry. His costume is corduroy or fustian; probably he wears knee-gaiters; a cotton handkerchief is tied round his neck; his head is surmounted by a slouch hat; and his boots are of ini- THE WORKING CLASSES. 177 mense thickness, studded with heavy nails. Such is his external person, which has sufficiently commended itself to some villa maiden to secure for him a wife. Even if ho be a little youn than two or three and twenty, the chances are that he is married, and has a home of his own. Nor does his home see much more of him than those of many professional gentlemen. At six he is up, and busied with preparing for himself such breakfast as he can snatch. At half-past six he is off, carrying, perhaps, in a basket or handkerchief his provisions for the day — a loaf of white bread (the quality of the loaf of the agricultural laborer is remarkably good, and it is a maxim with his wife that " the better it is the farther it goes "), a piece of bacon or beef, a little cheese or butter, and a bottle of cold tea. He will either proceed to his work direct — to the stables, or to the business of hedging and ditching, as the case may be — or will have an interview with the farmer, or the farm bailiff, whose business it is to allot the day's labor to the different members of the staff, and will work on till 9 a. m. Then comes the first break, and a second breakfast from the treasures of his basket. At noon he will devote another spell of rest to the consumption of dinner, the materials of which he either finds in the basket already ) mentioned or receives from home, sent by the hands of his children — one of the urchins already mentioned — for it is seldom that he goes home till work is done. The meal over, comes a pipe or a nap, j or possibly both, and at 1.30 r. m. he is busy again. Four hours pass, the business of the day is over, and the agricultural laborer turns homewards, bent on supper, which is "the one real family meal of the day."* First, however, he will, we may expect, look round his garden, and perhaps do a little piece of work, or examine the fattening prog- ress of his pig. Thus engaged, he receives the summons to the sup- per-table. The children have already taken their places. Possibly he has a daughter home from service as a guest, who will contribute out of her wages to the domestic treasury. Under any circum- stances, if times are fairly prosperous and the household is toleral »ly well managed, the meal will be substantial. There will be mutton and vegetables, or beef — not a prime cut, but, still, eatable and noui-ishing — for the master of the household and the elders, or a mess of bacon and potatoes, or a savory mixture of chopped meat, sage, and onions, and whatever other vegetables the garden pro- * So called by Mr. H. J. Little, of Colclhouse Hall, "Wisbeach, to whom I am indebted for many facts in the account here given of the agricultural laborer. See "Journal of the Eoyal Agricultural Society," vol. xiv., 1878. 12 178 ENGLAND. duces. As for the children, they will have pudding, and "bread and treacle, or bread and dripping. "When this, which is really the late dinner, is disposed of, our agricultural laborer may, if it be summer, and he is not completely fagged out, do a stroke of work more in his garden; or if he take an interest in the news of the day, or rather of several days ago, dip into the local journal, or else have the print read aloud to him. If he is less domesticated there is the public-house, a fascinating attraction which hard-toiling humanity cannot always resist. But there is less intoxication and disorderly conduct than formerly, and there is also the frequently successful competition of the village club. The hay and wheat harvest are the great events of the year, and the most profitable seasons of his in- dustry. Then he is up early and out in the fields till late. His children are near him at work too. Money passes into the domestic exchequer, and his financial year comes to an end when the last wagon-load of wheat is conveyed to the threshing-floor. The bills which his social betters liquidate at Christmas he defrays at harvest- tide, if he has received credit from any local tradesmen. Thus the year runs its course, and as it is with one year so is it with its suc- cessor. His children grow up, are put to school, go out to work if they are boys, marry in their turn, and set up for themselves; go into service if they are girls, or take employment in the native in- dustries of the town hard by, or with the sewing machine. To bring up his family weU is the greatest merit which the English agricul- tural laborer can claim. Even when this has been done years of work may yet be before him. Nor, as old age grows upon him, will he be helpless. He can still do odd jobs. He is in receipt of an annuity from the benefit society. He is not likely to be neglected "by the squire or the parson. "If he can possibly manage it," says Mr. Little, " he now contrives to put a trifle by for the decent per- formance of the last offices connected with his earthly career; but if this be impracticable, it does not give him much concern that the paiish will be called upon to pay a portion of these expenses. His wages have not been excessive, and if his old employers have once more to put their hands in their pockets on his account, it is only a just fulfillment of his final dues. So, not without a touch of sardonic philosophy, he passes away." Independently of his comparative indifference to much that is to the town artisan invested with paramount interest, there are sev- eral respects in which the country working man differs from his urban brother. As regards house-room and lodging, he enjoys the advantage conferred by the quit-rent system of staying on in his THE / NG CLASSES. H'.t cottage while lie is out of work, and of thus ga an interval for looking about him. The village fair, or harvest-home festival, or benefit feast, are the chief breaks in the continual routine of \. Cricket clubs and football clubs are, indeed, increasing in mn and popularity, but these are pastimes which are qoI carried on much after early manhood. He differs, also, from the town work- man in knowing less of the pleasures of the regular holidays. Of the Saturday half-holiday of town workers he knows little or noth- ing. Sunday, indeed, is with the peasant emphatically a day of rest. He may or he may not go to church or chapel, arrayed in solemn black, or else iu a waistcoat and necktie of gorgeous colors; but whether he performs or neglects this duty, he will sedulously refrain from all kinds of occupation — unless he is employed in connection with the live stock — and if he saunters about Avill remain all day within a stone's throw of his cottage. If the majority of English rural villages have as their inhabitants a laboring population such as that of which a specimen has just been given, and if these workers for the most part conform to the type that we have delineated, there are certain exceptions in the English village system, certain stock deviations in individual character from the normal standard, which may be briefly glanced at. In many English villages there may be found groups of cottages which con- stitute a settlement of some distinct class, or aggregate of families, that have lived on there from generation to generation, and of whose legal claim to the spot nothing is known. It is a sort of no-man's- land, and the human beings who have fixed themselves upon it lead an anomalous, precarious, and rather predatory life. They work for the farmers during the hay and wheat harvest, but for the rest of the year they subsist visibly on the produce of their not too well tended gardens. Iu reality, they must have other resources than these. The men of the settlement are more than suspected of h habitual poachers, and the women and children have the stigma rest- ing on them of being systematic practitioners of various kinds of petty larceny. Even if it cannot boast the presence of these abo- riginal squatters, the English village is seldom without some sp. characteristics of its own. Thus, in addition to the chronic drunk- ard who already shows signs of softening of the brain, there may almost always be found among the population the clever, active laborer, who, after having worked with great regularity and sic -cess for weeks together, has a fit of drinking, and disappears for two or three days. Then there is usually to be found the incorrigible of the 180 ENGLAND. community, who never did an honest day's work in his life, whom farmers would be reluctant to employ, who is an abomination to the squire, and who is even considered past reclamation by the parson. The more reputable village inn closes its door against him, but there is a low beer-house — a sink of mischief and of iniquity — of which he is a regular customer. He could tell how the landlord of that establishment contrived to get so many luxuries — fish, flesh, fowl, and vegetable — into the filthy back-kitchen of the den, sempi- ternallv reeking with the fumes of bad drink and vile tobacco. He is seldom to be seen abroad in the village in the full light of dav, but he prowls about at nightfall, as if bent upon some sinister pur- pose. He is a master in the art of tickling trout, and of snaring pheasants; he is, in fact, the recognized village poacher, who has hitherto by marvellous good luck escaped the clutch of the law. Justice, however, overtakes him at last, or if it fails to overtake him in the village whose pest he is, it is only because he shuns its ap- proach, and contrives to flee while yet there is time. We have already noted in the dress of the men and children of rural England the abandonment of the distinctly agricultural garb. Something even more noticeable still is the change which has taken place in the dress of the women. Even in those parts of England where, as in Northumberland, much out-door labor, especially in the fields during harvest-time, is done by mothers and daughters, the clothes worn approximate with remarkable closeness to the pre- vailing urban fashion of the period. Dress and musical airs seem to travel only a little less quickly than ill tidings. The new ditties which the pantomimes popularize in London are dispersed through- out the provinces by itinerant organ-grinders before many months or weeks are over. It is the same with feminine apparel. The last new mode finds its way to the neighboring market town very nearly at the same time that it does to the capital of the empire ; and cheap bonnets of the latest shape, or ribbons of the approved tint, are dis- ] ?layed in the window of the village shop a very little while after they have been first exposed to the view of the buyers of Regent Street. Nor is the village shop the only emporium of these goods. A conspicuous and salutary innovation in the economy of English vil- lages in the course of the last few years has been the co-operative store. Rather more than a decade since, a certain small village in the midland counties, which will serve as a type of many others placed in similar circumstances, made a sudden jump towards pros- perity. A hosiery manufactory was started; it was a success, and ) THE WORKING CLASSES. \%\ gave profitable employment to wives and children of the tillers of the soil. There was plenty of money to spend, hut the shops in i village were justly deemed not quite satisfactory. The place \\ fortunate in the possession of a clergyman who had a strong idea of reducing the rules of Christianity to practice and who was ;: man of business into the bargain. He took counsel with the fa: of the place, offered a few suggestions to the laborers and factory ' hands, and as a result of those deliberations and preparatory m< ures, A Industrial and Provident Society (Limited) was found* and duly certified by the Registrar of Friendly Societies of England as having rules which were in conformity with the law. The capital of the society was raised in £1 shares, to which each member sub- scribed at the rate of threepence per week, or 3s. 6d. a quarter, until the whole sum was paid up. The business is carried on under the control of a committee of management of nine persons, a treasurer, a secretary, two auditors, and five arbitrators. It is conducted on the most rigid of read3'-money principles. The accounts are ren- dered and audited each quarter-day. Some idea of its early prog- ress may be formed from the statement that the society began busi- ness with thirty-three members, and a paid-up capital of £27 2s. At the first quarterly meeting it consisted of twelve stockingers, thirteen agricultural laborers, one lock-keeper, one carpenter, one carrier, one brickmaker, one hawker, one retired tradesman, two farmers, and two clergymen. It boasted already a disposable bal- ance of £3 4s. 4d. Seven years later the society numbered ninety- one members — amongst them twent} r -four agricultural laborers, of whom two were the largest investors in the funds of the institution. The goods in stock were estimated at £216; £180 was invested at interest; there was a balance in the bank of £105; and every day the clergyman of the parish was receiving small sums from his parish- ioners to invest in the association. Of course the plant of the so- ciety had increased in value. A cottage adjoining the original warehouse had been annexed for the purpose of additional storage. Seven acres of land were rented, and also a barn, where the cr< i were threshed. All the necessaries, and some of the luxuries, of existence are for sale on this establishment, which is as much a feature in the village as the school: groceries, bread, butter, hosi< ■ haberdashery, stationery, drugs of all kinds, tobacco, and beer. The sale of ale was considered an experiment of doubtful value. It b proved an entire success. It has been accompanied by a marked diminution of drunkenness, and by the disappearance of the last remnants of the truck system. 182 ENGLAND. This is only one instance of the new spirit which has so largely reformed and quickened the life of the country working man. En- ter his house and you will see the aesthetic tendencies of the age illustrated in the decorations of his dwelling. There are familiar and sometimes graceful chromo-lithographs on the walls, there are ornaments on the mantel-piece, though very often these latter are of a far worse design, more vulgar in idea and tawdry of color than they used to be. Books are not wanting, nor newspapers either; and, indeed, the extensive circulation of the daily and weekly news- sheets among the rural laborers of England is one of the signs of the times. It is no longer the rector of the parish, the squire, and the more important farmers, who receive daily the contemporary history of the world as recorded in the columns of the London or the larger provincial newspapers. These make their way into the smaller farmhouses and the wayside inns. Means for then* distri- bution have multiplied immensely during the last few years. The milk-carts, which make a journey twice in every twenty-four hours to the local town, are often called into requisition; and there is the parcel from the London agent, either dropped at the remote rural railway station, or, if there be no station in the neighborhood, thrown out of the window of the train as it flies past, by the guard, at some fixed spot. It is no mere speculative interest in cur- rent events which has popularized the growth of journalism in the homes of the country poor. What chiefly interests the agricultural student of the hebdomadal press is that which- seems specially to affect his personal condition. He would sooner have a smart attack on the policy of the Poor Law Guardians of his district than a slashing criticism on the conduct of diplomatic negotiations of in- calculable moment. Similarly his literary appetite is whetted by a desire to know all that concerns the position and the prospects of his own industry. The agitation of labor versus capital has invested the columns of the newspaper with a fresh attraction, and the coun- try working man is beginning to find a satisfaction in reading of emigrants and emigration, scarcely second to that which he might formerly have experienced in sensational reports of accidents and crimes. Book-hawking societies are another agency to which a word of grateful recognition is due. Once these are established on a broad basis they often flourish admirably with very little elee- mosynary help. In all this may be seen progress beneficent, considerable, and well defined, in the condition of the agricultural laborer. But there are evils which have no more ceased to be his lot than misery, sin, r THE WORKING CLASSES. Is:' want, starvation, and disease have died out of the land. Granted that legislation has done something thai the measures which fol- lowed upon the inquiry of the Agricultural Commission of 1867, the Truck Acts, and modern sanitary laws, have provided ;i machinery for ameliorating the condition of the rural laborer, againsl which there is, from a theoretical point of view, nothing to he said; how, it may he asked, does the machinery work ? Because the lab children helow a certain age, and without a certificate thai 11: ;. have satisfied a fixed educational standard, is forbidden, dors it fch r I »re follow that no such children are employed? Because there is no corner of England which is not subject to a recognized authority, is our worship of the goddess Hygeia a universal act of pra Heal homage ? If some landlords would no sooner tolerate the existence of the causes of pestilence in the homes of their poor than they would a public nuisance in then* own parks, are we therefore to conclude that the Arcadian glimpses given above of the laborer's cottage are typically faithful revelations of the average state of its interior? The true answer to these questions is that the tendency of the tunes is in the direction of social and sanitary reform. What is now gen- erally wanted on the large estates is not so much an improvement in the kind of cottages as an increase of their number. It was one of the hardships of the rural laborer that he had a considerable distance to walk to his work. Houses, therefore, have, in many cases, been built on the spot or near the farmstead. The laborers now frequently object to live in them, and prefer the independence and sociability of the village. They dislike the rules of the < which prohibit lodgers overcrowding, and which insist on the venti- lators being kept open. The women complain of solitude — -they are not near enough to the shop ; the men of dullness — the}- are too far from the public-house. The report of the Commission of 18G7 made it tolerably clear that the habit of letting cottages in connection with the farms was decidedly mischievous in its operation. "I am clearly of opinion," says the Rev. Lord S. Godolphin Osborne, "that the landlord shoxdd hold all the cottages in his own hands, under his own direct control." "•In all my inquiries," says Mr. Edward Stan- hope, "on this point, I never yet met a man who preferred to live 'under a farmer,' as they call it. The apparent advantage in point of income enjoyed by a man in Dorset who is a yearly servant, and lives in a house attached to the farm, is great, and yet even there the laborer had the strongest objection to the system. With great reluctance I have been forced to the conclusion that tin re is no system more fatal to the independence and comfort of laborers than 184 ENGLAND. that of letting cottages with the farms." On the other hand it would scarcely do to make the occupancy of the cottages entirely independ- ent of the tenure of the farm, and the farmer would certainty find it highly inconvenient to have men living on his premises who were not working for him. Substantial as are the improvements which have taken place in the condition of the cottages of the agricultural laborers since the Commission of 18G7 concluded its investigations, the report of that body is not yet an entirely obsolete document. The first great defect in the cottages of rural England is now, as it was then, the absence of proper bedroom accommodation. Many of these houses contain only one sleeping-room; more, only two. In a village of the midland counties, the writer has himself become cog- nizant of the fact of there being crowded nightly into a single sleep- ing-room the mother — a widow — a young man of nineteen, her son, her daughter, and the illegitimate child of the latter. Frequently, the site chosen for the cottage is some damp, marshy place ; or the building is erected with its back hard against a hill, or on ground probably a foot or two below the surface of the surrounding soil, and without any attempt at drainage or ventilation. Nor is a less dire evil to be seen in the pollution of the atmosphere outside the doors, not so much or necessarily because the drainage is defective as because the women are unable to see that there is any harm in permitting heaps of rotting vegetables and other refuse to accum- ulate in the little garden; generally, indeed, the English working classes in agricultural districts have not the slightest knowledge of the most elementary laws of health, and if education in these was included in the course of the village school a good work would be done. Of course, existing sanitary laws ought to prevent much of this. But the difficulty of enforcing them is extreme, and their full execu- tion would often invoke wholesale eviction. Nor would the cost of eviction end where it began. There is a clause in the Sanitary Act empowering the shutting up of cottages in the outskirts of a town. If acted upon, the clause would result in the overcrowding of houses in towns, for the legislation has this further deficiency, that it does not authorize the building of fresh houses in the place of those which are practically demolished. A great complaint against the Act is that there is nothing to set in motion, and hence it has been compared to " a watch without a mainspring." Dr. Eraser, Bishop of Manchester, one of the Commissioners of Agriculture in 1867, remarked, " The existing Sanitary Act is quite ineffective, owing to the local influence by which it is hampered," and suggested the THE WORKING CLASSES. Is.", appointment of an independent officer like an exciseman Thai the Act should have failed, maybe accounted for in a greaj d by the fact that the authorities are elected by the ratepayers and the representatives of ratepayers, who are for the most part busy men. No doubt, a farther extension of State action has evils, and tends towards pauperization. But if there is no reason why Boards of Guardians should not be empowered to pay the school fe< 8 of > hil- dren whose parents are helplessly poor, and if the receipt of such assistance does not constitute pauperism, why should it be stigma- tized as " pauperization " if a man receive State aid in order to make his house habitable by his family ? The consequences of such a state of things — of which the end lias yet to be seen — are from a physical, social, economical, moral, or in- tellectual point of view, equally disastrous. "Physically," to quote Dr. Fraser's report, " a ruinous, ill-drained, overcrowded cottage generates any amount of disease, as well as intensifies tendency to scrofula and phthisis. Socially, nothing can be more wretched than the condition of " open " parishes, into which have been poured re- morselessly the scum and off-scour of their "close"* neighbors. Economically, the impei'fect distribution of cottages deprives the farmer of a large portion of his effective labor-power. The em- ployer who has no cottages to offer those whom he employs must either attract laborers by the offer of higher wages, or must content himself with refuse." Morally, what is to be expected but that, as Dr. Fraser writes, " modesty must be an unknown virtue, decency an unimaginable thing, where in one small chamber, with the bids lying as thickly as they can be packed, father, mother, young m< n, lads, grown-up girls — two and sometimes three generations — are herded promiscuously. "We complain," continues the report, "of the ante-nuptial unchastity of our women, of the loose talk and con- duct of the girls who work in the fields, of the light way in which maidens part with their honor, and how seldom either a | or a brother's blood boils with shame — here, in cottage herding, is the sufficient account and history of all." * One of the consequences of the new Poor Law has been that the di tion between close and open villages has to a great extent disappeared. Vil- lages are called close when they arc the exclusive property of a single open, when there is a plurality of ownership. Under the old J every village was charged with the support of its own poor, the landlord bad naturally an object in admitting as few potential paupers into his villagi possible, and, therefore, kept down the number of his cottages, but after, by Act of 1834, the support of the poor was charged upon Union areas, the motive for the preservation of the close village system disappeared. 18G ENGLAND. That many of these evils still exist — are likely, for the matter of that to exist for a long while — amongst us must be admitted. But there is a reverse side to the picture, which has been indicated at the beginning of the present chapter, and which is equally historic fact. It may be that more legislation is wanted; it may be that the action of the legislation which at present exists is not as certain or speedy as could be desired. But, for all that, there is movement, and that movement is pre-eminently in the right direction. The low mud and straw-thatched tenement, with its two rooms on the ground floor, has to a very great extent disappeared. The responsibilities of proprietorship have been recognized, and the very circumstance that the possession of land in England is valued quite as much for the power it confers as for the revenue which it yields — " almost in all cases," as Mr. Little remarks, " a very poor return upon the cap- ital invested " — is a favorable influence. Landlords are, for the most part, ambitious of the reputation of having good cottages on their estate, and the rivalry of the landlords is reflected in the com- petition of their agents. Nor is it less fortunate, from this point of view, that properties have gradually passed, and are still passing, out of the hands of impoverished landlords into those of the owners of estates which are principalities, or into the hands of the wealthy members of the mercantile community. Again, if it be admitted that the law is still short of what it ought to be, we must remember that indirectly it has done much. The abolition of the old Poor Law, and its replacement by a system under which the landlord is no longer only charged with the relief of the poor in his own village — no longer obtains a portion of his rental at the expense of his neighbors — has convinced him of the expediency of generally im- proving their state. But it must be remembered that, valuable as the reform is, it is not necessarily an unalloyed benefit to the agricultural poor. It is a great thing that the peasant should inhabit a commodious, com- fortable building of brick and slate, consisting of kitchen, parlor, and pantry on the ground floor, and three well-ventilated bedrooms above, instead of the mud hovels of old, with then* two rooms not removed above the level of the soil. The cost, however, of such a structure as this is not much, if at all, less than £280; and, seeing that the rental is not more than £5 a year, it is obvious that the owner is left with a loss. If he is to make the loss good, he must recoup himself out of the rent paid by the farmer; and the advantage con- ferred upon the latter is represented by the fact that he has hia laborer close to his farm, and in good health instead of in bad. THE WORKING CLASSES. 187 Let us now quit the actual dwelling of the agricultural laborer, and see how he is situated immediately outside it. We have already watched him engaged m the cultivation of h Leu or allotment, or else in gazing on it on Sunday afternoon. At once if must be said that, as regards the relative value to the peasant of gardens and allotments, some difference of opinion exists. With a garden of thirty roods of ordinary land, it was decidi dlj the opinion of Hi Bishop of Manchester, when a member of the Agricultural Commis- sion of 18G7, that a laborer would scarcely care about an all probably at some distance from his cottage. The garden, he points out, is close under his eye, and can occupy many spare ten minutes of the man's time. It is easily manured, and "there is a reciprocal and a beneficial connection between it and the sty: the garden half keeps the pig, and the pig in turn more than half keeps the garden." On the other hand, it is beyond question that the allotment system is one which has proved full of benefit, and especially in particular districts. In Dorsetshire, where wages have been exceptionally low, the laborers occupy an amount of land which provides employment for the whole family. " The redeeming feature," says Mr. Stanhope, "of rural life here is the amount of land held by the laboring el. indeed, but for this the wages would sometimes hardly be sufficient to support life." One thing is quite certain, that if extended beyond a limited size, allotments are the source of danger and of loss to the peasant, and practically create the evil which they are designed to remedy. In some parts of England, what is known as Fergus O'Connor's Act is still operative. Where this is the case — as, for instance, in the west of England, near Yeovil — there may be seen a row of some half-dozen cottages, each with two or three acres of land attached. These were designed for the beneiit of the agricul- tural laborer. As a matter of fact, they were almost all occupied by small tradesmen. If the allotment be just big enough to take up a man's odd time, it will be an immense boon; if, on the other hand, he devotes hiinself entirely to it, he may prosper for a season, but he will find that in the long run he cannot hold his own, and he will feel acutely the want of the weekly wage, paid more or less regu- larly every Saturday. When it is talked about creating a race of peasant proprietors, such as those who exist in France, it is forgot- ten or ignored that the English peasant is not like the French peas- I ant, has not the same innate faculty of thrift, cannot live on the ss simple, unsubstantial fare. The land, too, if it is to be made \ requires to be manured, and the laborer is not in a position to ] sess himself of this mode of artificial fertilization. Again, in the 188 ENGLAND. case of a miniature farm of two or three acres, no provision can be made for the necessary alternation of crops; consequently the land is exhausted, while even if the cottager succeed in growing upon it a pretty regular supply of vegetables, he will find it impossible to guarantee a sufficiency of regular customers. The only way in which, as experience shows, the laborer who looks to live entirely by his allotment can hope to be successful is by having his home in the immediate neighborhood of some town, where he can sell his produce and command a tolerably regular succession of gardens to look after, carpets to beat, and odd jobs to do. There remain to be considered various other circumstances to a great extent affecting the condition of the agricultural laborer. The consideration of then* waives mav be reserved to the end of the chapter, while of the mode of their payment only a few words need be said. In Northumberland they are paid in kind. Generally laborers are unwilling to forego their privilege of taking part of wages in beer and cider. The following anecdote illustrates the dominion which drink can thus obtain over a man's mind. A la- borer having earned at a piece of task-work a considerable sum of money, left off for several days, and during that time was incessantly drinking. One morning, when all his money had been expended, he set off -to resume his work at a distance of three miles from his home. On reaching the place, he took off his coat and threw it on the ground, but as it fell, a forgotten sixpence dropped out of his pocket, upon which he put it on again, and walked back the three miles to finish the sixpence before he would begin work. Though it is to secondarv remedies such as a keener sense of self-interest, and to the creation of a public feeling unfavorable to the vice, that we must look for the ultimate and sole effective guarantee against drunkenness, there are certain primary meas- ures which might obviously be tried. Again and again has it been pointed out that public-houses are apparently allowed to multiply far beyond the legitimate needs of the community. The police state that those licensed under the new system, i. e., where beer cannot be drunk on the premises, are worse to deal with than those where customers can go in and drink. Much may be said in favor of giving the licensing power to the magistrates. If it continues to reside with the Excise, the standard of the cpialifications in the rate- payers who sign the petition for the license might be raised till it was something like a guarantee of character. Meanwhile it may be well to point out that^the farmers themselves, much as they condemn the beer -house system, are apt in their good nature to encourage in THE WORKING CLASSES. [gg their men a taste for liquor, by remunerating extra j<>l>s in drink; supplementing wages by beer and cider. Women and the ordinary day-laborer are liired by the day, and generally paid once a w< The rate of wages of women is usually fixed by the daw bui of the men, when employed on day-work, at so much per week. The lib- eral class of farmers feel themselves bound to find their nun work, "wet or dry," but there is another class of farmers of, as Dr. Fraser puts it in his report, "harder natures and tighter purse-strm who will send a laborer away on a wet morning, it' there happ< to be no directly remunerative job which they can set him to do. If a laborer is liired by the week, it is clearly reasonable that work by the week should be found him. The system of monthly hiring is confined to the solitary instance of the harvest. Those who are emphatically called farm servants — that is, laborers without whose services the farm could not be carried on for a single day; Bhepherd, carter, stockman, plowboy, and dairymaid — are hired for the D part by the year. The usual periods of "hirings" are in the spring, or more commonly in the autumn, and where th( iminations exist the transaction takes place at the "mop" or "statute fair." The agreements are generally verbal, "but what weighs most in the mind of the farm recruit .... is the mystical shilling which passes from the palm of his new master into his own, which may be regarded as the agricultural sacramentum." These yearly hirings operate badly. The "statute fan" which is one of their accompani- ments is a demoralizing institution, and one, happily, which, though it flourishes still in a few districts, may be generally described a, dving out. A child's day and a woman's day are much the same: nine hours, with an hour and a half for meals. The almost unanimous opin of the laboring man is, that if the parents can manage to dispense with his earnings, a boy should not go out to work before twelve or thirteen. Medical opinion, however, is not generally favorable to the employment of child-labor in agricirlture. To expose a hoy <>{ ten or twelve years of age for twelve hours a day to the cutt English winds is pronounced by competent medical aut I sure to develop the seeds of any disease that may be latent in : constitution. In some parts of England, notably in Dorsetshire, the system of hiring whole families prevails.* In these eas< s, when * The following advertisements are quoted by Mr. Stanhope from the J' - Chester County Chronicle. (1) Wanted, a farm laborer, with a working family; apply to Mr. G. '1 Chiselbome. 190 ENGLAND. a laborer is hired for a year, the size of his family and the vigor of his wife and children are all points carefully investigated by the employer. There are of course many abuses incident to the em- ployment of women in the fields, but the system is by no means one on which an unqualified condemnation can be jDassed. Bishop Eraser argues that it not only unsexes a woman in dress, manners, and character, making her masculine, but unfits or indisposes her for a woman's proper duties at home. Any one, however, who has visited the county of Northumberland, who has seen the North- umbrian women out in the fields and by their own firesides, will scarcely accept this view. In this the most prosperous of English counties, the labor of women, which consists of clearing the land, picking stones and weeding, turnip-hoeing, hay-making and harvest- work, barn-work with threshing and winnowing machines, is con- sidered absolutely essential for the cultivation of the soil; yet the Northumbrian women are physically a splendid race. Their work in the fields is justly considered to be conducive to health. "I shall be glad," writes Mr. Harley of those who hold the opinion that field-work is degrading, " if they would visit these women in their own homes after they become wives and mothers. They would be received with a natural courtesy and good manners which would astonish them. Let the visitor ask to see the house; he will be taken over' it, with many apologies that he should have seen it not 'redd up.' He will then be offered a chair in front of a large fire, with the never-absent pot and oven, the mistress meanwhile con- tinuing her unceasing family duties, baking, cooking, cleaning, etc. Not one word of complaint will he hear; but he will be told that, though 'working people,' they are not poor; and a glance at the substantial furniture, the ample supply of bacon over his head, the variety of cakes and bread on the board, and the stores of butter, cheese, and meal in the house, will convince him of the fact. When he inquires about the children he will hear that, though they have not much to give them, the parents feel it to be their sacred duty to secure them the best instruction in their power, and ' that they are determined they shall have.' The visitor will leave that cottage with the conviction that field-work has had no degrading effect, but that he has been in the presence of a thoughtful, con- tented, and unselfish woman." Dr. Caliiil, of Berwick-on-Tweed, (2) "Wanted, a shepherd, with a grown-up son or two; apply to Mr. G. A. Ingram, Bagber. (3) Wanted at Lady-day, a thatcher, with two or three boys from 9 to 14 years of age; apply to Mr. G. Mayo, Puddlehinton. THE WORKING C/./*S$fc^£FOR'S VU states "from his knowledge of the town and country population" that "the women of the latter are far more health] than the wo of the former, and tenfold less affected by considers that their field-work fits them to be good bearers of chil- dren, and the strength of the population is kepi up by them; and that the surplus of the agricultural population thai rulers the I towns maintains the standard of health and strength by marri with the inhabitants of towns." Having thus described some of the most important details in the condition of the agricultural classes, it remains to say a few words on the general relations of employers and employed, and, in pi of the nature of our agricultural system. What arc called A.cts of Husbandly vary in different parts of England, according to the char- acter of the soil. Their object is to regulate the scale on which money is paid to the outgoing by the incoming tenant for crops sown and for work and labor done. In all parts of England there is a regularly prescribed order in the rotation of crops; and the era! rule is that arable land is cultivated in the proportion of one half corn, and one half roots — thus: first year, turnips; second, bar- ley; third, mangel-wurzel; fourth, wheat. It is, too, the univi custom, and may be spoken of as the foundation of English agricul- ture, that whatever is produced on the farm, and is available for the purpose of manuring the soil, shall be devoted to the soil. As might be supposed, this development of agricultural enterprise implies a series of striking improvements in agricultural processes. There is, indeed, in the agricultural system of the England of to-day almost as little of what one can identify with the agriculture of a century ago as with that of the ancient Italians, as sung by Virgil in his Georgics. The farmer who succeeds nowadays is scientific, or he is nothing, and the danger rather arises from his staking too much capital upon the ground than from his putting into it too little. His farming apparatus bears the same relation to that of his predi as do the floating factories known as ironclads to the wooden walls of the old-fashioned men-of-war. He has learnt the use of reaping and mowing machines, each of which can do the work of ten of steam plows — costly implements, which are not within the n of smaller farmers — which do the labor of ten men a >nty horses; of steam machines of other kinds for threshing corn, cut ling straw and hay, and similar purposes. In addition to these, chi cal assistance, ammoniacal and phosphatk manures, have rendered the farmer comparatively independent of the alternate Q of cropping; and Mr. Caird calculates that these artific 192 ENGLAND. agencies would enable the United Kingdom to bear an additional wheat crop equal to our supplies froni Russia, with no perceptible strain on our agricultural system. Nor has there been less signal advance made, even though no new principle has been discovered, in the matters of drainage, the construction of farm buildings, and the breeding of stock. The system may be upwards of half a cen- tury old, but its extension and development are comparatively new. One of the popular results of this extension is, that whereas thirty years ago not more than one thud of the people consumed animal food more than once a week, it is now eaten by nearly all of them, in the shape of meat, or cheese, or butter, once a day. Add to this the increase of the population, and it may be estimated that the total consumption of animal food in this country has trebled in the last three decades. The total area of Great Britain is 76,309,000 acres, of which 26,300,000 consist of mountains, pasture, and waste, while 50,000,000 are crops, meadows, permanent pasture, and woods and forests. Most of this land is in the hands of the large landowners; rather more than one fifth of it, representing nearly one eleventh of its an- nual income, is held by noblemen, amounting to about 600 in num- ber; one fourth, excluding the proprietors of less than an acre, is held by 1,200 persons, each averaging 16,200 acres; another fourth by 6,200 persons, at an average of 3,150 acres; another fourth by 50,770, at an average of 380 acres; whilst the remaining fourth is held by 261,830 persons, at an average of 70 acres. The cultivation . of this land is mainly in the hands of the tenant farmers, of whom there are 561,000 in Great Britain, each holding an average of 56 acres. The tendency is for land to become concentrated in the hands of large landlords, small proprietors being bought up. Thus the small squire is becoming gradually extinct, while the yeomen, or small landowners farming their own land, have almost entirely disappeared. How rapidly we in England have passed from an agri- cultural to a manufacturing people may be judged from the fact that whereas fifty years ago a fifth of the working population of England was engaged in agriculture, those now occupied in this manner are less than a tenth. We have already seen something of the general principles on which the great estates of the country are managed. The agricul- tural hierarchy may be said to consist of three — or, if we count the land-agent, of four — grades: the landlords and their agents, the farmers and their laborers. Each of these classes is being constant- ly altered in its composition. Landed property, to the value of sev- THE WORKING CLASSES. 103 eral millions, changes hands annually, the tenants of farms are changed at Lady-day or Michaelmas, while the laborers are Ear more locomotive than formerly, and are perpetually acquiring the fresh knowledge that urges struggling men afar. Large drafts of these perpetually pass off to the other industrial pursuits of the country, and to the colonies; and the result of this process is seen in the weakening of the tie between the agricultural laborer and the parish in which he was born. The only point of contact between the State and our agricul- tural system is the In closure Office, whose chief duty is now to im- prove suburban commons under a system of regulation by which the land may be drained, planted for ornament and shelter, and the sur- face be improved for pasturage, without excluding the public from its enjoyment. The administration of the Drainage and Land Im- provement Acts is in the hands of the Inclosure Commissioners, the object of these Acts being to permit landowners to borrow money for permanent improvements, and to charge their lands with the cost of these, to be liquidated by annual payments which, within a fixed time, reimburse both principal and interest. Again, the Com- missioners are authorized to carry out exchanges and partitions of lands, and with their assistance any two landowners can at very tri- fling expense correct whatever irregularity there may be in the boundary of their respective estates, or even exchange entire prop- erties. The conditions upon which the sanction of the Commis- sioners is obtained are, first, that the exchange shall be demonstra- tively beneficial to the two estates; secondly, that the exchange shall be fair and equal; thirdly, that due notice is given, and that the order of exchange is not confirmed until three months afterwards. If it be considered that the production of bread and meat within these islands has nearly reached its limits, the dairy and market- garden system is, on the other hand, extending. The country, in fact, is becoming less of a farm and more of a garden. Meanwhile, the population is increasing at the rate of 350,000 a year, or nearly a thousand a day. The consumption of food is becoming prodig- ious, and now represents imports of one hundred millions sterling. Twenty years hence, we may have not thirty millions but forty mil- lions of people to feed, and, of course, there will have been a pro- portionate increase in the import of provisions. Whether and in what degree the advantage of being on the spot will enable the tenants to pay the imperial and local charges and rent to the owners, is the question of the future. The importation of foreign grain fro] i America, and in a less degree of meat, yearly endangers his proiits. 13 194 ENGLAND. But the tenant can leave his farm with more or less loss, while the landowner must remain and solve the question. The speculative remedy proposed for the loss at which farmers may conduct their operations is the redistribution of the soil, and the creation of a class of small proprietors. Independently of the fact that in England no overwhelming desire for land exists it is more than doubtful whether its advocates themselves are persuaded that such a scheme is practi- cable. Thus it is admitted by many of those who are in favor of it, that it would be necessary for tenants, should such a system ever be established, to co-operate for many of the more expensive processes of industry. While we are on the subject of the general relation of landlords and tenants, it may be observed that though, as has been pointed out in the chapter on estate management, the same method of administration is generally observed both in the properties of individuals and of corporations, the position occupied by the farmer is not precisely the same in each. In the first place the individual landlord, be he a great peer or commoner, looks for political power, and directly or indirectly influences the votes of his tenants at gen- eral elections; corporations, on the other hand, have no political influence, and the farmer who rents his land from a corporation is conscious of a certain superiority over the agriculturist who is the tenant of an individual. In the second place, as corporations have no souls, so have they no impeciiniosity; there is always money for repairs, and one of the consequences of this is that the position of the agricultural laborer is often better on the estate of a corporation than on those of individuals, since, when cottages and other repairs are wanted, money is always forthcoming for their erection. In prosperous times the wage of the agricultural laborer through- out England averages little less than 18s. a week, varying from 13s. a week in the south, to 18s. in the east, and 20s. or 21s. in the ex- treme north, where not only is the rate increased by competition of manufacturing and commercial employment, but the work done is generally regarded as of a higher quality. This weekly wage by no means exhaustively represents the earnings of a capable or active worker, much less of his family, supposing the family to be of industrial age. Both at the time of wheat and hay harvest there are, as we have seen, longer hours of work and higher rates of pay. In the midlands and in the south of England there is the oppor- tunity of supplementing the regular weekly payment by odd jobs of hedging, ditching, and draining, given out as piece-work. Add to this that the wagoner, herdsman, shepherd, and any other la- borer, who, being charged with the attention of the live stock of the THE WORKING CLASSES. yy t farm, to use the expression already employed, is never off duty, is frequently furnished with a cottage and garden rent-free, and it will be seen that the agricultural toiler is not without substantial perquisites.* It is not the ease that the introduction of macrrin into the processes of harvest have reduced the available earnings of the laborer. "In the fen districts of Cambridgeshire and Lincoln- shire" — Mr. Little is again our authority — "a strong man will con- sider himself very ill paid if he cannot earn 9s. or 10s. a day in following the reaper, and 7s. or 8s. when housing the corn.' - Thus in the autumn of 1877 a family, consisting of a man, his wife, a girl aged sixteen, a boy aged fourteen, and two other children of, re- spectively, eleven and nine, earned in that part of England during a period of five weeks just £25, to which must be added sixteen bushels of gleaning corn picked up by the wii'e and two girls, and valued at 5s. a bushel. Thus we arrive at a total of near £30. The normal wages of this man were 15s. a w T eek. As a matter of fact, working for forty-seven weeks out of the fifty-two, he made an average of 17s. a week, and the entire earnings of his family be- tween Michaelmas 187G and Michaelmas 1877 were £97 0s. 9Ad. Mr. Clare Sewell Read once remarked to the writer, that a fair day's work secures its worth in money all England over. Mr. Little's opinion is similar, for he says, " I shall content myself with the assertion, that as a rule the average amount of weekly wages paid in the country may be taken as no very unfair index of the actual amount of work performed by the average laborer of such districts. Whether the nominal weekly wages are 13s. or 18s., the amount of actual labor performed bears something like a relative proportion to these sums." But it may be urged, that since 1876, and even since 1877, there has been a great decline in the rate of agricultural wages. It, therefore, occurred to the writer to endeavor to secure an exact return of the wages paid in different localities of England to farm laborers during the week ending February 1, 1879. This, by the kindness of a gentleman who has exceptional facilities for securing such information, we are enabled to do. The question was put to more than sixty farmers in various counties, " What weekly wage do * In Northumberland the laborer generally lias a cow kept for him by his employer, at a charge of £8 a year. "As far," writes Mr. Little, "aa the chil- dren of his household are concerned, he is, therefore, ndent of 6upplies of animal food; and I cannot but attribute some of the fin i physical powers of the northern race to the use of this nourishing and stn ngthening diet." 196 EN-GLAND. you give this current week to an ordinary farm laborer on your farm ? " The replies produced the following results, which may be depended on as entirely trustworthy: — In the last week in January, 1879, the wage of an ordinary agri- cultural laborer may be taken to have been, in Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, 12s. to 13s. a week; in the counties of Hertford, Bucks, Berks, and Oxford, 12s. to lis. a week; in Cambridgeshire 13s.; in the central counties, and from Bedfordshire northwards, at 13s. to 15s.; and in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, 15s.; in Yorkshire it ranged from 15s. at the southern end to 16s., 17s., and 18s. pro- ceeding northwards; and in Durham the rate may be taken as 19s. to 20s. ; and in Northumberland as 21s. a week. In Cumberland the rate was reported as 20s. a week, and imme- diately adjoining to the Haematite Mines, 24s. a week both in Cum- berland and Lancashire. In the rest of Lancashire and in the manufacturing districts and near large towns the rate varies very much as the population is more or less employed. In the agricultural parts of Cheshire the rate was 15s.; in Staffordshire and Salop it was 14s. to 15s.; in Worcestershire, 13s. to 14s. ; and in Herefordshire, 12s. a week. In Dorsetshire and Wiltshire the rate may be taken as 12s. a week, and in some cases lis. a week; in Somersetshire as 13s. to 14s.; and in Devonshire 12s. a week. Along the south coast, through Hants and Sussex, the rate was about 14s. ; in Kent it ranged from 14s. in the Weald to 17s. or 18s. near Kochester and Sittingbourne. At the beginning of the present century the wages paid for agricultural labor — supplemented, as we shall presently see, very largely in every case out of the rates — was, on an average, 9s. a week; wheat being at £5 13s. 7d. a quarter — nine and a half days' work repre- senting the price of a bushel — and meat at 9d. a pound. In £878 the average wage has been calculated at 15s. ; wheat being at £2 7s. a quarter, a bushel being earned by the pecuniary yield of two and one third days' work, and meat being at 6|d. a pound. To this 15s. must be added, from what we have seen above, the extra money earned during harvest-time, and allowances of beer or milk. Fur- ther, it must be remembered that rents are lower, and that all arti- cles of food and clothing are infinitely cheaper than they were forty years ago. Eradicate drunkenness, practically inculcate the virtue of thrift, encourage emigration, and the agricultural laborer ought never to be upon the rates from the cradle to the grave. On the whole, drunkenness is diminishing, while as for thrift, there is rea ■ an\ ree, t<> have embittered the relations of the two. It is not again i\ I ae ten- ant farmers that the agricultural laborers profess for the most part any grievance. In the west of England, throughout those distn in which their social condition is still deplorably bad, the cottages being little better than mud hovels, and the filth and squalor inde- scribable, the admission is made by the suffering peasants that the lowness of the wage is not the fault of the farmers. "The laud- lords," is the burden of their conversation, "are hard." That there are obvious disadvantages connected with the Union cannot be denied. Then- political teachers often inculcate vicious and unsound principles of economy — pretend, for instance, that the owners and holders of land enjoy in the matter of taxation privileges denied to manufacturers; the truth being that the heaviest land tax of all is paid by the corn-producing counties of England, and the lightest by the mineral and manufacturing districts of the north. It is urged, too, that the Union has deteriorated the quality of the laborers' work. It is certainly opposed to piece-work, which is the chief, perhaps the only mode of raising inferior labor to a higher standard. By insisting on a uniform rate of day-work and short hours it brings the best laborers down to the lowest level. "Upon this farm," writes a well-known agriculturist in an eastern county, "of 420 acres, I pay away annually over £1,000 in manual labor, ex- clusive of the skilled labor employed in steam plowing and thresh- ing which I hire, and yet my work is badly clone, and also in arrear. I cannot get any piece-work done, unless I happen to be on the spot, and coerce them into it, and even then the work is scamped." " The day has now come," writes Mr. Little, " when the laborer, if he is to rise in the social scale, must look mainly to himself. If in the dark days of the past the laws seemed against him, it is no longer so. He is a free man, free from conscription, or compulsory service in the army, and the ecpial of those about him. Legislation has done its best for him and his children. He is at liberty to move wherever he can get the best return for his labor. He is prad Lcally the only untaxed man in the community, since (except in the article of tea, on which a small duty is still paid) he can, if he chooa B, by abstinence from those articles, avoid the imposts on beer, spirits, and tobacco." An admirable and practically free education is granted to his children. This education, when its results have had turn to '200 ENGLAND. make themselves felt, will no doubt give us a new order of British peasantry. Nor is it the only machinery at work which is gradually improving his position and extending the horizon of his views. While plowing matches, prizes for draining, hedging, ditching, stacking, and other operations of husbandry, cottage-garden shows, and other institutions, tend to make him a better laborer, the gen- eral influences of the time are all in the direction of improvement. One may almost quote the beautiful lines in Dr. Newman's "Dream of Gerontius": — "He dreed his penance age by age; And step by step began Slowly to doff bis savage garb, And be again a man." The agricultural laborer feels that he, too, like his urban brother, is a man. He has acquired a consciousness of power, a growing sense of enlightenment, a widening perception of rights and duties, which may be used as powerful levers for his future amelioration. Talk to the average country laborer to-day, and you will find him no longer the dull, despondent being that he was a decade since, the horizon of his views and knowledge being the boundaries of his parish, or the field in which he was plying his task. His senses have been quickened, his moral and mental nature has been breathed upon with the breath of life. CHAPTER XII. PAUPERISM AND THRIFT. General Appearance of the Workhouse and its Inmates — Paupers out for a Walk — Composition of the Pauper Class — Tendency towards Pauperism not pe- culiar to the Lower Orders — Out-door Relief — General view of Difficulties of its Administration — Social and Moral Consequences of Out-door Relief — Out-door Relief and Paiiperism — Remedies for Pauperism — Effect of Out- door Relief upon Wages and Character — The Poor Law and Socialism — Should the Workhouse Test be made universal? Antidotes to Pauperism: Voluntary Help and Friendly Societies — Attitude and Duties of the State to Friendly Societies — Penny Banks — Further Requirements for teaching Thrift — Co-operation. OF the predisposing causes of pauperism something has been said in the last chapter. Of its existence it is impossible to be 1< • g in any great town, or indeed in any country district, without being forcibly reminded. That gaunt, graceless, red-brick building yon- der, with the long narrow windows, placed in an inclosure of grass- plot, gravel-walk, and flower-bed, is the new workhouse. Every thing about it seems to tell of leanness, depression, misery, and want. The walls are naked; the herbage is stunted; the recently- planted poplars and other trees decline to thrive in so poverty- stricken a soil; as for the flower-beds, no seed has ever been sown in their mold, or, if sown, has never dared to put forth its tendf r sproutings, which tell of coming bud and blossom. Inside this joy- less edifice the guardians are engaged in examining and adjudicat- ( ing on the claims of the needy throng whose members have just passed in through the iron gates, to the relief that does not involve residence in the "house" itself — relief consisting of three shillings a week and three loaves of bread; or, if it be later in the day. the master and matron may be passing in review before thein the htck- l less tramps of both sexes who have applied for a night's lodging in the casual ward. There are few sadder sights than this mu iter, and it is conducted upon principles which have about them painfully little of the associations of charity. The authorities said com- mence their examination of the necessitous a; ats on the as- 202 ENGLAND. t sumption that each one is an impostor, an habitual tramp, who spends his or her life in traveling up and down the weary roads, now begging and now stealing, as opportunity may offer. Hence master and matron alike hesitate to admit that any particular face which comes before them is new. They may ask the question, " Where do you come from ? " but they place evidently no trust in the answer, and there always comes the inquiry, " When were you last here ? " Now in the majority of cases it may be admitted that the official niind is right, and that the professional pauper who is also an habitual tramp is not more honest than the obsolete high- wayman. On the other hand, there are instances — and when the times are hard these instances are not few — -in which the industri- ous mechanic or artisan, who has no funds to travel by railway, per- forms his journey from one center of industry to another on foot, and is compelled at nightfall to betake himself to that shelter which is the common refuge of the penniless. But there is no distinction of persons possible to official eyes. Deserving and undeserving, the vicious, the drunken and dibhonest, the sober, the unfortunate, and the industrious, are all relegated to one category, all subjected to the same ordeal. The internal discipline and management of work- houses vary, but in the case of the greatest number the occu|3ant of . the casual ward has, during his residence inside its walls, a rougher time than many a prisoner in a convict jail. Who are the habitual inmates of this house, which has not, and which ought not, perhaps, to have, any of the comforts or sugges- tions of home about it ? If you were to spend a couple of hours under its roof, you would find there men and women of all ages, and of conditions of life originally widely apart. There, too, are children who have only just come into the world, and whose mothers f have fallen into hopeless, helpless want, or into sin and shame, or into both simultaneously. Yet it is better for a boy or girl to look upon light first in a workhouse than in one of the vile alleys or pestiferous slums which are the nurseries of crime and criminals. The guardians will at least not permit these waifs and strays of humanity to grow up absolutely neglected and ignorant. Directly they can learn any thing there is the workhouse school, and as soon as their hands can hold any instrument of industry they are taught the rudiments of an occupation which may help them to get an honest living. Contrast with the children the group of men and women, most of them well stricken in years or prematurely aged, weak and tottering, who have just shuffled out of the workhouse yard. These are the resident paupers of the union, and they have PAUPERISM AND THRIFT. 203 received permission to visit their friends and relatives in the n. ; borliood, not without a stringent word of warning aj mendi- cancy and against intoxication. The true light in which to regard this throng, whose members walk on by twos and i ' repre- senting the failures of our civilization. They ought to have saved a competence, or to be supported by grateful children, or to be spend- ing the residue of their clays in climes where the struggle for exist- ence is less keen than in England. At any rate, they ought not to be here. Here, however, they are, and here for some time yet to come the}* are likely to continue — a familiar, and, to those who are alive to all that their presence means, a melancholy sight. There is no mistaking their identity. The men are clothed in a low felt hat, jacket and trousers of fustian, or coat and trousers of brown cloth or velveteen, according as it happens to be a week-day or a Sunday; the women are conspicuous by their uniform of coarse dark blue cotton dress, poke bonnet of rough straw, and thin woolen shawl of shepherd's plaid thrown across their shoulders. It is curious to observe how some of those who had appeared the most hopele infirm before the workhouse authorities and in the immediate pre- cincts of the building, proceed at a comparatively rapid rate, and assume naturally a more or less agile manner, when these are out of sight. For the most part, however, the paupers of both sexes pick their way slowly, keeping their eyes fixed on the ground, and walking as near the edge of the pavement on the side of the gutter as possible, mumbling inarticulately the while. There is a reason for this. There is not only the chance of their finding an odd coin at then- feet — you may see the men trailing then- sticks in the gutter itself to recognize by the sound the possible piece of copper or si I — but it will be hard if they cannot find some of the cigar stamps and shreds of tobacco which they love, and from the enjoyment of which they are not deterred by an admixture of mire and tilth. Of this mixed band of dependents on the law-exacted charity of the ratepayers some have been gravitating more or less rapidly in the direction of pauperism throughout their whole life. Edu- cated in squalor, in shiftlessuess, in sin, accustomed from the first to regard the "house" as the not illegitimate goal of existence, they have never seriously struggled to avoid the necessity of entering it. They have worked fitfully, intermittently, squandering their earn- ings on periodical debauches at the beer-house at frequent intervals. Sickness has come, or they have been out of work, or they could aot pay their rent, and there were no friends to help them. Firs! t have managed to exist on the dole allowed them \ the 204 ENGLAND. guardians without residing beneath the workhouse roof. But they have found infirmity grow on them apace. Their sons, daughters, and other relatives, have closed the doors against them, and the choice has been between the union and absolute homelessness. Not unfrequently it happens that many of the aged inmates of the workhouse have not only seen what are conventionally known as better days, but have been nurtured in comfort and ease, in luxury and wealth. There are few villages in England in which families are not to be found for whom the workhouse seems a bourn as inevitable as the grave itself. When one enters a cottage, passively surrendered to destitution, and notes how completely men, women, and children have abandoned themselves to the paralyzing influences of want; not hopeless alone, but indifferent to any chance of amelioration; sunk in a stupor alike moral and physical; ignorant whence the next mouthful of bread is to come, and, as one may think, nearly as cal- lous on the subject as they are ignorant: when one notes all this, one witnesses the genuine material out of which paupers are made. Again, that drink leads to beggary as well as to crime is a common- place. It is doubtless an exceedingly frequent cause of pauperism, but there is another cause less specific and definite, but certainly not more rare. In all grades of life one meets with people who, from their infancy upwards, are impotent to help themselves. They are morally invertebrate — without energy, without spirit, without ambition. When such persons are independent of their own exer- tions for the necessaries of life no evil happens to them. But if a calamity comes, if the enterprise in which the capital on whose in- terest they live is embarked collapses, they are altogether without resource. They become pensioners on relatives or friends if they have them, or they disappear from view if they have not. Now this temperament is unhappily far from unknown among the working classes. It is the baleful inheritance of generations, and is perpetu- ated from father to son. These are the drones of the hive. They are not the exclusive incumbrance of any class: they belong to all alike. The only difference is that in the higher walks of life they are spoken of with contemptuous pity as unlucky, and in the lower as paupers. Thus, roughly speaking, pauperism consists of two sections, the first composed of those who are paupers by no fault of their own; the second of those who have adopted pauperism as their vocation ' in life, because Poor Law relief enables them to exist without work- ing. For the former, the Poor Law and the workhouse, if they are to enter it, should be a relief and a refuge, for the latter it ought to PAUPERISM AXD THRIFT. be a punishment. Hence the severe regimen of work and discipline enforced in many unions — a regimen perfectly just in the case of sturdy tramps, but painfully harsh in the case of those who have been dragged down by a destiny which thej could n<.t resist Be- fore pauperism became the subject of legislation by the State, there existed in those doles and charities, which represented the munifi- cence of previous generations, the means of relievi more de- serving members of the pauper class. Gradually th sse < n ■ ! ■ >v. m mts became a machinery for disseminating pauperism amongsl the work- ing classes. Hundreds of men and women were drawn from the paths of honest labor by their participation in the almsgiving. II was the development of the habitual pauper class, th< ise who iteadily refused to work for their living, which rendered a Poor Law nei sary, and which naturally gave to such a measure much o disci- plinary and punitive character. Provision for the me land helpless poor was a secondary purpose of this Poor Law, and il is the fusion of two purposes in one system which creates an anomaly and a hardship. Our method of dealing with the exci com- plex aggregate of pauperism can scarcely be satisfi • as the workhouse is at once a place of punishment for hardened and willful paupers, and an almshouse and infirmary for the old, the sickly, the infirm, or the victims of sudden and unavoidal un- ities. The problem to be solved, and which has as yel defied solu- tion, is how, while not refusing relief which is at once Christian and economical for those who really want and deserve it, we may stamp out the pauperism which is preventable, and, therefore, s i far mor- ally criminal. One of the questions that chiefly engages the attention o 1 ' P,oards of Gifardians has been indicated in a previous chapter * — whel residence in the workhouse shall or shall not be the condition of n lief from the rates. We will now proceed to examine the rea that may influence our guardians in the decision at which, on I matter, they may arrive. In other words, we have to confront the whole momentous problem of the expediency or ine >ncy of | out-door relief. On the first view of the matter it may seem im] sible to refuse assent to the proposition that it is at once more mer- ciful and more economical to subsidize a household with a few shil- lings per week, enabling the family with the aid thus granted hold itself together, and to keep a roof above its head, than peremp- torily to destroy this little center of domestic life, and to insist up * Chapter IT. 206 ENGLAND. supporting those who constitute it at the expense of the ratepayers. "When Christian charity and worldly wisdom point unmistakably the same way, what need, it may be asked, or what excuse can there be for hesitation ? If humanity is a virtue that resides in the hearts of Boards of Guardians, why should they doubt for a moment which of two alternatives — on the one hand the destruction of a home at a larger expense, on the other its preservation at a smaller — they are bound to adopt '? But the fact remains that guardians do hesitate very much indeed in this matter, and that there is a gradually grow- ing belief among them that of the two alternatives just specified it is on the whole better to choose the more drastic and the less appar- ently humane one. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to maintain that there is something in the office of a guardian which poisons the stream of •humanity at its source, we must admit that there are prob- ably good and sufficient reasons for a hesitation which is prima facie inexplicable. If it could be insured that out-door relief was only given for the succor of the severest want or of absolute destitution, in cases where destitution and want were, humanly speaking, not pre vent able — were the results of continued illness, death, or some other desolating ca- lamity — though aU grounds of objection to it would not be dismissed, the system would not be as severely attacked as it now is. "When out-door relief is given, it must be given necessarily to the undeserv- ing as well as the deserving, to those who are beggared by thought- lessness, improvidence, drunkenness, as well as to those who have fallen victims to relentless and unavoidable fate. Theoretically, the line might be drawn by adequate investigation. Practically, the scrutiny is not only extremely difficult, but is seldom insisted on. There are three authorities concerned in the inquiry : the relieving officer, the medical officer, and the guardians. The first of these is charged with a multiplicity of duties, which prevent him from ac- quainting himself with the full details of the different cases that come before him. " With perhaps several hundred persons," re- marks Professor James Bryce in a paper read at the Northampton Poor Law Conference, January, 1876, " receiving weekly payments, and new applications continually arriving, he has no time to inquire particularly into the character or resources of the applicants, what relatives ilioy have, whether they are secretly receiving aid from some other quarter, whether they keep their houses in a healthy state, whether they send their children to school." The doctor is frequently deceived, raid, indeed, self-interest may naturally prompt him to be "a little blind." " The guardians, however fervent their PAUPERISM AND THRIFT. 007 zeal, have generally no means of ascertaining for themselves -what, the circumstances of the pauper are. If one member advocates the claim of some pauper from his own neighborhood, the rest are dis- posed to accede, and thus a bad example is often set. Now," con- tinues Professor Bryce, "a close personal scrutiny, such as is given in Elberfield or Boston, is more efficient and more just than the rough-and-ready application of the workhouse test. But that I is far better than such inquiries as our Boards can commonly mal If we say that there is a total of 710,175 paupers in En representing one in thirty, or rather more than three per cent, of the population, we shall not be far wrong. Of these 224,553, ex- clusive of those who are not able-bodied or insane, are in receipt i of out-door relief. The cost represented by the aggregate of the entire pauperism of England was, in the year ending March, 1877, £7,400,034, that by those who are not in the workhouse but are upon the rates, £2,092,190. What does this mean for the social and moral welfare of the country? What is the commentary which these facts and figures constitute, upon the condition of the waj earning class ? Before we address ourselves to the general question of poor relief, it will be advisable to say a few words further on the par- ticular department of it represented, by the out-door system. A j guardian, let it be supposed, honestly entertains the opinion that out-door relief has the superior economical advantages, which on the first blush of the matter would certainly seem natural to it, and that such relief reaches distress which, were it not for that benefi- cent agency, would remain uncared for. The cost of each family in the workhouse is, he will compute, ten shillings a week; outside the workhouse the cost is only five shillings.* Here, then, he may argue, is a clear gain to the rates, in other words, to the community, of more than fifty per cent. But experience proves this sort of reasoning to be fallacious. The guardian who is opposed to out-door relief in all cases says with unanswerable force that the universal compulsory application of the workhouse test stimulates the poor to exertion and self-help, keeps them clear of the degradation of pauperism, and is as economically effective as it is morally salutary, while rience shows that the offer of relief in the workhouse is refused in nine cases out of ten. On the other hand, he observes, many of the laboring classes to whom the stigma of pauperism is into! * An able-botlied widow with three children would, on an aver I 5b. a week with school fees; in all, say 5s. Cd. The average cost per head in the house is 3s. 4d. a week; average cost per head out-door, 2s. 9d. 208 ENGLAND. when emphasized by residence inside the workhouse, are unreluc- tant and successful applicants for out-door relief. Mr. Doyle, in one of his Poor Law Reports, draws attention to the fact that of 647 applicants for out-door relief only twenty-seven accepted the condition of workhouse residence, from which it may he inferred that there cannot have been bona fide distress in all the instances. Not less significant is the circumstance that in Whitechapel weekly out-door relief has been reduced in five years from 2,556 to 209, or that in St. George's-in-the-East the rate has fallen froni 1,200 to 85. It is impossible to suppose that these statistics merely indicate a suppression or concealment of pauperism impotent to relieve itself, and that however the figures may have changed, the facts remain the same as ever, the total of misery and suffering just as real and hopeless. The answer to such an assumption is that the cry of suffering hundreds, if ignored by the guardians, would compel a hearing from the public. Of course the reduction of pauperism h;is not been, and cannot be accomplished without special provisions, and much expenditure of personal trouble. First, each relieving officer must have, as he has had in the two parishes just named, a district whose limits will enable him to learn whatever can be learned about the ajiphcants for out-door relief. Secondly, the children of widows, who form thirty-three per cent, of the metropol- itan paupers, must be taken into district schools, a practice which has been followed out upon a large scale in Whitechapel and St. George's. Thirdly, there must be close and systematic co-operation with such institutions as the Charity Organization Society, societies for the formation of shoe-black brigades, emigration societies, and other such associations. If it is asked what is to be done when the workhouse is made the condition of the receipt of relief, and the needy applicants decline it, alleging that they woidd rather starve in the street, the answer may be given in the words of the Rev. S. A. Barnett, a clergyman of great experience at the East End of Lon- don, who says that they will not refuse when they know that without the workhouse no relief is possible. If, again, it is objected that the workhouse test involves the violent and unnatural separation between children and parents, the answer is, that the children will be better tended in the workhouse and district schools than in an imjDover- ished and destitute home. Now if it can be shown, as the facts just enumerated above cer- tainly seem to show, that out-door relief has a tendency to act as a premium on pauperism, and as a discouragement to thrift, exer- tion, and independence of character, it follows that whatever objec- PAUPERISM AND THRIFT. tions can be urged against a Poor Law — against, thai is, the r lief of the indigent and destitute out of the contributions to the State made by those who are comparatively well-to-do— can be urged with additional force against the practice of out-door relief. An- other appeal may be made to the experience of the East End of London in support of this view. So lorn;- as the Easi End widows were subsidized by payments from the rates they were able to com- pete with the seamstresses on terms advantageous in a certain mis- erable way to themselves, but absolutely ruinous to the professional needlewoman. Since out-door relief has become the rare excep- tion, the wages of the class for whom Hood evoked so preci tus a stream of sympathy by the " Song of the Shirt" have materially increased. This suggests a law of universal application. Success- ive reports of the Local Government Board show that "relief in aid of wages" exposes the independent few to an unfair competition in the labor market, from those, who relying for part of their sup- port on the poor-rate, can afford to sell their labor at a lower price. Now, as Mr. J. R. Pretyman, in an able and comprehensive treatise on the whole subject, under the title of "DispaujDerization," shows, this is what mathematically, and on a priori reasons we might expect. "If wages were left to be regulated wholly by an adjustment be- tween the wants of the wages-giver and the wants of the wages- taker, with no element like that of poor-rates or other taxation to disturb the transaction, wages wordd naturally be the higher. Ag- ricultural laborers, in particular, cannot fairly expect that their wages should be as high as they might be if there were no poor- rates, since land, out of which both their wages and these rates are paid, can only bear a certain amount of charges, and has to remu- nerate three parties — the owner, the occupier, and the laborers upon it. Now, the owner on the average obtains no greater interest on the value of his land than from two to three per cent. — that is, not more than he could obtain by investment in the public funds. The occupier makes no more than the ordinary mercantile profit on the capital and skill which he employs in agriculture; indeed, it would seem that his gains are less than those of successful trajde, for sel- dom in comparison is a rich farmer to be found, and seldom in pro- bates of wills is the estate of a farmer "sworn under" amounts such as those for which the estates of merchants and other trades- men weekly figure in the newspapers. There remains a third por- tion of the proceeds of land, and from this portion come wages l poor-rates. If, therefore, the landowner is to have his moderal ) interest, and the occupier his fair profit, all that is paid from the U 210 ENGLAND. land in poor-rates will be in diminution of what is paid in wages. What is plus in rates will be minus in wages." * Nor is what may be called the a posteriori evidence on this point less conclusive. Reliance on the poor-rates operates in much the same way with the working classes as reliance upon the indulgence of a wealthy father does with a spendthrift son. It is very well to dilate upon the humiliation of dependence upon the rates to a day- laborer, to urge him to contribute to a friendly society, so that he may be able to walk erect before his fellows with the proud con- sciousness of being a self-supporting institution. But these argu- ments are deficient in practical cogency, and the reply of the sturdy son of toil to these counsels is too often virtually identical with the remark which Sir Stafford Northcote once placed in the lips of the habitual pauper, that " there can be no friendly society so good as that into which you put nothing and take out every thing " — the rates. Education, political knowledge, and other salutary agencies may modify the view prevailing among the working classes in these matters. At the present moment the possibility of relief from the rates, and especially of out-door relief, enters as much into the cal- culation of thousands of English laborers who are about to marry, or, for the matter of that, about to get drunk, as would the posses- sion of a series of good investments in railway stock to the profes- sional man who was making his future arrangements. Anticipatory reliance on the poor-rates acts as a stimulant to illicit intercourse and to an early and improvident marriage. Pauperism begets pau- perism as surely as crime and drink make criminals and drunkards. A new generation of j>aupers is thus ever sjmnging up. The influ- ence which reduces the rate of wages continues, the demand for the necessaries of life increases, and their cost is raised. Wages are not only kept down, but the purchasing power of wages is steadily lessened. These facts wiU sooner or later be clear to the working classes themselves. " I have reason," said Mr. George Houlton, him- self a guardian, at a Poor Law Conference held at Leicester, Novem- ber, 1875, " to believe that some of the best men who have emigrated from North Lincolnshire have done so from a determination to sep- arate themselves from a burden consequent on the administration of the Poor Laws, rather than for any dissatisfaction on the labor ques- tion. One of the best men, who had not less than 3s. a day all last winter, left me in the spring, and told me he was determined to leave a country where the law compelled men willing to work to * "Dispauperization," pp. 27, 28. PAUPERISM AND THRIFT. 211 maintain those who could but would not do so." The relatione be- tween the poor-rates and labor wages are not now minions as I they were before the Poor Law of 1834. The report of the Coin- mission which preceded that measure made it abundantly clear, first, that the pressure of the poor-rates threw a greal deal of land out of cultivation — in one instance, in that of the parish of Lenham, Kent, the poor-rate on 420 acres of land amounting to £300 a year; secondly, that the reduction of poor-rates at once leads to the rais- ing - of wages. But the principle remains the same now as it was half a century since. Facts are only too plentiful to show the systematic manner in which, to the ruin of then- own dependence, and the jeopardy of the finer and tenderer feelings implanted in them by nature, the work- ing classes trade upon the existing provision for poor-relief. The Rev. G. Portal, of Burghclere, Hants, told his hearers at a recent Poor Law Conference of a particularly acute and audacious tramp, who, on finding himself in a casual ward, at once insisted on having a warm bath. He was refused. " Refer," was his immediate com- ment on the refusal, "to Consolidated Order So-and-So, and you will see I must have my hot-water bath. Give me your name, please; I shall write to the Local Government Board." If the tram]) was within his legal right no blame, it may be said, can attach to him for enforcing it. But the same astute spirit is often exhibited in an at- tempt not to enforce the law but to evade it. In a large percent- age of applications made by women for out-door relief the women are deserted wives. Now the reports teem with proofs that very socialistic feeling, but it is urged that its influence in bridging over the gulf that separates class from class, and in creating a mutual sentiment of charity and good-will, must more than neutralize any of the politically perilous views which it may seem to sanction. But how if for the mechanical charity of the State there should be sub- stituted the living charity of the individual '? How if in the place of compulsory relief — in other words, of contributions which, in the shape of rates, cause the moderately well-to-do to divest themselves of any responsibility for the poor — there could be an organized sys- tem of voluntary assistance? With the great bulk of the people it cannot be supposed that a Poor Law is an effective instrument for eliciting a sentiment of Christian charity and benevolence. Its in- fluence, indeed, upon the human mind will at best be found li that of a snow house, which sometimes succeeds in raising the tem- perature up to zero. The ordinary British ratepayer is certainly disposed to feel that he compounds for the charity of primitive times by a lump sum under the heading of rates. But whether the principle of a Poor Law be inherently mis- chievous, as most, or inherently salutary, as a very few believe, it is 214 ENGLAND. not likely that we shall hear of any proposal for its abolition, or that we shall find the imperial legislature issuing any absolute prohibi- / tion of the system of out-door relief. As regards the latter, there is an overwhelming preponderance of actual testimony and of skilled opinion against it. Its discontinuance has, wherever it has been attempted, been followed by an immense decrease in the annual rate of pauperism, and in process of time there does not seem any reason why, assuming that the remedial agencies of pauperism are properly developed, out-door relief should not become a dead let- ter. At present its summary stoppage would involve a serious blow to popular feeling in every district, and, for a reason suggested by Mr. Stansfeld, might even prove inexpedient. " Once," says this gentleman, " make the workhouse test universal, and you will have the masses accepting it as a matter of course. It is only the cir- cumstance that under the existing system there is a distinction be- tween kinds of pauperism, making the 'house' the badge of the most hopeless pauperism, which causes so many to shun it and keep out of it. As matters are," so runs Mr. Stansfeld's argument, " people make an attempt to get out-door relief. If they succeed, well and good; if they fail, they hesitate before they find an asylum in the ' house,' for the simple reason that such an asylum is an acceptance of an alternative which the world stigmatizes as humiliatmo-." It will be seen that this opinion of Mr. Stansfeld presupposes that the Poor Law is satisfactorily and strictly administered by the guard- ians. It is the lax administration of the law, the negligence of the guardians themselves and their officers, which aggravates all the costs of out-door relief. It is noticeable that some of the most un- compromising opponents of out-door relief, if not converted by the success of the Elberfield experiment to a belief in its efficacy, have confessed that the workhouse test can, where there is a rigid system of personal supervision and the merits of every case are thoroughly sifted, be dispensed with, considerably to the public gain. The two chief antidotes to pauperism are the organization of ! , voluntary help and the organization of thrift. The former move- ment has resulted in the establishment of Bureaux de Bienfaixauiv abroad, in France, Germany, and in other countries where no Poor Law exists. The latter is embodied in England in the various friendly and provident societies. The one represents the principle of help and dependence; the other, that of self-help and independ- ence. So far as the Continental Bureaux de Bienfaisance are con- cerned, their action seems to be identical with that of the Poor Law itself. If the Poor Law discourages thrift, and is not favorable to PAUPERISM AND THRIFT. 216 provident societies, so also are the Bureaux. "Though providenl societies," writes Sir Henry Barron, the English Secretary of Lega- tion at Brussels, "are making progress in Belgium, it is found very difficult to induce Belgian workmen to lay by a sum for the future, so long as the Bureaux dc Bienfaisance offers a certain pro^ ision for old age." "It is found," we read in the consular reports from Co- penhagen, "that pauperism increases in proportion to funds pro- vided for its relief, and the richest provinces have mosi paupers." It is calculated that the friendly societies save the ratepayers of ' the United Kingdom two million pounds sterling ;i year. These friendly societies are the clubs of the villages, having their period- ical audits and their annual festivals. Thev are to the English working classes in town and country what life and accidental assur- ' ance societies are to the middle class. But they are more than this. In addition to the occasional assurance of annuities for life, or pay- ment of a lump sum at death, they guarantee also the payment of a fixed periodical sum at illness. A new element thus enters into the calculation of the actuaries who regulate the proportion of pre- mium to policy. Not only the chances of death, but of disease or mishap, incapacitating for work, have to be estimated, and unless the rates of contributions are based upon sound calculation the sock ty is doomed to insolvency. It is a further necessity that the funds of these societies should be judiciously and remuneratively invested. The great life assurance societies of London would not be so pros- perous as some of them are if their money was put out in the Post- office Savings Bank at 2 J per cent., or even in Consols at 3. Every halfpenny must in fact be productive. As a check upon such ex- penditure or investment, there must be periodical valuation and examination by an actuary into the position of the club. The Friendly Societies Act of 1875 made this valuation obligatory every five years. The same measure also empowered Government to ap- point public accountants and actuaries to audit accounts, as well as to value the assets of these societies. These officers are now ap- pointed. Unfortunately, the portion of the Act which relates to their remuneration and employment is of a permissive character. Clubs are allowed to select their own auditors and valuers, and this privilege may be so exercised as to rob the quinquennial valuation of its virtue. According to the tables recommended by the Actua- rial Commission of the Treasury, a payment of £1 8s. 6ol a year, or 7d. a week, will be sufficient to secure to a man who joins a club in his twenty-second year 10s. a week during illness up to the age of seventy, a pension of 6s. a week afterwards, and a death benefil of 216 ENGLAND. £10; while for £1 ISs. a year, or 9^d. a week, he can secure the same benefit, and his pension may take effect when he has fulfilled threescore and five years instead of threescore and ten. Mr. Macdonald, the parliamentary representative of the wages- earning class, has given it as his opinion that " friendly societies may be of great use in teaching the people to dispense with the Poor Law." It is not long ago that some Somersetshire coal-min- ers, when m'ged to join a club, refused because they " preferred the parish pay." If the alternative of membership of a friendly society had not been parish pay, but the " house," there is little doubt which would have been selected, and that the ratepayers would have been spared the burden which the west-country colliers de- termined deliberately to inflict. Just as it is the business of the State to offer every inducement it can, without undue interference with individual freedom, to the working classes to join these soci- eties, and thus at the same time that it inculcates the virtue of pru- dence, to do what will almost certainly have the effect of reducing the burden of the rates, so may the employers of labor be expected to co-operate in this matter with the State. In Austria large em- ployers are recpiirecl to create an assistance fund for their workmen, and in England many enrployers have done this of their own accord. The London and South- Western Railway Company has established a friendly society to give relief in cases of sickness or death, which counts more than 3,000 members. The same principle may be seen actively recognized and operative in certain departments of profes- sional life. * There are pension funds for the Indian Military and Civil Services, to which it is compulsory to contribute. Why then, it may be asked, should it not be compulsory for the working classes to contribute to friendly societies ? Why should not the employer make membership of one of these associations a condition of enter- ing his employ? In the first place, no employer would consent to do any thing of the kind. If he were to pledge himself to such a principle, or to act on it, he would infallibly find that he was left in the lurch, and caused serious loss and inconvenience at some critical stage in the competition for labor. Secondly, were the State to insist upon such a condition as has been suggested, it would manifestly be necessary also for the State to guarantee the solvency of the society. Thirdly, if the State were to carry its pre- rogatives thus far, it would be an encroachment upon the sensitive spirit of English liberty but little acceptable to the English charac- ter, and calculated to promote an attitude of passive dependence on the State, entirely antagonistic to the idea of self-help. PAUPERISM AND THRIFT. 217 It lias before now been suggested that the responsibility of pro- tecting the members of friendly societies should resl with the Guard- ians of the Poor. The proposal is open to the same objectii >n as thai of the State guarantee, and to additional objections also. It is true that to some extent the purpose, and to a great extern 1 the effect, of these associations is to make their members independent of the rules. But it is quite certain that the patronage of the Poor Law would deter many working men with an independent spirit from join- ing them, and would degrade them to the resort of a pauperized residuum. The present attitude of the law towards friendly societies sup- plies a curious exception to that active interference which has be- come the rule in many other matters of a social urgency scare* Ly greater. For nearly a century, since the year 1793, friendly soci- eties have been legislated for by Parliament. Notwithstanding all this legislation, their legal status is very little (-hanged. The Act of 1793 left registration voluntary; so did the Act of 181'.), which, amongst other important provisions, enacted that the justices in Quarter Sessions should no longer be permitted to confirm i rides of societies until they had been approved by two persona known to be professional actuaries, or skilled in calculation. In 1827 the affairs of friendly societies were discussed before a Com- mittee of the House of Commons. An Act passed in 1829 indical the transition stage from local to central control, and transfers to the barrister nominated to certify the rules of savings banks, the certification of the rules of friendly societies. The supreme power was still retained by the magistrates, who ultimately confirmed or rejected the society's tables; nor was it till 1846 that the i a of the office of Registrar of Friendly Societies removed them from the control of the justices, and established a complete system of central- ization. But registration was still permissive. Frequ< nlly, e\ when the rules had been registered and certified, they were n t enforced. The annals of friendly societies are full of tales of I utter wretchedness brought by fraudulent management of funds upon families who had invested all their savings in them, in ord that they might keep together and escape the workhouse. An Let* not without beneficial results, for better government of these insti- tutions was passed in 1854; another Act in 1875, of which a compe- tent authority — the Piev. W. V,'. Edwards * — says that, "though heralded with a vast amount of anticipatory laudation, in J it * Contemporary Review, 167G. 218 ENGLAND. did little or nothing to settle the difficulty of the question." The subject, in fact, is still treated as it always has been, pernrissively; fur registration is not compulsory, and many of the provisions of the Act are not enforced by any tine. The principle of the law — namely, that every registered society shall act openly with regard to its members and the public — is indeed admirable. But considering that very nearly one-fourth of the population — over eight millions, and that the most defenseless and impoverished part of it — are in- terested in these societies, and that 32,000 societies, of which 12,000 are not registered — in other words, are not subject to any kind of State control — have fnnds of not less than £11,000,000 sterling at then* disposal, it may well be questioned whether something more should not be done. These societies, it must be remembered, are, with the exception of the Post-office Savings Bank, almost the only opportunities of the investment of capital which the working man has. They give him an income in sickness, and they give his widow enough to start her on a new way of life at his death. If the State offered the working man an alternative investment, it would be a dif- ferent matter. The only alternative that it does offer is Poor Law relief. Thus the State steps in with an inducement to pauperism, but not, as it would do, if indirectly it put down rotten friendly so- cieties, with an inducement to thrift. In France there exist facilities for the investment of the smallest sums in public securities or land, in England there do not. In country districts the inducements to thrift are still further minimized by the fact that the working man or woman who has a shilling or two to put by often has to go three or four miles before a Post-office Savings Bank can be found. If the State declined to interfere generally in matters relating to the personal welfare of the working man, the objection of successive Governments to compel the registration of friendly, societies would be intelligible. Such compulsion, be it said, would not involve any more responsibility than the State has already taken, if responsibil- ity it can be called, in the case of life insurance societies, which when they are starting for the first time, it requires shall deposit £20,000 before business can be legally carried on. Again, as a matter of fact the State does, in these matters, interfere habitually. It interferes to prevent a man employing his wife and children to support him by factory labor; it compels him to send his children to school; it places certain restrictions on the sale of intoxicating liquors, of drugs and poisons, on adulteration of food. On what ground, then, can it be denied that the State has the authority to restrict the opj>ortunities which dishonest speculators now have of cheating the working man, PAUPERISM AND THRIFT. or how can it be said that the same guarantee which, h\ ng the deposit above named, the State exacts from life in iuranc» ties in the interests of the middle classes, it should not < also in the interests of the lowest class of all? In the State of New York, Mr. Edwards tells us, c. office is under strict Government supervision, and mends four reforms for application to friendly so* ulsory registration; second, compulsory adoption of a limit in scales of pay- ments and benefits; third, audit and valuation bj a ■' k>v< rnmi a\ offi- cial; fourth, the winding-up of every society proved to be in a hope- lessly insolvent position. How pressing these wants arc. may be judged from the condition of the Manchester Unity of Odd Fellows in 1871. That society, which is a national boon, and which is a model for imitation, was found in 1871, when the Odd Fellows themselves voluntarily instituted a valuation of assets and liabili- ties — like that which is required from only registered societies — to have a deficiency of £1, 1350,000, though even then the society was in a position to discharge nearly ninety per cent, of its liability 9. The popularity of penny banks seems to show how real is the anxiety of the working classes to save, and how genuine is the want which it supplies.' In the case of one of these institutions the num- ber of deposits during the year 1877 increased by 71,802, the amount deposited by £187,911. Forty-four additions were made to the num- ber of branches, and in some instances applications for branches had to be refused, in consequence of the applicants living beyond the limits fixed by the articles of the association. How minute in its sums, and how large in its extent was the business done, may be seen from the fact that in twelve months 791,873 dep sits were made, their aggregate reaching a total of £650,714. Each deposi- tor thus must have saved on the average something Less than a sovereign, and it can scarcely be doubted that but for this bank these small amounts would have found their way to the public- house till. These things are, however, but the machinery of thrift — the ma- chinery which, indeed, if rightly employed, will go far to minimize or stamp out pauperism, but which requires the spirit of I ' Q- erally diffused throughout the working classes to secure its full i It is much that penny banks and Post-office Savings Banks should be as numerous as they are in England. Thrift is a rirtu< whir!), strengthened by practice, is pre-eminently inculcated by • The Enghsh working classes are singularly quick to catch up the ways of then- social superiors. They not only imitate, but tfa 220 ENGLAND. caricature. It is in matters economical as in others, the man repro- duces the extravagance of the master, the maid of the mistress, the employed of the employer. Can it be said that relatively the En- j ;• I isli working classes are not as thrifty as any other portion of the population ? Grant that they are a little less saving; have they not greater temptations to and excuses for improvidence ? It is in the prospect of a definite reward, as a compensation for self-denial, that the inducement to small economies is to be found. This prospect the English working classes either have not, or do not sufficiently realize. But may we not hope that the necessary reforms are on the high road towards accomplishment ? Co-operation, which will be con- sidered in the next chapter, is as yet in its infancy, but already co- operation has worked, as we shah see, marvels. The saving which co-operation has secured to the working classes has been calculated from 10 to 20 per cent. And this economy only represents a small part of the advantages of the system, which, as will be seen from the survey of it, are quite as much moral as material. [Note. — It seems fair to supplement what has been said in this chapter on the subject of the thrift or thriftlessness of the working classes, with a few facts and figures of great interest and importance, given by an undoubted and expe- rienced authority, Mr. George Howell, in an article in the nineteenth Century en- titled, "Are the Working Classes improvident?" "The only method," remarks the writer, "by which the truth or the untruth of the charge laid against the working classes as to their improvidence may be arrived at, is by furnishing data as to the actual wages received and the relative cost of living, and also by bringing forward such evidence with regard to the thrift of the working man as may be shown by their savings in banks, their investments, their various provi- sions for old age, sickness, and trade depressions." Mr. Howell then asks, " What are the average earnings of a workman? It is useless (he says), illogical, and unfair, to quote the current wages in any particular trade or district, with- out making due allowance for the inevitable deductions — such as non-employ- ment for a month or two every year, sickness, etc. If a man earns £2 a week, and yet is liable to be out of work one month in each year, it is only right to consider that he earns £96 per annum instead of £104." Having traced the gradual progress in the rate of wages for the last thirty years, and the corre- sponding variation of prices — estimating the former at 9s. 4d. a week — equal to about 0O5 per cent, on the 30s. paid in 1847, Mr. Howell, deducting 4s. or 5s. a week for casualties, fixes the wages of a skilled operative at 35s. per week, or £91 a year. The average family of a working man numbers about five — self, wife, and three children — and thus there are five to be housed, fed, chlhed, warmed, and educated, and perhaps doctored. This involves a payment of 5s. lOd. a week for rent, or £15 3s. 4d. per annum, and Is. 8d. per week for coal, and Gd. a week for schooling; and also Is. a week to society or club, to which most work- men belong. After thus deducting 9s. a week from 35s., there is left 26s. with PAUPERISM AND THRIFT. ...,, which to feed ana clothe five persons, which will be done al fh rateoflfo to, the man, 6s. far his y, u,. and 3s. for each child, leaving expenses. On viewing these figures there appears to I extravagance With regard to thrift or provision for the future, thefollowina statistics are the best answer:-l. There are 26,087 friendly aocieti , reds- tiered, and several unregistered, with a total of 3, gregate funds amount to £9,3:36,949. 2. Loan Societi i, 373; i accumulated funds, £155,065. 3. Building Societies, 396; fund emgoW 4. Provident Societies, 1,163; members, 420,024; accumulated funds rc'iv,' v,'; 5. Trade unions registered, 215; members, 277,115; fun ,; 'J. IV ' ings Banks: Trustee's Savings Banks, 463; depositors, 1,493,401; deposits £43 283,700 Post-office Savings Banks, 5,488; depositors, 3,166,136; depo (inclusive of interest), £26,996,550 10s. 3d. Railway , : ,,' tors, 7,898; accumulated funds, £153,512. These are strictly confined tonu] way employes. The grand total shows that there are about 10,121,694 deposi- tors, and that the accumulated funds amount to no less than £100,705,055 1 CHAPTER XIII. CO-OPERATION. Two Illustrations of the Co-operative Principle: Victoria Street, London, and Toad Lane, Rochdale — General Comparison between the Conduct of differ- ent Co-operative Stores — Feelings to which the Co-operative Principle amongst the Working Classes in England originally appealed — Nature of the Enthusiasm which it created — Views advanced at the first Co-operative Congress in 1852— Co-operative Wholesale Society — Co-operation among the Middle and Upper Classes — The Civil Service Supply Association: Its Origin. Organization, and Progress — Other Co-operative Societies and their Development — The Civil Service Co-operative Society — The Army and Navy Co-operative Society — Effects of Co-operation upon the Labor Market — - General, Social, and Moral Advantages of Co-operation — Educational In- fluences of the Movement — How far Co-operation is applicable to Produc- tion as well as Distribution — The Exceptional Success of the Assington Ex- periment — General View of Progress and Position of Co-operation. THE two scenes which we are now about to witness are bound together by a definite connecting link. The social and local conditions in each case may be widely different, but the principle illustrated is the same. Few greater contrasts could exist, so far as appearances are concerned, than between Victoria Street, West- minster, and Toad Lane, Rochdale. Nor are the particular build- ings in the two thoroughfares, which we shall successively enter, frequented by persons between whose exterior or whose state of life much resemblance can be traced. At the same time the pa- trons of each are animated by the common motive, and have dis-, covered that the end in view can be best secured by nearly identical methods. The method is that of co-operation, and though the man- ner in which it is carried out in the capital and in the Lancashire manufacturing town varies, while it represents in the latter more of social advantage, and more, also, of moral enthusiasm than in the former, the different aspects of the enterprise may still not inappro- priately be placed side by side. It is about three o'clock in .the afternoon, and, in the course of a walk from Victoria Station tow- ards the Houses of Parliament, down a long, gaunt street, with CO- OTERA TION. j j 1 1 huge mansions, containing flats, or lawyers' offices, or the chambers of colonial and parliamentary agents, one notices, midway on the right-hand side, rows of carriages and cabs, two or three deep, drawn up in front of a handsome block of buildings. Every 1 of vehicle that can be bought or hired in London is here -from the open barouche or closed brougham, with their thorough-b horses, to the carriage jobbed by the month, or let out by the b \ as well as the hackney cab, hansom, or four-wheeler. Footmen and coachmen are stationed at the doors, through which there p ladies and gentlemen— some on the point of transacting their busi- ness, others having completed their purchases, which are car; I by servants to the purchasers' carriages. The establishment is not only an emporium, but a lounge, a place of gossip and pleasure, as well as of business. One enters, and finds grizzled warriors seated at a table, drawing up, with mucli < deliberation, a list of them intended purchases. Close beside there is a young matron, new to housekeeping, whose husband has just received his promotion, and who is intent upon making a limil I sum go as far as possible. Around and about these, passing to or coming from the different counters, are groups of well-dress< d buy- ers, who have been giving orders for every sort of article that their households or drawing-rooms can need. There are many, too, who seem to have no thought of buying any thing, or who, if they have fulfilled the object with which they ostensibly came hither, linger on, with no other visible aim than to meet their friends and discuss the news or scandal of the day. Precisely the same thing is goi on upon the story above, and above that again until the third or fourth floor is reached. The goods sold vary according to the elevation of the department above the level of the street. In each there is the same mixed crowd of buyers, the same social chatter, the same interchange of compliments, the same applications to the cashier to make out bills. There is also a refreshment room on the premises for the benefit of customers who may recniire a light lunch; or, if it be afternoon, as we are now supposing it to be, may like to sip the comforting cup of "five o'clock tea." The placi ■■i, discharges not a few of the purposes of a club for ladies ami men; it gratifies the prevailing passion for combining pleasure business, and gives the customers of the store the sati Faction of knowing, that at the same time they meet their friend- getting their wares — whether it be an ormolu clock or a jar pickles — at a cheaper rate and of better quality than they could elsewhere. . 224 ENGLAND. Let us now turn to Toad Lane, Rochdale. The hour is seven o'clock on Saturday evening. There are swarms of factory hands, with their wives and children, passing and repassing from one shop to another, for in Toad Lane there is not, as there is in Victoria Street, a concentration of many shops into one. All, however, be- long to the same society, and the Rochdale Pioneers do a business as comprehensive in its way as that of the naval and military co- operators, or the Civil Service, in London. There are no luxurious carriages waiting outside the premises in Toad Lane, no footmen, powdered or unpowdered, standing sentry at the door, no commis- sionaires calling for cabs, or smart page-boys laden with parcels bringing up the rear. Though here, as in Victoria Street, there is much general conversation between the buyers, there is little loiter- ing about, and it is easy to see that the dominant spirit of the place is one of business. At the counter of one shop there are attendants drawing treacle, packing parcels of sugar, and refitting the empty shelves; on the pavement outside are at least a dozen persons wait- ing to take their turn, and a similar spectacle may be noticed at intervals throughout the whole street. Immediately opposite the grocery store is one for drapery, where a dozen women of varying ages are selecting articles; next door but one is a still larger shop, in which huge joints of meat are being cut and sold; while in another department of the same house, flour, potatoes, and butter are being weighed out. Close by tailors and shoemakers are attending to their customers. Next door to the butcher's shop is a watch club, and immediately adjoining this is the library, whose officers are hard at work, exchanging, renewing, and delivering books. A marked feature in the scene, and a significant commentary upon the real value of the institution, is the number of children. The working classes seldom or never send children to shops on errands of an important character, for the simple reason that they are afraid lest the sellers should impose upon their ignorance and innocence. In the stores all have confidence, and they know that no distinction of persons is made. There are many points of difference, other than those which relate to the personnel of their patrons, between the London and the Rochdale co-operative establishments. Even the co-operative stores in London themselves are not uniformly conducted upon one principle. Though the business done by the Army and Navy Stores in Victoria Street is not as great as that of the Civil Service Supply Association, there is in the former instance more of the ordinary trading system than in the latter. It is practically open to any CO- OPERA r/OAT. J J g person to become a member of the Victoria Street establishmi I At the present day, no new-comer to the Civil Service Su] «o- ciation, if he is not a civil .servant, can obtain the enjoymenl of .-ill its privileges; nor, indeed, will it be easy for him to belong to th< m on any terms unless he is nominated by a shareholdi r. Th< re are other so-called co-operative stores in London, which have nothing , whatever in their management to entitle them to the name. They are simply the enterprises of private individuals <>r companies, \ believe that the name co-operation is one to conjure with, and ■who employ it as a synonym for cheapness. That co-operation often been the cause of cheapness in other establishments, w! have nothing really co-operative about them, cannot be doubted. The effect which the institution of 'these stores has had upon trades- men, has redounded greatly to the advantage of all classes of 1m > era. They have introduced a new element of competition, and have com- pelled tradesmen largely to reduce them prices for ready-money customers. While every dealer at the Eochdale stores is a shareholder, th< re are many members of the London stores who have no vested inter- est in the concern whatever. They have purchased their admission ticket to it on the recommendation of a friend, who, perhaps, is a shareholder, and the oidy practical disadvantage at which they find themselves is, that they have no claim to participation in the pro! or to the gratuitous conveyance of their purchases to their homes. A further and very important distinction between such co-operative societies in London as those at which we have glanced, ami a co- operative society, like the Equitable Pioneers, is that, in the • of the latter, there is none of the necessary antagonism which, in the case of the former, exists between the store and the ordinary tradesman. In London the object of the store is to undersell the tradesman; in the provinces, at Eochdale and elsewhere, it is ' not to do this, but to sell at the price current in the neighborhood, the advantage offered by the store being, in the first place, the best goods which the money paid can command; in the second a sir inducement to thrift. For example, the Rochdale stor only an aggregate of well-supplied, well-conducted shops, hut actually or potentially savings hanks as well. Every member being a shareholder, shares in an equal degree in the profits, and the only surplusage which at the end of the year there is to be divided amongst the shareholders is that to which every member is | portionately entitled. It follows that there are greater inducem to economical management hi Eochdale or Halifax than in London. 15 226 ENGLAND. At either of the former places every sixpence spent upon salaries and wages represents an increase of expenditure upon the article purchased. So, no doubt, it does in London, but where all do not share, as in London they do not, in the margin of profit left outside working expenses, this fact can scarcely be practically realized with the same degree of force. Perhaps the best way of stating the difference between co-opera- tion, as it exists amongst the higher and the lower classes of English society, will be to say that in the former it represents the principles of expediency and economy, and nothing more ; and that in the latter it is at once associated with, and is symbolical of, a very material advance in the general condition of the working classes. The naval or military officer, the civil servant, the nobleman, the distinguished official, a whole host of gentlemen, who, in the London season, divide their days pretty equally between their offices, clubs, and other resorts of business, fashion, or pleasure, go to the stores, because they believe, or profess to believe, that in going thither they are making their purchases, in a not disagreeable way, in the cheapest market. The doctrine which they thus recognize is one simply of personal convenience ; there is no more moral fervor about the whole proceeding than there is about the calculations of a party whip in the House of Commons, while a party debate is in progress. At the establishment of the Civil Service Supply Association, the economical idea may be pronounced wholly in the ascendant; at the Army and Navy Stores, in Victoria Street, there is a strong focus of social attraction as well. In both instances it cannot be doubted that the stores are patronized by many people, especially ladies, who really like the excitement of the atmosphere, and the occupation given by shopping under exceptionally agitating condi- tions. Others there are who fail to find any allurements in a more pronounced degree of bustle and disturbance than they would en- counter at those shops where their personal identity is not in immi- nent danger of bein'e lost amidst a chaotic multitude of customers. Yet these in many instances go to the stores, for the simple reason that they know that by purchasing for ready money their goods in person they are not charged, as in some shops they practically are, interest on the outstanding accounts of credit customers, or the cost of the commission which, in the shape of Christmas gratuity or quarterly fee, the tradesman often pays the head servants of large private establishments. But even amongst the hard-worked civil servants of the Crown there cannot be any thing like the consuming enthusiasm which is the soul of the co-operative movement amongst 1 A CO-OPERATION. 007 the laboring classes. The truth is, that the planes oil which co- operation moves in either instance differ as greatly as rs tin* social condition of its votaries. To live cleanly, soberly, and b estry is confessedly regarded as a mark of distinction among working classes. "When one goes higher in the social scale, | conventional assumption is that it is no distinction at all. Thus it is with co-operation, thrift, and the power of responsible manage- ment. With the well-to-do they are either not exceptional virtues at all, or if they are, it is polite to ignore the fact. "With the work- ing man it is admitted by his condescending patrons — who might sometimes be his pupils — that they constitute a distinct claim to admiring recognition. Nothing more need here be indicated than the chief principles, or the central ejrisocles and stages, of that co-operative movement, which has a history and a literature of its own.* In estimating the influences of English co-operation, it is necessaiy to remember that it had its origin in something very like fanaticism, and that its first apostles held out to then* followers an ideal too visionary for actual attainment. It is these historical associations which have given to the movement that degree of moral impetus without which it could scarcely have been driven onward as rapidly as it has been. If the co-operation in England had known no other motive than the eco- nomical, if the only appeal which it had made to its votaries was based upon unsentimental considerations of supj>ly and demand, it could never have acquired so strong a hold upon the working classes. A fanatical or an exaggerated enthusiasm lies with En- glishmen at the bottom of every great popular cause; the fanaticism passes away, but a genuine residuum of energy remains. Long before the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers opened their store in Toad Lane in 1844 with £20 worth of goods, Owen had made his experi- ment, and that experiment had been generally stigmatized as a fail- ure. But if its influences are prospectively estimated, it cannot be considered as a failure in any way. for it really generated the enthu- siasm without which co-operation would never have been taken up. Then it w T as that the doctrines which Owen held, and which ho en- deavored to translate into practice, were destined to yield a pd humous harvest. Just as in the human constitution, selfishness and sympathy are the two mutually compensating principles, so has co-operatioD act 1 in civil society at large as the counter-influence to the principle of * "The History of Co-operation," in two volumes, by Mr. Jacob Holyoakej a very valuable work, to which I am much indebted in tl r. 228 ENGLAND. trades unionism. Competition, it was said in the Leader newspaper thirty years ago, as developing in England, must destroy in the end "both family life and industrial prosperity. It was this apprehension which, quite as much as the obvious economical doctrine that it would be to the advantage of the working classes to buy then wares in the cheapest market, caused several gentlemen and clergymen of the Church of England energetically to promote the movement. These claimed support for it on the ground that it represented nothing less than the practical application of Christianity to the purposes of trade and industry. In the official reports of the earlier meetings of the Central Co-operative Society — the Association for Pi'omoting Industrial and Provident Societies — one finds resolutions couched in language whose sincerity is above suspicion, and which sufficiently testifies to a high elevation of moral aim. Thus at the conference held on the state of the society in Great Castle Street, London, July, 1852, it was unanimously resolved by its delegates " that this conference entreats all co-operative establishments . . . to sell all articles for exactly what they know them to be, and to ab- stain . . . from the sale of articles known to be adulterated, even if demanded by then customers." The following year it was formally laid down that the principles of the association were — - " That human society is a body consisting of many members, not a collection of warring atoms. That true workmen must be fellow- workers, and not rivals. That a principle of justice, and not of self- ishness, must govern exchanges." Nor did more prosaic and practical points fail to receive their due measure of consideration and discussion. Chief amongst these was the payment of managers and of laborers employed by associa- tions. The resolution was arrived at — that " the principle of giving a share of the profits to all who had shared in the work was essen- tially just," and that if this were not done the chief characteristic of co-operative societies would be lost. It was uj)on this occasion that at the festival which followed the conference, the president, the late F. D. Maurice, observed that " human nature, Christianity, and co- operation, alike taught that men must be controlled by moral law, and until that was acknowledged the continual fighting of man against man, employer against employed, would never cease. As soon as the law was proclaimed and observed that men should help one another, and live for one another, and that so only could they live for themselves, society would be kept in union by a power mightier than selfishness, industrial associations would be the in- struments of the moral education, translating those principles into CO- OPERA TION. 229 the business of practical life." Twelve years later, the machim of co-operation was supplemented by the promotion of a Co-opera- [ tive "Wholesale Society, to which it was intended that local stor< should be affiliated, procuring thence the articles that they retailed to their customers. Starting with a capital of £999, it made a small loss of £39 in its first half-year, followed in the next by a profit of £306. The result of its fourteen years trading shows that on the 12th of January, 1878, there were 844 provincial societies which h or have accounts with the Co-operative Wholesale Society. Th< societies purchased in the last quarter of the year 1877, £080,811 worth of goods for the three departments in which the central so- ciety is now organized, viz. — grocery and provisions, drapery, hoots and shoes, and furniture. The cash receipts for the same period from all sources amounted to £1,415,580, and the business done in the year to £2,827,052. Again in 1800, two years after it started, the Wholesale -Society established branches for purchase of produce at Tipperary, at Killmallock in 1808, at Limerick in 1809, at Clon- mel in 1874, at New York in 1870, and at Cork in 1877. Besides the Manchester establishment, there exist local centers in London, Newcastle, and Liverpool, a biscuit factory at Crumpsall, a shoe fac- tory at Leicester, and soap works in Durham. The Wholesale So- ciety has, in fact, become the commercial backbone of the move- ment, and is a crucial instance of the capacity of the working classes for managing large affairs. It was at the time that this society was established that a co-operative movement in another direction took place, and that the attempt which we have already seen to organize consumption for the upper and professional classes on the same lines was made. The Civil Service Supply Association, which now does the largest co-operative business among the middle and the upper classes of the country, was established in 1800. Its origin was simple, and in a great degree the result of a happy accident. The excessive retail price charged for tea induced a gentleman in the Post-office to ' obtain a chest of it on wholesale terms. This he kept in a cell" below the office, and distributed its contents as wanted to a few of his personal friends in the department. Comparison of quality and price not only was followed by a much larger demand for the ar- ticle than it was convenient to supply in this primitive fashion, but brought into prominent relief the advantages that would be secured if the system were extended. In consequence, a few of the offici v combined to start the Post-office Supply Association, its members being strictly limited to employes of the department. The project 230 ENGLAND. was found to work so advantageously that very soon it was deter- mined to diffuse its advantages throughout the entire service; and in February, 18G6, the Civil Service Supply Association (Limited) was established under " The Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1802." The capital was limited to £2,250 in 4,500 shares of 10s. each, and although modifications have been frequently entertained the amount of capital stock still remains the same. From its com- mencement the association has progressed steadily. The sales, which in the first year (1866) amounted to £21,822, increased in the next to £83,405, in 1877 had passed a million sterling, in 1878 reached a total of £1,390,000. Nor did the fact that in the second year of the enterprise two of the directors seceded and unsuccess- fully set on foot another store appreciably arrest this rapid de- velopment. On this large turnover the gross profit {%. e., the differ- ence in the price paid to the producer and that charged to the member) averages 8-| per cent. Of this percentage 0| to 7 per cent, goes in working expenses, leaving 1-| to 2 per cent, for profit to the shareholders. The exjienses of working, estimated in the dealings of 1878, come to no less than £90,000; but when it is ex- plained that the amount paid in that year for salaries of the em- ployes was very little short of £70,000, some notion will be formed of the vastness of the organization and the economy of its manage- ment. In this connection it may be said that not only is every thing, as a matter of course, bought for prompt cash, but the producer is invariably treated with directly. This system, when combined with that of keeping the percentage of profits at the level named, gives rise to certain anomalies. The producers of certain articles, known throughout the world, whatever advantage in price they may be willing to concede the association in considera- tion of the extent of the transactions, stipulate that their goods shall not be resold at less than certain market quotations. Hence, on such goods a very large profit is made, and, as a consequence, the prices of other articles are reduced so as to equalize the percentage of profit throughout the department. On the other hand, there are well-known goods which cannot be sold at prices below those quoted by retail traders, who selling such articles without profit seek to impress their customers with the belief that their prices generally are on a level with those of the co-operative stores. As an example, the familiar custom of selling sugar at or under cost is not adopted by the association, whose quotations for this article are consequently comparatively high. But in all articles of food the purchaser at the stores has the great advantage of a guarantee CO- OPERA T/OAT. 231 of purity. It is a special feature of those institutiona thai every thing is examined by a qualified analyst, permanently employed for the purpose. Iu the sum named as the annual turnover, no estimate has been included of the sales made by the tradesman affiliated to I society who deal directly with the members, allowing on pur< a discount varying from 10 to 2.1 per cent. It is calculate these come to between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 annually, tl • being about 400 firms so affiliated, some of which have individually sold more than £00,000 worth of goods in a given twelve mont The disposition on the part of the shopkeepers to ava of the privilege does not diminish; but of the many desirous of admittance to the association's list, only those who are able to satisfy a most rigid scrutiny of their standing are successful, and more than half the applicants are as a rule rejected. It should be added that some of the very first West End firms have shown no wish to identify themselves with the movement. The direction is composed of fifteen gentlemen, who each receive as remuneration 200 guineas per annum. They are < .lum- bers of the Civil Service, and take an active part in the ma .-nt of the stores, generally attending cxevy afternoon, when they divide themselves into committees for different purposes. To the secre- tary, who acts also as general manager, falls the chief superint< nd- ence, and he has directly under and responsible to him the depart- mental managers — the latter being invariably highly competent mi in receipt of salaries varying from £300 to £600 per annum. It will be obvious that the original capital of the association would be to- tally inadequate to work a business of this extent, and which pri- marily turns on cash payments. The necessary means are provided by accumulations of profits. The reserve fund to August, 1874, showed such an accumulation to the extent of £93,205; and a later one, to June 30th, 1878, called the guarantee account, an additional sum of £103,805. If to these two sums be added the capital stock, the total is within a fraction of £200,000, one moiety of which is in- vested in buildings, the other available as working capital The question of a division in whole or part of these accumulate d profits amongst the shareholders has been throughout and is si ill a di culty. The accumulation to August, 1874, was set apart, as has been shown, because the opinion of eminent counsel concurred thai it could not be distributed. As the matter now stands, it is contem- plated to create additional fully-paid shares to repre Benl the amount of the accumulations for allotment to the presenl shareholders 'I 232 ENGLAND. original 10s. shares are transferable to qualified persons in the same way as any ordinary share, and consequently have a high value, which will be considerably higher when a solution of this question is formed, and current profits can be paid in dividends. Naturally, the association has had many followers in the path which it has struck out. The operations of even the most successful of these have not in any way impeded the progress of the original society, which numbered on December 31st, 1878, 36,000 members, of whom 23,000 pay annually 2s. or 5s., the remainder consisting of shareholders and then special nominees. The Civil Service Co-ope- rative Society was originally formed, as has been said, by the seces- sion of some directors of the Supply Association. Its offices are in the Haymarket, and its organization and general features are iden- tical with those of the society of which it is an offshoot. In the first year of its career the turnover was £15,000, in 1878 £505,000. The number of members is at present 13,000 and it should perhaps be observed that these, whether share or ticket holders, are strictly limited to qualified persons. The original capital, as in the other society, is extremely limited, being nominally £5,000, of which only £2,000 is paid up, and in the same way it finds its working funds from accumulated profits. On the 31st December, 1878, those placed to the reserve fund amounted to £75,000, of which comparatively a small portion only is invested in buildings. The scheme which the original association has in view has afready been partly carried out by its younger sister. The reserve fund has been apportioned in bonus shares amongst the shareholders, but as yet, it is understood, the payment of a dividend on these new shares is only under consid- eration. The average net profit is the same as that realized by the Supply Association; the working expenses are perhaps fractionally higher, but not more so than might be expected from the cost of the staff of a more limited business. The progress made by the Army and Navy Co-operative Society is not less proportionately rapid. The sales during the first year of its existence amounted to £130,280; during the seventh year, that which ended January, 1879, they reached a total of more than a million and a half. In all, during this septennial period the sales exceeded considerably five millions, and the gain to members of the association must be confuted at not less than one million. The dividend paid to shareholders in this society is only five per cent, and the surplus funds are devoted to a constant reduction of prices. If we are to consider the effect of this and kindred institutions not only upon their members, but on the community at large, two things OF UfflV CO-OPERA TI01 ■ 71 are clear: in the first place, the money saved is not lost toeinu'.i- tion, but diverted into other channels, though sometimes, perhai of less productive expenditure; in the second place, there is the same demand for labor under the co-operative regime us there would be if the monopoly of the tradesman had never been challenged. Many of the amusements and luxuries of life which were inacc< i- ble to the possessors of fixed incomes, so long as they paid credit prices for the necessaries of life, are now placed within their reach, and there is pocket-inoney to spare for amusements and indul- gences — the concert, the theater, and hire of cabmen and garden- ers. As regards the relations between co-operative stores and na- tional industry, there is in the former plenty of erupkynient lor the latter. There are heads and foremen of department who but for the stores woidd, no doubt, have set up as tradesmen on their oavu account — as a matter of fact, many have been tradesmen. Further, to some extent these associations co-operate not merely in the work of distribution, but of production as well. The Civil Service Sim- ply Association has long made its own drugs; chemicals, and a few other articles. The Army and Navy has gone much further in that direction, and has large workshops for the manufacture of portman- teaus, dressing-bags, purses, and other leathern goods, tin-work, ja- panned ware, cabinets, as well as printing and die-sinking works. In all, employment is thus provided for close upon 2,000 hands. ," The society,"' says the secretary, " has been compelled to adopt this expedient by the difficulty, and almost in some instances impos- sibility, of procuring really sound and good articles that could be confidently warranted to its members, owing to the system of scamp- ing and concealing defects. The results have quite kept pace with the most sanguine expectations. The prices have been reduced, the members are satisfied, and the working men, many of them the best in their respective trades, are well content. As an illustration of this it may be related that a director conversing with one of them a few days ago inquired how he liked his employment, and received the reply ' Very much.' 'Why so?' he then asked. 'Because, sir, I have regular work. Before I came here I made bags which I sold to a factor. He would put on a large profit and sell them to a shop- keeper, and before they reached the regular customers my price v. more than doubled. And then T often had two or three idle days ;it a time, as I cordd not sell my work. But now, owing to the small profit put on by the stores, I suppose there are a hundred bags sold where there used not to be ten; and I have regular employment and no idle time.' 'But how do you like the rule which prevents In r 234 ENGLAND. being taken into the workshops ? ' ' "Well, sir, I didn't like it at first, but now I am used to it, and it has saved me a lot of money.' " * There is, however, another side to this particular question. While co-operative manufacture secures the immense advantage of a uniform excellence in quality, the means at the command of the larger manufacturers, their experience and personal interest, enable them to produce goods which offer little margin for competition. Independently of the great economical boon which co-operation in distribution has been to the working classes, it has brought with it moral, intellectual, and political advantages of the highest value. It has taught working men how to act together, to differ on de- tails without disagreeing as to principle, to dissent without mutual separation, and, in spite of sundry divergencies of opinion, steadily to combine together with a common purpose in view. The periodi- cal meetings of the shareholders in these stores are sometimes agi- tated by stormy debates, but the discussion ends in a schism far less frequently than in the practical recognition of the truth that toleration is a necessity of life. Again, all efforts at self-improve- ment and "self -reform, having an elevating tendency, co-operation, as belonging to this class of enterprise, has raised the views of, and implanted healthy ambition among the laboring population. " The improved condition," writes one of the chief leaders of the co-opera- tive movement, "of our members is apparent in their dress, bearing, and freedom of speech. You would scarcely believe the alteration made in them by their being connected with a co-operative society." " The whole atmosphere," says Mr. Holyoake, " is honest. Those who serve neither hurry, finesse, nor flatter; they have no interest in chicanery; they have but one duty to perform — that of giving fair measure, full weight, and a pure article." Teetotalers recognize in the store an agency of incalculable worth for teaching the virtues of sobriety. Husbands who never knew what it was to be out of debt and wives who previously never had a spare sixpence in their pockets, now go to market — the market being their own property — with well- filled purses, and with a belief in their own capacities to ameliorate their condition. "Many married women," continues Mr. Holyoake, " become members because then husbands will not take the trouble, and others join the store in self-defense, to prevent the husband from spending their money in jirink. Many single women have ac- cumulated property in the store, which becomes a certificate of their conjugal worth, and young men in want of prudent helpmeets con- * See an article by Mr. J. H. Lawson, entitled "Co-operative Stores," a reply to shopkeepers, in the Nineteenth Chdury, February, 1879. CO- OPERA TIO AT. 2 ! 1 5 sider that to consult the books of the store is the 1 ems «>f directing their selection." Briefly, a Bhare in a co-operative store ia calculated to give its holder a consciousness of some definite aim and purpose in life. Every member of the society is som cap. italist; the share has a definite mercantile value; a I bove that, there are the dividends, paid quarterly, on bh< purchases. The co-operative movement has also taught the working classes of England what mutual confidence can do. With few exceptions, the business of these stores is conducted upon the strict lv- money principles When societies have allowed credit they have often been wrecked, and the mischief which one such failure! has done to the entire movement can scarcely be exaggerated. The trust which the working classes now repose in their stores has re- ceived striking and sometimes rather pathetic illustrations. Ml. Holyoake tells the story of a shopkeeper who came to a woman, a member of the Equitable Pioneers, admonishing her to draw out the £±Q which she had in the societv at once, as it was sure to break. The answer was, "Well, if it does break it will break with its own; it has all been saved out of my profits; all I have it has given i The educational value which these stores possess is not only moral and social, but literary and intellectual While they have united the working classes in beneficent efforts for their own im- provement, they have generated a new sense of citizenship, they have even been utilized as a machinery for providing instruction of the higher kind for their members. To the reading-rooms and lending libraries — such as we have seen in the course of our visit to the Equitable Pioneers in Toad Lane — there have been added clat in French, science, and art. Only in a few instances, however, are these co-operative societies doing a distinctly educational work, and it may be doubted how far, in view of the numerous independent educational agencies, such as university extension, lecture societies, institutes, and the ladies' improvement associations that exist in Leeds, Birmingham, and other towns — associations, as the aame im- plies, for teaching the women of the working classes the rudiments of household economy and domestic hygiene — it is pra< ticable i these further responsibilities should be at all generally assumed. As to the future of co-operation in England there are two dis- tinct sets of opinions. On the one hand, it is maintained thai il ifl not likely to render any fresh specific service; thai in having sup- plied the working population, as well as their social superiors with an exceedingly effective machinery for the economical distribution of the necessaries and luxuries of life, it has done all i aid 236 ENGLAND. reasonably be expected; that if to this we add its success in incul- cating the virtues of frugality and thrift, we have entirely exhausted the list of its possible good works. On the other hand, experienced enthusiasts like Mr. Thomas Hughes, and others, who have made co-operation their special study, are persuaded that the movement, if not in its infancy, is still in its youth, and that there are before it great opportunities of usefulness as yet undeveloped. The prime question is, whether ifc is in the nature of things possible, that the principle of co-operation should be applied to production with any thing like the same results realized in the case of distribution. The experiment, indeed, has often been made, but scarcely with sufficient success in any considerable number of cases to justify the assertion that the co-operative principle is destined to solve the problem of labor versus capital. The mutual distrust, which is too often the characteristic of the laboring classes, and which offered serious ob- stacles to the successful working of the co-operative stores in their earlier days, has not yet been overcome in the matter of co-opera- tive production. A fair days wage for a fair day's work is their motto, and the working man prefers to labor for an employer, whom he holds responsible for his pay, and from whom he knows that, when the day's work is done, he wall receive it, to engaging in a venture with his fellows, on the chance that success in their efforts, in the more or less remote future, wall enable them handsomely to remunerate themselves. Thus it is that when co-operative mills have been started, each worker, being entitled to share equally in the profits, they have generally ended by becoming joint-stock com- panies, in which only a very limited number have been proprietors. In one notable instance the co-operative principle has been ap- / plied with the happiest results to agriculture. Fourteen years be- fore the commencement of the enterprise of the Rochdale Pioneers, a Suffolk squire, Mr. Grurden, of Assington, selected sixty acres of land of medium quality, furnishing them with a homestead, and let- ting them out to a company of shareholders — all taken from the class of farm-laborers — who put £3 apiece into the concern, while Mr. Gurdcn himself advanced a sum of £400, without interest, on loan. In 18G7, the number of shareholders had risen from fifteen to twenty-one, the land held had increased from 60 to 130 acres, and each of the shares was worth £50. In addition to this, the company had paid back Mr. Gurden all his money, and the stock and imple- ments on the farm, the former consisting of six horses, four cows, 110 sheep, thirty or fort} 7 pigs, were the exclusive property of the co- operators. The rent of the land was £200 per annum, and the farm CO- OPER. 1 r/OAT. 237 was held on a forty-four years' lease. The bu siness was and is man- aged by a committee of four, some of whose members could noi i iv< read or write, but the practical direction of the farm rests with the bailiff — himself a co-operator — who is paid a shilling a week above the ordinary rate of wages. Even if it be held that the success of the Assington experiment is, in the nature of things, exceptional, and that co-operative pro- duction upon any large scale is impracticable, all such undertakings may claim the credit of an undoubtedly beneficial tendency, and are necessarily calculated to promote an improvement in the relations between capital and labor. Workmen Avho take part in such enter- prises acquire the habit of looking at industrial problems from the employers' point of view, gradually perceive that there are many difficulties in trade and manufacture to which they have hitherto been strangers, and that ta such questions as piece-work, overtime, hours of labor, there are two sides. Thus productive co-operation, not less than, as we have seen, distributive, may be regarded as the compensating principle to unionism. On the whole, it is well that we should estimate co-operation rather by the work it has actually done than by that which sanguine visionaries consider it may still accomplish. It is enough to know that it has organized and elevated the life of the masses, has im- mensely improved their social position, has implanted in them the germs of a new morality, and a disposition which is fruitful of prom- ise in the future relations of capital and labor. Further, co-opera- tion has made the struggle for existence easier, existence itself hap- pier and better for half a million of Englishmen, in the course of twenty-five years. A sum of upwards of £5,000,000 of capital forms the stock of the working-class co-operative societies. These soci- eties not merely sell goods of the best quality, on reasonable tern is, but, in many cases, as we have seen, have been accompanied by the institution of libraries, wholesale bank and trading societies, con- ferences and congresses, and in some cases productive concerns. It is further to be remembered that since 1852 — when the first In- dustrial and Provident Societies Act was passed—all this develop- ment has been perfectly natural and sj^ontaneous, has taken phv e in the open market, subject to the full and keen competition of otli- r industrial organizations. If the believers in an agency which has done thus much think that more than is likely to be witnessed yet remains for it to do, the delusion is at least pardonable, and if these are called fanatics, it must be remembered that it was fanatics wit it whom co-operation had its first beginnings. CHAPTER XIY. CRIMINAL ENGLAND. Definition of Crime — Difficulty of arriving at Exact Estimate of Amount of Crime — Figures apt to mislead ; yet much has been done during the Cen- tury — Direction of Reform — Prisons, Police, Reformatories — Constitution of the Army of Crime — Categories of Criminals — Congenital Crime — High Flights of Modern Burglars — Habitual Criminals — Prevention of Crimes Act ■ — Accidental Criminals— Colossal Criminals — Police Organization: its De- fects — Recent Reforms — Machinery of Detection — New System in London detailed — Treatment of Criminals after Apprehension — Imprisonment — Local Prisons and New Organization described — Penal Servitude— Convict Prisons described — Discharged Prisoners— Difficulties they have to face — Assistance given by Prisoners' Aid Societies, and the Results these proba- bly achieve. CRIME in the body politic is often justly compared to some mys- terious ailment, inveterate in the human frame. Just as the extent and ramifications of the one are apt to defy medical diagno- sis, so do statisticians, sociologists, and philanthropists differ about the other. They cannot agree as to the origin of crime; they ques- tion results which figures might be supposed indisputably to prove; they join issue upon methods of treatment, and have each their fa- vorite panacea. Some there are who consider crime an inalienable birthright. According to this view thieving and wrong-doing are transmitted from generation to generation, and if we would elimi- nate them we must segregate the dangerous classes, and reduce their power of reproduction to its lowest term. Others are satisfied to deal with the infant criminal, and hope to eradicate the inherited taint before it has acquired concrete proportions, by removing the bantling from sinister influences when still susceptible of improve- ment. A thud and very numerous school do not despair of refor- mation even when the criminal is full grown and hardened in his career, and preserving their faith unimpaired in moral influences, continue to profess a belief that prisons properly managed will gradually diminish crime. Upon the actual statistics of crime there are also many opinions. To the official mind the figures published CRIMINAL ENGLAND. 289 in parliamentary papers may be convincing enough. Columns in- numerable, carefully compiled and calculated, prove to demonstra- tion that although the population of the kingdom steadily grows there is no corresponding increase in crime. On the other hand, many deny the soundness of that position. Figures, they are ready to admit, cannot lie, but they may mislead. It is not sufficient show that the number of indictable offenses dimi;: >ar to year; it must be proved that eveiy crime has been detected and every criminal brought to justice. Is it not the fact that many of- fenders escape scot free? that even the crimes they commit remain unknown long after their perpetration? Is it not also undoubtedly true that honest folk often submit tamely to injury and depredation sooner than be further mulcted in heavy sums to carry out prosecu- tions whereof the expense, it may be urged, should fall upon the State ? Where views and opinions are so various and conflicting, it might seem at first difficult to come to any conclusion upon the general question. But if we can once clear ourselves of the intri- cacies of mere detail, and, unbiassed by partisan spirit, take a calm and comprehensive survey of the subject, we shall arrive at certain broad facts which will immensely facilitate the task. The actual condition of crime and the measures which deal with it may not be as yet absolutely satisfactory, but it cannot be denied that criminal legislation generally has improved vastly since the conimencenu nt of the present century. It may be that the prevention of crime, the removal of temptations to commit it, and its treatment in its first beginnings, have not yet reached the scientific stage; that the ma- chinery of detection is still imperfect and uncertain; that the theory and practice of repression, the pains and penalties, retributory or deterrent, imposed to maintain the majesty of the law, continue, in spite of earnest endeavors to understand them, illogical and incom- plete. Be it so; it is still certain that in all these matters We have made enormous strides in recent years. Our penal code has lost i! 3 ancient savage and ruthless character. It is not so long ago that the theft of a spoon was enough to hang a man, and thai affa r every assize the gallows were loaded with victims guilty of the i iosI v< offenses. Little less barbarous was the system of secondary punish- ment meted out to those who escaped the capital sentence of l law. It was underlaid by the same principle of extirpation. Trans- portation beyond the seas was established as a means of riddii community of its criminals for as long a time as possible, perhi forever. Never was a more anomalous and inconsistent scheme of 240 ENGLAND. penal repression devised. It was most unequal in its incidence. Some suffered severely, others were rapidly transformed into mil- lionaires. The punishment, again, such as it was, was indicted at so great a distance from home that it failed to act as a warning upon those who remained behind. Presently, with increased means of intercommunication, the penalty of expatriation ceased to be effect- ive, till at last, as the colonies themselves progressed towards ma- terial wealth and prosperity, the strange spectacle was seen of honest artisans emigrating of then' own accord to spots where felons were also relegated for then sins. Anomalies such as these have now al- together disappeared. Transportation has been replaced by penal servitude, and that the whole scheme of imprisonment and jail man- agement is certain in its operations and fairly effective is shown by the results it obtains. Eouallv marked have been the changes and reforms in police organization. The existing elaborate machinery, | which embraces every corner of the kingdom, which in England and Wales alone employs some thirty thousand men, and costs a couple of millions a year, is barely half a century old. People who, not too gratefully, accept the ubiquitous policeman of to-day as an estab- lished institution, shoidd compare him and the system of which he is the exponent with the ancient Charlie or the Bow Street runner of the past. It is no longer necessary to raise the hue and cry in order to bring great criminals to justice; soldiers do not now act as thief-catchers, nor is it often that they are called out in aid of the civil 23ower. The prevention of crime, again, ■ may be a difficult problem which will remain unsolved for many centuries, but ex- ceedingly praiseworthy efforts at its solution have been made in recent years. It is coming to be more generally understood that crime must be dealt with in the rudimentary sta^-e. To reform hardened offenders has proved almost impossible, but their off- spring with care may be preserved from contaminating influences and turned into the right path. Much has been already accom- plished in this direction by reformatory and industrial schools, the number of which are increasing from day to day. Through them it may yet be possible to cut off the supply which feeds and keeps alive the great army of crime still existing in our midst; a vast force of wrong-doers warring constantly with society, achieving few suc- cesses, suffering many reverses, but exhibiting a vitality equally deplorable and tenacious. This army is strangely constituted, and veiy variously recruited. There are many categories of criminals. Some are born criminals; some achieve crime; others have crime thrust upon them. The CRIMINAL ENGLAND. '2 1 1 i -wretched urchin, whether nameless or owning a known parents who iirst sees the light in the purlieus of WhitechapeL in Seven Dials, or Drury Lane, takes in thievish and other evil propena I with his mother's milk. He learns to look upon the well-to do classes as his natural prey. He is taught to reverence the sum i'ul depredator as a glorious being; to despise the policeman the "copper," in his own slang — as his natural foe. His education, ex- cept in the nefarious processes of the profession which with him is hereditary, is utterly neglected. He grows up with ideas of right and wrong not so much perverted as non-existent. As soon as he is able to move his fingers or act for himself he joins the seminary of some modern Fagan, and in the companionship of the Artful Dodger, rapidly passes through the curriculum, choosing at its close the career in which he continues for the rest of his life. He soon becomes familiar with all the ups and downs of his precarious profession. For a time he may enjoy immunity, may remain un- known to the police, and with this continuous opportunity of plying his trade, he may pass a year, perhaps several years, in comparative comfort, doing no work, and yet receiving an abundance of ill-got- ten wages. At this epoch he consorts with his "fanc} r " of the oppo- site sex, and enters into a gtum-matrimonial partnership, which results in the perpetuation of his species by children who will, un- less a special Providence intervene, follow in his footsteps. Sooner or later he falls, as he euphemistically puts it, into trouble. It may be his evil luck to become familiarized with the inside of a jail even in his tenderest years; he may long escape capture, but sooner or later he is certain to come within the grip of the law, and once a jail-bird, a jail-bird he generally continues to the end of his days. To reclaim such unfortunate Ishmaehtes as these in the earlier stages of their downward progress is the praiseworthy object of nu- merous missions, refuges, and other reformatory institutions, which jsilently and with but little show, are now working strenuously amongst us. "What measure of success attends their estimable ef- forts cannot be very accurately determined. It is at least certain that the training-ships and industrial schools return annually to tin- general population many thousands of lads and girls, who have b< transformed from vagabonds of the most unpromising material into decent creatures, weaned of their predatory instincts, and willing to work honestly for their daily bread. These numbers, however, represent but a fraction of the whole mass of criminality from which they have been redeemed. The large balance which remains con tinues unreclaimed, and passes from bad to worse with rapid strides. 16 242 ENGLAND. The pickpocket and the area sneak, who are the rank and file of the criminal profession, if they display proper aptitudes, soon promote themselves to its higher walks. That strangely developed astute- ness, the fertile brains and nimble fingers which are such marked characteristics of the dangerous classes, serve them in good stead when they come to be engaged in larger operations, playing for bigger stakes, and risking longer periods of forfeited liberty upon each throw. The patient and minute care which the habitual burg- lar bestows upon his plans is worthy of the great general preparing or prosecuting an important campaign. He approaches his quar- ry by circuitous routes; gathers information from every available source, undermines insidiously the honesty, or boldly secures the co-operation, of the servants of the establishment which he has marked down as his prey. He does not attempt to pluck the apple till it is ripe, and by that time all his arrangements have been care- fully matured. He has decided upon the best plan of committing the deed. If the job be one which, for obvious reasons, he d6es not wish to execute personally, the services of a comrade, an equally adroit cracksman, not so well known in the neighborhood, are se- cured. The light vehicle — a tax-cart, with a fast-trotting pony — is ready to transfer the booty rapidly from the scene of action to a more distant spot, where the scent is weak or suspicion not yet aroused. Chief of all, a convenient " fence," or receiver of stolen goods, is advised of the approaching coup; his melting-pot is ready to turn the plate into "white soup," his emissaries wait only his orders to make themselves scarce with the iewels, which cannot be disposed of nearer than Vienna or Amsterdam. Thus from the first conception of the robbery, through all the preparations which have preceded its committal, to the skill displayed in execution and the subsequent astute cunning of the agents employed to remove all traces and destroy every clue, the whole affair has been managed in a masterly and a thoroughly artistic fashion. It is the perfection thus visible in the plans of modern burglars that has led to those repeated successes on a large scale which will explain how at cer- tain seasons a whole country side is devastated by these human pests; how mansion after mansion, country house after country house can be ransacked with impunity, and in the teeth of the local police; how in London, in the broad daylight, and in busy thor- oughfares, enterprising thieves can enter and despoil private dwell- ing-houses under the very noses of their owners. It may also ac- count for other mysterious and still undetected affairs; may explain how the jewel-box of a countess can be extracted under the eyes CRIMINAL ENGLAND. of servants and officials at a great London terminus; how a world- renowned picture may be spirited away from a well-watched and strongly guarded picture-gallery iu the very heart of the West End. But it is not only as a burglar on a large scale, whether top- sawyer and chief, or merely an individual unit in a wide confederacy and the trusted agent of others that the greatest criminals nowadays achieve success. There are other methods of rising to eminence in the nefarious trade. Although continually beaten up and hunt, d from pillar to post by the police, numbers of clever rascals who sit still themselves contrive to do a roaring trade upon the active mis- deeds of less experienced rogues. These are they vim employ pick- pocket and burglar as catspaws to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. The receiver of stolen goods, whatever their description — handker- chiefs, milk cans, forged bills, or bank notes embezzled — does more to foster crime than those who actually practice it. But although infinitely more criminal, he often escaj)es scot free. Justice may in the long run overtake him, but not before he has had opportunities of amassing considerable wealth. How far-reaching and cunningly laid are the nets spread by tho experts of this branch of crime, is seen as often as their evil practices are discovered and laid bare It is then discovered that some master-mind has woven a web and planned schemes upon a gigantic scale. In a very notorious ca which occupied the attention of the public in 1877 — that of the Long Firm, it was found that the fraternity embraced all manner of men and women in all parts of the country, that operations of unusual magnitude were manipulated by rogues with great financial skill and uncommon aptitudes for business, and that the traffic 3iad pros- pered undetected and unchecked for several consecutive years. The same breadth of treatment, accompanied by minute knowledge and mastery over details, were exhibited by the Transatlantic forgers, who in 1873 committed frauds upon the Bank of England, which, if undetected, would have involved the loss of hundreds of thousands of pounds. But it is not given to all to succeed, although many conspicuous examples may be quoted of successful crime. These are the lead: is and generals; there remain the common men, the rank and file of the army of crime, who have not possessed originally the talent to rise, or who through bad luck or bad management have gravitated still farther downwards, and whoso misdeeds are of a more pros and commonplace character. Their thieving, and their malpractices generally when they act for themselves, are always on a second-raio 244 ENGLAND. * scale; if they fly at higher game it is as the tools or instruments of others, and in such cases luck seldom brings them more than a tithe of the proceeds, while they have often to bear the whole brunt of failure. Still, whatever their degree and precedence in the ordei of iniquity, they all belong to the class of habitual criminals. That is an alarmingly numerous force. There are some 40,000 thieves and depredators continually at large; of the 23,000 persons appre- hended annually on suspicion of indictable crimes, and of whom about 14,000 are committed for trial, nearly half come under this category, as do many thousands and thousands of the half million people summarily convicted every year. It is with this race of rep- robates that our jails and convict establishments are principally filled; it is they who are the objects of unremitting solicitude on the part of the police, whether living prosperously, in the suburbs, or congregat- ing in thieves' kitchens in the East End. They are all more or less familiar to the police, and if "wanted" can generally be produced without loss of time. It is on their account, and to facilitate their ready identification, that huge ledgers, known as the Habitual Crim- inals' Register, are kept with admirable care and minuteness at the Home Office, and posted up from day to day. Against these out- laws severe enactments have recently been made. The law known as the Prevention of Crimes Act is directed mainlv against habitual crime; not only does it lay down that a repetition of offenses brings those who commit them within the definition and liable to the penal- ties of habitual criminals, but it provides for such subsequent super- vision as may watch over possible depredators and keep them in check. If none of these measures have as yet appreciably dimin- ished the number of habitual offenders, it must be admitted that as yet only a short time has elapsed since their introduction, and that it is still too soon to look for decisive results. Although the foregoing categories of criminals account for a large proportion of the whole number, there remains a consider- able fraction of evil-doers in whom the taint is neither hereditary nor habitual, but who represent distinct types of crime peculiar to the present day. These are the accidental, the almost involuntary criminal; those also who, cursed from the beginning with a weak x moral fiber, have gradually succumbed to temptation, and degener- ated from bad to worse. That foolish spirit of social competition, which permeates even the lower middle-classes, and which shows itself in unneccessary ostentation and culpable extravagance, has been at the bottom of much misery and mischief. The small-sala- ried clerk, 03' the struggling tradesman, is egged on by his wife and CRIMINAL ENGLAND. 246 daughters, who are eager to erect their heads above their neighbors, and live beyond their means. When evil days come up m him, sur- rounded by difficulties and harassed by importunate claims, the lapse into dishonesty is unhappily only too easy. Be may make ( a desperate effort to retrieve his fortunes by speculations. Ji can find a stock-broker to trust him he may try his hand in Cap il Court on a small scale. More probably he puts his trust in betting men, and hopes for a big windfall from backing the right horse. As these dangerous expedients probably plunge liim ere long deeper and deeper into the niire, the transition to misappropriation, to embezzlement, to fraudulent trading and betrayal of trust, whether to employers or to relatives and friends, becomes almost inevitable, and he is henceforth a ruined man. The waters close over him, lie is engulfed in the stream, and the chances are a thousand to one that he never regains dry land. Criminals of this description are to be pitied almost as much as they must be blamed. No such consideration can be extended to others encountered only too frequently at the present day in a lower stratum of society. Crimes the most brutal and atrocious are un- / happily very prevalent among a certain class: the collier, toiling artisan, and workman, to whom a recent rise in wages may have brought a sudden and unexpected accession of means — for whu h they can find no employment but in satisfying a lust for drink. The wide-spread drunkenness among such people, embracing as it does ranks and classes above them which might be supposed supe- rior to the low temptation, has grown into a national evil. A con- stantly increasing percentage of crimes with violence is committed by soddened and brutalized ruffians in their cups. The besotted tojDer returns to his home, barren and cheerless, because all sup- plies have been diverted to gratify his artificial thirst. Angry alter- cations follow, quarrels, mutual recriminations, between the long-suf- fering wife who in her misery has sought solace in the same debasing cup. At last the stronger sex, goaded and maddened to fury, asserts its mastery by cowardly blows, delivered with the first weapon to hand, with knife, hobnailed boots, or bare fist, and the evening jour- nals are furnished with a paragraph, headed "Brutal Wife Muni' Sometimes children are included in the deed. Sometimes the affray follows a pothouse quarrel, and the victim is a drunken assort possibly an unoffending spectator, who has essayed to act as a peace- maker, and brought upon himself the murderous wrath of both par- ties to the fight. Wretches who have been thus transformed bj drink into wild beasts are not habitual criminals. They Del 246 ENGLAND. rather to the class of chance criminals, of those who by weak sur- rendering to vicious habits have had crime thrust upon them. But no picture of crime in modern England would be complete which lacked a portrait of those who may be said to have achieved crime. The well-educated criminal, as expert as he is daring, as trusted as he is deceitful, well born possibly, and highly esteemed, who pursues, nevertheless, for years a course of systematic fraud on the most colossal scale, is essentially a product of these later times. He is another remarkable instance of that tendency to exaggeration which is one of the notes of our a still talk of the hulks and transportation as though these old-fash- ioned outlets for criminality were now in existence. As a matter oi fact, no convict — the name is specially reserved for all sentenced to death or penal servitude — leaves the kingdom, except as in the first case by the intervention of the public executioner. Penal servitude is inflicted at the great convict establishments. The convict, as so n as convenient, is removed from the local prison, where since the as- 254 ENGLAND. sizes he has remained in durance, to'Millbrmk or Pentonville. Here he is subjected to precisely the same process as in the local prisons; but at the end of nine months, according to the doctor's decision, he passes on to a public works prison, to Chatham, Dartmoor, Ports- mouth, Portland, or the like. Arrived there, he is turned out with hundreds of associates to labor on fortifications, breakwaters, dock- yard extensions, and so forth. How substantial is the work thus performed may be judged by all who have seen these monuments to convict labor at the various stations above named. Life in a con- vict prison is certainly not rose-colored. Labor begins at daylight and is continued, with an interval for dinner, until sundown; the fare is in quality excellent, but in quantity not too full. An abso- lute submission to authority, the surrender of all personal volition, unhesitating obedience, constant cleanliness and orderliness are not the least irksome of the restraints the criminal has to endure. But with all this there is no unnecessary harshness; the discipline is firm, but never arbitrary; the well-being of the prisoner, and his protection from ill-usage, are carefully provided for by the constant supervision and inspection of superior authorities. Nor is the ele- ment of hope entirely absent. The " mark system," as it is called, which has been in force for upwards of fourteen years, puts it in the power of every man to gain a certain remission of his sentence by his own industry. How powerfully this incentive acts in encourag- ing a man to use his whole skill and enerq-y is seen in the hiqh-class work turned out in the convict prisons — in the beautiful stone dress- ing, the intricate carpenter's and smith's work, in the employment of convicts as bakers, painters, engine-drivers, sawyers, fitters, and the like. A more substantial test, perhaps, is the money value of the work done. According to the last year's blue book the actual earnings of some 8,000 convicts, as shown by exact calculations, after careful measurements, amounted to £250,000. There is, however, another and a last stage through which the criminal passes — one which is too often only the short breathing- space between the termination of one sentence and the commence- ment of another — the period when he is once more at large. This has been the subject of his dreams, sleeping and waking. What port is to the homeward-bound sailor, such is the day of release to the prisoner, only intensified a thousand-fold in the eagerness of its anticipation. The slow sad hours bring it round at last. His hair and beard are no longer clipped by the prison barber, who cuts both with the same scissors. He has at length bridged over the great guli which has so long separated him from the rest of the CRIMINAL ENGLAND. community, and he will soon resume his place in the world to fight upon his own account, to be tempted, no doubt, perchance to suc- cumb only too easily again. The attitude of the world towards him when he is once more free is perhaps a little too absolutely repellant and unrelenting. It is not alone that he lias been photographed and his signdement widely distributed among the police, that b had to submit to inspection at the hands of the detective, and t 1 he may expect further continuous surveillance', but he will in m< cases find it extremely difficult to earn an honest living, however de- sirous he may be to do so. His old honest associates — if he has any — will shun him, employers wall not care to engage him lest their other workmen should take offense. Most doors are closed to him; he is a suspicious character, not to be trusted even when in sight. What wonder that he soon again falls away! That he does so 1 often now than heretofore is very largely due to the philanthropic efforts of the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies, notably that of London, which is now under royal patronage, and which does a vast amount of good. This society deals entirely with ex-convicts from the convict establishments; but there are others in the provinces which work with much the same good- will for the prisoners from 1 '"■ local prisons. In London, shortly before a convict is due for re- lease, his case is submitted to the society and duly considered. If accepted — as it generally is, save in the case of some few notorious criminals, upon whom all good offices would be entirely wasted — wdien the day of release arrives the emancipated prisoner is con- ducted privately, in plain clothes, to the society's office, whence he is passed on to some situation, as laborer or handicraftsman, accord- ing to his qualification. The employer and the society are usually the only two in the secret; the society answers to the police, and there is no need for the usual supervision; the man carries flu fore no stigma, he has had a fair start, and it is mainly his own fault if he again falls away. This beneficent treatment is certainly n > f the least efficacious amonsf the various measures which have con- tributed to reduce crime. By and by, the reformatories and ind as- trial schools may convert the raw material before it 1 to degenerate into the lowest forms, improved police 1 arrangements may render property more and more safe, and the commission of crime more dangerous, but these are rather remote ameliorations. Meanwhile the Aid Societies which seek to rehabilitate our brethren, which give them a fresh start and a new opportunity leading honest and respectable lives, are actually accompli neficent and satisfactory results day after day in our very midst CHAPTER XY. TRAVELING AND HOTELS. General View of the English Railway System— The Block System— Extent and Expenditure of Railway Lines — Speed and Comfort — Pullman Cars — A Journey due North from London — The Railway Commissioners — Refresh- ment Rooms — Traveling by Coach — Different Kinds of Coaching — Posting — Bicycling — English Hotels—Absorption of Small Hotels — Typical Fre- quenters of Hotels — Hotels which are Survivals from the Past — Their Questionable Comfort. THE entire length of Great Britain may now be traversed for a few pence under three pounds sterling. The price of a single third-class ticket from London to John o' Groat's — from King's Cross to Wick or Thurso Station — is two pounds nineteen shillings and fourpence. The distance is as nearly as possible six hundred and fifty miles. The time spent upon the journey will be something less than twenty-five hours, and the journey itself will be accom- plished, whatever class the traveler may choose, with comparatively slight fatigue. On the whole, the management of the English rail- ways is excellent. The speed is great, there is little overcrowding; the companies' servants are, though frequently overworked, for the most part civil; and if, in spite of the announcement forbidding gra- tuities, " tips " are expected, railway porters are abundantly satisfied with vails of the most modest amount. Much of the discomfort which the English railway traveler experiences, is inflicted on him by disagreeable traveling companions. Yet for one who comes under this category, how many are there, whatever class the trav- eler may choose, who are not merely unobjectionable but welcome associates ? Let it be assumed that, in common with many excel- lent and respectable personages of a frugal turn — officers of both services, substantial agriculturists, and minor dignitaries of the Church — the passenger selects third-class; he will be singularly un- fortunate if he finds himself in society to which he can reasonably take exception. No doubt there is plenty of rowdyism in the train, but then rowdyism is of its essence gregarious. It has an ineradi- O" TRAVELING AND HOTELS. 267 cable tendency to gravitate to a special part or parts of thai in motion which a train may be considered as being. There is a kind of Alsatia in every steam locomotive bound on a Inn-- journey, and there is much to be thankful for in the fact that its area is rigidly localized. The father of a family need be under no appre- hension that he must choose between first or second class on the one hand, and on the other hand the risk, or rather the strong probability of a personal encounter with much that is offensive and disreputable. E ail way guards are quick judges of character — many of them, too, with quite as much a character of their own, as keen a sense of humor and wit, as the guards of the old stage-coach — and they may be trusted to save decent folk, who travel third-class on long journeys, exposure to any serious annoyance. It may be added that British exclusiveness, which shows itself pretty plainly in the first-class carriage, has a tendency to disappear in the second and third. The railway S3'stem * of England and Wales consists of just 12,000 miles of line, of which two-thirds are in the hands of the six large companies — the Great Western, 2,059; London and North Western, i 1,632; North Eastern, 1,429; Midland, 1,238; Great Eastern, 859; Great Northern, G40. Amalgamation very early became the order of the day, and is steadily on the increase, although it is not possi- ble without an Act of Parliament. The center of the system is London, and every company which can possibly make its way to the capital does not fail to do so. At first railways were worked without fixed signals, nor was it till 1838 that any regular code of signals was adopted. Now the semaphore, fitted with these, one for the up, and one for the down line, is in use at all stations and junctions. When the arm is raised to the full extent the line is stopped; when it is at an angle of forty-five degrees the need of caution is indicated to the driver; when it is at rest the driver knows 'that he can proceed at full speed. At night "line clear" is ex- pressed by a white light, " caution " by green, " danger " by red. The block system provides that no two trains shall be between any two block signal-boxes — these boxes being distant from each other from two or three to six or eight miles — at the same time on the same line. It is to be seen in its highest perfection on the Midland, and it may best be described in Mr. Parsloe's own words: — A, B, and C, are supposed to represent three block posts, and the process * For most of the facts contained in this brief account of the English rail- ways I am indebted to Mr. Joseph Parsloe's instructive little work "On Out Railway System." (Kegan Paul. 1878.) 17 258 ENGLAND. of signaling is thus carried on. On the approach of a train to A, the signalman will call the attention of B, and then give the "Be Ready" signal on the bell and the proper "Train Approaching" dial signal. The signalman at B, after having ascertained that the line is clear for the train to run upon, must repeat the signals, and when he has received the necessary intimation from it that he has repeated them correctly, he must ply the needle to "Line Clear." As soon as the train has passed A, the signalman there must give the bell signal " Train on Line " to B, and the signalman at B must acknowledge the signal and employ the needle. The signalman at A must then give to B the proper " Train on Line " dial signal; and when the signalman at B has acknowledged that signal and received the necessary intimation from A that his acknowledgment is correct he must ply the needle on to " Line Blocked," and then call the at- tention of and give the "Be Ready" and " Train Approaching " sig- nals to C. When the train has passed B, the signalman there must call the attention of A, and give the proper signal indicating that the line is clear of the train, which must be duly acknowledged by the signalman at A, and so on throughout the block. The total working expenditure of the railways of the United King- dom amounted in 1876 to £33,535,509, the total receipts from all sources to £02,215,757. The working expenses therefore come to about half the receipts, but it has been frequently asserted that min- eral traffic is carried at a far greater expense than passenger traffic. The number of miles travelled by all the trains was 215,711,739. Exclusive of holders of season tickets, there were 44,859,060 first- class, 60,478,195 second-class, 420,950,034 third-class. The author- ized capital amounted to £741,802,527. The rolling-stock consisted of 12,994 locomotives, 27,191 carriages for passengers, 10,485 car- riage trucks and horse boxes, 350,121 wagons for merchandise and live stock. Employment was given by them for between three and four hundred thousand officials and employes. The total of trains every day was 1,010. In the process of signaling, during the twenty-four hours, 100,000 operations were performed by about 13,000 hands. Coming to accidents and casualties, during the year 1870, 1,245 persons were killed, 4,724 injured, the great majority in each case being railway servants. The total of passengers killed was 1 in 3,872,570, and of passengers injured 1 in 385,807. The proportion of railway servants killed was 1 in 410, and of injured 1 in 86. As regards speed, if not of comfort, in locomotion we have reached a point beyond which we are not likely to go. From Bristol to TRAVELING AND HOTELS. 259 Aberdeen, a distance of 800 miles, which in the old ooach times would have occupied ten days, is performed in eighteen hours; from Lon- don to Holyhead, 260 miles, in six hours and forty minutes; from London to Plymouth, 247 miles, in six hours and a quarter. The average rate of speed at which the quickest express on each of the great lines travels is 47| miles an hour. On two lines this pare is exceeded. On the Great Northern, the train leaving London at 10, and arriving at Peterborough at 11.30, a distance of 7w of Railways," sixth edition, by J. M. Lely. (H. Sweet. 1876.) TRAVELING AND HOTELS. 261 Stockton and Darlington — was authorized by an Act passed only recently as 1825. Not one of the entire number has reference t<> any single railway company in its integrity, and after a few miles of line have been traversed, we suddenly find ourselves under a changed jurisdiction. In 1844 a parliamentary committee was ap pointed under the presidency of Mr. (Hailstone to consider the Legal status of the railway companies. As one of the consequences of tin report, an Act was passed, sanctioning the purchase of railways I the State, at any time after the expiration of 21 years,* and pro viding that every railway company should convey passengers by at least one train each way daily, at a charge not exceeding a penny a mile. Ten years later, the Act of Mr. (now Lord) Card well was passed, of which the distinguishing features were to subject rival railway companies to the legal obligation of joint action within cer- tain limits for the public convenience, and to define the liability of the companies for damage or loss of goods during transit. Fourteen years later, it was enacted that the price of fares should be promi- nently displayed at railway stations; that in every passenger train, consisting of more than one carriage of each class, there should be a smoking compartment; and that the companies should furnish, when, applied to, particulars of then* charge for goods, enabling the public to distinguish the relative cost of conveyance and loading. But the most important piece of railway legislation has been the Act of 1873, which created a special court with exceptional powe. 9 for the exclusive purpose of taking cognizance of a certain class of railway cases, not those in which pecuniary compensation is asked from a company, but those in which it is demanded that a eonipam shall do some specific act for the benefit of the petitioner, or abstain from giving an unfair advantage to some one else. The ordinary law courts of the country had proved unsuitable for compelling rail- ways to prefer on proper occasion the public advantage to their own, and it was the conviction of this unsuitability that found expression in the report of 1872 which recommended the appointment of the Railway Commissioners. This court, one of -whose members must be a person of experience in railway management — represented at the first appointment by Mr. Price, formerly chairman of the Midland Railway — and another of whose members must be experienced in law — which was represented in the first instance by the late ~S\r. Mac namara, an eminent lawyer — is primarily intrusted with the powers given by Lord Cardwell's Act to a court of law; but it has many sec- * A Royal Commission appointed in 18G5 reported against the policy of < I ernment purchase. The scheme embodied in the Act of 18-H is impxactioable. 262 ENGLAND. on clary powers tending in the same direction, its cardinal object being to control, and, so far as they involve public inconvenience, to counteract, the effects of the monopoly acquired by railway compa- nies. The commission is, in fact, a technical tribunal for the redress of popular grievances, the jurisdiction of which extends to Ireland and Scotland; and in view of the great expense attendant upon rail- way litigation, it has been expressly provided that municipal and other corporations may institute proceedings before it. The com- missioners themselves, however, have no power of initiative, and in one important point — the enforcement of through rates — it is only a railway or canal company which can set the commissioners in motion. The powers of the commissioners are as extensive as they are unique. They have rights of interference wider than those vested in other bodies, when the lives and well-being of the public are threatened. They have the power of arbitrating both between dif- ferent companies and between the companies and the public. The right of this or that town to necessary accommodation, better wait- ing-rooms, platforms, and covered spaces; the complaints of one trader as to preferential rates or superior facilities accorded to an- other; the demand of one company for running powers over the lines of another — these are the kinds of cases in wdrich the inter- vention of the commission is invoked. Thus, we learn front the last report of the commission in the year 1877-8, fourteen distinct judgments of the commissioners were pronounced. Three of these cases were local complaints of the insufficient convenience afforded by the railways. In six cases the commission had to consider the application of manufacturing firms, who had a grievance against railway companies. In five the issue was a dispute between rail- ways themselves. Here we have three distinct classes of questions which it is infinitely better should be decided without coming into the law courts. When once a question of law arises, the commis- sioners are bound to state a case for a court of law, although they are themselves intrusted with the delicate duty of determining whether a particular question be one of law or not. Nor could there be a better proof of the soundness of the opinions given by the commissioners than the fact, that in almost every case in which the appeal has been made, the courts have confirmed the award of the commission. But the real question is, not so much whether the jurisdiction of the railway commissioners shall be extended, as whether their entire control shall or shall not be handed over to the State. " Our rail- TRAVELING AND HOTELS. 2G3 ways/' writes Mr. Parsloe, "are in the hands of a number of separate bodies with conflicting interests, each striving to pay the besl dm- dend to the shareholders as purely commercial concerns. Many of the companies professedly compete with each other, and the result is most of the disadvantages with very few of the ;ui\;ml >m- petition." * For instance, one of the Midland Company's i trains from the north is due to arrive at Gloucester at 6. I ! P. i. ; tin- Great Western train for the Swindon district leaves a1 6. 15 p. l, and there is no other train till 12.20 a. m. If therefore, as is almost in- evitable, the train is missed, there is an interval of nearly si\ hours waiting. As matters are, there can be no doubt that the public, sub- ject to the beneficent action of the commissioners, and the enlight- ened common sense of the railway directors, are at the mercy of the railway companies. It is also indisputable, that the extent to which railway competition is carried, giving us, instead of one uniform or- ganization, a complex and chaotic system, involves the profitless ex- penditure of much energy and money. If we are to have a perfectly harmonious and a truly economical railway system, it must be one dominated by the principle of central control. Granted, that the companies agree to a method of amalgamation and unity amongst themselves, all that would have been done would be to substitute a single colossal monopoly for several monopolies, of which the great object would still be not to promote the public convenience, but to put money in the pockets of the shareholders. If it is admitted that the transitionary state in which our railway system now is must ultimately issue in the establishment of a complete scheme of amal- gamation, it is certain that this can only be by the institution of State control. The success of a governmental administration of the Post-office and the Telegraph is of course cited as a preced al for the great change now proposed. If the State management of the railways were to answer equally well, there is no doubt that wo should have an immense increase of efficiency and economy. In 1865 Mr. Stewart, for twenty years Secretary to the London and North Western Company, stated in his evidence before the Royal Commission, that where the whole traffic of the country worked in unison, a saving of 20 per cent, in expenses would at once be < ffected. Again, under Government control the majority of legal and j parlia- mentary costs, which in 1875 amounted to considerably over a quarter of a million, would be saved. Thirdly, the number of sta- tions might be reduced, towns in which there arc at present two * "Our Railway System," p. 261. 264 ENGLAND. stations close to each other having one. In country villages, the offices of railway, post, and telegraph might be concentrated, the functions of each being disckai'ged by the sanie person; and final- ly, it would be possible greatly to lower the fees paid to railway directors. Pending the accomplishment of changes so radical as these in our railway system, there are minor reforms which it may be prac- ticable to institute with comparatively little trouble. It is much to be wished that the Railway Commissioners could turn their attention more particularly than they have hitherto done to our refreshment- room system. Nothing can be better than the luncheon baskets with which one is occasionally provided on a small payment on the Midland and some of the south of England hues. There are excel- lent dining or luncheon rooms at Derby, Crewe, Leicester, York, and other great railway centers, and a capital meal may be obtained at either, it being always understood that one reaches these spots at the proper hours when passengers are expected and the meals are ready to be served. The unfortunate traveler who is behind time or who comes by a slow train often finds himself left out in the cold. If he has left London without having dined at 5.15 p. m., and reaches York between ten and eleven — where he is told that twenty minutes are allowed for gratifying the inner man — his case is hard indeed. He enters the palatial saloon ravenous. But there are no waiters within call. Those who presently make their appearance walk about with the dazed air of men roused out of a heavy sleep, mechanically inquire what the famished pilgrim will take, and auto- matically fall to work to hew the well-worn joints and the bony chicken that are uj)on the table. The passenger, if he be wise, will eschew these ready-made suppers, and will content himself with a sandwich and a couple of hard-boiled eggs at the refreshment bar, in a corner of the room, if only he is able to gain his way thither through the group of young men, inhabitants of the town, who make it their favorite lounge. And there is a lamentable want of variety in the refreshment bill of fare; very scant is the ingenuity of the refreshment-room cook. Here and there soup may be had — scalding hot water which removes the skin from the palate, and destroys all power of taste for hours — but with this exception there is little relief from the weary round of ham and beef sandwiches, pork pies, sausage rolls, stale buns, and fossil cakes. None of those appetizing dainties which greet one at Amiens, Dijon, or Macon, the fresh roll neatly bisected and filled with a cold cutlet or a slice of galantine. No fruit but sour oranges, no drink but deleterious TRAVELING AND HOTELS. 266 spirits, or British Boer. The stony-eyed damsels maki H wait upon you, the charges are exorbitant, the food must illy be bolted standing, amid the cry, "Take your seats for the North," and loud ringing of bells. No -wary traveler will nowadays 'isk present discomfort and future indigestion by trusting ti> railway bars for refreshment. He will rather take with him all thai he requires from home. But there are other modes of traveling in England than by steam. It is noticeable that the hansom cab t! England only, and thus it was with some degree of special propriety that Lord Beaconsfield once spoke of it as the "gondola of London." In New York, the streets -of which arc perfectly flat, hansoms are not used, and tramway cars take the place of all kinds of cabs. Possibly the same thing may some day be witnessed in London, and though the City of London uncompromisingly opposes all Legisla- tion of this kind, the number of bills for procuring tramways intro- duced to Parliament increases each session. Meanwhile, although a perfect roadway has still to be found — asphalt being too slippi for safety — our vehicles on wheels travel almost as smoothly, when the springs are in good order, over the surface of the London si reets of to-day, as if they were upon rails; and both in London and the great provincial capitals, the omnibuses and cabs are as satisfactory as is consistent with the low fares charged. The coach not, indeed, the mail-coach — still exists as an institution. The north of En- gland, Scotland, Wales, and the west of England, are the parts in which coaching mostly survives. Ten years ago the distance be- tween Thurso and Golspie — about a hundred miles- — was only to be done by coach. There was then a famous Jehu in those regions, by name Tom Brown, wdiose Northumbrian "bun-" must still dwell in the ears of many a Scotch tourist. He managed his team in true artistic fashion, and he was never without an excellent team t<> man- age. The roads, though often steep, and even precipitous in the neighborhood of Helmsdale, were generally kept in first-rate condi- tion. Belays of differently built, bred, and trained steeds awaited the traveler, according to the natural characteristics and difficulties of the coming stage. The last, which lay for several miles along a perfect and almost level road — equal to any one of the Queen's high- ways in the south of England — was accomplished by four hor nearly thoroughbred, which would not have discredited a II Park drag in the season. The appointments of the coach, as of I steeds which drew it, were faultless. The harness was bright, p >1- ished, and complete down to the minutest particular, i id 266 ENGLAND. was no ragged tatterdemalion perched up behind, who blew a horn with the feeble squeaky effects produced by one who is a stranger to that instrument, but an official who had scientifically studied its music. There was no such " turn out " from the stables of a coach- ing company or a commercial proprietor within the four seas. But the period of railway extension came. It was no longer necessary to go by the high road across the Ord of Caithness, with the cutting breezes of the German Ocean blowing full in your face. For the most part the vehicles which are now called coaches are coaches in very reduced circumstances; or it would be more correct to say that they are not really coaches at all, but have rather the ap- pearance of cast-off chariots, which in better days may have figured in the triumphal procession of traveling circus companies. In many portions of Wales, coaching of a hind still goes on. But when once the coach is considered only as a convertible term for a tourist's van; when it ceases to be essential to the regular traffic of the district; when, above all things, it has lost the official dignity of carrying Her Majesty's mails, you know what to expect. The inside is not too clean and not too sweet. The passengers clamber up to the roof anyhow. There is no longer any prestige attaching to the occupancy of the box-seat. The charioteer is a casual post-boy, and not a coachman; the team is made up of odd horses, and neither driver nor traveler takes any pride in the business. It will be gen- erally found that the coaches, which, a glance at Bradshaw is suffi- cient to show, are announced to run short or moderately lengthy distances in various regions of England, belong to railway companies that have not yet succeeded in carrying then- lines to the extreme point which tourists desire to reach. There are some obstacles which even modern engineering science fails to overcome; hence the survival of the coach as a confession of the limitations imposed by nature on human enterprise. From Bideford in Devon to Bucle in Cornwall is a fair run for a well-appointed coach — a coach which is on the whole as favorable a specimen of its kind as any to be found in England — and it is but a very short time since other coaches fully equal to it were common enough.in North Devon and West Somerset. They have either disappeared entirely or, obeying that law of dete- rioration which seems the destiny of the public vehicle, they exist merely as tourists' vans during the excursionist season, to begin where the steam locomotive ends. They would not, indeed, give quite so severe a shock to those who will never lose then- devotion to the ideal of the Regulator and the Quicksilver Mail as the con- veyances which pass for coaches in the Isle of Wight. These may TRAVELING AND HOTELS. 267 do their best to struggle against the lot which is reloj atir ; them to tlie category of the omnibus and the carri t, but their appearance bewrayeth them, and they arc melancholy <• as that the coach has no longer an independent existence of its owj that it, or something which affects its name, ami makes a vain show of perpetuating its traditions, is useful as enabling th< fcravi 1< r to perform the fag end of a journey, but that it is an adjunct, and not an essential feature in the traveler's programme. Perhi need- less to say that if it is desired to see a coach which is a faithful, and not an unflattering reproduction of the artistic stage coach of the old regime, it is necessary to go no farther than to flic White Eorse Cellars in Piccadilly. Nor can a short summer holiday he spent more pleasantly than by securing an outside seat on one of these, under the skilled pilotage of Sir Henry de Bathe, Captain Candy, or some other amateur whip, enjoying the drive to Dorking, St. Albans, Leatherhead, Sevenoaks, or Windsor. Pleasant companions — a team of spanking horses, changed every ten miles — England in lull bloom of leaf and flower — will combine to make many a modern spirit regret the methods of locomotion of the past. The gaps in our railway system cause a very comfortable posting business to be done in different parts of England, and there are certain towns and villages where the excellence of the horses pro- curable may still fairly surprise the traveler. In the neighborhood of all great houses one may be sure of a capital one-horse chaise or carriage and pair within call of the railway station. The proprietor of these vehicles makes a very good thing of it during the visiting season. The most liberal of English hosts is apt to entertain a decided objection to sending his horses out of his stable to fetch his guests; it would indeed be impossible for him to do so, for if he entertains on any considerable scale his visitors are incessantly coming and going. In a country town which has in it^ neighbor- hood the residence of a great county magnate and other gentlem< n of position, there is always abundance of posting work out of the London season; and posting masters frequently make a point of keeping an enlarged stable during this period of the year. The same remark is applicable to the hotels in the hearts of districts much affected by tourists. Side by side with the coaching revival we have seen the institution of the driving tour popularized to high degree. But the driving four is not for everj one, and there are crowds of travelers during tins season of the year who make it a point of enjoying as much as they can of the pleasures of the road in the roomy barouches and other open vehicles, which are on 1. 268 ENGLAND. at the hotels or the livery stables of the pleasure resorts which they chiefly affect. It is not, indeed, an inexpensive mode of enjoyment, but then the holiday outing is only an annual event. Altogether it is possible to get more comfort and pleasure on wheels in England than in any country in the world, and the manner in which we still combine the locomotion which is as old as civilization with that which dates back from the discovery of steam insures us a certain variety and picturesqueness which the holiday traveler will be loth to surrender. The bicycle fills a place too important to be omitted from any survey of the various modes of traveling in England. In some coun- try districts, it is the locomotive on which the postman performs his long and weary round, and on which the Inland Revenue official makes his circle of inspection. Holiday tours in all parts of the United Kingdom are taken on it by the young men of our complex and prosperous middle class; and so popular have these bicycle trips become, that many a wayside inn which was doing a brisk business in the old coaching days, and which the railways had de- prived of its customers, has commenced to revive under the influ- ence of the new movement on wheels. There are bicycling clubs in every part of England, which have then periodic meetings. A fa- vorite rendezvous in the neighborhood of London is Bushey Park, and there, when the weather is fine, as many as a thousand bicyclists congregate. During the summer, too, in the heart of the city, when the business traffic of the day is done, and the streets are clear, an active scene may often be witnessed by gaslight. Under the shadow of the Bank and the Exchange, the asphalt thoroughfare is covered with a host of bicycle riders, performing a series of intricate evolu- tions on then iron steeds. For some years past the simple English inn has been gradually disappearing. Much of the change is due to the influence of rail- ways. The typical English hotel of the period is a huge caravan- serai, like that at Charing Cross or the St. Pancras Railway Station, situated nearly always close to, or forming part and parcel of, the terminus itself. The small hotels, which are the survivals of an earlier period, scarcely contrive to eke out a precarious existence. The chief characteristics of the new hotels are the ubiquitous Ger- man waiters and the sameness of the food. With two highly com- mendable qualities they may be credited. In the first place, they are uniformly well ventilated and cleanly; in the second place, no fault can be found with bedrooms, beds, and bed-linen, and it is al- ways possible to obtain a sponge bath for the asking. Although in TRAVELING AA'D HOTELS, •_><;•) England there is nothing like the organized hotel life of N< w fork, \ there are certain distinct types of English hold habitues; thus in London there are certain establishments which are patronized for the most part by regular customers, amongst whom, H maj be r. - marked, a personal acquaintance and a cert. tin BOrt of social I, masonry exist. The military element is common to most of thi particularly in the principal garrison towns. The house which the head-quarters of the London coaching movement has among its regular visitors every sort of gentleman who takes an interest in bfa road and its resuscitated glories. Another institution belonging to the same class — that of the hotel which is a connecting-bnk between the extinct tavern and the latter-day club — is a great place of resort for fashionable Americans and for opulent foreigners. There is, too, the hotel which is the home of diplomatists, just as there are hotels which are specially frequented by members of municipal bocbes, who have come up to London on business connected with their towns. Country solicitors, especially from the north, put up at the older hostelrics in Covent Garden. In the provinces, artists and sportsmen affect the smaller hotels, while the I er find a regular succession of customers in young men of means, who, before they settle down to domestic life, wish to see a little of the world, and like to see it in hotels; in middle-aged bachelors, who beguile their celibacy by travel and shrink from the cares of house- keeping; in husbands and wives who are without children, or hav- ing children, have seen them fairly started in life; and above all. in widows who have money, and who are fond of the excitement of travel. The commercial traveler is of course to be found in all classes of hotels, according to his pretensions, but mostly in hotels where he reigns supreme. Hotel life is not yet fully naturalized among us. We have bid adieu to the old regime, but have not become thoroughly accus- tomed to the new. Only a small percentage of Englishmen and Englishwomen really enjoy the tumultuous existence which is passed amid the hubbub of departures, arrivals, and tables d'hote. The table d'hote system is carried to an extent that scarcely suits the English nature. It is well enough to take our dinners at a common table, at which, after an awkward interval of blank silence or jerky utterance, we begin to feel that our next-door neighbor is of a hu- manity like unto our own, and that we have not committed any un- pardonable breach of the proprieties in opening a conversation. There are yet plausible reasons for maintaining the old-fashioned ' and much-abused British reserve. Most of us feel that opening up 270 ENGLAND. conversational acquaintance with strangers is a terrible risk. There is no fear, of course, of insult, or that our pockets will be picked, but there is the possibility of being bored. The stranger may be diametrically our opposite; conservative, while we are liberal; gar- rulous, while we hate to listen; above all, he may be indiscreet, and may tempt us into the expression of opinions which we do not care to wear upon our sleeve. Our privacy is thus intruded ivpon, we find ourselves talking to the table, and in the midst of a dead silence confessing that we don't like haricots blavcs, or recording our enthu- siasm for small beer. These are the dread reasons which seal the lips of so many in a strange company, especially at a strange table d'hote. And if this be true at dinner-time, it is a thousand-fold more so at 9 a. m. We Englishmen are not gregariously disposed at breakfast-time. The attempt to accommodate the British break- fast to the manner of the French dejeuner is an experiment of doubt- ful wisdom. The Englishman who hears that the first meal of the day is served only between half-past eight and eleven o'clock is con- scious of an interference with his liberties, which he resents. Nor, at this early hour, is he the most companionable of creatures. He has not got rid of a sort of moral goose-skin. He is often not much more than half awake. He is far from disposed to enter into con- versation with casual acquaintances. He is, to speak the plain truth, a trifle sulky, and a great deal pre-occupied. He may have a fine appetite for ham and eggs, broiled soles and rashers, but he has a wish to avoid the scrutiny of his fellows while he gratifies it. He has the contents of his letters to digest, or he has the campaign of the day which lies before him to meditate. But if, as regards the table d'hote arrangement, we experience some of the difficulties and inconveniences incidental to a period of transition, the student of human nature is indebted to it for a thou- sand diverting and edifying opportunities. He enters the hotel drawing-room, and he discovers a miscellaneous company, of which each member is conspicuously failing in the attempt to seem thor- oughly at ease. There is a recently married couple affecting to take an interest in the newspapers of the day, betraying the while a con- sciousness of the insincerity in a little giggle. There is the family group — father, mother, two daughters and a son — exchanging com- monplace remarks in a whisper. There are two maiden ladies who ask each other whether to-morrow will be, fine in an awed under- tone. There is the senior resident of the establishment, who has taken up a position on the hearth-rug, and who speaks in a voice ostentatiously loud, but decidedly uneasy, nevertheless, for the pur- TRAVELING AND HOT. pose of proclaiming that he is quite at home. Finally, there aro numerous other gentlemen and ladies who are doing nothing in par- ticular, but trying how to look indifferent to all thai is g ting on around them. Dinner is announced, and the senior reetidenl who is a sort of dean of the establishment, and who (lie place <>f honor, on the same principle that the oldest ambassador at :i Euro- pean capital presides at a conference — leads the way. Any tiling like a flow of nmtual confidence at table is exceptional, and the pre- vailing attitude is one of unsociabilhVy, intensified by profound dis- trust Gentlemen and ladies who are seated next to each other are in painful doubt as to whether it is or is not the right thing to speak. Even when the decision has been taken, and the " May I trouble you for the salt? " has been followed with some remarks on the actual state of the weather to-day, and its possible condition to- morrow,^ the interlocutors have not entirely shaken off the native influences of suspicion and constraint. CHAPTER XVI. EDUCATIONAL ENGLAND. Past and Present — Education Acts of 1870 and 1876 — What these have done and how received by the English People — Educational Machinery previously in Use in England — The Gradual Awakening to Educational Wants — Working of School Board System described — A Visit to a National Elementary School — General Character of Teaching — Visit of Inspector — The Passage from Primary Schools to Secondary Schools — Endowed Schools — How af- fected by Recent Legislation — Social and Moral Results of New System — Public Schools, Old and New — Effect of Competitive Examinations xipon the Schools — The Public Schools and the Public Service — Schools and Uni- versities — Academic Reforms accomplished and pending — National Work done by the Universities — The Profession of Teacher — Bad Secondary Schools and Proposed Remedies — Are more Inspectors wanted? — Duties of Parents — Our Public School System — The English School-boy — General Improvement in the Type — Feminine Education — General Review and Questions for the Future. THE national machinery which now exists in England for placing a career of some kind within the reach of all may be said to date from 1870. Before this time clever and industrious boys, born in lowly stations, became powerful and distinguished men, and were the more respected because they were self-made, but the dis- cipline and instruction which helped them to the accomplishment of these results were not supplied by the State. Their success was either the result of their own enterprise and effort, or of the private and voluntary assistance which their talents and perseverance se- cured. The lad of exceptional brightness, who was a cottager's son in the village school, attracted the notice of the parson or the squire, or of some member of the family of either. News spread of the in- tellectual promise of the boy, and a philanthropic patron interested himself in his case. If it was the clergyman, he perhaps instructed the rising prodigy for a few hours every week in the rectory study, in Latin or Greek, history or mathematics. By and by the time came when it was desirable that the spur of competition should be applied, or that the young scholar should have the advantage of a deeper and a wider training than the rector could give. The good EDUCATIONAL ENGLAND. 27.1 man enlisted the sympathy of friends on behalf of his prot£g£, se- cured him a nomination to the foundation of one of our big scho or else undertook, in conjunction with others, to be responsible the costs of his teaching. The lad grew in favor ami in knowledj he rose in quick succession through the different forms of the school, Avon a scholarship, and went to Oxford or Cambridge, the laureate of the freshmen of his year. Then his fortune was as good as made. He might be independent of his benefactors from that time, might even trust to repay them in the future the money they had ex- pended on him in the past. He would finish up his college course with a First Class and a Fellowship, would go into the Chinch or the Car, would make himself a name as a classical editor, would per- haps climb by a long ladder of learned works to the episcopal bench, or, embracing the law as a career, would justify the help and the expectations of his friends by ending his days as a Lord Chancellor or a judge. On the other hand, if our ideal village youth failed to attract the notice of some generous and discriminating patron, or if to mere cleverness he did not add an indefatigable power of taking pains, he probably lived out his hfe in obscurity, and if he was known as more intelligent than his fellows might be known also as less well conducted. It was thus simply a matter of accident whether the ; cottager's clever son ever rose to the place which his abilities en- titled him to fill, and what was true of the country cottager was true of the town artisan. In town and country alike, there were indeed schools for all who cared to attend, or for all who had means and leisure to attend. But there was no scheme of national and sys- tematized teaching — nothing of that educational apparatus supplied or guaranteed by the legislature, which we have now, and which almost justifies the boast that the son of the peasant or mechanic may carry a bishop's miter or a judge's wig in his school satchel. Children were sent to school or doomed prematurely to depressing and toilsome labor, or left to play about the streets to develop into pickpockets and thieves, fearing no other authority but the consta- ble, according to the whim of then* parents, and the degree of re- gard paid to the parental command. Contrast with this the state of things which prevails to-day. A t the corner of a street, in some crowded alley or reeking court, hah' a dozen children are playing, when suddenly a respectably dressed man,* with a grave countenance, steps up, asks a question which * Women are also in some places largely employed as visitors. 274 ENGLAND. causes them to flee on every side, not however before one or two of the unkempt and generally uncared-for urchins have been fairly caught in his grasp. Or, threading his way through a labyrinth of small thoroughfares, and looking in at the doors of the wretched tenements which line them on either side, he stops at one, where he sees two or three children of tender years unwashed and ill dressed. He proceeds to interrogate their mother, or the woman who is in charge of them, and notes down her replies in a pocket-book. This gentleman is one of the special visitors selected by the Board within whose district the truant or absentee children may happen to be. If the reply given is that the child is attending a Board School, then there can be no doubt as to its efficiency, and the only question asked is as to the reason of absence. If the establishment is not under the jurisdiction of the School Board, it is probably a public " elementary school within the meaning of the Act," and in that case, too, nothing more will be said. If, on the other hand, it is a private venture school, whose character there is serious reason to doubt, an inquiry is instituted; but, as a matter of fact, it is seldom that any school is pronounced hopelessly inefficient. The machinery by which the compulsory by-laws are enforced is simple. Every School Board employs a certain staff of visitors, each of whom keeps a sched- ule of all the children of school age in the district. It is the visitor's duty to ascertain that all those boys and girls whose names are down upon his list are being regularly educated; if any cases in which they are not come before him, he reports them to the committee to which these matters specially belong; the case is inquired into, and the next step is the despatch of a notice (A) to the parent, admonish- ing him to send the boy or girl to school. If this is not acted upon, a second notice (B) requires the parent to attend and explain the reasons of his neglect before the divisional committee, the members of which have then for the first time cognizance of the matter. If extreme poverty is alleged the matter is further investigated, and the School Board may order the payment of a portion of the fees. If, after receiving the second warning, the parent takes no heed, he is summoned to appear before a magistrate, who may impose any fine not exceeding in amount five shillings, inclusive of costs. Such, at least is the law, and it is due, on the one hand, to the good sense of the School Board authorities, on the other hand, and more particularly, to the law-abiding qualities of the English people, that it works with so little friction. The principle of compulsion which was implied in the Education Act, and has since been expli- citly asserted by the School Boards and school attendance com- * EDUCATIONAL ENGLAND. 276 b Lttees, was one which, if not in theory new to the English people, I id in practice received tlte anticipatory condemnation of those who in such a matter might claim to bo considered experts. Compulsion, indeed, under a certain shape, existed in the workhouse, in the in- dustrial school, in the training-ship, and in the half-tune system, but the general adoption of the compulsory principle was pronounced impracticable by many well-known and experienced members of Parliament, while one of the school inspectors declared his opinion that if attempted to be carried out it "would produce a national commotion not much less dangerous than that which attended a poll-tax." Again, a stipendiary magistrate of the midland counties said that "if compulsory attendance at school should become the law he would refuse to administer it." What has happened? The Education Act of 1870 came into force twelve months after it was i passed; that of 1876 began to be applied in 1877. These two m< as- ures have already covered the country with a network of School Boards and attendance committees — -the latter appointed by town councils in urban districts, and boards of guardians in rural dis- tricts. Attendance committees are invested with the same power of enacting compulsory by-laws as the School Boards, and although they do not so effectually avail themselves of it as School Boards, they had succeeded, in 1878, in bringing another million and three- quarters of the population under direct legal compulsion to send their children to school. In all, there were in 1878 two-thirds of the population of England and Wales under the operation of com- pulsory education. It must be always remembered that the Education Act of 1870 was not, like the Reform Act of 1867, a second installment of legis- lation of which the first-fruits had already been tasted; but that, in its strangeness and novelty to the English people, it was absolutely f revolutionary, that it has signally interfered with the innate and traditional English love of personal independence, and that it has involved a heavy increase to the rates that Englishmen pay. The legislation of 1870 applied the theory, and to some extent the prac- I tice, of the state system of education in vogue in Prussia to free and independent England. No such organized intervention between parent and child, no such systematic inquisition into those prri affairs which Englishmen are in the habit of keeping religiously to themselves, had ever been attempted in this country. Until the passing of this Act, not merely had the State m tde no attempt \ to regulate the amount and kind of teaching provided for En children, but it declined to recognize the existence of the schools 276 ENGLAND. except when, they appeared as applicants for its pecuniary aid, Then, and only then, the State sent agents of its own to see that the conditions upon which this aid was granted were not violated. Not merely the foundation of the educational edifice, but the entire fabric, consisted of the organizations of voluntary enterprise. The Christian Knowledge Society had established schools for more than a century; the National Society had promoted the education of the poor in the principles of the Established Church since 1811; the British and Foreign School Society, which is antisectarian, had been at work since 1814; Nonconformists, Roman Catholic and Protestant, notably the Wesleyans, had their own schools governed by their own special committees. Add to this the municipal schools, the parochial schools, the private adventure schools, and the public schools for the higher classes, the schools of the Ragged School Union for the lowest of all, and the account of the educational ma- chinery of the country previous to 1870 is complete. It is true that an essay by John Foster, in 1819, " On the Evils of Popular Ignorance," appealed by its arguments and revelations to the fears of statesmen, and to the philanthropy of the benevolent. Lord Brougham lent the weight of his eloquence and influence in the same direction, and the commission known as Brougham's Com- mission was issued. The report of this inquiry, with its disclos- ures of ignorance and depravity, shocked and alarmed the nation. Brougham, by picturing the social degradation of the country, ex- posing the " misdirection, waste, and plunder of educational endow- ments," and by arguing that education was the best security for order and tranquillity, succeeded in arousing the authorities who had been hitherto hostile, indifferent, or skeptical. Still twelve years passed before the tide in favor of education set in. States- men were opposed to the movement. Lord Melbourne characteris- tically " questioned the advantage of general education as a means of promoting knowledge in the world, since people get on without it." The Bishoj) of Durham "believed that education was not likely to make its way among the poor"; and the Bishop of Exeter said that if, when rector, he had started a school in his parish, the squire would have laughed in his face. For the first time, in 1833, the private societies received subsidies from the State. One year later a parliamentary commission to in- quire into scholastic affairs was appointed. In 1839 the Committee of the Privy Council on Education was formed. Grants were only given henceforth on conditions which the Government laid down, but though some of our public men ventured to anticipate a cen- EDUCATIONAL ENGLAND. 277 tralized educational administration for the whole of England, relig- ious differences and a popular jealousy of State interference ho] lessly barred the way. Subsequent advances, indeed, were made in the direction of that goal, which was ultimately arrived ai in L870: first, by the strong but unsuccessful manifestations of parliamentary and of popular opinion in 1847; secondly, by the old code of the Committee of Council; thirdly, by the new code of 1861; but DO step had been taken to establish the doctrine of the rights of the State to step in between parent and child. The work done by the Education Act of 1870 may be very brief- ly sketched, and represents the actual educational machinery under which we are now living, and are likely to live for many years to come. The whole of Great Britain south of the Tweed is covered with a network of school districts. Of these districts, some . under School Boards and others under school attendance commit- tees. Even in School Board districts there are plenty of schools under voluntary management, and in all districts where there is no School Board the alternative is a species of voluntary manage- ment. School Boards have, with certain limits, and subject to the approval of the Committee of Council, and the royal sanction, plenary powers — they may make school attendance compulsory or permissive, deciding what excuse shall be accepted as valid. The School Boards have also authority to regulate, subject to the Education Depart- ment, what extra subjects shall be taught, and whether religious instruction of any kind shall be given. At Birmingham there is a strong feeling against any religious teaching at all, the simple read- ing of the Bible not excepted. In the metropolis there exists what is called the London compromise, which is identical in principle with the rule of the British and Foreign School Society, and which allows the Bible to be read, instruction to be given from it, and the use of prayers and hymns. The chairman of the London School Board stated, in 187G, that out of 120,000 school children, Biblical instruction was only refused in 124 cases. More than eighty-three per cent, of the School Boards throughout England have sanctioned the reading and the simple undenominational teaching of the Bible. In theory, education is not gratuitous, although the fees of the poorest children may be remitted by School Boards, or paid guardians in voluntary or Board schools. The points of contrast between the local School Board and ; central authority of the Education Department in Whitehall are fre- quent, and the control exercised by the latter over the former is close and constant. No School Board has the power of erecting 278 ENGLAND. any new building unless in the first place the department gives a general approval of the scheme. The second step is the approval of the site, the third of the plan of the proposed new building. After these preliminaries have been complied with, the department- may proceed to give its approval to the application of the School Board for permission to borrow money from the Public Works Loan Commissioners. Finally, no School Board can enforce its compul- sory by-laws unless these have received the sanction of "Whitehall. It also rests with the Education Department to decide, from time to time, upon what conditions grants are to be made to schools from the Treasury. These grants, at present, are given indifferently to all schools, whether Board or denominational, which satisfy certain conditions, and are, in legislative phraseology, public elementary schools within the meaning of the Act. In the first place, religious instruction is not to be obligatory on any child attending school; secondly, religious instruction, if given at all, must be given either at the end or the beginning of school-time; and thirdly, the school is always to be open to Her Majesty's inspector. The principle upon which these grants are estimated is as follows. Four shillings a year may be claimed by the school managers for every boy or girl who has attended the requisite number of times, another shilling is allowed if singing forms part of the ordinary course, and a shilling more if the discipline and the organization are pronounced satis- factory. The grant may be raised above the figures already men- tioned provided that the standards in which the children pass their examination are sufficiently high. These standards are six in num- ber, and roughly correspond to the years of age between 7 and 12. The average fees charged in Board Schools are from Id. to 6d. a week, and in no case is a School Board allowed to charge more than 9 pay attention rather to the subject taught than to the manner in which it is taught, or to the influence which the teaching of it is calculated to havi upon the mind. The latest official report tells us of "the larj i number of children who are not known to be attending school," of the "small number, even of those who do attend school, who do so with any thing approaching regularity; of the large proportion of these last who are not presented to the inspector to give proof of the results of their instruction, and the meager nature of the results attained by many of those who are examined." Again we read, "out of 1,335,118 scholars examined, as many as 655,435, being over ten years of age, ought to have been presented in Standards IV. — VI. Only 261,800 were so presented, while 390,575 were presented in standards suited for children of seven, eight, and nine years of a Apparently we have not in this matter quite decided what we want and ought to do. Are we prepared to institute a vast system of free education in England; which would mean an immense; addi- ' tion to the rates. In 1878 the State paid £11,000 for giants to elementary schools in aid of extra subjects, such as French, ( r< rman, Latin, physical science. What has been said above, as to the expe- diency of teaching children in agricultural districts, that is likely to benefit them when they are apprenticed to their work, certainly applies here; and if these extra subjects are to be maintained, they should be as much as possible industrial. The financial pace at which we are proceeding is of a rapidity that may alarm Borne peo- ple. In 1839 the first grant ever made for education was £20,000, the estimate for 1879 was two millions and a half. But while the expenditure has increased at the rate of 107 per cent., the school attendance has only increased at the rate of 80 per cent. There lias 1 been a like advance in the cost of education. Ten years ago it was estimated that 80s. was the annual expenditure of each child in an elementary school. Now, in Board Schools, it cannot be put at a lower total than £2. "The School Board," said the Vice-President of the Council in the House of ' Commons, in Au: 78, "spend now three and two-thirds times as much from the rates as the} get for the grants. If they had the whole of the grant they would b levying £6,750,000 in rates alone." Without going into the d 284 ENGLAND. as to whether this increased expenditure is the result of the ascend- ency which Board Schools are acquiring over voluntary schools, it is the fact that the education rate in London has doubled in three years — was 3d. in 1876, and in 1879 is 6dL* What becomes of the boys and girls after their four years' train- ing in one of the elementary schools of the< country — whether a Board or a voluntary school — that is, at and after the age of four- ' teen? The vast majority of both sexes proceed to get their living as best the}' can, the girls procure domestic employment, the boys are apprenticed to manufacturers or tradesmen. But as amongst the girls there is a small percentage who become pupil teachers, and who subsequently go to training colleges, so amongst the boys may there be one or two who are destined to rise by then- abilities and industry above the position to which they were born. Here, no doubt, there yet remains a great work to do. In some primary schools scholarships have been founded by private benevolence, as well as by the munificence of the great City companies, who, it should be noted, are also doing much to assist the development of technical and industrial teaching. These prizes are competed for annually, and they enable successful candidates to pass on to secondary schools and complete or mature their education. In a few towns, such as Bedford, there is a graduated system of schools, and a boy may naturally pass from the lowest class in the school which is at the bottom of the scale, to the highest in that which is at the top, and whence he may proceed to the university, with more of the educational advantages and many of the social which he would have enjoyed at Eton, after an expenditure by his parents of £1,500. In most towns, and in many places which are little more than villages, there are endowed schools, grammar schools, and others of different grades, and if the pupil can afford to spend further time upon the business of education, he will be able to procure admis- sion to one of these. The third grade of endowed schools is on a level with elementary schools of the country; in the second grade boys learn Latin as well as elementary Greek, remaining at them till about the age of sixteen. In schools of the first grade boys receive the highest liberal training known in England, and remain till eight- * This increase, however, is not due to the increased cost per head, which, in point of fact, so far as it falls upon the rates, has, on the whole, slightly decreased, but to the circumstance that a far larger number of children are on the roll and in regular attendance. It is as well to state that in the last eight years the roll of London has doubled, and the average attendance more than doubled, the greater part of this increase being due to the action of the BoarJ. EDUCA TIOX. I L ENGLA ND. J 9 een or nineteen. Each of the institutions which these classes com- prise is now as genuinely national as the Board School its.lt'. it is, however, only in the last few years that they have acquired this character. Before the time of the Endowed Schools' Commission and the legislation which followed it, in 1869 and L873, these insti- tutions did exceedingly little work, and the endowments were gen- erally monopolized by members of the Church of England The effect of the new legislation was to make them independent of relig- ious beliefs, both as regards the benefits of their endowments and the api3ointment of their teachers, wherever the original Btatutes of the founders did not specifically prohibit such a change. In addi- tion to this, provision was made for the teaching of natural sciences and modern languages. The reorganization of these schools by the Government, with the new schemes of teaching in them drawn up, have resulted in an educational revolution, second only to that rep- resented by the Elementary Education Act of 1870, and have pro- vided such connecting links as can be said to exist between the rudi- mentary schools of the country and its highest academic training. What the Government did for those institutions, specifically knows as endowed schools by Act of Parliament, it did also for what are called, by way of distinction, public schools. A special commission appointed in 1861, inquired into the nine large endowed schools of Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse, St. Paul's, Merchant Tailors', Harrow, Rugby, and Shrewsbury. It is to these that the Public Schools' Act have exclusive reference, while the great multi- tude of the remainder — upwards of a thousand institutions in all — is provided for by the Endowed Schools' Acts, based upon the re- ports of different commissions of inquiry. Both in the case of the nine schools specially mentioned, and of the remainder, governing bodies were appointed, in which the masters and pupils, as well as the great body of the parents, the universities, and the learned soci- eties were represented. In all cases, an under-master has, in the case of any dispute with the head-master, the right of appeal to the governing body. The governing bodies had also the power to alter the qualifications of age and knowledge required of a pu] entering the school, to award scholarships and exhibitions as ; result of competitive examinations, to provide for exemption from religious instruction, and to abolish a clerical qualification as com- pulsory upon head-masters and under-masters. The new relations which were thus established between govt ruing bodies, head-mas- ters, and their subordinates, did not at lirsi work uniformly W( the transition from the old regime to the new was attended bj I luoh 286 ENGLAND. friction and by some collisions; there were troubles at Rugby, there were differences which did not become quite so famous at Eton. Happily these things now seem to belong to past history; the schools are doing their work fairly, and the masters, pupils, and parents are settling down to the changed conditions. The great public schools have felt the upward educational move- ment of the time, just as they have admitted, in the rearrangement of their governing bodies, the supremacy of the State. In the last thirty years there have sprung up throughout the country a host of new claimants for the honors and prestige which the nine public schools vised to divide between them. Marlborough, Cheltenham, Leamington, Brighton, Bath, Malvern, and Clifton, have each of them become the centers of teaching which gives them a claim to be practically considered upon the public school level. These new seats of learning owe their rise partly to the immense development of the middle class, which has been witnessed in the last few years, partly to the extension of the competitive examination system. It is this competition which has had much to do with the efforts at reform made by the authorities of our older public schools, and with the attention given to mathematics, modern languages, and physical science. For some years after the institution of army entrance examina- tions and the application of the competitive system, either in a free and unrestricted or else modified form, to the Civil Service, both in India and at home, the entire work of the preparation of candidates . for these ordeals was in the hands of private tutors, better known by the generic term of "crammers." A "modern side" had indeed been instituted in which special care was given to modern languages, mathematics, and physical science; but the work in these depart- ments was generally done in a perfunctory manner, and the exj>eri- ment during its earlier stages was only partially successful. The crammer was the recognized and necessary supplement to the school- master. Boys who were destined for the army were systematically idle at school, because they knew, or confidently hoped, that they wotdd be able to make up for their idleness by six months' or a year's work under the crammer's auspices. The tendency of this state of things was to establish a most undesirable divorce between the public schools and the public service; the effects of this divorce still remain, though in one or two ways the attempt has been made to remove them, and to increase the inducements for lads to no to the universities, after leaving school, instead of to the crammers. Thus at the present day, special privileges are offered to candidates EDUCATIONAL ENGLAND. 287 for the Indian Civil Service who may have gone to Oxford or C tm- bridge, and a certain number of commissions in the army arc annu- ally reserved for undergraduates at these universities. A i ir regards the Indian Civil Service, the reduction in the standard for the age of entrance was intended to have the eff< d of bringing up candidates straight from school. Most of the -real schools country have readily and effectually availed themselves of the oppor- tunity thus offered, and special classes for the benefit of candid for the Indian Civil Service, and since the English Civil S been reorganized, and its most remunerative positions thrown open to competitions, for that also, have been set on foot. But as yet there is nothing to make one think that the crammer's occupation is likely to disappear altogether. The spirit of the age is favorable to specialists and experts, and the crammer is simply an educational practitioner, who has made certain examinational requirements particular study, just as the medical specialist has concentrated his thoughts and experiences upon a single branch of disease. The fact, however, remains, that much has been done tows bringing the curriculum of the great schools of England into h mony with the requirements of special public examinations insti- tuted by the State. It is an attempt at organization, the sir which we cannot expect suddenly to witness, an honest effort to provide that valuable and important machinery of which be: •had nothing. In other respects, too, there may be seen signs of the endeavor to secure something like uniformity in our system of higher education. The two universities have instituted an exam- ining board which, on payment of a comparatively small fee, is willing to test annually the proficiency of the pupils of every school that cares to enter into an arrangement with it. Success in this examination is accepted by the authorities of Oxford in lieu of pi ing the little-go examination. But so far as the universities are concerned, this is only one of many proofs which they now afford of then* anxiety to adapt themselves to the altered conditions of the times. Nor are the colleges idle ; they are altering their stat- utes in the direction which the commissioners may probal mend, are endowing new professorships out of their fund have, in some cases, abolished clerical restrictions in the case of their headships. Already, too, they have done more than this. In 1858, local middle-class examinations were established, conduct I by members of Oxford and Cambridge, and passed in them to the degree of Associate of A ben several colleges, both at Oxford and Cambridge, have given Bohol- 288 ENGLAND. arships and exhibitions to the most distinguished of the successful candidates in these provincial ordeals, as an inducement for them to go to the university and reside. Ten years later, the scheme of unattached students was adopted, and young men were henceforth enabled to enrol themselves members of the university without being members of colleges. The scheme was recommended on its earliest introduction by motives of economy, and has since proved wonder- fully successful in practice. The colleges themselves have done much to help this attempt; they have, in many instances, opened their lectures to unattached students, and they have been fre- quently willing to receive such members of this body as cared to enrol themselves upon their books on exceptionally favorable terms. As the universities have done much to adapt their distinctions to the necessities of practical life by founding new examination schools in such subjects as modern history and law, physical science and theology, so the colleges have increased their educational efficiency by combining their tutorial staff for collective instruction. Far outside their own geographical limits, from one end of Great Britain to the other, Oxford and Cambridge are doing a great educational work. The university extension movement is gaining ground daily. As by the middle-class examinations, bo} T s who had not the chance of going to Oxford and Cambridge had it placed within their power to gain a certificate of academic excellence, so Oxford and Cambridge have brought their harmonizing influences within the reach of those whose school-days have come to a prema- ture close. In almost every great town of England there are lec- tures given periodically by Oxford and Cambridge graduates of high standing, not merely in Latin and Greek, history, philosophy, and literature, but in political economy, and the various branches of physical science. The course of lectures on these subjects are fol- lowed by examinations; nor is it unknown to find a Sheffield or Birmingham artisan, clad in his working dress, who has gained an Oxford or Cambridge diploma in political economy. In the new relations established between English schools and universities by means of the examining board, of which mention has already been made, indications of an effort may be observed on the part of schoolmasters — for it was to the schoolmasters as much as to the university authorities that the new scheme was first due — to se- cure for themselves a better defined position. There are, indeed, two features especially prominent in the relations which have been developed during the last few years in schoolmasters as a body on the one hand, and in schools in their relation to the universities on EDUCATIONAL ENGLAND. 289 the other. The schools have been increasingly putting then into a sort of clientship to a university; schoolmasters have more and more been organizing- themselves with a view of attaining some- thing like uniformity in their educational systems, and the power of making their voice heard in scholastic matters generally. The peri- odical conferences of head-masters have been one important step in this direction. These meetings are now about ten years old, and in the last two or three years assistant masters have been admitted to them. Further progress along the same line is in contemplation, and there is an idea of holding educational congresses, open to all teachers and examiners of first and second grade schools, and to all professors and teachers at the universities. Much work has also been done by the College of Preceptors — an association whose ob- i ject it is to improve the quality of teachers, principally in middle- class schools, which grants diplomas to schoolmasters who have not been at universities, and who are especially examined by the college on the theory and practice of education. It also gives certificates to schoolmistresses. These examinations have been held half-yearly since 1S54, and between two and three thousand teachers of both classes are annually examined. Delegates of its bodies also examine entire schools. The special feature of the body, however, is that it exists for the benefit and instruction of the teachers themselves. Education is studied, and lectures are given on education as a science and an art. For a long time the college has been en- deavoring to obtain registration by the Government for teachers in public and private schools. This would virtually amount to a legal enactment that no person shovdd be accepted as a teacher i who does not possess a certificate from some recognized board of examiners. On all sides the complaint is made that our supply of middle-class secondary schools is defective alike in quantity and quality. One remedy is that suggested by Mr. Matthew Arnold, an organized sys- tem of State inspection such as now exists in our primary schools, and, bv means of the new universitv examinations, in some of our public schools as well. To hope that this will cure the evil is per- haps to expect too much from the machinery of inspection. No doubt the state of things recorded by the reports of local delegate s of the University of Oxford, as existing in our grammar schools and others is sufficiently unsatisfactory. "The results of these matricu- lation examinations," write the delegates, "prove that the educati'>n of boys is very inefficient in English schools; that their ignorance is by no means confined to classical subjects, but is equally marked in 19 290 ENGLAND. mathematics." Hence the inference is that there is need of a supe- rior authority to interfere on the behalf of the middle-class parents of England, and that this can only be done by a Minister of Educa- tion sending his inspectors to see how the work of education is car- ried on, not only in the case of the clever boys who get to the top of the school, but of the many who are allowed to drop behind and to do no real work. Let it be granted that the facts are as the delegates and others describe them to be, and that the parents are quite right in attributing them to the unsatisfactory teaching in the grammar schools of the United Kingdom; does it follow that the cure is fresh legislation and more school inspection ? The report of the Endowed Schools Commission drew attention to many instances of systematically careless and imperfect teaching in secondary middle-class schools. The public did not, however, require to master the contents of all these volumes to know that some of those who had embraced the profession of education had no educating zeal, taste, or capacity. Sometimes the pedagogue was a highly agreeable specimen of the English clergyman and gentleman fond of society, fond of shooting, a capital conversationalist, perhaps something of an aesthetic dilettante. He took an active part in the local cricket club, and was a leading spirit in a resuscitated toxoph- ilite society. He was one of the most delightful persons in the world to fill a vacant place at a picnic party, and he had an abun- dant repertory of songs, which he sang with great feeling and judg- ment. But in an evil hour for himself and others he had taken to schoolmastering. When he was elected to his position by the gov- ernors—the present governing bodies had not then come into exist- ence — the school was fairly well-to-do. There were plenty of day- boys, and a considerable number of boarders. Nothing more than management, labor, and energy were wanted to perpetuate its suc- cess. These were attributes possessed neither by the new head- master nor his wife. Socially, they were each of them great acquisi- tions. Of all things in the world for which the pair was least adapted was the drudgery or slavery, as it seemed to both of them, of per- petually having the responsibility of boys on their hands. The practical result was, of course, what might have been expected. The school went down, the boys learned nothing, were plucked in every examination for which they presented themselves, and finally the head-master himself considered it advisable to accept a small living. Provincial England at one time abounded in such experiences as these. Frequently the schoolmaster was something more than a man of pleasure — was really a scholar, had a pretty turn for physi- EDUC. 1 7V0.Y. 1 1. ENGL . IND. 201 cal science, or archaeology, or metaphysics. The uirimpeai character of the pursuit did not, in practice, much mend matters. The boys wove neglected, and the fame and fortune of the set began steadily to wane. It would be too much t<> say that such in- stances as these are altogether obsolete at the present day. They are certainly much less common than they were, and not less cer- tainly it is very much easier than it was even a decade ago for ihe ordinary parent to procure a sound training of the higher sort for his boy. Of course all ground for the complaints of indignant par- ents is not removed. The doubt is whether it is necessary or desir- able to attempt to remove them by Act of Parliament. It is, and it will remain to the end of the chapter, just as impossible to improve unsatisfactory schools and bad systems of teaching — or systems of teaching which are in reality no teaching at all — off the face of the earth by adding to the arm}' of school inspectors at present scat- tered over the surface of the United Kingdom, as to eliminate crim- inal propensities from the minds of the lower classes by Indefinitely reinforcing the ranks of police superintendents. There are two real kinds of school inspection, the direct and indirect. The latter is, or should be, quite as effective as the former, and may be enforced in all cases in which the former does not exist — that is, in every hi I of school which is a grade or two removed above the primary schooL There are the Oxford and Cambridge middle-class examinations. There are the periodical examinations conducted by members of a regular staff of Oxford examiners, which secure, as lias been ex- plained above, for the successful candidate immunity from the or-- deal of " Responsions " when he has matriculated on the Isis. There are innumerable examinations for Civil Service appointments, com- missions in the army, Ceylon writerships, scholarships, and exhibi- tions at the different universities of the United Kingdom. Now, each one of these really does the duty of an indirect school in- spector, and if the parent wishes to have presumptive and, as he 'may fairly regard it, almost positive proof of the efficiency of any school, he has but to find out what its representatives, in other words its pupils, do in their public trials. Here are data on which any parent can base his judgment, and they are data available to a 1 ! who care to have access to them. The standard is one by which no schoolmaster will think it unjust that the merits of his estal Li ihment should be gauged. Occasionally he may be afflicted with an excep- tionally stupid set of school-boys. But the doctrine of averages holds good; and in the long run the stupidity and cleverness of school-boys bear the same mutual proportions. 292 ENGLAND. The truth is, that it is the parents themselves who decide how much education is to be given to the boys, and of what kind. Money will do much, but there are certain things which it is not to be wished that it should do. It is not, for instance, to be desired that the payment by the father of a sum, very likely a considerable sum, of money should relieve him of the obligation of personally judging what progress his boy is making, and what are the influences, men- tal and moral, under which he is growing up. If subjects taught at school are tabooed at home, on the ground that they are of little practical utility and do not pay, is it likely that a boy will work hard at them ? These are the questions which the suggestion of inspection for grammar schools very naturally sug- gests to schoolmasters. Says a schoolmaster: "A parent consulting me a few days ago about his son, a boy of some ability, but very much afraid of exertion, concluded by saying, ' I don't want my lad to grow up a fool; but I don't care for him to work very hard. It is not necessary, for he will have plenty of money.' ' Well may the schoolmaster ask, " Whom would an inspector blame for this boy's ignorance and backwardness?" The parent above referred to prob- ably belonged to that class of parents who send their boys to school not so much to learn as to make acquaintances. The purely social mission of school life is enlarged upon in the present day by parents before boys to a very ill-advised extent. And though we hear more about education now than at any former period in our history, it must always be remembered that there is much at the present age which is distinctly anti-studious. To play in the University Eleven, or to row in the University Eight, carries with it more of popu- lar prestige than to have won a first-class and a Balliol or Trinity fellowship. The general principle on which the great English public schools may be described as being administered is, first, the recognition and organization of the natural tendencies of boys ; secondly, that of ap- pealing to their good feeling and honor. Each of these ideas finds its expression in what is called the monitorial or the prefectual sys- tem. This system is really one of government by the governed, and as perfected by Dr. Arnold, is the distinguishing feature of our pub- lic schools. It is, we are told, natural and inevitable that big boys should control small, and an organized system prevents abuse of this control. Secondly, it is part of education to learn to rule. Thirdly, it is a waste of power not to utilize the governing instinct of senior boys for work which they can do as well as, or better than, salaried masters. Y\ T e thus have three distinct lines of discipline; first, that EDUCATIONAL ENGLAND. 298 of the head-master; secondly, that of the assistant-masters; thirdly, that of the boys. It was impossible to put down fagging by an} laws. Human nature prompted strong boys to exercise an author- ity which was very often despotic over the weak. The question, ac- cordingly, with which schoolmasters had to deal presented itself aa a problem of regulating this authority amongst boys in such a v as to prevent its degenerating into bullying, and to establish a • compensating principle to that of "might is right." Hence our schoolmasters have officially recognized fagging by the one or two upper forms of their schools. In this way they have to a great es tent succeeded in turning possible and probable bullies into actui I disciplinarians. The head-master officially acknowledges the juris- diction which the bigger boys have over the smaller, and in return for this sanction, the bigger boys are held by the head-master re- sponsible for the moderate exercise of their powers, and by way of further reciprocity, pledge themselves to promote order and disci- pline throughout the school. This system has no doubt certain dis- advantages. Boys, it may be argued, do not choose their leaders on the same principle as head-masters choose their prefects: there is, thus, a danger lest the depositary of the delegated authority of the head-master should not be coincident with the wielder of the actual authority amongst his school-fellows. Again, it is contended by s< ime critics that the exclusive concentration of school-boy responsibility among a limited number causes the remainder, who are the great majority, to ignore the fact that they have any responsibility at all. ' On the whole, however, fagging and the monitorial power do not '■ work badly at our public schools. Scandals occasionally there are, but the worst scandals do not occur in schools where the jurisdic- tion of the prefects or monitors is openly recognized, and where fagging is most officially sanctioned, but rather in those schools where the limits within which the former is kept and the latter is not allowed to exceed are very narrow. At Eton, though the pre- fectual system has not been nominally adopted, the head boy of each boarding-house is expected to keep things straight chiefly by setting a good example. Sixth-form boys generally are trusted to preset order, and have the right to fag. In almost all schools where the prefectual system does exist its representatives are allowed to use the cane. At Winchester a prefect may cane on his own responsi- bility, but in serious cases the head boy of the school is consult' I At Harrow no grave offense is punished, whether by chastisem or otherwise, without a meeting of the head boys of the boarding- house, and their common approval of the steps taken. At West- 294 ENGLAND. minster no monitor can cane or punish in any way, unless in the presence of, and with the approval of, the head boy of the house, or of the entire school, according to the nature of the offense commit- ted. In all cases appeal lies to the head-master; no monitor may punish for an offense against himself; the monitors, as a body, are formally invested with power by the head-master, and promise in writing to act faithfully. At Marlborough there is also an appeal to the head-master; two prefects must be present at a caning, and the strokes must not exceed twelve. At Shrewsbury no caning or im- position is given, except upon the adjudication of the whole body of prefects. Such, in brief outline, being the English pubhc school system, what is its product ? The first thing which strikes one in the school- boy of to-day is that his views of life are much more extensive than formerly. He seems to be much more in contact with the actual cares and responsibilities of life. There is no diminution of fresh- ness or of capacity for healthy enjoyment, but he is manifestly not without a sense that existence has its business, and that that busi- ness he will sooner or later be called on to discharge. The happy- go-lucky temper, the vague belief that all will come right in the end, is more or less superseded by an intelligent recognition of the cir- cumstances that how this may be very much depends upon himself. The lad begins of his own accord to discuss the possibilities of a Career, the chances of school-fellows who are reading for examina- tions, or the merits of those who have actually won appointments. In all this one may witness some of the results of the competitive system. If competitive examinations had done nothing more than bring home to the bosom of English boys a sense of the necesshy of prolonged individual effort, they would have done much. They may be sometimes unfair in their operation; they may often fail to secure for us the qualities which we want; but they have at least not so much modified as revolutionized the school-boy's whole ideas of life. There are many other agencies tending in the same direction at work with the English school-boy. As competitive examinations for scholarships, Civil Service clerkships, for the army and elsewhere, have opened up to him a novel view of the responsibilities of ex- istence, so have the studies which these examinations involve im- mensely widened his general intellectual experience. Modern and ancient history, English and French literature — he looks at these from a standpoint to which he was once a stranger. There is, he at last perceives, some practical significance in them, and they bear EDUCATIONAL ENGLAND. 296 a definite, tangible relation to the business and conduct of life. Nor does the impulse proceed only from above. In man} ways the mod- ern English school-boy does a great deal for his own enlightenment Boy politicians and philosophers there have always been, luil | have been of the nature of portents and prodigies. Til] recently school-boys have displayed, for the most part, an indifference to the history of their own times, as it may be learned from new papers, and from conversation. Every school and every school boardinjr- house have now their library and reading-room. The boys them- selves, though as far removed from being prigs as, it is to be hoped, young Englishmen will ever be, have their miniature Parliaments, and discuss the affairs of the day. Their remarks may not be very edifying, but the very fact that these remarks are made, and such discussions held, testifies to an educational fact of no small value — educational, indeed, in the best and truest sense of all, since the progress is the gradual drawing out, strengthening, and exercising of faculties which, in the old state of things, were allowed to rust in desuetude. The English public-school sj-steni has become as much a national institution as Household Suffrage or Vote by Ballot. That it is sup- posed to suit the English character may be inferred from its adop- tion at the newer public schools which are springing up. How strong is the hold which universities and public schools together have upon the English mind, to what an extent their iniluences dominate the men who in turn are intrusted with the administra- tion of the country, may be judged by the following estimate : — In the House of Commons, elected in 1874, 236, or more than a third, , out of G58 members were Oxford or Cambridge men, while about I 180 were public-school men, of which total close upon a hundred came from Eton, and rather more than half a hundred fr< >m] [arrow. Nor has female education in England among the middle and up- per classes failed to make a very perceptible degree of progress of late years. There are ladies' colleges, not only at Cambridge 1 , but in most of the large and fashionable towns of the United Kingdom. There is an elaborate organization of lectures of all kinds for f< male students. There are high schools for girls of younger age, wl much study is given to many subjects. But while in man\ instances it cannot be doubted that the young ladies of the day are gradually developing into intellectual and cidtivated women, we are i rperi- encing some of the disadvantages attendant upon the era of reform at high pressure, and female education in fashionable finishing schools is often far too pretentious to be sound. We have seen thi 296 ENGLAND. • school-boy, let us briefly glance at his sister the English school-girl, as we may frequently meet her. She has a considerable acquaint- ance with text-books and manuals. She can answer questions on a host of minute incidents and irrelevant details connected with great historical events and involved in salient historical principles. But of the principles or events themselves, of their connection with what preceded them, and of their bearing on what came after, she has too often no kind of idea. In the same way, she is tolerably well in- formed as to the vegetable and mineral products of different districts in the United Kingdom, and it may even be of the various countries of the world. That these districts have ever been prominent in the national annals for other reasons, that grave political issues have ever been decided within them, or that precisely the same order of things, so far as civil and religious polity is concerned, does not ob- tain indifferently in each of these countries as in England, are facts which she does not always seem to realize. Is it wonderful that the young ladies thus trained ripen into wives and mothers, paragons of their sex very likely, but with intel- lects imperfectly developed, or not developed at all? They have been instructed, not educated. No attempt to educate them, save in the particular matter of music and dancing, has been made. They have, in other words, been crammed with the letter of text-books; they have not been taught in subjects. So long as parents are satis- fied with this, so long as the examinations to which these young per- sons periodically submit — and then- success in which is cited by the lady principal of the school as conclusive proof of the excellence of her establishment — proceed upon their present method, are mere tests of book-learning, and not of general intelligence, such will con- tinue to be the case. The worst of it is there are few counterbal- ancing advantages to the system of which the modern school-girl is too frequently the victim. Although her mind is not being en- riched with philosophical views of history, it is not necessarily turned towards the theory and practice of domestic management. Here this general review of our educational state may close. It has necessarily been little more than a mere summary of salient feat- ures; it has been the narrative of changes in the course of accom- plishment quite as much as of reforms actually achieved. It has often revealed tendencies rather than results. The key-note of the entire system, whether as applied to teachers or to taught, is organ- ization; better provision for the scholars, more effectual guarantees that the schoolmasters shall be competent for their work, and shall have the opportunity of proving that competence to the public. It EDUCATIONAL ENGLAND. 207 • is, indeed, with education as it is with the question of labor and of capital, or of pauperism, or of co-operation. The sj sb m ia not com- plete, the different duties to be performed by its coiiiil.ii. m parts are not vet decided, the connecting link between th< ■ different parts does not always exist. On the other hand, what was once a void is now tilled by complex and more or less successful machinery. The law insures to every subject of the United Kingdom a ceri modicum of education; it does not guarantee that every boy who deserves such promotion, or who is capable of profiting by it, shall rise, by a series of gradual ascents, to the highest academic ! raining; but supplemented as our educational system is by private enterprise and voluntary organization, it renders it exceedingly improbable that such a boy should not have the wished-for chance. Something of what we have done in the case of our manufacturing industries wo have done in the case of education. We have economized force. The great machine for the improvement of humanity has at last been fairly put in motion, its different jDarts may not be united so compactly as we shall some day witness, and the scale on which its labors are performed may be enlarged; but even as matters are, the masses in this country have had the moans of self-elevation afforded them, and we know that there is springing up around us a new generation which will not be like its predecessors, or which will, at least, have had at its disposal influences which its pr< irs never knew. Elementary schools, secondary schools, public scho< universities, private teachers, private and public societies, are now putting forth their utmost efforts, and many of them are working in unity and accord. That the fundamental principles of a complete system of national education are entirely settled might be too much to say. It is for the future to show whether the State will ultimately recognize the duty of supplying, at the cost of the ratepayers, the children of all its subjects with instruction; whether, in other wordSj the " free-schools " programme will be realized. Finally, it is yet a moot point how long the compromise betAvecn such a system of public secular and private denominational teaching as, was embod- ied in the Education Act of 1870 will endure. Every State grant given to any sectarian school for proficiency in non-religious sub- jects involves the principle of denominational endowm mt, and it has still to be seen whether in the course of years this principle will be formally sanctioned or definitely condemned. CHAPTER XVII. THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION. The English Character gradually losing its Insularity — "Why?— How English Accessibility to Foreign Influences exhibits itself — The Eesults of Closeness and Frequency of Communication between England and France, especially as manifested in English Domestic Life — The "Flat" System — Gallicized English Households—Some of the Results and Dangers to be expected from this Emancipation from National Prejudices — Modern Cynicism — Modern Cosmopolitanism — Change in Ideas and Practice of Domestic Life ^-^ — The Old Country Gentleman and the New — Society v. Home — Parents and Children — Husbands and Wives — Marriage and Independence — Tend- ency to Free and Equal Intercourse of the Sexes : how favored and illus- trated by the Usages of Modem Life — The Fashionable Englishwoman's Day — Change in the Bearing of Men towards Women. THE English character is gradually losing the insularity that has long been the moral heritage of our geographical situation, and is divesting itself of the tastes, prejudices, and habits which have been regarded as inseparable from the race. The social re- lations established between England and France exist more or less intimately between England and other European countries. The summer vacations of the average Englishman are spent abroad — at French watering-places, which are not more expensive than English, and which have a charm of novelty that English do not possess; in Brittany; in the Bavarian Tyrol; at the German spas; under the shadow of the Alps; by the shores, no longer solitary, of the Swiss lakes. Or the Anglo-Saxon holiday-maker goes farther afield, and, performing the grand tour on a scale worthy of the larger notions of these later days, puts a girdle round hah the world, and embraces a hemisphere in his arduous pilgrimage of pleasure. He studies life under a republic in the United States, or he watches the work- ing of the machinery of empire in India, or he endeavors to mark, by personal investigation, the differences between constitutional gov- ernment as it exists in England, and constitutional government as it is transplanted to our Australasian dependencies. If he is unable to accomplish all this in a single expedition, he still frequently con- trives to leave the well-worn Alpine tracks far behind, and sets his THE SOCIAL REVk W. 290 face in the direction of the Scythian steppes <>r th< . crown of Ararat. Not a year passes in which adventurous Britons do not achieve feats hitherto unattempted, and the influ< uce of th< l>loits is never lost. The names of such men as MEacgregor, Bur- naby, Bryce, Grove, Freshfield, become the watchword of the risinc generation of Englishmen, and their exploits the standard of true British adventure. It is, however, the intimacy between England and France wh< effects are chiefly manifested upon the well-to-do classes of En g l ish society. Hitherto international political relations have been mainly confined to diplomatists and statesmen actually in office. It is a new experience to find gentlemen who sit below the gangway, or on the front bench on the Opposition side of the House of Commons, exchanging visits with M. Grevy and M. Gambetta Nor is it only the increased space and attention given to French affairs in the English newspapers which cause a growing section of newspa] readers to take as much interest in the debates at Versailles as in those at Westminster, and to understand perhaps scarcely less about them. A practical experience of the conduct of parliamentary busi- ness in the Chamber of Deputies has ceased to be confined to a limited number of those whose business it is to lead and enlighfa n English public opinion in the press; and many a man who a I years ago would have had no other object in a trip to Paris than to eat dinners, visit theaters, or see the races at Chantilly, finds him- self impelled to pick up what he can of French political knowledge by witnessing French political institutions actively at work. The consequences of all this meet us in England at every turn. English theatrical managers go to French dramatists for th< ir new- pieces, just as Roman playwrights went to Greek. Our daily way of life is largely accommodated to French practice; our bills of fere are drawn up in the French language. In sonic instances our ser- vants are French, Swiss, German, or Italian. The "flat" system, borrowed from France, has now existed on a considerable scale in London some fifteen years, and at the present time is in gr< growing favor. In the course of five years the rents of llats have doubled; Victoria Street, Westminster, is ahoui; equally divided into the offices of parliamentary lawyers, colonial agents, engineers, I into domestic dwellings. These last consist in every case of ft The sum paid annually for a suite of eighl j on th ind floor is not less than £250. The drawing-room floor commands a still larger sum; and unless the tenant chooses to ascend i i the lo level of the garrets, no set of apartments can be procured in this 300 ENGLAND. quarter of the town for less than £150. At Queen Anne's Gate there has sprung up a colossal block wherein resides an immense aggregate of families. Here attendance and cookery are forthcom- ing as well as house-room, with, of course, a proportionate charge for both. Dinners and other meals may be taken in the private apartments of the occupiers, or in the public saloon. The rents paid are fixed at figures which might be thought prohibitory, yet few sets of rooms ever remain long vacant. No arrangement can be imagined more diametric all v antagonistic to the tastes with which Englishmen are generally credited. A fiat, it may be said, is merely a house, with this difference, that the rooms are arranged, not on the perpendicular plan, but on the horizontal. It also possesses what may well seem a great advantage to busy men or women who are anxious to purchase the seclusion of domestic life at the cost of as little inconvenience as possible. The tenant of a flat 'is able to compound for. all the various petty charges incidental to the house- holder by payment of a lump sum. The flats belong to a company; the company has a secretary, and it is the business of that officer to see that the fabric of the apartments of each tenant is kept in proper order, and that no just complaint remains without attention. There are other advantages connected with the flat system of which the English paterfamilias is fully as conscious as the Continental. He can leave London at a moment's notice with his wife, children, and servants; or he can take his children and wife with him, sending the servants on a holiday, secure in the knowledge that his abode is hermetically sealed behind him; that there is danger neither from the street burglar nor from the charwoman — the traditional custo- dian of the London house when the family are out of town — and the strange relatives and unsavory friends whom that person may invite into the drawing-room during the period of her occupancy. For all this we are mainly indebted to the force of French ex- ample, and the new regime suggests the necessity of modifying the conventional conceptions of the English character. It is not an argument to drive too far; but one is induced to draw from it the inference that the ice of English reserve is gradually melting, and that the time may bo coming when the English table d'hote at hotels and elsewhere shall seem less artificially strange than, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, it does at present. As it is, we En- glish are now in a transition state. We have adopted many of the outward observances of the country which is separated from us by the Straits of Dover — French cookery, French wines, French art. We have still completely to assimilate some of the qualities of French THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION. manners. The attempt to reproduce the Continental hou is not quite unknown in England. In some cases the efforl is an tation, in others it is made from a conviction that it is the m effective way of securing domestic comfort, with a certain amount of domestic elegance. English servants arc not in good repute. They are often idle, exacting, thankless, incompetent, wasteful, and dishonest. There are a few English households in which nol a sin- gle English servant is kept, and in which, except when company are entertained, not a single word of English is spoken. The children are taught to prattle French and German in advance of their o tongue. There are German and French nursemaids, the cook Belgian, the parlor-maid Swiss, the footman Italian. You have no sooner entered the home managed upon such principles :ts tin than you find English ways, habits, furniture, arc left behind The ornaments visible are French. The manner in which the furniture is arranged is French also. Eminently Frci>c ; i. too, are il>" polished wooden floors, the fireplaces, and the decorations in the neighbor- hood of the fireplace. It is the same at table — a good dinner, but not an English one. Such households as these are exceptional, but they exist, and they illustrate the tendency of the time. Naturally there is a rather ridiculous side to this systematic ac- climatization of foreign modes. There has been developed a i\\w of character confined to no particular age and to neither sex, of which the chief feature is an adventitious aversion to every thing distinct- ively English. Such people, having visited tlus Continent two or three years in succession, return possessed by a spirit of profound intolerance for the institutions and ways of their fatherland. Th find the English theaters temples of dullness, the English press a scheme of organized platitudes. They prefer bad French cookery to sound English fare. They discover that the British breakfasl is a barbarous and indigestible meal, and straightway they sub the " dejeuner a la fourchette." They patronize French boot;' and dressmakers. They profess a sudden ignorance of the good qualities of Great Britain. They boldly avow their inability to derstand British prejudices. This is a social variety which has in- deed become so common as scarcely to attract notic< There are influences more important than those which U good neighl His peculiarity is a constant and insatiable d< Change, that is, of scene, for of the same companions he seems to w sary. The truth is, that for those who live, as ii i - ■ ', "in s« " there is but one society all the world over, abroad or at home, in town or in country. A modern country house i I ideally the same as a London house transplanted to a park, girdled with trees and hills, and commanding extensive views of rich level meadows. The men and women arc the same thai met each other daily a few months since in Rotten Row, at the opera, at dinner par- ties, receptions, public balls. It is conversati in, for the most part, in which those who do not live the same lit:' can feel small in'. and take no part. It is. not provincial chatter, hut it is lpcal and personal, the locality being London, and it is not readily compre- hended by the provincial neighbors who happen to be present The influences of the time are not favorable to domestic ; > I in our progress towards cosmopolitanism the taste for the family life which was once supposed to be the special characteristic of Ei • I has to a great extent been lost. The claims of society have contin- ually acquired precedence of the duties of home. The heart <>t' the modern mother may in reality yearn with the same fondness as of old towards her offspring; she does not permit herself, or ev< it i do not permit her, the same opportunity of indulging it; she has her own position to assert in the great world; she has the ambition of husband to remember and advance. Society!' some th< i before whom women prostrate themselves, and the mothers who used to live for their children have chosen to live for their acquaint- ances. This tendency and this resolve act — as they cannot b i acting — as the solvent of household ties and domestic obligati Neither father no 1 * mother would allow that parental duties wi i neglected, but they might confess that they were vicariously i charged. They wpuld urge apologetically the multiplicity < f t!,. fcr social engagements, and the imperi ssity of attending them. They would proceed to assure you that all which bur I care could do towards seeing that their children enjoyed id- vantage had been done, that they inquired in the most Beard manner as to the character of the nurses and governesses whom they engaged, and always impressed upon their sons the paramount neec issil y of keeping out of scrapes — "Do as I say; □ I do" — and making desirable acquaintances al school. All this maj I and creditable enough, but it rests on th< option that a pari 20 306 ENGLAND. can satisfactorily delegate to tutors or governors the sum of those duties which he owes to his child. The natural outcome of this is that the fashionable parents of the present day have little more than a mere superficial acquaintance with their own children. If this ac- quaintance is not cultivated early, it cannot be cultivated late. If the father or mother does not invite and train the confidence of their son or daughter when the quality of truthfulness, which with chil- dren is an instinct, has not been abused or blunted, it will not be won in after life ; and if son or daughter make shipwreck of their future, the parental grief may be deep and the disappointment sincere, but a heavy responsibility will lie at the household door. There are other points at which manifestations may be observed of the change which the domestic system of England is undergoing. The ultimate guarantee, the sole sure condition of domestic unity, is the identity of interest between husband and wife. Conjugal fidel- ity has not in times past been confined to this country, and the sanc- tity of the marriage tie has not been an exclusively English idea. It is, however, an idea on which a very remarkable degree of emphasis has been laid in England. It is impossible to deny that the rela- tions between husband and wife show often an increasing laxity. Here, as in other things, we have qualified our native views by com- parison and contact with French examples. The very phrases by which, in the French vernacular, marriages of different sorts have long been spoken of, have become naturalized in the English lan- guage. The flirtations of girlhood are perpetuated or reproduced in what was once the staid and decorous epoch of matronhood. Nor is it merely that such things are; they are conventionally recognized as existing, and when recognition has been once won for a fact or a custom, it has practically obtained a social sanction. Marriage is, as it will continue to be, the grand object in life to every young Englishwoman; it is only the theory of marriage which has been altered. The central idea, the very type of marriage with the English girl used to be — with tens of thousands of English girls is still — home. But in the higher strata of society girls marry in a large proportion of instances, not that they may become wives, moth- ers, mistresses of households, but mistresses of themselves, and are often goaded into it by a sense that a fashionable mother finds them inconveniently in the way. An establishment, horses and carriages, dresses and jewelry: these, of course, are aims which need no jus- tification. What we are now chiefly concerned with is the accepted ideal of uxorial independence. The mere command of money is indeed a fascinatingly novel experience to most English girls, and it THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION. ;;n7 is probable that a more liberal supply of pocket than i even to the daughters of wealthy parents, would do them no harm. As it is, girl- \ life are apt to get inl mea mature contraction of lenl and extras habits. But many English girls have other tastes than the simple and perfectly legitimate pleasure which the anticipate trol of pocket-money gives. They arc fond of paintings, of art, of playing the hostess, of admiration. Ti may be, if their temperament is the severer kind, they are fund of politics, literature, or science, in any one of these cases the wife speedily creates for herself a Little world of her own, in which the husband only figures as an occa- sional \isitor. Even when the spirit of feminine independence after marri does not assume quite so emancipated a form as this, it very often asserts itself in a manner comparatively new to English society. The acceptance gained by the rite of five o'clock tea is the symbol | of the ascendency of the softer over the sterner sex. The inc< : of knightly worship easily blends itself with the fragrance which the delicate china cups exhale, and the world, touched at the Bight, ad- mits the propriety of the homage. The increased popularity of garden parties, water parties, and those al fresco banquets which retain their original name of picnics; of Syde Park, as a lounge and a promenade; of such pastimes as lawn tennis and croquet if in- deed croquet anywhere survives; of Hurlingham, as an afternoon resort during the London season; of the (hie. I tb, whether in its Twickenham or London house, as a meeting-ground for ladies and gentlemen, are all indications of Vnc undoubted tendency to multiply as far as possible the opportunities of reunion, friendly or formal, between women and their actual or potential admirera The daily life of a modern English girl or matron— it make i Little difference which, for the former will be duly chaperoned, and a the latter, her husband has his own affairs to attend to— in the full swing of the Loudon season, will show something of tent to which we have cast off the old-1 hioned r its, and the p< i ance with which we war against the shyness thai has long b< Briton's reproach. There is the morning's ride in the Row from noon to two. All London is there; and it Is a sight unique in the world. But, if you are a stranj er, you should have a cicerone who is tolerably trustworthy and omniscient. The beauty and the splen- dor of the scene you can admire without such instruction. I trees, London trees though the; are mas es of well greenery, and grateful indeed is the shade the; afford n 308 ENGLAND. July sun. The footpaths, which have the iron rails on the one hand, are lined with shrubs and flower-beds on the other. The rhododen- drons have not yet lost their bloom. There is the scent of roses in the air; the perfume of mignonette; and now and again you catch the aromatic odor of the fir-trees lightly blown on the summer air. Hyde Park adds to its attractions as the most entertaining prom- enade in the world, all the charms with which successive landscape gardeners have been able to enrich it. There are not less than ten thousand men and women on the paths which fringe the ride, alter- nately gazing at the beauty of flowers and herbage, and the dazzling variety of the human panorama. Every nation may say that it is represented. There are ambassadors from every civilized kingdom in existence, attaches taking then morning ride before the diploma- tic toils of the day begin. India and Japan send their contingents to the equestrian array — Japanese who have come from a home already Anglicized to acquire the finishing touches of an English education, and Hindu youths who have defeated English under- graduates on their own ground. There are pretenders to foreign crowns, mounted on steeds as faulty as their own monarchical claims; and there are foreign merchants — Greeks, Armenians, Spaniards, Italians- — careering on horses which are the most perfect specimens of their kind that money and breeding can procure. Many mem- bers of the two Houses of the English Parliament are there too, not a few men of business, more of pleasure, and more still who are both. There are ladies of every age, position, degree of beauty and virtue, rank, circumstance, and position in life — fair girls to whom the whole scene is a novelty, and one fraught with an excitement half painful, half bewildering; girls on whom it is beginning to pall, and who go through the whole thing mechanically; mere happy children scampering and exercising their ponies. As our imaginary heroine enters the Row she is not alone, and before she has gone half a dozen paces she falls in with a phalanx of friends of both sexes. A walk gives place to a canter, and then a canter to a walk. And so with gossip and exercise the morning passes away, and the lady on whom we are in attendance turns her horse's head towards home. There, in all probability, one or two early visitors have already come, and the chatter of Rotten Row ia exchanged for the precisely similar chatter of the luncheon-table. Afterwards may come an hour's pause, unless indeed there is some- thing to be done before five o'clock tea is served, and the hour for the evening's drive in the Ladies' Mile arrives. Very possibly, how- ever, some engagement has been formed for the afternoon, and THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION. 809 hmcli is little more than well over ere the "world again claims the presence of our ideal dame or demoiselle. It is perhaps one of 1 1 1 * - Saturdays on which the tournament of doves is held at Fulham, ami a drive thither has been arranged on the box-seal <>!' the coach "f an amateur but eminent whip. Two ladies and three or lour gentlemen are the complement of passengers, and Hurlingham is their desti- nation — a spacious inclosure fenced round by trees, witb tents, pavilions, and a semi-circular ring of spectators, T • ire 1 1 1 < * traps from which presently the blue rocks, strong of win an. I 1. I to kill, will be let loose. There are the noble sportsmen, and th beyond is the knot of betting men engaged in makin and laying the noble sjDortsmen odds on the birds. In a few minutes business will commence, and you will hear nothing but alternately, or simultaneously, the inarticulate murmurs of polite talk, tin- suc- cessive cracks of the guns, and anon the hoarse roars of the gentle- men of the betting ring. Theoretically this advance which we have made in the direction of a system of social intercourse between the two sexes, conducted, as nearly as may be, on terms of complete equality, may he consid- ered an improvement. But the equality is not vet entirely estab- lished; the process is not without certain hitches and awkward and some of the evils of a state of transition have to disappear. The liberty is still a little new, and it may be that the deep draughts of it which are taken are a trifle too powerful for our as yet unsea- soned social system. Intoxicated with a sense of their recently acqirired privileges, the emancipated victims of outward restraints may be led to extravagances and extremes which they should be careful to avoid when they know better what it is not to wear the yoke. If social scandals are more common now than was once the case, it must be attributed, charitably, not to the new system, hut to the fact that the system is new. When the novelty is worn away so will be the peril, and young men and maidens, recovering the conventional balance, will exhibit only the fair side of the social revolution. CHAPTER XVIII. THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY. Three Elements in English Society — Fusion between the Aristocracies of Birth and Wealth — Results of the Process — Patricians in Trade — Gratification of Democratic Instinct, and Maintenance of Aristocratic Principle — The State of Things thus brought about favorable to Plutocracy — Absence of a Noblesse in England — Results of this Absence contrasted with Consequences of its Presence in Austria, &c. — Table of English Precedence, and the Principles on which it is arranged — Gradations in English Society — New Social Era in England dates from Reform Bill of 1832— The Decline of Dandyism— Essen- tially Solid and Serious Character of the Foundation on which English So- ciety rests — How this Fact affects the English Estimate of different Profes- sions and Callings — Social Position of Merchants, Stock-brokers, Lawyers, Authors, Artists, Doctors — Importance of State Recognition and Reward of Professional Men. IN the constitution of English society at the present day, the three rival elements — the aristocratic, the democratic, and the pluto- cratic — are closely blended. The aristocratic principle is still para- mount, forms the foundation of our social structure, and has been strengthened and extended in its operation by the plutocratic, while the democratic instinct of the race has all the opportunities of asser- tion and gratification which it can find in a career conditionally open to talents. The antagonism between the aristocracy of wealth and birth has long been disappearing. The son of the newly-enriched father is identified in education, social training, habits, prejudices, feelings, with the scions of the houses of Norman descent. At all times there has been a tendency on the part of birth to ally itself with wealth, and it would be found upon examination, that for the greater part of their princely rentals many a noble English stock is indebted to purely commercial sources. Judicious matrimonial alliances have largely assisted in identifying the two principles of wealth and birth. This has continued down to the present day, and the consequence is that though English society may be divided into the higher classes, the middle classes, the lower middle, and that vast multitude, which for the sake of convenience may be described as the proletariate, the THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY, 1 fend between the aristocracy of lineage and of revenue ia aln I it an end. There arc typical country gentlemen in l! ■;' Com- mons and in society, but the country interest is do long< c the sv. enemy of the urban interest. Our territorial nobles, our squires, our rural landlords great and small, have heroine commercial pot ' tates; our merchant-princes Lave heroine country gentlemen. ] possession of land is the guarantee of respectability, and the lovi i' respectability and land is inveterate in our race. The great merchant or hanker of to-day is an English gentl< i / of a finished type. He is possibly a peer, and an active partner in a great City firm; if he is not a peer, the chances are that he is a member of the House of Commons. He is a man of extensive cul- ture, an authority upon paintings, or china, or black-letter hooks; upon some branch of natural science; upon the politics of Europe; upon the affairs of the world. Docs he then neglect his busini By no means. He has, indeed, trustworthy servants and deput but he consults personally with his partners, gentlemen in culture and taste scarcely inferior, it may be, to himself ; he goes into the City as punctually as his junior clerks; and when he returns from the City he drops for a few minutes into the most exclusive of We I - end clubs. His grandfather would have lived with his family above f the counting-house, and regarded a trip to Hyde Park as a summer day's journey. As for the descendant, his town-house is in Belgra or Mayfair, he occupies it for little more than six months out of the twelve, and during the rest of the year lives at his palace in the country, takes a keen interest in the breeding of stock, the cultiva- tion of soil, and the general improvement of property. There is, in fact, but one standard of "social position" in England, and it is • which is formed by a blending of the plutocratic and aristocratic. elements. If it is realized imperfectly in one generation, it will be approximated to more closely in the next, and thus it will go on till the ideal is reached. There is a rush just now equally on the part of patrician I I plebeian parents to get their sons into business, and noblemi D I illustrious titles and boasting the most ancient descent eagerly em- brace any good opening in the City which may present itself for their sons. It is perhaps the younger son of an earl or a duke who sees you when you call on your broker to transact bu be the heir to a peerage himself who is head partner in the I which supplies the middle-class household with tea, puts a ring- fence round the park of the Yorkshire squire, or erects a trim con- servatory in one of the villa gardens of suburban . M i 312 ENGLAND. also be remarked that an institution which is the great object of menace and attack on the part of the radical reformers of the age has greatly assisted to knit together the various parts, sections, and interests of the social system, and at the same time that it has dis- persed the aristocratic leaven has proved to be a distinctly popular- izing agency. Primogeniture, the bulwark of an hereditary nobility, is one of the guarantees of the alliance between the upper and the middle classes which has contributed to give us the social stability that other nations have lacked. Imagine primogeniture abolished, and the French system, as a possible alternative to primogeniture, adopted, an equal division of property between the various members of the family. The distinction between elder and younger sons woidd disappear. Most of the sons of oiu- great landlords would have a competence, and as a probable consequence they would combine together to form an anti-popular and exclusive caste, would inter- marry to a much greater extent than at present, would cease to go forth, since the necessity would cease, into the world to make then* fortunes, and would erect a hard and fast line of demarkation be- tween classes. If we look at polite society in England as an entire system, we shall find that it differs in one very important respect from society in certain other countries and capitals of Europe. It has a nobility, I but it has not a nublease. There is no titular distinction between the son of the youngest son of the greatest duke in the land and the son of the commoner who has made a fortune in commerce. On the one hand, this absence of the perpetuation of nobiliary titles of courtesy from generation to generation divests English society of much of the exclusiveness of society on the Continent; on the other, it exacts for these titles, while they are in existence, the most rigid and jeal- ous respect. Personal precedence has been abolished in our Indian dominions; and official precedence prevails in its stead. Official pre- cedence is the order of the day in France and Italy. In Russia there is a strict system of military and bureaucratic precedence ; in Austria the system is partly military and partly personal. In England the principle on which gradations of precedence are arranged is per- sonal, though in practice a few exceptions to the rule may be found. The homage paid by society in England to the aristocratic principle is as genuine in spirit, though not so severe in form, as it once was in Austria — formerly par excellence the aristocratic country of Europe. Here, within the limits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, there ex- isted and still exists a great hereditary noblesse, the titles of prince, count, and baron being handed down in perpetuity from father to THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY. :\\;\ ( both sons and daughters. Society, in the approved sense of the term, was thus a close corpora! ion, absolutely unapproachable bg those who lacked in their cradle the necessary credentials of rank. Neither ability, nor wealth, nor great power and influence in the State was accepted as an adequate title for promotion to the hi 'hest level. Within these sacred limits official rank of courst > d; but it was never permitted to override roughshod the distinction of the purely nobiliary regime. So far has this principle been carried, that until lately it was a recognized thing in Austria thai « 7&a the Prime Minister, unless of sufficient rank by birth, was noi to be ad- mitted to certain select ceremonies of state. The Prince Esterhazy, daughter of Lady Jersey, was excluded from several privileges for no other reason than that her great-grandfather was Mr. Child, the eminent banker. The principle which dictated this exclusion, thi >ugh not extinct, is only partially operative at the present day, and if a lady of high rank, the wife of a man who occupies the most di lan- guished position, happens by the unequal marriage of i Qe of hef ancestors to miss the proper number of quartering*, she may be admitted to court, that is, into the society of the great world, even without special grace of the Emperor. In English society, on the other hand, the chief fundamental fact is the absence of a noblesse — a fact which has its disadvanl well as advantages, and which probably exercises a more marked influence upon our national character than has v. i !., < a noticed. The highest society in Austria is perhaps even novs more a to aristocratic Austrians than the society which most aearrj corre- sponds to it in England to the aristocratic English. It is, in fact, a species of family party upon an extended yc:ilv a magnif • tion of the exclusive patrician cliques and coteries, most of \\ h members are bound together by the tie not o] acquaintai and community of tastes and sympathies, but by kinship more or less remote. There is in consequence just that absence of constraint and reserve in the great social world of Austria which mig it be expected when the possibility of meeting any "d in" I was out of the question. In England, where the antecedents <>f many of those who mingle in the best society are obscure, and where the connections between titled and untitled familii in- finite and invisible , it is natural, and it is right, that considerable caution should be used. Hence, in a g < the proverbial reserve of I-mglishmen. As it is impi.- ible to from the mere fact of nomenclatu r any given individua or is not the relative of a peer, so there is a tendency on I 314 ENGLAND. the many aspirants for social position not, perhaps, to affect such relationship, hut certainly to affect an intimacy with highly placed personages. Comparative strangers addressing each other can never feel completely sure of their ground, and are apt to be agitated by misgivings as to their respective positions. The prosperous mer- chant into whose family the heir to a dukedom marries, will prob- ably have near relations who belong to the lower order of the bourgeoisie. These social contrasts and strange juxtapositions are impossible in such a country as Austria, where, outside the limits of society — using the word in its most exclusive sense — there is scarcely any distinction between the bourgeois and his servant; just as in England, inside society there is practically no distinction be- tween the men who the day before yesterday were plebeians, and the patrician peer who boasts the blue ribbon of genealogy — a clearly ascertained line of ancestors who took part in the first crusades. In England, the wife of a great statesman takes her rank from her husband — Ubi Clcdius, ibi Clodia. "Where he goes, there she is in- vited. In Austria, the wife of the distinguished statesman or war- rior who lacked the natal qualifications would scarcely feel aggrieved by receiving no invitation to enter the social paradise of the elect, and if admitted to it would experience the discomfort that comes from novelty and strangeness. An examination of the principles embodied in the scheme of precedence by which English society is rigidly regulated will show two things — first, that though to the uninitiated it may seem "a mighty maze," yet it is not on that account without a very distinct plan; secondly, that it abounds in compensations to that aristocratic principle, and to the representatives of that titular noblesse, whose claims to recognition English society, in comparison with Austrian, may be thought to ignore. " Precedence," it is written in the book of Dod, "is not regulated by mere conventional arrangements; it is no fluctuating practice of fashionable life, the result of voluntary compacts in society; but, on the contrary, is part and parcel of the law of England." "Without going into historical and legal details, it may be said that the table of precedence which is sometimes spoken of as a jumble of incomprehensibilities — a chaos of social conundrums, to be answered by capricious solutions, proceeds upon a distinct theory, and that it is perfectly logical in all its enact- ments. Its theory is an aristocratic theory — that of personal rank; its logic is shown in the consistent application of the aristocratic principle. The representative of the principle of an hereditary monarchy, THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY. 818 the Sovereign and the members of the Royal Family, represent the apex of our social as of our political constitution. The Archbishop of Canterbury follows next. After the Primate of ;ill England comes the Lord Chancellor, as keeper of the Queen's conscience, and then the Archbishop of York. The position which the Lord Chancellor occupies, midway between the two Primates, is a compromise effe< I 1 subsequently to the time when the Chancellor first ceased to be a cleric. Next in the scale of dignity are some half-dozen eminent personages, all of them holding, it is true, high offices of Btate, but all of them also eligible in the first place to their offices in virtu i oi then- wealth and personal rank. Thus the Lord High Treasurer, when there is any peer sufficiently illustrious for the post, Bucceeds the Archbishops; but, to quote again from Dod, "the modern prac- tice is to appoint certain commissioners for the performance of the duties of this office, who are usually called 'Lords of the Treasury,' but who have no special rank in right of their offices." Similarly, the Lord President of* the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord ( freat Chamberlain, the Lord High Constable, the Earl Marshal, the Lord Steward of the Household, the Lord Chamberlain of the Household, take precedence of* the dukes of England, provided they are in each case dukes themselves, in virtue of their offices. If they are not dukes, then they only take their place at the head of their brother peers of the same degree. With the exception of the Lord Chan- cellor and the Archbishops, who are the heads of the learned pro- fessions, and who are closely identified with the most essential of the spiritual and temporal functions of the Sovereign, the table of English precedence is one of purely personal precedence through- out; in other words, office only intensities rank, and in a variety of instances rank is the indispensable qualification of office. The dukes are followed by the eldest sons of the dukes royal, and ■ we then come to the stratum of the marquisate. Here again there is the same consideration given to official when combined with per- sonal rank. If the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Earl Marshal, the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, fail to be dukes, and are marquises, then, and only then, they have their place at the lead of , marquises. Similarly, if they are earls, viscounts, or barons, they have precedence of the earls, viscounts, or barons. Alter the mar- quises, we have dukes' eldest sons, then the earls, then the eldest sons of marquises, then the younger sons of dukes. Then come viscounts, followed by the eldest sons of earls and the younger sons of marquises; then bishops and barons. If a baron happens to be a Secretary of State, he is exalted over the rest of his order; but a 316 ENGLAND. Secretaryship of State does not entitle the holder of any superior rank to any kind of precedence. When one descends to the level regions of the commonalty, there is comparatively little that calls for notice. The Speaker of the House of Commons is the first " commoner " in England. Secre- taries of State take precedence of the eldest sons of viscounts, the younger sons of earls, the eldest sons of barons; and this constitutes one of the very few excej^tions to the principle of personal dignity. Privy Councilors — the Chancellor of the Exchequer among them — the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Master of the Rolls, the Lord Chief Justice of the Com- mon Pleas, the Lord Chief Baron, and all other judges, have a place assigned to them before baronets, as also, on the other hand, have the younger sons of viscounts and the younger sons of barons. Then follow the multitude of knights innumerable, while professional men of all branches bring up the rear. Among the representatives of the faculties, clergymen have the first place; and the great social griev- ance of the army in England is that its most distinguished mem- bers, unless they possess a title, or have been decorated with a high order, are without any definite position. Exceptions to these social rules there of course are, but they are only possible if the members of the company in which they are made are willing that they should be instituted; and at an ordinary London dinner-table the adherence to them is very rigid indeed. Sometimes they conflict in a rather ludicrous manner, and the case is not inconceivable in which, if each of three individuals insisted on his legal precedence, it would be doubtful whether any one of them could ever leave the room. Im- agine that the Speaker of the House of Commons, a baron, and the son of a duke or marquis were placed in the same apartment, and were requested to leave it in the order of dignity. The Speaker, in point of rank, is before all commoners, and legally the son of a duke or marquis is only a commoner; but the baron is before the Speaker, and the clucal scion before the baron. The social conun- drum which thus presents itself may safely be left to rare experience to decide. There is a story of a certain Duke of Norfolk, who was anxious to give a great entertainment to all his kinsfolk. It was found that , his blood relations comprised upwards of 500 persons of both sexes, of whom one was earning a livelihood as keeper of a toll-bar on a turnpike road. It is needless to say that the idea of the family re- union was abandoned, because its complete execution was manifestly impracticable. This is one of the illustrations of what is always THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY. \\\~ possible in a country where, aa in En jland, a ndbl It is, however, certain thai If the humbles! of the ducal I 1 abandoned his lowly vocation, and had Buddenbj ri ,. n to di itinction, be might have found his way into much the Bame boi fected by the bead of his house, and he would Lave dom I be- cause he was r mnected with a duke, but i had established a title to consideration Subject to certain conditions, the parvenu in England may associ- ate with peers, even though he feels some constraint in then | ence, while the son of the parvenu would be the equal of | nay, very possibly be a peer himself. This free it of ■- I promotion is responsible for a large amount of petty social .; Mr. and Mrs. A. are a couple whose place by birth is a table one in the groat middle class. But they have gradually risen supe- rior to it, and without legal rank have acquired a valuable ]>. escript- ive rank in what is called "society" par excellence. The husband has inherited a fortune, or has made his mark in politics, or lias possibly distinguished himself in some other way: the wife is a ;•• > - fectly bred lady, conspicuous by her accomplishm They are, therefore, made welcome in the most select drawing- rooms, and have a visiting list with which a du might 1 tied. But there is no rose without its thorn, and the social triumphs of this agreeable pair have aroused the envy of not house! which in point of birth and worldly circumstance are fully I equals. The A.'s decline the invitations which they receive from these worthy persons, and the worthy persons accordingly declare that the A.'s are offensively elated by their promotion. On the other hand, the A.'s have a considerable amount of reason on their side; they are under no kind of antecedent obligation to visit houses v. hi. h are unacceptable to them, they have really gained a degree of con- sideration in more distinguished quarters, with which there if harm in their being, and with which it would be were not, gratified. This fact is not understood in th >n which lies outside their world, and if they were to enter l : they would find themselves in a thoroughly falsi; and therefore moi less disagreeable position. The era of the enlargement of English society dale-; from the Reform Bill of 1832, and if it has brought with it some contradic- tions, anomalies, and inconveniences, it has also bei d instrum in the accomplishment of great and undoubted g L It ha tuted, in a v< ry large degree, the prestige of achi< prestige of position. The mere men of i 313 ENGLAND. and exquisites, the glory of whose life was indolence, and who looked upon any thing in the way of occupation as a disgrace, have gone out of date never to return. Both Brummell and D'Orsay, the lat- ter especially, concealed sterling equalities beneath the polished affectation of their exterior, but the kind of fame which each of these acquired in his epoch would be an anachronism and impos- sibility now. Before the eventful year 1832, there existed a society in England very like the old exclusive society of Vienna. The chief and indeed almost only road to it lay through jjolitics, and politics were for the most part a rigidly aristocratic profession. Occasion- ally men of the people made their way out of the crowd, and be- came personages in and out of the House of Commons; but most of the places under Government were in the hands of the great fami- lies, as also were the close boroughs, and the tendency was to fill each from among the young men of birth and fashion. The Reform Bill admitted an entirely new element into political life, and threw open the whole of the political area. A host of applicants for Par- liamentary position at once came forward, and as a consequence the social citadel was carried by persons who had nothing to do with the purely aristocratic section which had hitherto been paramount. The patrician occupants of the captured stronghold, if they were somewhat taken aback by the blow which had been dealt them, ac- cepted the situation and decided upon their future tactics with equal wisdom and promptitude. If the new-comers were to be success- fully competed with, they saw that they must compete with them on the new ground, and must assert their power as the scions of no faineant aristocracy. The impulse given to the whole mass of the patriciate was immense, and the sum of the new-born or newly-dis- played energies as surprising as it was satisfactory. The man of pleasure ceased to be the type to which it was expected, as a matter of course, that all those born in the purple should conform. The activity thus communicated directed itself into an infinite number of channels, and it has continued operative ever since. Our aristocrats of to-day are at least fired by a robust ambition. Many of them take up statesmanship as the business of their lives, and work at its routine duties as if it were necessary to the support of existence. Those whose tastes do not incline them in the direction of the senate, write books, paint pictures, or carve statues. Per- haps, even probably, they are of a theatrical turn, and subsidize a theater, or even manage a company. They go into business, or they dedicate then- existence to agricultural enterprise. At least they do something. Society, in fact, has bidden adieu to its ideal of gilded THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY. and inglorious ease, and in strict conformity with th< new departure, selects its proiiges and Favorites upon a n. m prin- ciple. The question asked about any new aspirant to iis fret d not only, who is he? or how much has he a year? but, in addition, what has he done? and what can he do? The heroes and 1 i • >i i-^ • >t' society are not handsome young men, who can do nothing n than dress well, or dance well. They are Beldom even those wh fame is limited to the hunting-held or the battue. They are men who have striven to solve the secret of the ice-bound pole, who hi tramped right across the arid sands of a strange continent, v, have scaled heights previously deemed inaccessible, who have writ- ten clever books, painted great pictures, done great deeds, in one shape or other. It is surely a considerable social advance to bi substituted for the exquisites of a bygone period, as ideals of life for the rising generation, men who have followed in the track of Xeno- phon, or who have been the pioneers of civilization on a continent. Thus it may be fairly inferred that whatever its levities and friv- olities, the foundation on which English society rests is essentially serious, the result of the traditional and pre-eminently English habit of taking grave and earnest views of life. Religion is not now spoken of ; what is meant is, that pure enjoyment is not the idea of t ' ical Englishman in whatever class. He takes his pleasure indeed, and with gusto, if he finds them in his path. Occasionally he may make the mistake of forsaking the true path of his can and following the phantom of pleasure till it lands him in disaster. These are our failures. The ordinary Englishman has ambitions, social and professional, and he subordinates all other things to them. He is bent upon improving his position, or immortalizing his name. His dominant motive is the desire to rise, or the resolution to do t i the utmost his duty in the sphere of life in which his lot has been cast. The plan of existence, thus regarded as the great and only opportunity for the accomplishment of a definite work, acquires an energizing solemnity. The Englishman may stumble sometimea, but after the fall he picks himself up and pushes on to the goal A hundred illustrations might be given of the de'v lopm this inborn national tendency in the march of an En) 1 ra- tion from the cradle to the grave. At school the boy who does noth- ing has neither popularity nor respect. He is without any recog- nized status in the little world which is the microco m i world to which he will be presently introduced. !!<• may s! his studies; he may excel in the cricket-ground or on the i iver one essential condition is, he must do some thing if he • 320 ENGLAND. any rank or consideration among his equals and contemporaries. This destiny pursues him throughout. At college the mere loafer is a nonentity; the reading man or the athlete is a personage. In the army no young officer ever yet made a reputation which one of his compeers envied by elegant dawdling. He has devoted himself to professional studies, and secured a place in the ranks of coming men. Or he has been of a less studious turn, and knows more of the stud-book and the racing calendar than of Jomini or Hamley. But he has established his reputation in the hunting-field or on the steeple-chase course, and he has extended or maintained the repu- tation of his regiment. It is the same whatever the pastime that he lias made the business of his life; his character will be assessed by the degree, of earnestness and success with which he has taken it up. The degrees of esteem allotted to the different English profes- sions are exactly what might be expected in a society organized upon such a basis and conscious of such aims. Roughly it may be said professions in England are valued according to their stability, their remunerativeness, their influence and their recognition by the State. These conditions may partially explain the difference which English society draws between the callings of the merchant and the stock -broker. Stock-brokers make immense fortunes; but there at- taches to them a suspicion of precariousness infinitely in excess of that which, in some degree or other, necessarily attaches to all for- tunes accumulated in commerce or trade. The merchant represents an interest which is almost deserving of a place among the estates of the realm, and with the development of which the prosperity and prestige of England are bound up. His house of business is prac- tically a public institution, and the speculative element — the fluctua- tion of prices and the uncertainty of markets— enters as little as pos- sible into it. Merchants have from time immemorial been the friends and supporters of monarchs — have taken their place in the popular chamber of the legislature, have been elevated to distinguished sta- tions among the titular aristocracy of the land. We have had not only our merchant-princes, but our merchant-peers and merchant- statesmen. The calling has been recognized in our social hierarchy for centuries, and if not exactly a liberal, is an eminently respectable and dignified profession. Nor is the merchant, as a rule, so much absorbed in the affairs of his own business as to be unable to devote as much time as is necessary to the pursuits of society and the af- fairs of the country. His operations run in a comparatively equal and tranquil channel, and to hint that he lives in an atmosphere of THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH / V. 1 feverish excitement is equivalent I i insinuai doubt of bis sol- vency. It is different with the brok< r, wh < so sudden that it canned yel be loi ired wh( i wealth, though great, lias the garish ho of Luck, and the ited with which may dissolve themselves at anj . thin air, like Aladdin's palace, and who himself is popularly sup- posed to be more or less on the tenter-hooks of exp ctation a I anxiety from morning to night The merchant drives to his pi of business in a family brougham or barouche; the Btock-bro] drives to the station, where he takes the morning express to t i City, in a smart dog-cart, with a high-stepping horse between tho shafts, and a very knowing-looking groom at his side. Such, at least, is the conception formed by the public of the two men of business, and it indicates not incorrectly the correspond view of English society. Tho British merchant, as has bet n said, is very probably a member of Parliament; the instances in which stock-brokers are members of Parliament at the present day might be counted as something less than the fingers of one hand. Tho life of the ideal stock-broker is one of display; that of the ideal mer- chant, one of dignified grandeur or opulent comfort V< I of a certain amount of education, often acquired at a public school, sometimes both at Eton and Oxford, the stock-broker of the period has decided social aspirations. Be makes his mon ly, and spends it lightly in procuring all tho luxuries of existence. Ho marries a handsome wife, sets up a show; establishment, lays in a stock of choice wines, hires a French cook; he has can and horses, a box at the opera, stalls at theaters and concerts innumer- able. He belongs to one or two good though not always first-rate clubs. He has acquaintances in the highest circles, and congratu- lates himself on being in society. But the blissful experience is uot one in which his wife shares. She has to be content with all the talk, stones, and scandal of BOci ty which she h tailed at h< r b band's table by the young guardsmen and other patrician gue readily accept the invitations to a house where cook and cellar are both excellent, where the hostess and such other ladies as may be p ent are pretty or attractive. As a consequence of this, tin re i pious stream of male visitors at the residence of the fortunat tor in scrip and shares, wl. I and i ' the housi occupied in the City. Perhapsan uncharitable world b at any rate, the glitter and show of the m cquire a cert of Bohemianism, bet ;h and the animating spirit < society the only sympathy that < isofapurel; i kind. 21 322 ENGLAND. Let us continue to apply the test which has been indicated to other departments of English professional life. We live in an age whose boast it is that it can appreciate merit or capacity of any kind. Artists and actors, poets and painters, are the much-courted guests of the wealthiest and the noblest in the land — to be met with at their dinner-tables, in their reception-rooms, and in their counting-houses. To all ajypearance, the fusion between the aristocracy of birth, wealth, and intellect is complete, and the reju'esentatives of each appear to meet on a footing of the most perfect and absolute equality. Still the notion prevails that the admission, let us say, of the painter into society is an act of condescension on society's part, none the less real because the condescension is ostentatiously concealed. Nor does the fact that artists occasionally not only amass large fortunes, but contract illustrious matrimonial alliances, militate asfainst the view. It is only possible where an entire class is concerned to speak generally, and to this, as to every other rule, there are exceptions. Why should the rule — always assuming that it is a rule — exist, and what are the explanations of it ? As regards painters, there is this to be borne in mind: their calling is a noble one; but in view of the genius of English society, it labors under certain disadvantages. A vague and unreasoning prejudice still exists against the profession of the artist. The keen-scented, eminently decorous British public perceives a certain aroma of social and moral laxity in the atmos- phere of the studio, a kind of blended perfume of periodical impe- cuniosity and much tobacco-smoke. This laxity, moreover, is to a great extent a tradition of art, which artists themselves do not a little to perpetuate. They are, or they affect to be, for the most part a simple-minded, demonstrative, impulsive, eccentric, vagabond race, even as Thackeray has drawn them in his novels. As a matter of fact, many, perhaps most of them, are the reverse of this — shrewd, hard-headed men of business, with as clear a conception as the most acute trader of the value of twenty shillings. But social verdicts are based for the most part on general impressions; and the popular view of the painter — speaking now, as always, of the guild, not of the individual member of it — is that the calling which he elects to follow lacks definitiveness of status, and that it is not calculated to promote those serious, methodical habits which form an integral part of the foundation of English society. If this sentiment were to be exhaustively analyzed, it would be found that there entered into it considerations which apply to other professions. Attorneys or solicitors, general practitioners, and even illustrious physicians in the daily intercourse of society labor under THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH SO- nearly the same disadvantages as artiste. II isthi refore Datura] and logical to ask whi it is the social differentia of this group of profes- sional men? It is to be found, unless we greatly mistake, in the fact thai they are each of them in the habil oi receivi pay- ments direct from those with whom they consori nominally on a footing of social equality. All professional men make their liveli- hood out of the public in some shape or other. Tt ig is that some of them receive the money of the public through an a or middleman, and that others do not. A barrister has no imme- diate pecuniary dealings with Ids client. An author has no im- mediate pecuniary dealings with those who read his books or arti- cles. A beneficed clergyman is independent of his con ition for his income. Artists, attorneys, surgeons, dentists, physicians, are paid by fee, or they send in their account and receive or at I look for — a check in settlement. But this is exactly what a tail wine merchant, a butcher, a grocer, or any other retail dealer does. Thus we arrive at the conclusion that whatever the social disadvan- tage at which artists, attorneys, and doctors may find themselves, it arises from precisely the same cause as that which exists in the of persons wdio derive their income from nothing that can be called a liberal or a learned trade. To pass on to two of the conditions which, at the outset of this argument, were loosely enumerated as tests of professional dignity, The sphere of the influence exercised by aria by actors and musicians, is necessarily restricted within comparatively narrow lim- its. Neither great paintings, nor good acting, nor musical ma pieces exercise a very appreciable power on our every-daj life, and the conduct and current of affairs. A fine picture makes a stir in the artistic world; but it does not mold the thought the aspirations, or inspire the mind of the world outside. 1 lence in the performance of a leading character in a clever play is the theme of much conversation in society; but it is impossible to say that influence attaches to the merit thus displayed. The senti- ments to which the artist gives expression on the stage may produce a deep result, and have before aow given an impulse to i which have almost culminated in revolutions. In the same way, the language with which the singer accompanies the melod con- vey the most profound, the most tragic effects Bui in each of these cases it is the author, the dramatist, or the p »ei who speaks; and the actor or the vocalist is, so far as the sentiment which he , tributes his share, but only his share, to eliciting, little m the organ which the soul of lit. rain;. ■ inspires, and through which 324 ENGLAND. it speaks. In a scarcely less degree it may be predicated of the pro- fessions of the attorney and the doctor, that they are without those opportunities of moving the mind of the thinking public in any given direction. A physician, who is a great authority in his con- sulting-room, acquires a considerable position; and from the pedes- tal of that position he may speak with the certainty of being listened to on many non-professional subjects. But he has not gained this authority as doctor. An attorney, again, may be an election agent, and thus affect the destiny of parties in the State. But this branch of the jDrofession is only a rare and accidental development of his calling. The more closely the matter is looked at, the more appar- ent does it become that none of the professional classes— as profes- sional classes — can be said to have the same power of appealing to the intellect and the moral convictions which supply rules for the guidance of every-day life, and of coloring the views of the people on religious or political matters, as the writer, the clergyman, the bar- rister who takes a prominent place in his profession. The barrister who practices in court, much more the judge who sits on the bench, materially and perceptibly assists in the manufacture, modeling, and remodeling of the public law, which is a distinct department of public ethics. The author assists his readers, sensibly or insensibly, in their verdicts on public men and public questions — in their for- mation of those ideas of right and wrong, whose conscious or un- conscious influence is the good or evil genius of their mortal exist- ence. Of the clergyman — the preacher — there is no need to speak. We have said that the esteem in which society holds these differ- ent orders of professional laborers is closely proportioned to the extent and character of then- influence on the public mind. We may go farther, and say that the State in the recognition of their services judges them by the same standard. Those who rise to the highest titular rank by their own efforts, when they are not chosen on the ground of convenient political ability or party service, or im- mense wealth expended in a cause of which the Government of the day approves, or of brilliant exploits on the sea and on the field — exploits which decide the fate of nations — are selected from some one or other of the classes that we have just been considering. Artists are occasionally advanced to the honor of knighthood or baronetcy; so are doctors; and such fortune sometimes may come to attorneys. But, unlike the barrister, no attorney can be said to carry the wig of the chancellor, or the robe of the peer, in his bag. Has the coronet which the distinguished author may bequeath to his children ever been placed upon the painter's head ? Can iEscu- THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY, 826 lapius himself, in his most Banguine momenta, anticipate any dignity analogous to the bishop's miter, which every clergyman may con- aider he potentially packs up in the portmanteau thai be takes with him when he leaves home to do duty for a friend, and possibly to preach before a royal or illustrious personage? No d »ubt, it may be said with truth that in these days representative memb i professions consort together, and arc treated in society on a footing of perfect equality; but we have attempted here to go a Little tx - neath the surface, and to hazard a possible explanation of what are perhaps foolish prejudices and superstitions. CHAPTER XIX. SOCIETY AND POLITICS. Gradual Diminution of Social Influences upon Politics— The Aristocratic Prin- ciple still a powerful one — English System of Statesmanship essentially Aristocratic — Statesmanship in Families favorable to this Tendency — Place of the Country House in our Political System — Clubs: their General Aspect and Political Significance — Peculiar Excellencies of the Conservative Club System — Explanations of this — Social Structure of Conservative Party — Political Salons: their Decline, and Reasons for this Decline — Lady Pal- merston's Drawing-room — Prospects of the Salon. IT is the fashion to say that, since the English people have been taken into partnership in the work of national government by the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867, and we have fairly entered upon the broad road which is thought to lead to pure democracy, the in- fluence of rank and fashion, in other words, of what is called " soci- ety," upon politics has ceased to exist. Before 1832, the history of English politics was largely identical with the history of English society. It is within the last half century that the members of the great English families have perceived that they can no longer, by judicious alliances, keep the game of government to themselves. A hundred years ago, Burke was indebted for his entrance to Parlia- ment to Lord Rockingham, who, seeing that his administration was, as Charles Townshend puts it, "mere lutestring: pretty summer wear, but quite unfit for winter," made the young Irishman — then chiefly known, as Macaulay reminds us, " by a little treatise in which the style and reasoning of Bolingbroke were mimicked with exqui- site skill" — his private secretary. Pitt, Chatham's son though he was, commenced his parliamentary career under the segis of a great governing house, the Lowthers. Canning was a connection and protege of the Duke of Portland. " One of the most curious feat- ures," remarks a writer in Blackwood's Magazine* " of this obsolete day is the manner in which the countiw was disposed of. No game of whist in one of the lordly clubs of St. James's Square was ever * No. cccl., p. 754. SOCIETY AND POLITICS. more exclusively played. It was simply a question whel Eu Grace of Bedford would be content with a quarter or half a cabin or whether the Marquis of Rockingham would be satisfied with two- fifths, or the Karl of Shelburne should have all or should share the power with the Duke of Portland. In all t 1 ingsandl rowings we never hear the name of the nation. No whisper an- nounces that there is such a thing in existence as the peopi . No allusion ever proceeds from the stately lips or offends tin ■> polite,' of the embroidered conclave referring to either the intere feelings, or necessities of the nation." Nor is less curious testimony to this vanished state of things contained in a letter address* d by Burke to his original patron, Lord Rockingham: — "Lord Shell »un • . ' he writes, "still continues in administration, though as adverse and as much disliked as ever. The Duke of Grafton continues to bear the old complaint of his situation and his genuine desire of holding it as long as he can. At the same time, Lord Shelburne gets loose too; I know that Lord Camden, who adhered to him in the I divisions, has given him up and gone over to the Duke of Grafton The Bedfords are horribly frightened at all this, for fearing of - ing the table which they had so well covered, and at which they sat down with so good an appetite, kicked down in the sin file, 'p find things not ripe at present for bringing in Grenville, and that any capital move just now would only betray their weakness in closet and in the nation." Absolutely antiquated, of course, such a state of things as thiH has long since been. Nevertheless, it would be a grave mistake to conclude that the great houses are without influence on t .ra- tion of cabinets, or that there are no points of contact between aris- tocratic drawing-rooms and a Parliament in which the popular cham- ber is elected by household suffrage. That the English mass< s I secure as the head of an administration any statesman upon wh i the v have set their hearts, and that the < i overnment which is t • the national confidence must be composed of men approv* d by constituencies, is certain. Still there is left a fair margin in u ! the machinery of society may be brought to bear upon the politics and politicians of the day. In the case of a Lib< ral Gtavernn* taking office, the Whigs may hold the balance between the lei 1 risrht warns, and the Whigs have eminent social resources ai their disposal In the same way with the Conservatives, the Tories of I old school are not yet an extinct race; and a moderate < \ Premier would hardly \< nture to form a cabinet without consulting the feelings of his patrician Tory supporters, or to decide upon a 328 ENGLAND. legislative programme for a single session tliat had not been pre- viously considered by the same illustrious depositaries of aristocratic power. Neither Whig nor Tory nobles would, indeed, any longer dream of opposing to the last a popular demand earnestly and reso- lutely made. On the other hand, no representative of the people would commence with defying the power of the great titular and ter- ritorial magnates. Negotiation, compromise, mutual concession are the notes of modern statesmanship. The privileged classes consti- tute a powerful organization, and they know that if these privileges are to be preserved there must be the tacit understanding that what- ever, in the last resort, the multitude wills, it shall have. But because it recognizes in this order of things the decree of manifest destiny, it has no idea of surrendering every thing to the popular impulse. Democratic as our tendencies may be, there never was a time when rank and fashion, when every thing which is com- prised in the single word position, had so signal an opportunity of influencing the popular mind. The reason for this has been to some extent explained in the preceding chapters. The process that lias been going on for years is that of leveling up. The increase of the wealth of the middle classes, and their intermarriage with their so- cial superiors, have caused them to assimilate the tastes and preju- dices of then- new connections. Property grows, and the holders of property naturally take the color of their views from those who are above them, and not from those who are below. The consequences of this, whether socially or politically considered, are identical. It is the aristocratic principle which dominates our political, as it dom- inates our social, system. The statesman who was indiscreetly to proclaim the truth from the house-tops might probably suffer for his communicativeness. The most powerful Prime Minister whom England has seen for many years, Lord Beaconsiield, acted upon a clear recognition of this fact in the appointments which he made during the latter period of his office to various posts in his adminis- tration — those of Sir Michael Hicks Beach to the Secretaryship of State for the Colonies; of Colonel Stanley to the Ministry of War; of Lord Sandon to the Board of Trade ; of Mr. E. Stanhope to the Under Secretaryship for India; of Lord George Hamilton to the Vice- Presidency of the Council; of Sir M. "VV. Ridley to the Under Sec- retaryship of the Home Office; of Sir H. Selwin Ibbetson to the Secretaryship of the Treasury; of Mr. J. Gr. Talbot to the Secretary- ship of the Board of Trade. The influence of appointments made on such principles as these extends farther, than might be thought. It will be felt more in the future even than in the present. Eacli of SOCIETY AND POLITICS. the gentlemen whose names have been mention* n«,t only ability, but great advantages of birth, Btation, and connection. Some one of their number may possibly furnish a futur< i rem most of them may reasonably expect a place in si. me Conservative cabinet. In fact, their very appointment to the offices indicated was the beginning of their apprenticeship to the work of Cabinet Ministers. Thus the aristocratic principle in politics maj be viev in process of transmission, and in this way there is a guarantee af- forded that a considerable portion of the most important adminis- trative work of the nation will be in the hands of men who have the ear of that section of the community which is often used as a syn- onym for good society. Hence, it is not surprising that statesmanship should have a tendency to become as much a tradition in some families as Wu- gout, a quality subtly communicated from father to son. The most valuable political training which a young man can have is given him by 'surrounding circumstances and associations, and is wholly apart from the education of books. Aristocracies exist by force, democ- racies by ideas; and English statesmanship, at its mosi vigoi J epochs, has never been exclusively, or even mainly, allied with lit- erary scholarship. If the reading of books be the measure of knowl- * edge, then the young men of the higher classes of English Booiety i are the most ignorant in the world. If an acquaintance with I theories of philosophers and the speculations of historians be n. ci sary to enable them to render their country sound political service, then that service will never be rendered by them. Bui if there be such a thing as education without books, and if that i- the m valuable education of all, it is as well that matters should remain as the}' are. The science of life can only be learned from life ii and wherever human natm - e is — in the senate or the street, the court or the club — it is pretty much the same. Our young men nowadays rattle round the world in the course of the grand tour. They study the idiosyncrasies of their countrymen and countrywo- men in the drawing-room, on the race-course, in the ] ark, and the entire process is one of unc insdous education. The km • of events and places which is picked up from books is the | don of one day and the loss of the next. The knowledge which practical experience gives remains. Nor is it only that the character of the Imglisb nation and I genius of our English political Bystem are favorable t" th< of social influences upon politics. Social influences, a.- aid vntinuoush' felt in the region of public life, ait implied 330 ENGLAND. tern of party government. If in ordinary times polite society seems to be indifferent to the issues of party politics, there are not quite unknown ladies who are born stateswomen, who have a natural turn for forecasting parliamentary combinations, and who calculate the probable figures of the division list with the eagerness of junior whips. For the most part, it is only heroic questions, or questions in which the chief questions concerned are easy to grasp, and appeal directly to the imagination, that have any large interest for society. If a measure were introduced for disestablishing and disendowing the National Church, thousands of feminine swords would meta- phorically liash from their scabbards. Again, such problems as the Eastern Question have a social aspect as well as a profound political significance. Its broad issues have been fairly intelligible, or have, at least, seemed so, without the accompaniment of figures and sta- tistics. Moreover, they have been fraught with much of that purely personal attraction which politics so often lack. The rivalry be- tween the two most distinguished statesmen of the day has be*en brought into prominent and sensational relief. The progress of the bloody strife between Turk and Russian gave just those opportu- nities for the display of sympathy which society loves. Concerts or fetes were constantly being held in aid of one or other of the combatants; and fashionable sisters of mercy not only were able to occupy themselves with a good work, but had the satisfaction of deriving from it a fair measure of social excitement. The country house is also an important point of convergence be- tween society and politics. The country-house system is as distinct- ively national as the British Constitution, and the country-house season is one which may be said to last all the year round. The English country house is a microcosm of the chief forces that are at work in modern society. If it is a good thing, and one which has tended to the partial obliteration of the hard and fast lines which separate class from class, that our aristocracy should open their parks upon occasion to all who like to make decorous holiday within their limits, a corresponding social good is done when they open their houses, as freely as they now do, to men who represent some- thing more than the principles of idleness and enjoyment. To a large percentage of visitors the season now spoken of is but a syn- onym for the shooting season. Even the sportsmen are not deficient in a certain representative character. There are among them men of business as well as pleasure; members of all professions; gentle- men who, as a rule, never know what is a day's idleness, as well as others who have never known what is a day's work. Bishops, or SOCIETY AND POLITICS. some other highly-placed divines, will give an air of eminent i spectability to the gathering, and raggestively symbolize the oi of Church ami State. A traveler who has newly returned to I soil, after years of exploration and wandering, is also a di acquisition. Professors are found to relax a g 1 .1. al of their pro- fessorial dignity. Highly scientific jurists, as well as natural philos- ophers, very often blend admirably -with the other guests; and i interesting to watch how an erudite historian, who has delivered a little lecture of a rather stiff character in the afternoon on the re- mains of an ancient British camp, becomes pleasantly chatty on commonplace topics at dinner, and shows that he has a keen appre- ciation of the ludicrous offer a cigar in the smoking-room. It may be thought that one regulation character has been omitted from this catalogue. Where, it will be possibly said, is the wit of the com- | pany? The truth is, he is not always to be found. His jests are \ becoming familiar and wearisome, and though " society " like I to be amused, it has a highly edifying taste for instruction as well. So, instead of the punsters pure and simple, it invites to its hou professors who can be facetious when wanted, or phi] who can either solve the riddle of the universe or assist in the guessing of a double acrostic. In these blended elements the political tills a prominent place. It was said by Moore, the poet, that there was no receipt for taming a Radical like an invitation to Bowood. 'i'i is no doubt that if the secret political history of the past Forty yean could be written in the frank fashion of the "Greville Mi " it would be found that in many instances a judicious course of Whig hospitality during the months of autumn had subdued the wild fervor of the hitherto intractable and irreconcilable demoa While the country house, as an institution, situated in that tensive borderland where polities and society meet, is common to both the great political parties in the State, it has been reserved for \ the Conservatives to achieve a unique success with the club system. And here it may be desirable to say a few prelimin the general question of clubs, dubs may generally be described as embodying the principle of co-operation in its application to ta\ life. They have been of great service, both political and social: in the latter capacity they have done an immense deal t wards the creation of a sound holy of public opinion; in the former, they b consolidated the a use of unity, and have increased that mutual knowledge which is essentia] for the keeping tog< tJ i r ol the various members of a political organization. How Ear clubs po thai quality of economy which is one of the advantages that d 332 ENGLAND. usually bestows may be doubted. At some of the older established institutions, which have large balances in their banker's hands, it is indeed possible to procure the necessities and luxuries of life at cost price, and to eat dinners for a third of the sum which they would cost at an ordinary restaurant; but it is a delusion to suppose that, in the majority of clubs, a gentleman can live as cheaply as he may do if he has his meals in his own apartments, or even at well-selected taverns. There are certainly very few clubs in London at which it would be possible to have so good and so complete a dinner as may now be purchased at more than one London restaurant for three shillings and sixpence. What the club man does get, what he could not get elsewhere, and what he may well be content to pay for, is a very considerable degree of luxury and of comfort. For all practi- cal purposes he is the inhabitant of a palace, and so long as he pays his subscription and does not egregiously violate the laws of the institution, he need not fear that he will be exiled from it. The social advantages of clubs are apt to be exaggerated even more than the economical ones. Membership of a really first-rate club does undoubtedly confer upon a man some degree of social distinction. But then, it is rather the hall-mark Avhich stamps the value of the article than the article itself. It is the formal recognition of social qualities or advantages which have an existence perfectly inde- pendent of the club, and which are indeed the primary cause of membership. But of society, in the sense of fellowship, a club does not necessarily give any thing; indeed, the genius of modern club life may be almost described as that of isolation. A new-comer into the community will probably find that he is not the less completely alone because he happens to be in the company of some score of his fellow-creatures. To belong to a club does not necessarily cany a personal ac- quaintance with any one of the members. In some clubs, where there exists a less rigid system of etiquette, it is not thought irreg- ular for one member to address another of whom he knows noth- ing if they happen to occupy contiguous chairs in the smoking-room; in such matters as these, as in many others, every London club of importance has special features of its own. Clubs themselves pre- sent almost as many and various characteristics as do the gentlemen frequenting them. To some men a club is a mere lounge ; at which they spend perhaps two or three hours daily; perhaps not as much as two or three hours a week. The more superficial specimen of a club lounger enters the morning-room hurriedly, just looks into the candidate's book, and then, after a few words of casual gossip Avith SOCIETY AND POLITICS. a slight acquaintance, meets a gentleman with whom hi is on more intimate terms, and arranges perhaps some question of business or of pleasure. Others there are who are regularly to be found al their club on certain days, or at certain hours in every day, during I week; while to others, again, the club is not merely a second hoi but home itself. As are the clubmen so are the clubs. Al there is a general air of easy familiarity, at others there is as much ceremony as at a State function; at some members sit down to 'tin- ner without compunction in morning dress, at others this is a sin, which would Only be excused if the diner were on the poini of set- ting out on a journey. It is not only the clubs which are specially affected to one or other of the two great political parties, that subserve, in sonic way or other, a political purpose. These do not, of course, charge them- selves with an evangelizing mission in statesmanship, as the pur< ly political clubs do. Political committees, charged with the adminis- tration of a fund for political purposes, whose business it is to watch over parliamentary elections, and to see that its members do not too flagrantly violate, in their political action, the principles of the party to which they belong, are not unknown in clubs; but if these b< lies are wise, they will use then* power very sparingly. It was not con- sidered a prudent act, on the part of the committee of the Conserv- ative Club in St. James's Street, when it expelled the first Lord Westbury, at the time he was Solicitor-General in Lord Aberdeen's Government; nor, in the general opinion of politicians who w< also men of the world, did the Reform Club exhibit much greater judgment when it exiled, a few years ago, Mr. Ripley, the member for Bradford, on the ground that he had not shown himself a good member of the Liberal party. The Carlton Club has shown more sagacity, and has never recognized the existence of the political committee, which has now at the Junior Carlton Club become a dead letter. Just as the late Lord Derby was a membt rof I '■ to the end of his life, so it was only a few years ago thai Mr. Glad- stone removed his name from the Carlton list. When, in 1852 Mr. Gladstone was personally insulted by some Conservative members of the Carlton, the public opinion of the club was emphatically against the perpetrators of the aggression. Clubs, as a c link between society and statesmanship, are of proved utility, hut their utility very largely depends upon die skill and judgment with which they are managed; if the tactics adopted at all Bavor i quisition, they are sure to prove a failure. As for the true explanation of the differ* e.t 168 that have 334 ENGLAND. waited on the development of the club principle among Conserva- tives and Liberals, it must be sought for in the radical divergences between the composition of the two parties, and the traditions, feel- ings, and prejudices of their members. The Conservative is by na- ture a clubbable creature, in the modern acceptation of the word. Liberals and Conservatives each have a cachet of exclusiveness of their own; but the Conservative exclusiveness differs from the Lib- eral in this : that it does not militate against — that, in fact, it rather ministers to — freedom in club life. Proof of the fact is to be found in the existence of the Carlton, the club of the Conservative party, in a sense in which the Liberals have no club at all. Unlike the Reform, unlike Brooks's, the Carlton is used equally by the official leaders, the titled and patrician chiefs of the party, and by the rank and file of their followers. Great peers, small squires, merchants, and traders meet together on a common ground, and every Con- servative has a club acquaintance — and, for the most part, a club acquaintance only — with his accepted chieftains. There is no such comprehensiveness or homogeneity as this about the Liberal clubs. The ordinary members of the party make the Reform their house of call — as do several hundreds of other gentlemen who have no occu- pation in particular, and whose political views are conveniently col- orless. The leaders of the party go to Brooks's. The Carlton is, in fact, what it pretends to be — a purely politico-social institution, the accepted rendezvous and head-quarters of the accredited represent- atives of a party. The Reform Club lacks political unity among its members, and the pervading consciousness of a political purpose. On the other hand, the Liberal leaders receive their political follow- ers with hospitality and warmth at their private residences; and, while of club intercourse there may be less among the Liberals, of private visiting and social hospitality — open house and friendly en- tertainment — there is probably more. Nor is it difficult to see why clubs exactly suit the genius of the Conservative party. . Modern Conservatism is successful precisely in proportion as it is an alliance between the aristocratic and democratic elements. The attitude of mind and bearing favorable for the per- petuation of this alliance has long been cultivated among the Con- servatives to a degree that was scarcely possible among the Liberals. The typical Tory has been a large landowner, and if not a master of fox-hounds, a tolerably assiduous votary of the hunting-field. Cir- cumstances have made it his part to ingratiate himself with his infe- riors, and unconsciously he has learned to study and exhibit in his own person that air of well-bred condescension, of frank, unsuper- SOCIETY AND pr > T r-rtr and in daily conversations with Earn- ers and laborers, serves its turn admirably when it is reproduced, with the necessary modifications, in Pal] Mall. As a social instrument used for political purposes, the salon i scarcely be now said to fill a verj definite place in England. En- glish political society has grown too large for its representatives to be contained within the limits of a single drawing-room; or it c be that the very dimensions which society has attained have ins] red English ladies, who might, under other circumstances, hav< b dictatresses, with .a profound impression of the bo] of en- gaging in the attempt to regulate so chaotic an empire. 1. ladies who are capable of controlling a drawing-room havi i ceased to exist, but, with a very few exceptions, their ad powers are now exercised in different areas, i in England, while possessing a strong political infusion, i ui- sively political; it is the object of those who govern it to include in it representatives of all that is distinguished in art, science, literati. ■ war, and commerce. Even Prime Ministers no longer confine their guests to those who are politicians merely, and ti ■■ dinni given on Her Majesty's birthday and other occasions are grao I the presence of eminent artists, authors, and, philosoph It is, therefore, rather because the conditions of English Boci have changed that the salon, in the sense in which it is asua spoken of, has almost ceased to exist, than because i pportunit or inducements are to be found to influence politics through society. When Lady Palinerston died, in 1868, there passi I awa^ the social queen of her era, and she has had no extraordinary popularity of Lord Palmerston was uol a plant of sud- den growth. On the contrary, Lord Palmerston was for a Longtime extremely the reverse of popular. He married, and a change lot place. For most of his popularity and much of hie husband was indebted to the social tad and the A little more than a quarter of a century ago, Lord John Rue all, on a memorable 1 Lord Palmerston from 336 ENGLAND. Office. The exile was short; but it was short only because, who* ever ruled in Downing Street, Lady Palmerston ruled in society. The world not merely sympathized with Lord Palmerston as against Lord John Russell: it applauded him; and only a few days after the split in the Cabinet took place, Lady Palmerston gave a party, which may be remembered as historical, and at which was present every person of political, social, or intellectual position. The Times con- tained a complete list of the guests, under the significant heading: "The Expelled Minister"; and Mr. Disraeli, who was of the com- pany, declared to Lord Granville that he had made a mistake when, a few nights previously, he had said, "There was a Palmerston." Lady Palmerston received not only at night, but in the day. All her invitation-cards were written with her own hand. By consum- mate skill she preserved for her assemblies the cachet of distinction; and every one who was invited to them regarded the invitation as an honor, although he was not singular in the enjoyment of it. There was no resort in London so interesting to the man of the world or so useful to the politician. It was the one place where the pulse of the world might be infallibly felt, and Ministers went there to ascertain the true currents of popular and polite opinion. The place left vacant by the death of Lady Palmerston, more than one great lady has done her best to fill. But their invitations are in the hands of, and are issued, as the names of the invited are written, by secretaries, whips, and clerks. Attendance at these assemblies is as much a business as a pleasure. Almost the same thing may be said of many great political dinners. The great leaders of the two chief political parties in the State cannot, and will not, study the arts of social entertainment. Dinners and receptions are given, but they are given — as invitations to them are accepted — as matters of neces- sity and not of choice. Nothing can be easier than to exaggerate the influence exercised upon political life, whether by clubs or salons. It is perfectly true that the club, as has been already said, has an- swered better in the hands of Conservatism than of Liberalism. But the inference is, not so much that the successful organization of Conservatism is the result of club life, as that particular reasons conducive to club success exist in the case of Conservatives and not among the Liberals. The first essential in the development of club life is a supply of moderately young men, tolerably well provided with pocket-money. These are the special possession of Conserva- tism, while, in addition to these, the Conservatives have an element of social and political stability which the Liberals have not. In the same way. to search for Lord Paimerston's popularity and power in SOCIETY AND POLITICS. 337 Lady Palmerston'a drawing-room is to confuse cause and effect The period was one of political indifference, and Cambridge Bouses distinguished rendezvous It was the former of these circumstanoea which assisted the latter, not the latter which created the former. So far as any permanent political leverage is c rned, th< salons is as completely past as that of chivalry. Individual politi- cians may be amenable to social pressure, and some stray irr able may be bought off by what he considers social promotion a new irreconcilable will at once disclose himself, and th i « 1 ". 1 1 i - culty will only be avoided, not averted. At the same time, (li- the salon is no longer powerful, it may be useful 1> maj be con- venient to politicians of the same way of thinking thai they should know where to find each other at stated times, for the purp • confidential talk. This opportunity the salon may continue to afford them, but then so, for that matter, will the club. CHAPTER XX. CROWN AND CROWD. Disposition of the Multitude to acquiesce in existing Re'gime— Influence of the British Constitution upon National Character — Attitude of Masses towards Monarch and Ministers — Reception given in Public to Sovereign and Leading Statesmen of the Day — Nevertheless New Influences at work among the Masses — The Organization of Public Opinion in Large Con- stituencies — The Caucus — Gradual Movements towards Democracy — The Democracy ultimately supreme in our Political System — Effects which this Supremacy must have on Statesmanship and Policy — "Employer and Servant" Theory of Imperial Administration — Its Dangers, and how these Dangers may be met — Checks upon the Democratic Tendency of the Times — General Diffusion of the Aristocratic Principle — This illus- trated in the Relation of (1) House of Commons, (2) House of Lords, to Masses — The Sovereign — Influence of the Crown on Politics, and relation of Sovereign to Subject. IT is a much easier matter to give a general account of the place occupied by the educated classes in regard to our political sys- tem than to indicate precisely the relations existing between that system and the multitude. The English masses are not indisposed to accept the political opinion which is manufactured for them. In this, as in other matters, they are, for the most part, creatures of habit, and as long as the shoe does not pinch, they make no demand for political innovation. They look not to theories, but to facts. While work is plentiful and wages good, the British workman has not been accustomed to trouble himself with the principles of states- manship. In England, unlike France and other European countries, there is not present to the mind of the ordinary citizen the appre- hension of never-ending changes in the political regime under which he lives. If he is the conscious victim of abuses, he will, in the last resort, enter a demand for legislative remedies. After the long continuance of neglect on the part of those in power of all which concerns him most, he will avail himself, perhaps, of the machinery of an agitation which his superiors will have done much to place in his hands, and which they will themselves have suggested. Thus it was that the riots preceding the Reform Act of 1832 had their CROWN AND CROII'P. I origin] in the same way the movement which was the prelude to the Reform Act of thirty-five years later, and which culmin I in the breaking down of the Hyde Park railings, would in all ] ability never have existed, had if nol bees for the fad i was for many years antecedently the Btalking-horse I that on this occasion its importance was insisted i>n by < \ aker on every Liberal platform. What the English multitude requires from the stale La mi 'i what it requires from the private employers of its labor- it that it shall be fairly treated, that it shall not be the victu exceptional inferiority, disadvantages, or disqualification Pel cal revolutions leave their impress upon the individual character of a people, and in a country in which dynastic and constitui I changes are at any moment liable to occur, a habit of fickleo I suspicion will be generated in the subjects. But for the very n i that the English masses themselves are not greatly - db ( interested in constitutional discussions, their political teachers and rulers ought to be careful that constitutional issues should noi be raised. Whenever there is a discussion in Parliament as to whether a particular act or policy is in conformity with constitutional lavi far as any effect is produced upon the multitude at large, it scarcely be salutary. As far as the practical working of the Consti- tution goes, it depends, as financial credit depends, upon confidi So long as the English masses have confidence in the wisdom 1 moderation of their statesmen, the cry for reorganizing the < 'insti- tution will never be of much volume. If the study of history could 1 influence the feeling of the working classes towards the r» sentative of English monarchy, the result would probably not I the direction of loyalty. In the popular histories and in some of the popular periodicals which circulate amongst the working cla 9, the views given of monarchy and of other established instituti are eminently unfavorable. Yet when the sovereign app i public the reception is one of the highest enthusiasm the very men who a few hours previously may have given vent to sentiments positively seditious arc home away on the tide of general feeling, and applaud the pageant to the echo. Let us suppose that Her Majesty has to-day opened the s. rion of her Imperial Parliament and that, as is bum to bave '■• i the . very many of her loyal have :i or other of the ceremony. M ve there been an; Strolling across the Gre< i Park, after having witn< Ithecelel t ion, one may have encountered a moody-looking malodorous pair, 340 ENGLAND. some of whose criticisms on the monarchical principle are but too audible. One, at least, of these scowling but perfectly harmless democrats the spectator may have seen before to-day. His chin is rough and stubbly and of a dirty blue color, with a beard of some days' growth. He has no linen visible. In his mouth is a short pipe, from which he discharges jerky blasts of intolerable smoke; and as he leans across the iron railings in converse with his com- panion he points with the finger of scornful menace in the direc- tion of Buckingham Palace. The spectacle of the charity-girls and the Duke of York's boys, who have been marched out to catch a glimpse of their Sovereign, incites him to wrath. The words " mock- ery " and " desjtotism," "tyrant" and "oppressor," "prince" and "flunky," "reason," "humanity," and "republic," drop at intervals from his lips. But where was ho to be seen a few hours ago, and what was he doing? Conspicuous among these demonstratively loyal subjects of Her Majesty, carried away by that irresistible contagion of loyal enthusiasm which a great crowd communicates, was this terrible republican, the democratic fire-brand of the dis- cussion forum, the modern disciple of Marat and Tom Paine. This is no exceptional experience. Whenever it is known that either the Queen or, as Her Majesty's representatives, the Prince and Princess of Wales are about to appear in public, a tremor of anticipatory en- thusiasm asserts its presence in thoroughfares. Men, women, and children gather in little knots and wait till the royal carriage approaches. Frequently the interval of waiting is long. That they do not mind. Be it summer or winter, at the risk of sun-stroke or the certainty of getting drenched to the skin, the patient and most loyal populace will not disperse till the carriage in which mon- archy is seated has driven past, and the national devotion to the monarchical principle has expressed itself in a series of shouts that rend the ah. Scarcely less impressive in its way is the public reception which, especially on great occasions, is accorded to the Enghsh statesmen whose names are household words, whether they are past or present members of the' Cabinet. The scene is Palace Yard, and there is a great debate expected. Every minute the inclosure grows fuller and fuller of cabs and carriages, and of masses of enthusiastic and excited spectators as well. They form an avenue in front of the entrance into the great hall, and they greet their favorite statesman with volleys of applause. The rank and file of the representatives of the people pass without general recognition, till some statesman, whose person is as familiar as his career, makes his appearance, and CROWN . 841 is greeted with salvos of acclamation. "v nothin do- ticeable about the great man. Be is of the middle I i a little; he has a lightish beard and whiskers, which are jusl I with gray; he wears spectacles; and he walks with rather a q step, looking neither to the right nor Left As he passes he bows more than once; and who shall say that the sound of the rin r plaudits does not fall pleasantly on his ears and convey a <•■ ble hint to his anxious soul! He is, perhaps, not exactly whal would be called a heaven-born statesman. He is nol an orator like Can- ning-; he does not display the skill of a Palmerston in fathoming tho secrets of European diplomacy. But he lias the confidence of hi* countrymen, who know that he will make no greal mistake; and that then* main interests are safe in his keeping. Pree ntly tin re in another arrival. He has just left his carriage, and as he proc< eds bravely to run the gauntlet of tho crowd the face oi a Lady Looks "itfc from the brougham. His si ■:> is light and firm; his face pale as death, but strong and resolute. He is a man who has never quailed before an angry crowd; as a politician, he has always had his fo A in the stirrup, and as a speaker, has always I his lance in But, in truth, he has seldom had occasion to dread the clamoring of an angry mob. He lias been the people's hero, and the Bounds which have almost always greeted him have been those that tilled an unshakable belief in his genius and his virtues It is a curious, even a menacing, conflict of noises which awaits him now. There are cheers, and there are groans; there arc his ad there are cheers again. He walks very swiftly; no muscle quivers; the only change visible in his counter i that the pallor of bis cheeks grow;; deadlier, and his figure more i rect. By what curious fatality is it that this statesman — who has been bi le pul I well- nigh half*a century, and during most of that time h those who share the responsibility for the conduct of I Q en's Government — is followed by the veteran and victorious chi< t, who has been during nearly I 'le of this p iri >d hi- peculi I and special foe V By what stran d i be, this hero of tho fiercest parliament ar\ which, since 1832, tb century 1; on this afternoon, above all othei it as bis approach to the i trious chamber in which he has won himself a place the greal hall, before whose p r als ar< ranged the outside critics of parliamentary statesmanship? Significant as such scenes a which have just been I are, and not m aeral than 'I the belief in i order, new forces have begun unmistakably to assert tl tnselvi - in * I 342 ENGLAND. the popular mind. On all sides there may now be witnessed what may best be spoken of as the organization of popular opinion. The spread of education, the extension of the newspaper press, the mul- tiplication of lectures, and of a variety of agencies for bringing the working classes together, aU tend to make them think more upon the great questions of contemporary politics, and to cast about for new ways of giving effect to the opinions at which they thus arrive. One of the results of this state of things is seen in a tendency to push institutions to an extreme. Successive acts of parliamentary reform, culminating in household suffrage, have imbued the masses with a strong sense of political power. They have come to realize more than they have ever done before the truth that parliamentary institutions should be representative in something more than name. This movement is one which is really altogether new. It is, per- hajDS, the first in a series of great changes of which no one now living will witness the last. "It is too soon," wrote the late Mr. "Walter Bagehot, in his introduction * to the most useful and practi- cal work on the Constitution in the English language, " as yet to attempt to estimate the effect of the Reform Act of 1867. The Re- form Act of 1832 did not for many years disclose its full conse- qiiences, and a writer in 1836 would have been sure to be mistaken in them. A new Constitution does not produce its full effect as long as all its subjects were reared under an old Constitution, as long aa its statesmen were trained by that old Constitution. It is not really tested till it comes to be worked by statesmen and among a people neither of whom are guided by a different experience." Mr. Bagehot proceeds to illustrate this truth in an interesting and suggestive man- ner. The change of generation, he remarks, is as powerful as any change in political machinery or institutions. The entire spirit of politics was changed by the death of Lord Palmerston, and the dis- appearance from the stage of his contemporaries. "All through the period between 1832 and 1865, the pre-'32 statesmen, Lord Derby, Lord Russell, Lord Palmerston retained great power; Lord Pal- merston to the last retained great prohibitive power. . . In con- sequence, at his death, a new generation all at once started into life; the pre-'32 all at once died out." In the same strain this acute and luminous writer goes on to remark that till latterly the nominal con- stituency was not the real constituency; that the mass of the ten- pound householders did not really form their own opinions, and did not exact of their representatives an obedience to these opinions; * See Introduction to "The English Constitution," new ed., 1878. CROWN AND CROWD. ;\\\\ that they were in feet guided in their judgment by the better edu- cated classes; that they preferred representatives from these da and gave their representatives much l i In proportion as political opinion in the constituencies becomi s organized the members of Parliament elected by those c encies will become more and more their direct representatives It does not, indeed, necessarily follow that when the new system lias made its full results felt, those representatives will be mere dele- gates. Constituencies will always be aid-acted in many instances by men of great parts, and will allow such politicians in whom their confidence is reposed much independent liberty of action. Promi- nent among all the associations for the organizing of opinion amongst the political electorate is what has come to be known as the Caucus.* "The aim of the Caucus," says a gentleman who, more than any other, is qualified to expound its true object and character, }lr. Joseph Chamberlain, "is essentially democratic: it is to provide for the full and efficient system of representation of the will of the ma- jority, and for its definite expression in the government of the peo- ple." First let it be briefly explained what the Caucus is. Every parliamentary borough is divided into a certain number of munici- pal wards. In each of these wards a meeting of all the mi mbers of the party is annually convened, Avith every possible provision to give it publicity and importance. The electors so brought together choose, first, their representatives to the general committee, the "Six Hundred" or "Four Hundred," as it may be called; second, a smaller number of representatives to the executive committee, con- sisting of perhaps twenty to fifty members; and lastly, a ward com- mittee which acts as a canvassing committee at parliami Diary i tions, and which selects the candidates and controls the policy of the party in the ward at municipal contests. This last committee is as large as possible, and includes all who are willing to serve. It, will * The word "Caucus" is defined in Worcester's English Dictionary, pnl>- hshed in Boston, Massachusetts, as a meeting of citizens or electors held f"r the purpose of nominating candidates for public offices, or for making arrange- ments to secure their election. It is a low wont, and BU] nip- tion — "calkcrs'," "caulkers'," meeting— a term applied t<> electioneer!] ings held in a part of Boston where all the Bbip-l>u in* - was carried <>n. l'r. Charles Mackay suggests, in a letter published in the Pafl '/■> I aaarj 24, 1879, that the true root of the word is to l>e found 19 the < • Itic "oomh" (pronounced "co") — a prefix implying concord or agreement with and "euia," signifying cause, affair, concern, bmns . procedure, Ac. From ti . "co-cuis," or "caucus" — a m pting of those wl i frith the 1 ..s3 in band, whatever it may be — a packed meeting, in (act 344 ENGLAND. be seen that the constituency itself elects all the committees, includ- ing the executive, which is therefore in direct communication with, and responsibility to, the electors. In America the electors choose the primary committees, the primary committees in turn choose the general committee or Caucus, the Caucus chooses an executive, the executive a sub-committee, and the sub-committee a "boss" or chairman, who is thus as far as possible removed from the original electorate. It is hardly necessary to point out the importance of the distinction thus established between the English and American practice. America is the home of the Caucus, and those who support the institution do not deny the fact that in America its existence coin- cides with grave political mischiefs. But they point to the facts already stated as showing that the Caucus in America differs mate- l'ially from the English organization, and they deny that, even in its American form, the Caucus is the sole or mam cause of the evils complained of. Thus it is urged that if men of inferior capacity or doubtful character find seats in the House of Representatives, the same thing is unfortunately true of other representative assemblies, and that if a prize-fighter once represented New York, a member of the same profession not long ago represented a borough in York- shire. Again, as Mr. Chamberlain points out in an able article on the subject in the Fortnightly Eeview, November, 1878, the very fact that the greater issues of politics have long ago been settled in America — to say nothing of the absorbing passion for material wealth and well-being — may explain why many men of education refuse then share of public duty. " A nation," he writes, " which has no Land Question, no Church Question, no Education Question, and no Foreign Policy, must purchase its advantages at the price of less sustained and vital interest in its legislative work." Further, it is pointed out, by way of reply to the criticisms upon the Caucus derived from trans- Atlantic experience, " America is foremost among the nations of the world in respect to the wide-spread intelligence of its citizens, the rapid development of its resources, the general respect for law and order, and the universal acceptance of the prin- ciples of liberty and freedom." If, it is argued, all this is comjmti- ble with the Caucus, surely the much-execrated machinery cannot be so very bad. Two remarks about the Caucus may be made with confidence. It cannot be denied that it is an extension of the principles of party government, and that it tends to make the political power and wish of the individual elector more directly felt. As Mr. Chamberlain CROWN AND CROWD. has said in words quoted above, the Caucus is an i i trument for ex- pressing and giving effect to the will of th m Ther means the subordination of the will of the individual to the will of the many. But that is what our political party involve al- ready. Again, it is the age of association, and the Caucus is simply an association of ratepayers, who are parliamentary elector secure a parliamentary representative who is fairly in accord their views. They conceive, and experience seems to confirm the view, that they can secure this the more certainly bj collective than by isolated and individual action. Now comes the objection that the interest of the great bulk of the electors in the Caucus will soon nag, and that the reins will pass into the hands of half ;i d< zealous workers, who will make politics an art of which they will ho the sole masters. As Mr. Chamberlain and other champion of the system point out, this anticipation depends for its fulfillment on tho hypothesis that the interest of the majority will fail in the manner predicted. As a matter of fact, we are told there is no r< believe the sinister prophecy. In the chapter on Municipal Gov- ernment (Chapter V., page 59), the growth of an inten citizenship in our great towns has been traced. The men who interest themselves in municipal business are the nun who will also interest themselves in political, and to suppose that a sudden paralysis is likely to overcome the energies of the inhabitants «>f these great centers of industry is to suppose thai a process which has now been steadily and swiftly going on for years will he sud- denly and decisively arrested. Nor is it entirely reasonable to speak of the Caucus as over ing the public opinion of the constituency in which it • ■ Caucus is public opinion — not its manufacture, bu1 it i • It is, of course, conceivable that at particular times and i tho Caucus may find that it has got out of accord with the public opin- ion which surrounds it. In this case, its decrees and deliberations are an empty farce, and it will be without practical authority till it has again brought itself into harmony with the majority - irgan it is. . The Caucus is thus, at least, repr< oally it may be dominated by the superior will and opinion of individuals possessed of exc ptional force of character; but, then, s.. ar< and communities, and states. And it is certainly the most ■ genuinely representative variety of political organization wjhch has ever I invented. Tie Conservative party has attempted in some boi mi- tate the organization of its opponents, but hi! b 348 ENGLAND. The traditions and practice of Conservatism are almost antagonistic to a democratic organization such as that which we have described, and at the same time the need of any such system is less, because habits of discipline and subordination are more common in the Tory than in the Liberal ranks. "What the Caucus is to Liberalism, that the action of political clubs, the deference paid to the wish of local coteries in the selection of parliamentary candidates, are to Con- servatism. Further, it must be remembered that the Conservatives form a party which is always, more or less, organized on certain un- mistakable social and constitutional lines. The Church, the aristoc- racy, the great interests of the country, are each of them organiz- ing agencies with the Conservatives. It is only natural that a greater tendency to individualism should be developed amongst the Liberals than with then opponents, and this tendency has resulted in the multiplication of Liberal candidates on the eve of a contested elec- tion. Hence, there has been a division of the party in constituen- cies which frequently, when the existence of a Liberal majority was an undoubted fact, has been instrumental in bringing about a Con- servative victory. The Caucus may not be liked, it may even be dreaded. Its associations are as unwelcome as its name. It may be most undesirable that any body, even though composed of the elec- tors themselves, should stand between the member of Parliament and his constituency. But whether un-English or not, the Caucus exists and increases. At the present time the Liberal party in not less than one hundred constituencies is organized on the Birming- ham model, and the number is constantly growing. It may be safely asserted that whatever other results may follow, the bulk of the elec- tors having once been taken into confidence and consulted in the management of the party and choice of candidates will never again consent to go back to the old system of management by cliques and coteries. Under the circumstances the only practical course seems to be to accept it as a perhaps unwelcome, but certainly an inev- itable condition of a democratic age. Let its now trace this democratic principle of our time a little further, and watch its influence on the relations with the highest question of imperial policy. For good or for evil, it seems we must accept the democratic view of our national policy not as that which is now established, but as that which will some day or other be established. This oonception is very simple, and may be readily stated. According to it, just as the individual is the unit of the town ward, so is the town ward of the town council, and so is the town council of the Imperial Parliament. Parliament, ward, council, CROWN AND CROWD. ;;i7 citizen, these are the chief notes in the democratic scale, th aated series by whose successive stages we shall ultimately an ii the highest sovereign expression of the national will This fact, the ultimate supremacy of the people — thai is, of the maj I pi- rate parts in the fabric of their supremacy being those which have been already described — is not unrecognized by contempt ites- men. A very few years ago, a Minister of State who was then I eign .Secretary, in addressing a deputation waiting to learn the policy of the Government on foreign affairs of great moment, spoke of him- self and his colleagues as "waiting for instruction from their em- ployers" — the people. This expression of Lord Derby's has : much criticised, but whether felicitous or not, H m I I said to represent the actual facts of the case with an undoubted degree of truth. The executive has no appeal from the House of Commons, and the House of Commons is chosen bv the ratepayera What will be the power of these when a new generation of el has arisen, and that a generation whose minds are educated, and whose organ- ization, whether by the Caucus or any other instrumentality, is com- plete, is the great problem of the future. We live under a constitu- tional monarchy, which now fears no shocks of r< volution; which is absolutely impotent to pass a law, or to keep :i minister, against whom the masses have unanimously declared, in place; which is F< r all practical purposes controlled by the democracy. This view of the English Constitution will not be found in any of our philosophic histories, but it is none the less the true view, and that which he forward English ministers must recognize, even though they do not care to proclaim it in words. There are several reasons»why the condition of things which has now been described may be looked forward to with comparati little apprehension. Logically, the consequence of the master ; servant theory, as it has been called, which Lord Derby enunciate d would be, as a clever writer in a review * has put it, the submi of all important questions to the popular vote: "If Government is not to direct opinion, but simply to register its decrees, then should be taken for enabling public opinion to pronounce ii wees in the hearing of all men. . . . Upon this theory I should have been some means of removing Lord Derby's doubt the method of plebiscite, and the country should have been asked to vote upon some proposition, raising substantially (he issue wh< England should defend the- integrity and ind oi I * Mr. H. D. Traill, "The Democracy and Foreign Policy," S Nov., 1878. 348 ENGLAND. against invasion by Eussia." But the master and servant theory, though fundamentally true, will never involve a precarious appeal of this kind. There are as many checks upon the practice of the theory as upon constitutional monarchy itself. Some of them are to be found in the temper, and some in the institutions of English- men. A nation which has been trained during centuries in the school of deference and subordination, and which has become habit- uated to a belief in the good faith and in the capacity of its public men, does not in a moment, or indeed at all, throw off its ideas and ways, in a sense of elation at its newly realized sovereignty. If it is henceforth to be more self -governed than ever, it has been under- going for ages the education which of all others would best qualify it for that complete self-government. There is no danger of house- hold suffrage, even when it includes the agricultural laborers, re- ducing society in England to its primitive atoms, and though the basis of government may have been broadened, there will not be as a consequence any pervading anarchy of administration. The greater the multitude, the greater the influence of the individual, and because the English electorate and the English proletariate are convertible terms the authority of the English statesman will not be gone. It is, indeed, conceivable — for this is the characteristic of all democracies — that the English constituencies may be more liable than hitherto to be carried away by sudden gusts of passion which sweep all before them, and it is precisely these inrpulses which the statesman will have either to utilize or to control. But because some of the forces with which he has to work are new, the influence of statesmanship will not be less than it has always been in England. More insight, more courage, more candor may be wanted, and when these qualities are forthcoming the authority of the individual states- man and his colleagues will still be paramount. , The last attribute just named, that of candor, suggests one or two important considerations in the theory and practice of English statesmanship under the new democratic regime. The employer and servant theory need not be so interpreted that it requires the perpetual reference of the policy of the minister to the masses for their approval. If it is the fact that the masses are in the last re- sort the arbiters of the position, it must be desirable that ministers should boldly recognize the truth. What, then, is the important question, are the arts by which the confidence and good will of the English masses are to be won? As were the ten-pound household- ers, so are the householders who are only ratepayers. But this, though the preponderating, is only one of several elements in our 1 i CROWN AND CROWD. 319 modern democracy. To the working men must be added thai cla which socially takes precedence of all others, and which is aristo- cratic and plutocratic in about equal degrees: the numerous class of professional men; the commercial class, which will, of course, in- clude the employers of labor. Here, then, we have a variety which is itself a guarantee of permanence, and at the same time that there is a distinct interfusion of orders — it being very often difficult to say where one class or interest commences and another ends there is also a unity of upward tending aspiration. Each inferior class, iu other words, takes more or less of its color, wishes, views, from tho class above it, and thus the English Constitution is indeed that of a democracy, but a democracy with a distinctly aristocratic bias. Hence there is every reason to believe that we have a twofold guar- antee of national stability, first that mutual association of ranks, with a tendency unswervingly felt in one direction; secondly, the docility and enthusiasm of the working classes themselves, if only they are dealt with in a suitable manner and by rulers whom they instinct- ively trust. All these considerations must be borne in mind if we are either to formulate or accept that employer and servant doctrine of imperial administration which has just been spoken of. It is es- sential not to be misled by false analogies, but to remember that as is the servant — the governing class — so in the long run will be the governed. But in proportion as this statement is recognized as true it is necessary to insist on the fact that a certain line of treatment must be pursued by those in whom the administration of affairs is vested. If our constitution be really democratic, yet not devoid of the leaven of aristocracy of which we have already spoken, it is clear that our statesmen must not only mold their policy according to the exi- gencies of the case, but must attempt its execution in such a way as to conciliate the approval and to enlist the support of the multitude, to whom in the last resort the appeal lies. The methods which were perfectly applicable to the conduct of national affairs before the Reform Bills of 1832 and 1867, when government was, as has been seen in the preceding chapter, a stately game played by the patri- cian powers of the United Kingdom, are impossible now. The peo- ple have entered into partnership with the aristocracy, and they must be treated as partners. It is perfectly possible thai in specific departments of statesmanship — foreign policy for instance — the new regime may involve great difficulties. Our statesmen having to \ reckon with a force which exists as it exists in England in no other country of Europe, may find themselves at an obvious disadvantage 350 ENGLAND. in the hour of international crisis, as compared with the chancellors of the Russian or the German Empires. Bat it argues a very im- perfect knowledge of the English character to suppose that, if, at anxious moments like these, the supreme direction of affairs is in the hands of men who have the confidence of the masses — men of whom Lord Palmerston has been the most conspicuous type during the past fifty years — the democracy will claim to act upon that em- ployer and servant doctrine in which so much of peril has heen discerned. There is surely more of permanent — less of mere frothy and evanescent — enthusiasm, which the statesman may regard as the most precious of aU political capital, in the English people than among any other nation of the world. But it is only placed at the disposal of those who deal openly and fairly with the people, and whom, in return, the people delight to trust. Has this mode of dealing with the masses in these grave matters ever been fairly tried and failed? The democracy may be as mischievous an im- pediment in the way of a great foreign policy as it has been taunted with being, if approached in a spirit of selfish timidity, temporizing vacillation, or mistimed reticence. Indignation meetings are held, demonstrations are organized, agitations are set on foot, the chiefs of the Government complain that they are paralyzed by a factious opposition. But may they not be in some degree responsible for this opposition? Is it not possible that they may in the first in- stance have been wanting in the resolution — fearful to hazard the compactness of their majority — to tell the people what is the ex- penditure and what the military measures indispensable in their opinion, to uphold the dignity and strength of the empire ? Is it unreasonable to suppose that the Minister representing to the En- glish people the qualities identified with Palmerston, who should rise in his place in Parliament and say that such-and-such taxation was necessary to insure a minimum of naval and military efficiency, would find no reluctance to supply him with the funds; or that the minister who should insist upon the danger of prematurely disclos- ing confidential negotiations would not fail to carry his point? The real peril would seem to come not so much from the fact that the democracy is in the last instance master of the position, as from the chance that this fact may not be sufficiently recognized. The very working of the English Constitution is in itself a power- ful force for the education and the discipline of the masses. For practical purposes this Constitution must, as Mr. Bagehot has well pointed out, be divided not into the three estates of the realm, not into judicial, executive, or legislative departments, but into two por- CROWN AND CROWD. tions, the dignified part, n( the head <>f which is the Queen, and the efficient part, ai the head of which is the Pxime minister. The - ereign, says Mr. Bagehot, is the fountain of honor, bui the^Treaaurv is the source of business. Inasmuch, however, as tin Prune Minis- ter's tenure of office depends on his majority in the Qousi of Com- mons, it is clear that the representatives of the people, and in the last resort the constituencies who elect them, are supreme in that portion of the Constitution to which has been applied the epithet i . nt. The Cabinet is thus a committee for the ml ministration of the empire, whose members have for the time being the confi- dence of that popular assembly, which itself is the mirror and em- bodiment of the popular will. Hence there is an interchi i of influence between the House of Commons and the multitude out- side, which is its creator. As the speeches made in the ll"us ( . reflect national opinion, so do the debates which take place in that House educate the national mind. Conscious of their j> iwer to control the action of the Cabinet, and to regenerate the elective legislature, the constituencies often read, and sometimes digest, the speeches made at Westminster, and reported for their benefit in the morning newspapers. There is thus no divorce between the active current of a people's life and the political life of its 1< gislators under a Cabinet system of government, the Cabinet being dependent on the popular Chamber. Under the presidential Bystem the con- ditions are exactly reversed, and " a nation has. except ai the el< ct- ing moment, no influence: it has not the ballot-box before it; it; virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of d m again returns. It is not invited to form an opinion like a nation mid r a Cabinet government; nor is it instructed like such a nation There are, doubtless, debates in the legislature, but they are pi without a play. There is nothing of a catastrophe about them, you cannot turn out the government."* While thus in one sense it maybe said that as a p mil of its structure the English Constitution is more democratic, inasmuch as it gives the masses more direct power over the action of the 1 lature than that of the American Republic, the conditions of this structure also insure a steady and continuous exerci lu< aces, which, if they are not aristocratic, arc at least anti-democratio, np m the multitude. At the present time the composition of th 11 of Commons is more dissimilar, p< rhaps, than it ever was I the House of Lords. It is plutocratic rather than i atic, but • "The English Constitution, M p. 8L 352 ENGLAND. the tendency in England is for plutocracy to assume more and more of an aristocratic complexion. Add to this that the House of Lords is being j)erpetually recruited from men whose presence is the most distinctive feature in the House of Commons, men of lowly origin who have acquired position and money by their exertions and tal- ents, by success in commerce and trade, and enough will have been said to show that however marked the contrast between the two Chambers, there will from the necessities of the case always be a gradual approximation. It is the more necessary to bear this in mind, because, as we have already seen, the political opinion of the working classes is becoming more and more organized, and we may at any moment expect to witness an accentuation of the differences that exist between the personality and the prerogative of the two Houses, or between certain sections of the members of those Houses. We must never forget that the force of repulsion is accompanied by a compensating force of attraction, and that while the working men and artisans are intent upon securing direct representation for their interests at Westminster, these representatives, when they have been returned to Parliament, will come within the circle of influences more or less the reverse of popular. It is this fusion of influences and classes, go where we may, in social life or political, in the market- place or the assembly, in the club or at the dinner-table, which is the guarantee of our political stability and our security against rev- olutionary changes. We have, in a word, what would be the most democratic Constitution in the world, were the democracy itself practically to assert its sovereign power, working in the most aris- tocratic manner. Lastly, we come to the consideration of the relations in which the Crown stands towards the multitude on the one hand, and the executive indirectly nominated by the multitude on the other. Ac- cording to the letter of the English Constitution, the Crown and the executive are convertible terms. According to the theory of the Constitution, the Sovereign can exercise of his or her own accord a variety of powers, any one of which would precipitate a revolution. When, in 1871, the Queen abolished purchase in the army by an act of prerogative (after the Lords had rejected the Bill) there was great and general astonishment. " But," says Mr. Bagehot, " this is noth- ing to what the Queen can do by law without consulting Parliament. Not to mention other things, she could disband the army (by law she cannot engage more than a certain number of men, but she is not obliged to engage any men); she could dismiss all the officers, from the general commanding-in-chief downwards; she could dis- CROWN AND CROWD. miss all the sailors too; she could Bell offal] our ships of war and all our naval stores; she could make a peace by the sacrifice of Corn- wall, and begin a war for the conquest of Brittany. She could mi every citizen in the United Kingdom, male and female, a pe it; she could make every parish in the United Kingdom a university ; she could dismiss most of the civil servants; she could pardon all fenders. In a word, the Queen could, by prerogative, opsel all the action of civil government within the Government; could disgrace the nation by a bad war or peace; and could, by disbanding our forces, whether land or sea, leave us defenseless again nations." If we contrast with the theoretical powers of the Sovereign tl actually exercised in the relations between the monarch and the. monarch's ministers, the facts may be put in a very few words. It is for the Sovereign to know the policy which ministers ma;, be < ecuting or deliberating, and to exercise, if she so desires, the right of encouraging, counseling, warning. The choice of its ministers is the privilege of the Crown, but this choice can only be exercised within certain narrow limits. Practically, the constituencies decide who the Premier shall be, and the Premier selects his colleagues in accordance with the political exigencies of the time. But though the Sovereign does not possess, or does not actively exercise, the power of direct political initiative, she has immense political influ- ence, and is charged with grave political duties. Here, again, v. .■ have another illustration of the remark that, where there is knowl- edge there will be power. The Sovereign whose mind is a store- house of political history and precedents necessarily all. its, and frecpiently in a very important degree, the action of succ generations of ministers. Moreover, the Sovereign is the head • only of the Government, but of the society of the realm. The En- glish Courtis still the greatest social institution in Great Britain: the ' arts of the courtier are up to this day diligently studied and ard- uously practiced. In a community dominated, as the English com- munity is, by the aristocratic principle, it is inevitable that the So* - ereign should always have much power. A constitutional her< monarchy may sometimes be compared to the presidency of a repub- lic, but in reality it is endowed with attributes generically distinct So long as society and politics act and react on each other, the authority of the Sovereign will never become a fiction or ad I letter. But independently of the official duties of the Sovereign and 'I political power of which, as a consequence of her exalted station, she 23 354 ENGLAND. is tlie depositary, the Crown is the symbol of a national unity, the force of which is deeply felt by the masses. Monarchy is a strong government in proportion as it is an intelligible government. It is not an abstraction, it is a concrete embodiment of power. "When the English multitude gazes upon its Sovereign it is conscious that it beholds an august personification of the principle of its rule. This is not the only way in which the existing English Constitution appeals vividly to the imagination. "A family on the throne," writes Mr. Bagehot, " is an interesting idea also. It brings down the fruits of sovereignty to the level of petty life. ... To state the mat- ter shortly. Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A republic is a Government on which that attention is divided between many who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feelings, and republics weak because they appeal to the understanding." These are the main practical elements in the strength of the English monarchy. It is a great political and a great social force, because it accords with the genius of the English people and the feelings of human nature itself. CHAPTER XXI. OFFICIAL ENGLAND, The Groat Offices of State— Their External Aspect— Their Interna] M ment— History of an Official Paper The Colonial Office rhe !n.li,» Office— The Foreign Office— Board of TrC Th< I v l'ri % . cil Office— Business done at Privy Council— The Cabinet Ifntnal B tions of Cabinet Ministers— Cabin i tednre -General Yi> v. ol I Minister of State — Non-official Con. pondi oc i o iv< >1 bj Mi mbera of the Government. NO more ambitious pile of buildings lias been added to the capita] of the British Empire than that which meets the gaze of the spectator as lie walks down Whitehall On the right hand aide, as he goes in the direction of the Houses of Parliament, he will successively the offices of the Treasury and the 1'riw Council Office, an old building with a new and imposing facade, and an <-\\< block of stately structures, which comprises under one roof tho Home, Colonial, Foreign, and India Officea By the Bide of t'< the official residences of the Prime Minister and Chancellor of tho Exchequer, in Downing Street, present but a mean appearance. Even Downing Street itself — that historic thoroughfare which has represented the great prize in a long series of political stru threatens to disappear, and it is probable thai before another fifty years have elapsed, not one of those houses which, less than a cen- tury ago, sufficed for the conduct of nearly the entire businet I the State, will be left standing. By thai time we shall probably have a material addition made to the group of edifices in which the offices above named are domiciled, designed upon a Bcale not l< Scent, and concentrated, without break or interruption, within one and the same augusl precinct. What, it may be asked, is the nature of the business transact l within these buildings, and what its routine ? Whal are th< i of administration which maj b iiccessively observed in the diffei rtment8 of the structure? how is the influence of the outer world ■ own in the official pi uetralia? and how are the d ioned which, emanating from an area of at most a f--v. 356 EXGLAND. t: 1 to every quarter of an empire which is a synonym for civilization ? In endeavoring to give an answer to these questions it may be remarked at the outset that there is one type of manage- ment to which the administration of the different great offices of 8 te generally conforms. That it is more closely adhered to in gome departments than in others necessarily follows from the kind of business transacted in each. In giving priority to the Colonial Office and the conduct of its affairs we are guided by a wish to present the reader with what may be called a pattern of the way in which, in an office divided into several distinct sections, the busi- 1. -s of the nation is done. !No department is so suitable for an illustration as this, because within it is transacted every sort of official and administrative business. Independently of the specially difficult relations between the mother country and its dependencies, those dependencies have to be advised or directed on all subjects — foreign affairs, international and domestic law, finance, public works — in short, the whole duty of government. Let it be supposed, then, that the dispatches and official letters, both from England and other parts of the world, are pouring in during the hours of the early morning. It is at the Registry Office that these documents first come within the official horizon. Here t" are are assistant clerks who mechanically open all the contents of the letter and dispatch bags, which are obviously of a more or I t fficial character. It is not then - business to make themselv- curately acquainted with their contents. They are expected to do Eothing more than to gain just such a general idea of their purport and character as will enable them to get a title for the official docket of the correspondence. To this eorresjiondenee is attached, by the Registry Office clerks, a large paper for the writing of minutes, on which xhQi day of receipt is inscribed. The second stage in the his- tory of our official paper is its transit from the Registry Office to the Lead of one of the departments into which the entire organization i. divided; those departments, in the case of the Colonial Office, 1 ing, with the single exception of that which deals with gen-. I 1 i -mess, arranged on geographical principles. Having, then, been duly entered in the Registry book, the dispatch or correspondence is forwarded to the principal clerk at the head of the department to which it immediately refers. This official examines it with a view of seeing, in the first instance, whether it is of an urgent nature, demanding precedence over other business, and whether it requires lor its proper comprehension any reference to previous transactions. I_ the lai . ase he at once places it in the hands of one of his OFFICIAL ENGLAND. juniors, with instructions to collect, and. if t make B pn I of, the correspondence containing the history of those negotiations; or if -the task is one of particular nicety, and calls for tin i of special knowledge of precedents, the departmental princip probably take it in hand himself. Tims furnished with all supplementary matter necessary for a right understanding of the case in each of its bearings, the docu- ment advances a step nearer to the ken of the gnat man who pre- sides over the working oi the whole office. It comes, as minui I and prepared in the department, before one of the .Wsistant Under- Secretaries, each of whom has assigned to him a special Bphere f work, and who, after having carefully perused the papers now sub- mitted, writes his own comments and views in the shape of another 1 minute, and sends the whole budget, which, ever since its introduc- tion to the office, has been gradually growing in bulk, to the Perma- nent Under-Secretary of State. It is to be noticed thai it is, at this stage — namely, when the correspondence first comes within the secretarial purview — that the element of official discretion begins If it is perfectly plain that no decision has to be taken upon the papers, and that the course of action is simple, as, for instance, to refer, or transmit to another department of State, then it may be conjectured that the room of the Assistant Under-Secretary will '.>•■ the limit of the official progress of the paper. For the most part) however, there is no summarv arrest before the Permanent Under- Secretary is reached. It is. indeed, the constitutional theory that all communications addressed to a Secretary of State on questions of the public, service are laid before the Sovereign — in other words; to adapt the tradition to the ways and Language of responsible gOT-« eminent, are personally considered by the Secretary of Stab — and it maybe said, with perfect confidence, that whenever any port i of this miscellaneous correspondence is found to involve any tl. more than mechanical action in accordance with previously d< I principles, it comes under the eye of the Secretary oi State. \\ '! on the other hand, the point to which the correspondence relab I practically settled by well-established precedents, and there can no doubt as to the decision, the Under-Secretary may fairly assu the duties of an ultimate- court of jurisdiction. Possibly We should not be far wrong if we were to say that tins contingi ncy is red: I iu about half the number of cases that come forward. There is yet one further experience which it will acquire : . our typical communication from the other side of the world reaches the audience chamber of the Queen's direct repr* ve it had 358 ENGLAND. to pass into the hands of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary. It should be understood, however, that this is not a necessary incident in the life of such an official document as we are now considering. Supposing that the business is pressing, and that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary is otherwise engaged, the paper would pass direct from the Permanent Under-Secretary to the political chief of the department, and, in fact, in all offices of State these two functionaries are the pivots upon which the whole system of administration turns; in all offices the Parliamentary and the Permanent Under-Secreta- ries have co-ordinate power. Their relation is thus one of mutual supplement, and while it is the business of the parliamentary deputy of the Secretary of State, who is for the most part in the House of Commons, to attend to the progress of measures which concern the department in Parliament, it is especially the function of the Per- manent Under Secretary to supply his chief with the facts and pre- cedents which form the data on which his opinion is based. In other words, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State has to know and the Secretary of State himself has to decide. Coming now to the work of the eminent politician or statesman who is the apex of the entire official system of a great department, let us see what are the duties which it rests with him to discharge, and how he discharges them. Supposing he is in London, two or three dispatch boxes closely packed with official documents are de- livered at his house, as soon as the office has closed for the evening. At any hour except meal times he may be found closeted in his study with these. Selecting first those papers which are marked as " de- manding urgency," and proceeding to the examination of the differ- ent sheets of the manuscript "minutes" or observations attached to them, he finds that they are charged with great diversity of opinion. Between these conflicting views he has to decide, and as his decision is, such will be the tenor of the dispatch which is ultimately based upon it; and, indeed, it is probable that at each successive stage something like the rough draft of an answer has been drawn up by the different officials to whom the papers have one after another been submitted. Consequently, the reply finally approved of is often nothing more than a fine specimen of official mosaic. The Secre- tary of State, it may be assumed, in the majority of cases, adopts the form of answer which has been suggested by the Under-Secre- tary, with certain modifications, as the latter also, with modifications, may have adopted that of his immediate subordinate. By twelve o'clock, the chief of the department, seated probably in his library, has gone through this portion of his work; he then OFFICIAL ENGLAND, returns all the documents which he has examined to his prh it rotary at his office. The papers are then sent back throu :h I , same succession of hands as that through which they have pr< rioualy passed, and thus ultimately the replj is drafted Theentir* • occupies less time than from this description might be supp i The different Btages here i raced may, in ordinary matters, i formed in a couple of days, and in ?erj few occupy more week, When the Secretary of State is in the country I course, a little less promptitude. Bags containing official docu- ments are sent to him daily, the hour of (heir actual dispatch from the head-quarters at Whitehall being late, as th< po close until 7 p. m., when the colonial mails are Bent oil*. Muck the same routine that has been described in the case "f the Colonial Office is observed in the department which deals with the affairs of our Indian Empire. The correspondence which ma its way hither may be classed under two heads: first, that relating to the Government of India itself; secondly, the eommunic.it i that originate in England, and that pass either between the [ndia Office and other departments of State, such as the Foreign Offii the Colonial Office, the Board of Trade, and the War I ■ or be- tween the India Office and private individuals interested in Indian affairs. Again, the Indian correspondence itself is of two kinds: first, the ordinary dispatches which come, is ever} r ii< »m the Government of India, or the Government of Madras and Bom* bay, the Lieutenant-Governors not corresponding directly with Home Government; secondly, the secret dispatches which p rectly between the Government of India and the Secretary ol As at the Colonial Office so also at the [ndia Office, then o- tral register to which, as a rule, dispatches go. Th b, howei many important exceptions, and documents relating to politics or finance would go, in the first instance, not to the register, hut to that department with which they are immediately concei lit- ical, secret, financial, public works, military, as the case may be. They are of course opened by the secretaries of the department to which they belong, and these officials ]>ut forward the papers win n- ever they like. After this they pass successively through the bai of the Under-Secretary — permanent or parliamentary, ac to the nature of the communication the Secretary of £ i com- mittee of the Council especially told off to consider documents of the class to winch this one belongs, and finally, the Council it-. If in full conei sembled. But the powers of the Council are delib- erative, an 1 it may be added obstructive, a.s well as execu I ho 360 ENGLAND. power of obstruction is .not necessarily mischievous. It is often ex- ercised, and is intended to be exercised, as a check on rash and ill- considered action. In the Foreign Office a very different mode of procedure is ren- dered necessaiy. A majority of the documents received here are of a more or less confidential character, and, as a consequence, the opening of the contents of the dispatch bags is not delegated to sabordinate employes, but is performed by some high official. Who this official may be varies according to circumstances — the deciding circumstances mainly being the view the Secretary of State takes of the limit of his responsibilities, an arrangement that may be arrived at between the Secretary and Under-Secretary, or the personal appe- tite for work which either may possess. Thus at one time we are told of a Permanent Under-Secretary of State, who takes a pride in remaining at the office daily thl 8 p. m., in order that he may depart with the consciousness of having broken the seals of two hundred envelopes. At another time rej)ort tells us of. a Secretary of State who would allow no letter or communication of any kind to be opened by any one save himself; and who insisted on dictating an- swers to all the correspondence which poured in. Hence, too, it may be correctly inferred that there is not at the Foreign Office any thing like the same system of minuting correspondence that exists elsewhere. The entire department is divided into what was for- merly called the Establishment, but what has been rechristened the Diplomatic Establishment, and departments not on the Establish- ment. The new name is intended to distinguish the Diplomatic Es- tablishment from the Librarian's Department, the Treaty Depart- ment, and the Chief Clerk's. In the Diplomatic Establishment, where a total of forty-one clerks are employed, the Chief Clerk has a department of his own, with twenty clerks under him, who are not themselves on the Diplomatic Establishment, and whose work is mainly of a financial character. Next — still on the Diplo- matic Establishment — there is the Consular Department, presided over by the Superintendent of the Consular and Slave-trade De- partment, and subdivided into two sections: the first charged with all correspondence and other matters relating to the slave- trade, the second having to do with the Consular Service corre- spondence. Lastly, there is the Commercial Department. The more purely diplomatic portion of the Foreign Office is subdivided into five departments, which are distributed geographically, and which are under the control of a senior clerk. Naturally the busi- ness transacted in all of these is of a strictly confidential character OFFICIAL ENGLAND. and includes every thing that appertains to the m >n ol treaties. We now come to the Treaty Department, which is nut on the / Diplomatic Establishment, and which is occupied with the formal drafting and engrossing of documents which have already (-"in.) under the scrutiny of the confidential officers of that a .in an. The Treaty Department is a Black Letter Department, and tl who are employed in it bear much the same relation to the diplo- matic staff as the lawyer's clerk who engrosses the do d to the law- yer who is the confidential adviser. Even the head of I .1 depart- ment, though personal merit, and the technical experience which he may have acquired, often cause him to be the depositary of i amount of confidence, is not, in virtue of his office, admitted into the secrets of the Diplomatic Establishment The relative positions of the two cannot be better illustrated than by sa\ ing that, whereas members of the Diplomatic Establishment are, - I members of the St. James's Club, members of the Treaty Depart- ment have to submit to the ordinary ballot. Of course, clerks <>f the Treaty Department of the Foreign Office are trusted do! t<> di- vulge the tenor of the papers which they are employed to copy and reduce to official order; but their functions arc not confidential in the same way as those of the clerks in the Diploma; at It is only when treaties are ripe for parchments, or when precedents and historical data are required in the composition of tie. dies, that the offices of this department are invoked, and the Bimple circum- stance that it is the sole department in which hired writers engaged is sufficient proof that its sphere is generically different from that of the Diplomatic Establishment. "While the Privy Council Office may be spoken of as the fori head and mother of departments, the foremost place in the official hierarchy may, on some accounts, be claimed by the Treasury. It is the Treasury which has the power of the purse over all other departments, and with which, as a consequence, the ultimate sion rests. The Treasury, moreover, in addition to being the estab- lishment where the annual Budget is made up, has immediately I subject to it the two great Reserve Departments -tb ms and the Inland Revenue — as well as the Post-office, which Lb only acci- dentally a source of reserve, while the Treasury is practit all; in point of power. The Privy Council Office is unquestionably >"\- \ ereign in respect of dignity. It may. in effect, I" re yarded I species-'' ■• ion for tin ise of certain | thai are essentially part of the power of the Crown. The work done by 3G2 ENGLAND. the Board of Trade and the Judicial Committee is delegated to them by and from the Privy Council, while, till quite recently, the busi- ness of the Education Department was transacted by a committee of the Privy Council, and even now its head-quarters are still under the same roof. The Board of Trade remains nominally under the direction of a committee of the Privy Council, composed of a Presi- dent, with certain ex-onicio members, the Archbishop of Canter- bury, the Lord Chancellor, the First Lord of the Treasury, the chief Secretaries of State, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and others. But as a matter of fact, the office is entirely departmental, and when the Board of Trade is spoken of, it means for all practical purposes, not the committee of the Privy Council subject to which it exercises its power, but the President supplemented by his secretaries and official staff. Thus both in fact and in name, it is a distinct branch of the Government. The duties of the Board of Trade Office are both multifarious and interesting. Railways, the mercantile marine of the country, weights and measures, the duty of collecting all those statistics which concern, not merely the Home Government, but the Admin- istration of imperial affairs, belong to the Board of Trade. Much of the departmental work of the office involves a knowledge on the part of those b} r whom it is done of science and law. Thus it comes frequently within the province of this department to decide on the best form of railway brakes, on the structure of ships, and of light- houses, to say nothing of the exceedingly comphcated question of signaling by sea. Again, as it is our maritime power which. brings us into contact at the greatest number of points with the laws of other countries, and as the Board of Trade is very largely charged with the supervision of our maritime affairs, so does it follow that various questions of international law are perpetually presenting themselves for settlement at this dejjartment. The Board of Trade may be said to take charge of a ship from the cradle to the grave. It keeps a record of all new ships, it can trace the voyages of them, and has a list of the passengers and crew whom they have upon any occasion carried. Hence the offices of the Board of Trade witness much that is touching, and contain the record of much that is noble. It is here that those who are interested in the fives of sailors go to hear something, if they can, of the fate of ships which are sujyposed to have been lost at sea. Here, too, is it that the claim is made for having preserved fife at sea. Nor are the duties of the office in reference to railways less considerable. When a new railway is opened, the Board of Trade sends down an inspector / OFFICIAL ENGLAND. to see that every thing is in a proper state for the oomnn ncement of traffic. The Privy Council Office may be Bpoken of as thai departmenl oi State in which the prerogatives of the Crown are broughl into im- mediate contact with the persons of its ministers. It is the office which forms a common meeting ground for much of the business of other public departments. It constitutes, in fact, a kind of imperial clearing house. Whatever can be the subject of an Order in Coun- | cil naturally comes to the Privy Council Office, and is there pul into a shape in which it may be conveniently considered by the S ereign, when the next meeting of the Privy Council is held. < >rder I I in Council relate to such subjects as the ratification of measures passed by the colonial Parliaments, royal proclamations, documents concerning the assemblage, prorogation, and dissolution of the Im- perial Parliament at Westminster. Other Orders in Council are forms which give effect to treaties, which extend the terms of pat- ents, which grant charters of incorporation to boroughs and to com- panies, proclaim ports and fairs, decide causes in appeal, create ec- clesiastical districts, grant exemptions from the law of mortmain. There is thus an immense deal of clerkly business to be transacted in the Privy Council Office. Her Majesty presides at about a dozen meetings of the Council in the course of the year. On the day before the meeting, all the papers to be discussed are sent to the Queen, and if Bhe finds any thing which she does not exactly understand, she will desire the at- tendance of the minister to whose department it relates. No Privy Councilor attends the Council meeting unless he lias been specially ' summoned to do so. The business is naturally routine work, and is generally dispatched in less than an hour. The presence of ll councilors constitutes a quorum, and the chair is always taken by the Sovereign. Again, the Privy Council is, since every Cabinel minis- ter must first be sworn in a Privy Councilor — the theory being that J the Cabinet is an inner council of the Privy Council — a conned link between Parliament and the Crown. The Cabinet represents the declared will of the constituencies, and the chief of th I I aet, the Prime Minister, is the embodiment of the Cabinet in the sigh! of the Crown. In its relation to the Sovereign the Cabinel is an indi- visible and absolute unity, nor can a Premier 1"- guilty of more reprehensible in itself and in its tendency than when he in- forms the Sovereign of the specific causes of difficulty which he i encounter with his colleagues. "The Premier," writes Mr. Gl d- stone, in "Kin Beyond Sea," " reports to the Sovereign the proc i 364 ENGLAND. ings of the Cabinet, lias many audiences of the august occupant of the throne," but " is bound in these reports and audiences not to undermine the position of any of his colleagues in the royal favor. If he departs in any degree from strict adherence to these rules, and uses his great opportunities to increase his own influence, and pur- sue aims not shared by his colleagues, then, unless he is prepared to advise them, he not only departs from rule, but commits an act of treachery and baseness. As the Cabinet stands between the Sov- ereign and the Parliament and is bound to be loyal to both, so he (the Premier) stands between his colleagues and the Sovereign and is bound to be loyal to both." The relations between the Secretary of State, as the head of a department, and the Sovereign, as supreme over the State itself, are illustrated by the form with which, until early in this century, this minister commenced his answer to all correspondence brought before him, namely, " I have it in command from the Sovereign to acquaint you, &c." This mode of expression has now been dropped. None the less are the relations maintained between such offices as the India Office, the Colonial Office, the Foreign Office, and the Sov- ereign of the most direct and intimate character. In the case of each of these departments, not merely is there the frequent, or the occasional, dispatch of official papers to Her Majesty, but it is part of the recognized duties of the Secretary of State to keep Her Maj- esty duly informed of the general tenor and drift of his administra- tion, and of any important transactions between the office in London and the dependency or state in some other quarter of the world. These memoranda are never written by any member of a depart- ment except the minister at its head. There is a stereotyped style in which they all begin, to this effect — " The Marquis of pre- sents his humble duty to Your Majesty." Two obviously proper rules are observed in these momentous communications, and in all documents submitted to the Sovereign — one is that they shall con- tain no erasure, the second, that the paper on which they are writ- ten shall not be folded. Considering that the drafts of important dispatches are sent to the Sovereign before they leave the office of the Secretary of State, and that, in addition to this, Her Majesty receives daily the above- mentioned reports of all matters of great importance pending, it may be readily understood that the time of royalty is tolerably well occupied. No authentic account of the maimer in which the ministers of the Crown transact their business in Cabinet has ever yet been given OFFICIAL ENGLAND. to the world, and the secret has been as i> ligiouarj and buc< i ■ U\\\y preserved as that of Freemasonry. It may, however, be conjectured that the mode in which business is conducted versational and easy; it is probable that dri exceedingly rare, that, as a rule, ministers speak sitting, and that there is a general understanding between them as to the amovu business which shall be taken on a particular day, and with to the limit of time which is no< to be exceeded The actual work of legislation is prefaced by two or three natural preliminary pro- cesses. Supposing that the Cabinet has come to the conclusion that a particular subject is ripe for legislation, the tirst step taken in the direction of legislation would be for the minister within whoa de- partment it came to draw up the heads of a Bill <>n the subject Copies of this memorandum would be sent round to each of the ministers in one of the circulating boxes opened bj a key in the. possession of each member of the Cabinet, who, having tak< n a copy of the document from that receptacle, would draw a line through his name, inscribed on a slip of paper projecting from und< r the lid of the box. The heads of the proposed measure would be discu 1 at the next meeting of the Cabinet, and the decision arrived at might probably be that a Bill on the subject should be dratted in due form; the same process would then be gone through again in the matter of the draft measure, and thus, after having been firs! discu led then rediscussed, it would ultimately come before Parliament The life of a State official, be he Cabinet minister <>i Stat retary, is one of incessant strain, endless anxiety, continuous toil Scant leisure, holidays marred by the perpetual irruptions of dis- patches, telegrams, and other documents, are all thai the parlia- mentary vacation brings. 'While Parliament is sitting, that is, dur- ing nearly six months of the year, he is condemned Bystemati* to bum the candle at both ends. Happy is he if he be Eairlj a by 2 a. m.; by noon he will be at his office in Whitehall, Downing Street, or Pall Mall, busy with the reports of his private bo< his letters, and much amorphous material which, if tb I i | pitious, will some day or other be reduced to order in blu< b or perhaps be embodied in Borne measure introduced Liament, and, it may be, specially commended in the spe< oh from the throne. The chances are that our Secretary, or Under-Secretary, has been already up since eight or nine, alter barerj five hours' fev< rish sleep. He has been, in all probability, as ;i Bequel to a bastj and m stantial breakfast, endeavoring to brace himself for the toi] day with a canter in Rotten Row. But just as that equest 36G ENGLAND. promenade begins to grow populous and gay with many riders and loungers, our official, consulting his watch, or admonished by the chimes of Big Ben, turns his horse's head, and makes his way towards Westminster. Let those who sometimes conrplain of the inaccessibility of the gentlemen responsible for Her Majesty's Government, reflect how closely packed are the occupations of the official days, how short the time for the performance of innumerable tasks. There is a deputa- tion to be received which will absorb at least an hour; there is the daily conference between the Secretary of State and the Under-Sec- retary; there are business interviews with other members of the Government. In addition to this, there is the preparation for the night's work in Parliament. Notice has been given of questions, and the materials for reply have to be diligently searched out. A debate is expected, which will draw special attention to the depart- ment, and the honorable or right honorable gentleman who repre- sents it must, by dint of much official cramming, furnish himself with all the facts and figures requisite for a complete exposition of the case. A Bill which the Government is bent on " carrying," and which is being opposed at every clause, is making its way through committee, and our statesman, to whom it is chiefly intrusted, must prove himself an encyclopedia of practical arguments, each one of which is a conclusive refutation of censure and criticism. Four o'clock comes, and the minister has to be in the House. Who shall blame him if he has economized to the utmost the four preceding hours, or who would remove the mysterious inaccessibility with which he endeavors to hedge himself round? Apart from the papers which come before him in the conduct of the regular business of his department, a Minister of State is bur- dened with an immense variety of general correspondence. There are letters from the chiefs of the Opposition forces, proposing some plan for the conduct of a debate; or suggesting some compromise on a particular Bill which may happen to be in committee; or show- ing how, if the right honorable gentleman would but adopt such- and-such a course, he might disarm some of his most formidable critics, and count at the same time upon satisfying all his more reasonable and moderate partisans. Happily, the strife of the "ins" and the "outs" is conducted with an amenity in England unknown elsewhere, and this portion of the ministerial correspondence con- clusively proves the fact. Indeed, our imaginary First Lord, or typical Secretary of State, very often finds, that the communications of his professed friends are more troublesome than those of his OFFICIAL ENGLAND. professed foes. A follower who is an inveterafc \ more awkward customer than a factious antagonist As fch< man to whom it lias pleased Ber Majesty to give her confidi looks at his letters, there are certain handwritings which h< templates with profound weariness. II envelopes which he knows contain absolutely impracticable hints and recommendations, utterly groundless prot and quite im- possible requests from his most loyal. l>u! -.1 importunate sup- porters. That, little sheaf of letters which he puts on one aide is it collection of communications, the respective authors <-\ which express a hope that the right honorable gentleman will so that they shall have a day* for introducing a Bill much desired by themselv( a or their constituents; or deferentially point out that if a ministerial measure be marked by the presence or the absence of a certain clause, some great industry will he menaced, or some powerful interest injured; or assure the minister that it will be highly desirable if, for the purpose of reassuring the more w< kneed of his followers, he will take an early opportunity of declar- ing what points or principles of it are indispensable. What do< -; the minister do? Some he answers in a few lines at once; others he puts aside for consideration— all have his attention. He will consult his department on some; on some he will communicate with the whip of the party, the patronage secretary of the Treasury :. is officially called, and will ascertain from that functionary whether the discontent to which such letters poiut can he said to contain any of the elements of danger. Putting aside the mass of correspondence which the mini receives from his brother members of the elective Souse, we may glance at some of the most salient characteristics of thai countless multitude of epistles, written by members of the extra-parliamentary public, which daily discharges itself into Downing Street Many there are of precisely the same character as might i»- found on the breakfast-table of any private or non-official senator: app] from friends and constituents for berths in Government offices; let- ters particularly drawing attention to the neglect of local welfare by the Imperial Parliament; appeals to charity, ami • varying in tone from the cringing entreaty to t' • | fcorj de- mand on the subject of projected legislation, which will 1 detrimental to the commerce of particular boroughs, or the t; tional rights of counties; Letters applyin Jaries h officers who are in the employment of the < Government and \\ b< often a greater b ruble to an admini 368 ENGLAND. colleagues, or importunately burning questions. A Cabinet minis- ter is, of course, assailed with applications from old personal friends, on behalf of their sons, or other members of their family, for "whom they wish to secure nominations to offices in the Civil Service. There are, also, lengthy communications from the accredited agents of the party in the provinces, dispatched, in the first instance, to the head whip, and by that officer laid before his chief. Some of these are troublesome enough. The minister hears that the great tin-tack interest is united as one man against the measure which the Government has introduced for regulating afresh that particular industry; or that an agitation, which may become formidable, is being organized for the remission of the present imposts on vel- veteens and smock frocks. Others are written with reference to a vacancy, actual or impending, in a parliamentary seat, which has been hitherto occupied by a supporter of the administration, or which it is hoped to wrest from the Opposition. These are docu- ments which require the closest attention of the ministerial mind. Composed with great skill and local knowledge, they place before the official eye precisely the qualifications which are required in the forthcoming candidate. If no person has already paramount and irresistible claims to represent the party, then comes the exercise of the official choice. The local agent waits with anxiety to know what the selection is. The gentleman on whom the lot has fallen may be a perfect stranger to him, or known only by distant rumor. But as soon as the aspirant member for the borough has set foot within the town, and has been closeted with one or two of its leading in- habitants, so soon does that astute agent know whether the politi- cian dispatched by the " party " is or is not the right man for the right place. Even as the Imperial Parliament sitting at Westminster, is, in a manner, a national High Court of Grievances, so is every Cabinet minister stationed at his desk in his office the daily recipient of epistles complaining of wrongs inflicted and injustices sustained, either by an accidental mishap in the machine of government, or by the operation of some law, vicious in principle and mistaken in prac- tice. The number of letters of this character varies in the different departments of State. Possibly the most ponderous pile of all is that which is deposited within handy reach of the Eight Honorable the Secretary of State for War. Are not the Services chartered and inveterate grumblers ? But what shall be said of the countless wails, pitched in every key of discontent, from that of the supplicating and expectant widow to that of the veteran who has grown bald and OFFICIAL ENGLAND. bronzed in his country's service under a tropica] sly. which el - other right honorable 'gentleman or nobleman, the of State for our Oriental Empire, is condemned to rei B times these documents contain the threats of an acti< sometimes they are piteous protests against the rate of . , h ■ and the depreciation of the rupee; Bometimea thej are entreat \ from a mother, whose husband has died a hero's death, thai a I i of some sort may he found for her Bon The outside communica- tions chiefly received by the head of the Colonial Office are of a dif- ferent character. Colonists being their own masters, and carryi with them wherever they go the representative institutions of I mother-country, have for the most part no troubles for which tl seek redress at the capital yn the empire. Xel they .-u-e no! uncom- municative, and sometimes their communicativeness lapses into im- portunate garrulity. They have much information to give, and they give it freely without being solicited, on the character and wants of the various parts of the colonial dominions. Much more often than might he supposed, the correspondents of the Colonial Secret ay suggest fresh annexations of territory; there are even cases in wh i unemployed gentlemen, their hearts burning for adventure, ap] for a. charter for a filibustering expedition, whose object it is t] I the British standard may float over realms now held by the nol savage, while applications for concessions from conipan i indi- viduals are of course exceedingly common Let our inquiries once more range into a very august sphi e We are in the sanctum of the First Lord of t]ir Treasury, ' Minister for the time being, whatever the personality of that indi- vidual. The great man looks, with as much of a smile as his feat- ures can wear, over a sheet of post letter-paper, written in a laj clear hand, or listens while his secretary tells him something of U 6 contents of an epistle much interlined and underscored What j the purport of the document? Let it be understood, thai all I eccentric letter-writers of the United Kingdom seem to select Down- ing Street as the point at which to discharge their missivea 'I I the head of Her Majesty's Government should receive applicatii from some two or three gentlemen a week, who are anxious to edit his speeches, with possibly a brief introductory memoir; ti should be assailed by mysterious correspondents, who i that they have intelligence of the most vital moment t<> the realm, which they would communicate t<> him personally since t li»\ fear to intrust it to paper; thai he should be pestered by i for small places from obscure partisans ami < cclesiastica] preferment for bun* 24 870 ENGLAND. gry divines; that a considerable portion of the contents of his letter- bag should be the impudent petitions of pure mendicity — in all these cases the statesman shares the common lot of exceptional eminence. Of all Her Majesty's principal ministers of State, none are so much solicited by requests to receive de]3utations, and by general correspondence of an indescribably miscellaneous character, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of the Home Depart- inent. Among those letters are some of the most useful and sug- gestive received in Downing Street, The departments and legisla- tion of which these two ministers have charge render it desirable and necessary that they should have the minutest acquaintance with special demands and local requirements. A comparatively trivial alteration in the incidence of a tax may make all the difference be- tween the inrposition and the removal of a burden of discontent. Is it a licensing bill on which the Right Honorable the Secretary of State for the Home Department is engaged ? Of course, the most exhaustive investigation which official machinery can command, into the wants and wishes of the people has been made before the meas- ure was drafted. But the official eye is sure to neglect something. There are certain facts, certain exceptional conditions prevailing in particular districts, which have somehow been ignored. These are formally communicated to the department which takes cognizance of them, are duly inquired into, and very frequently have the effect of considerably modifying the ministerial measure. On the other hand, neither at the Home Office nor the Treasury are the letters of impracticable crotcheteers and pragmatic hobbyists unknown. If preposterous proposals and impossible plans could have contributed to such a result, an efficient alternative to capital punishment would long since have been discovered — nay, crime itself would have prob- ably become extinct in this realm; while as for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he would have paid off the National Debt five times over. That which forms the most romantic portion of the ministerial letter-bag has still to be noticed. Diplomacy, as it is conventionally represented to us, is a darkly mysterious science; and not a few of the letters which find their way to the head-quarters of British di- plomacy are of a corresponding character. If the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs were to believe all that his correspondents tell him, we should have had him living for a quarter of a century past on the brink of a volcano, whose eruption would have long since desolated the kingdom with the burning torrents of revolution let loose by foreign hands. But self-seeking adventurers and appli- cants for employment are among the most copious contributors to OFFICIAL ENGLAND. 871 the Foreign Office letter-bag. Nbl merely at a time "f Enron unrest, but in the midst of profound peace, there are Bcorea and hundreds of ladies, as well as gentlemen, who profess themselv< i ready and able to reveal the clandestine designs of forei rern- ments, and to act as secret agents generally, for a modes! hon- orarium. There is a conspiracy brewing in Borne obscure portion of the world which must, sooner or later, assume disasb len- sions, and of which only the particular applicant can, l>/> proc ediug to the spot, at the charge of the public, give accurate intoll Or it is highly desirable that the Government should send gub the writer on a mission to Bithynia; or their correspi adent, V. B., or C, has had experience and possesses linguistic attainments which would make him invaluable in the employment of the Crown. Lastly, the diplomatic service is aristocratic, and the Foreign Office is fash- ionable; and, as to the fashionable and aristocratic suitors for pi and nominations who approach the Foreign Secretary with every kind of letter, is not their name legion ? CHAPTER XXII. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. Prevalence of Parliamentary Ambition— Sensibly mitigated by Counter Attrac- tion of Literature, Journalism, &c. — The Value of a Seat in Parliament — The Work which it entails— Inconveniences attending it— General Eola- tions between M.P.'s and Constituents— Small and large Constituencies —The House of Commons the "Manufactory of Statute Law"— On the Eve of a Great Debate— Characteristic Scenes in Passages and Lobbies — Scene in the House itself— Presentations of Petitions — How Notices of Motion are given — Balloting for Days— General Description of House — General Aspect of Members— Questions answered— Business begins— Pre- liminary and Personal— The Debate itself— The Orator— The Dinner Hour —Hostilities renewed— The Whip— The Division— Prevailing Excitement— The Prose of Legislation — Progress of a Bill from Introduction to Boyal As- sent—Qualities shown by Honorable Members in Committee— The Speaker: Functions and Position— Some Rules and Practices of the House— Motions — The House of Commons' Clerks— Select Committees— House of Commons' Oratory— Is it declining? — Excellencies of House of Commons— Tastes of House and Nuances. EVEKY Englishman, Mr. John Morley has remarked in his work on "Compromise," is either actually or potentially a parlia- mentary candidate, and the political instinct is certainly still vigor- ous in the British breast. "Whether, however, the desire on the part of English citizens to win a seat in the House of Commons is or is not on the decline, whether the House of Commons itself may not be suffering from other competing opportunities of political activity, are questions on which more than one opinion may be held. Five-and-twenty years ago a £>olitical career in England was neces- sarily a parliamentary career. If a man wished systematically to influence contemporary opinion on public affairs, he at once directed all his efforts to getting into the House of Commons. The pamphlet had already lost its power, political journalism was an imperfectly developed force, and the aspiring statesman, eager to address him- self to the world, could only do so through the medium of the morning newspaper, which reported his speech. The position has now been materially modified. There are not only more political THE HOUSE OF C :\-;\ journals and more political writers; the writers in ,: ournala are taken from a class to which thej never before I I Jour- nalism may not have yel completely lost, to th fastidious, all disreputable associations, but the reproach again I is gradually dying out, and the stigma becoming fainter. I ur- nalist lias long since left his garrel In sin et; b< sarily educated for his vocation in Bqualor and poverty; he is the friend of influential personages, and is very possibl; apart from his pen, an influential personage himself Then, if at the preseni i\-.y the pamphlet is an anachronism, some half-dozen col- lections of a dozen pamphlets each appear evi • .th. The old quarterlies of party have been succeeded by the new monthly pi I odicals of culture. The review, instead of being the organ of a tion, is a platform for the individual. To contest constituency ai constituency is disagreeable and cosily work. After many si success may not be attainable; and even when the House has been cured, political eminence and influence do not always follow. There are the whims and tempers of our six hundred kings to be stud there is the risk of the hell of failure to be run. It is much easier, much less expensive, much more satisfactory, to serve in the ai of paper politicians. Some notoriety and a small measure of capacity will secure for the aspirant to literature a place in one of the influential monthly 1 organs of select opinion, in whose pages he may find himself elbow- ing a former Prime Minister ami Chancellor of the Exchequer, jo ling- against a group of lay and clerical disputants, or sitting next to an illustrious doctor of physical philosophy. If the attention paid by some honorable gentlemen, when they address the House of Commons, to the reporters' gallery can In- scribed as the homage of oratory to literature, the spectacle of well- known statesmen fighting grave political issues in the monthly m "azines suggests and symbolizes the triumph of the pen ovi r Pi ment. It is impossible to doubt thai the multiplied opportunit which are placed at the disposal of the thoughtful statesman bj edi- tors and publishers must have the effeci ol preventing many ■ men who might otherwise be moved to do so from addresses at the forthcoming 1 election. The paper politi- cians, as we have called th im, are and a r< p el ible el \ the periodical invented for their want.-, gives thi m all the pub! they could desire, or they can at least afford to post] ring the House of Commons till they have educated that assemblage up to their own professorial Level / 374 ENGLAND. But there are other and more generally cogent reasons which will probably tend to diminish the number of possible candidates for the House of Commons. The number of persons who think they have a political mission is strictly limited, and many gentlemen who go into, or who are ambitious of going into, the House of Com- mons are animated by two motives — desire of social promotion, or of extended personal power. Now it is beginning to be very ques- tionable whether the degree and kind of social promotion which a seat in Parliament brings with it are sufficient to compensate its possessor for the expenditure and worry which it entails. No sena- tor and no senator's family were ever advanced to the rank of social sovereignty by the magic influence of the letters M.P. The social aspirant who goes into the House of Commons very soon finds that the social accessories of St. Stephen's are to a great extent an illu- sion. He may receive more invitations, and when he is being enter- tained by certain hosts may have the gratification of knowing that he secures greater attention; but he seldom succeeds in entirely changing his social level. His social position, in fact, is not so much exalted as emphasized. "What holds good of the elective legislator himself is yet more strictly applicable to his family. If his wife and daughters were not in the way before of meeting peers, diplomatists, attaches, young men of birth and fashion and wealth, neither will they be in the way of meeting them now; if, on the other hand, they were, they will find then- previous opportunities multiplied. But the personal importance and the professional or commercial value of a seat in the House of Commons are unquestionable. To these must be added the essentially interesting nature of the occu- pation. The House of Commons is at once a roirror and a concen- tration of the national life. There is no rumor of any sort, social, commercial, diplomatic, or political, which does not make its way into the lobbv of the House, though it mav not indeed reach the ears of all who throng that octagonal chamber. " Before the House," writes Mr. Palgrave,* "passes yearly every national anxiety. What- ever occupies the attention of this great empire makes its appear- ance there, be the subject trivial or important, be it the state of Botten Bow or the conduct of a war. A parliamentary discussion also is sure to turn a subject inside out, and to disclose its precise nature. To hear this well done is no sorry amusement; intellect- ually it is a great gain. Moreover, the gossip of the House is of * "The House of Commons," by Reginald F. D. Pr.lgraTe, p. 48. THE HOUSE OF ( VS. 37| first-rate quality. To tell or to hear some iwv, thing il is the best place possible, nor are the new things repeal it. The appearance of the Westminster lobbies may generally be taken as an accurate index of the character of the debatej impending or in actual progress, and the merest tyro may infer, from the composi- tion of the crowds that throng the passageSj whether it is Bible, or beer, or Irish affairs, which engage the attention of Her Majesty's "Faithful Commons" on any given evening or afternoon. If the first, he will see in the Great Hall the passages and th< ante-cham- bers populous with thronging groups of enthusiastic cler ■ ■ men. If he made his way into the members' lobby, he would have seen the lay bishops of the House of Commons the center of a demonstrative group of clerics. The scene on the occasion of any Bill which touches the licensing laws is equally typical. Perspiring publicans are seated at intervals along the line of approach to tb • s inatorial sanctum. Some of these gentlemen are chiefly anxious to gain an order for admittance; the majority are intent on more as busi- ness. On another occasion it is neither the public-house question, nor the Church question, which invites the attention of an elective legislature. We are to have an Irish evening, and the nationality of the imminent discussion is immediately shown in the composition of the knots of gentlemen standing in and about the members' lobby. Every variety of Hibernian accent is audible, from the thin, nipping brogue of Dublin, to the rich broad roll of Cork. Some these sons of the Emerald Isle are the correspondents of Irish new - papers, waiting, it may be, for any intelligence which they can pick up, or perhaps to receive from one of their compatriots who is going to enlighten the House that evening with his orators, a full and cor- rect report of the' as yet undelivered speech. Others are posses 1 by a spirit of feverish anxiety to know whether certain petitions have been presented. In the actual lobby of the House may be seen our elective 1< lators, in little knots of three and four, discussing with each otl or with friends and constituents, the events and the rumors of the 378 ENGLAND. hour; newspaper editors, who have the entree of the place, button- holing some great man with a view of learning State secrets, and very frequently some occupant of the reporters' gallery, who is also a correspondent of a provincial journal, engaged in much the same process. The doors of the House are constantly swinging back- wards and forwards. White-haired janitors guard the portal on either side; the ah is full of the buzz of conversation, and all is motion and life. The spectacle visible inside the House itself is not one of less animation. Each successive foot of the green leather- covered benches is being occupied by gentlemen who have already left there the emblem of rightful possession, and who stream in one by one, and two by two, while private business is going on. This is the name given to all measures promoted by railway companies, gas companies, water companies, municipal corporations, or private indi- viduals. Every thing that passes with reference to these Bills in the House of Commons is, with scarcely an exception, purely formal. The private Bill, after having been read a first and second time, the reading simply consisting of a motion that it shall be so read, is referred to a select committee, who pass the measure, send it back to the Commons for the third reading, and thence to the Lords. o' • Not much attention is therefore paid to the earlier proceedings of the parliamentary sitting. At half-past four o'clock, the public busi- ■ ness, which is the real business of the evening, begins. The House of Commons is a great national court of grievance, and to these grievances its attention is drawn by petitions. On each side of the table hang carpet-bags in which the document in question is dropped. As a rule the presentation of a petition resolves itself into the inscription of its subject and its origin on two pieces of paper, which are sent to the reporters' gallery. A member of Par- liament, however, has the right to declare, viva voce, who the peti- tioners are, and what their aim is. Further, he may insist that the whole document shall be read aloud, but not audibly, by one of the clerks of the table. The next stage in the proceedings is the giving notices of motions. These notices may relate either to questions, or 1 resolutions, or Bills. As regards the first, notice of question is gen- erally given by the member to the Minister, and this is for the most part done by the interrogant writing his question on a piece of paper, and handing it to the clerk at the table. As there are always many more honorable members anxious to obtain a day for their motions than there are days available, it is necessary to resort to the process of deciding by ballot how these days shall be allotted. On the table of the House there lies a notice paper with a row of THE HOUSE OF COM, printed figures at the side; on this list members write th< ir names. In a box before the clerk at the table are small bits of pap I up, bearing figures which correspond to those on the ah ■ ;. \\ ! , n, therefore, notices of motions are called, the clerk draws on pieces from the box and reads aloud its number, while the ^ ; ; looking at the list in his hands, calls successively by nam< u- tloman whose patronymic is written opposite the lucky figure that comes out. Hence it is a mere question of chance whether a ]>ri- vate member obtains an opportunity for ' motion or not. There are only two days, Tuesday and Friday, in the week available for this purpose.* Monday and Thursday arc Government nights. On Wednesday, which like Tuesday and Friday is op n n> the private member, but for bills only, not motions, the disc on any subject closes at a quarter to six. Before the actual business of the evening commences, the ap- pearance and the occupants of the House may be briefly de icrib< i. We are now entering, let the reader supj^ose, through the door which opens immediately out of the lobby. Al >ve us is the clock, and on either side, raised a little above the level of the floor, arc rows of seats allotted to the secretaries of Ministers and other ; 1 persons. As the visitor looks straight in front ol him he is d advancing to that invisible line which runs from the ci pacious chair in which the Sergeant-at-Arms is ensconced to the seai opposite, which is called the bar, and at which all pe printers, writers, and others guilty of contumacy are summoned for breach of privi- lege — he will see rows of benches, covered with green leather, rising tier on tier on cither side, while immediately opposite is the Speaker's chair, on a small elevated dais. Immediately beneath the Speaker are the three clerks at the table, who wear, in virtue of their offi independently of whether they are or are not barristers, wigs and gowns. The benches on the Speaker's right hand are occupied by the Ministers and their supporters, those on the left by the < >ppo ition — the members of the late Government being seated on the fron" < >p] sition bench, as the members of the present are on the Cronl b< i confronting them. This row of Beats is divided by a small inter- space to admit of the passage to and fro of members, which is known as the gangway, and below the gangway sit the independei -h members, and below them, as well as intermingled with ih< m, I Irish Home Rule members. Once more facing about exactly opposite Mr. Speaker, we elevate our eyes and see in I gallery, beneath which enter those numbers who wi notice, and which rises immediately above Mr. S] 380 ENGLAND. representatives of the press, seated in two rows. Those who occupy the front boxes are the actual reporters, busy with their stenographic symbols; those seated behind them are either reporters waiting their turn, or leader-writers for the different newspapers listening to the debate. If you cast your eye still farther up. in the direction of the roof, you will perceive an iron grating in the wall, whence there look out the faces of ladies. This, indeed, is the ladies' gallery, better known as the cage, and though many proposals have been made to do away with the railing which obscures their view, the step has always been resisted on the ground that it would tend to distract the attention of honorable members from parliamentary business. Now, let the reader suppose that he has ascended to that gallery in which are congregated the gentlemen of the press. He is on a level with the two galleries in which members of Pcirliament sit and watch the debates. Opposite him, and still on the same level, are a succession of galleries which require explanation. The first of these, that which directly overlooks the area of the House, is devoted to peers and ambassadors, and other illustrious personages. Just be- hind this there are seats which the scholars of Westminster School are allowed to occupy, and to which members of Parliament may sometimes introduce upon special occasions the more distinguished of their friends. Behind this is the Speaker's gallery — two long rows of seats, closely packed, one may be sure, if a debate of any impor- tance is expected; and behind this, again, is the strangers' gallery. Behind this, there is a small compartment, fenced off by an iron rail- ing — another ladies' cage — the Sergeant's gallery, the gallery of the Speaker's wife, for ladies, being the right hand compartment of the cage looking towards the Speaker's gallery. Already it is possible to form some notion of the personal appear- ance of the honorable members of whom the Hoxise consists. They enter one after another, in all kinds of costumes, and with every sort of manner. The first thing which it is natural to remark is that the operation of the ballot has caused but little change in the exterior aspect of the members of the House of Commons. The parliament- ary visitor will see sitting on either side of the Speaker's chair the same array of broad-acred squires and of successful merchants as he has observed any time during the last ten years. The squires are not quite so numerous as they were. The barristers are more numerous. There are not, perhaps, quite as many young men as formerly. In the House of Commons elected in 1871 there were only a hundred members under forty years of age, of which one half were less than thirty-five, while only sixteen were less than thirty. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. gg] Of tlic former of these — those less than thirty-five twenty of peers, whose election was mainly attributable to family influence. Among the Home Rulers, the proportion of young m m was unu iu- allv large. Yet more significant is it that of the House of which we are now speaking more than one-fifth of the total members Bhould have been elected during its existence, and that even thus the a\. , ;i n should be more than fifty. There are indeed nun in the House of Commons who take to politics as a profession. They arc the sail of the assemblage, and they alone will ultimately rise to the highest political distinction. But then these have abundant meai their own, and the fact remains that for the greater number the Houe of Commons is the glorified haven of men who have been successful 1 in other pursuits. Not merely has the extension of the suffrage in- creased the polling-booths and the costlier parts of the ■ I storal machinery, but in the life-time of each parliament mei themselves involuntarily compelled to spend more money in local charities and other institutions, in the hope, if possible, of averting a contest. Again, even in the larger constituencies where most of the expenses are paid by subscribers there exists a distrust of youth, and the preference is given to the middle-aged gent]. men, especially if they happen to have been in the House of Common - I Eore. The most costly seats of all are probably those for the metropolitan coun- ties, in the case of which the object is to get a candidate who is a personage both in the city and in his suburban neighborhood, or who is willing to pay for the possession or the continuation of dis- tinction Avhich a seat for a metropolitan county con The truth is that we see everywhere in politics what we have seen in society, the general substitution of the plutocratic principle for the aristocratic, although, as has been already pointed out, ii is a plutocracy round which there have crystallized themselves man. the prejudices and sentiments of aristocracy. Since the repeal of , the Corn Laws the peerage has been increased by more than eighty new creations. Yet in the House of Commons elected in were not represented more than two thirds of those peers who \\. represented in 1846. Here then is the evidence of Vnv grea chaj which has been accomplished. Whereas twenty years after the Re- form Bill of 1832, there was scarcely any diminution in the total of peers' heirs in the Lower House, the diminution is now an accom- plished fact. The conclusion is therefore irresistible thai id- ency will be more and more for titles without money to be n arded as politically useless. 382 ENGLAND. The notices having been dispatched, the time for the asking and answering of questions arrives. Most of these, it may be supposed, have neither urgency nor interest, but there are some, from the replies given to which it would seem that an idea of the ministerial policy on matters of pressing moment may be formed. When we come to these, the murmur of talk is changed for comparative silence. The only sounds audible in succession are the voice of Mr. Speaker, who summons the questioner, of the questioner himself, of his min- isterial respondent, of the crackling of paper as the gentlemen of the House of Commons turn over the leaves of the orders of the day, and of the deadened monotones of suppressed chatter in the distance. Supposing the answer to be one which clearly shows that her Majesty's Ministers have, or have not, decided to adopt a certain line of action in a matter of supreme national moment, there is sure to be a great demonstration of feeling. Very frequently, however, these interrogations relate to imaginary grievances and unfounded reports. There are many different ways of answering such — the circumlocutory, the evasive, the enigmatical, the humorous, the con- temptuous, the solemn, the jocular, the courteous, the sarcastic. The questions over, the next thing is to pass to the order of the day. Let it be supposed that this order — the day being a Thurs- day, and consequently appropriated to ministers — is, that the House shall resolve itself into Committee of Supply, to which it is possi- ble that an amendment has been proposed directly or indirectly raising the question of confidence in the Government. Now it is perfectly possible that before the gentleman who, having a night or two previously moved the adjournment of the House, has the right to open the debate, has commenced to speak, another hon- orable member may rise from his seat with an intimation that he wishes to bring before the Speaker, to whom every member does as a matter of form address himself, a question of order or privilege. This generally portends that some purely personal epi- sode is imminent. An honorable gentleman whose sentences are capitally constructed, and whose voice is clear and bitter, protests that he has been gratuitously vilified by an honorable member outside or inside the House, and wishes to draw attention to the fact. After he has done, the incriminated senator explains what he said, why he said it, and what he meant. Then comes a wrangle of tongues, and sundry signs of tumult; first one member and then another bobs up his head, demanding silence and order. Tempers are becoming heated and patience exhausted. A politician, who has an unpleasantly plain way of putting matters, suggests that the real THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 383 problem is whether A did or did not mean to insinuate thai B ought to have his place in an unmentionable category of baseness. This brings things to a head, there are explanations, verbal refinements, compromises, and so without any thing being real!. L or definitely denied, the matter drops, and, ruffled and agitata -X by the preliminary skirmish, the House addresses itself to the business of the night. Calm and self-possessed in the midst of a storm of cheers, min- gled, it may be, with a few derisive sounds, the orator of the even- ing rises to his feet; his voice is low, his manner admirably collected. Before commencing his speech, he takes care to see that every thing he may want in the course of its delivery, books of reference, sundry documents, and a tumbler of water, are within easy distance. All this he does as tranquilly as if he were about to sit down in the soli- tude of his study for a hard morning's work with his pen. Nothing can be more considerate than his opening language, nothing more reasonable or cogent than his earlier propositions. Presently Bom< - thing of a change comes over the spirit of his utterances. He has heard some side remark, he has been irritated by some ironical cheer, or by some aggressive " no, no." In a moment the speaker is transformed, the quiet and measured tones are exchanged for a vehement flow of rhetoric; protest follows protest, each clothed in language of new vigor, and illustration is piled upon illustration. The display, which all admit is magnificent, comes to an end at last, and after the motion has been duly seconded by a political friend there rises to answer from the ministerial bench a middle-aged . gentleman of rather sleepy manner, but who gradually works him- self into a state of artificial energy. In a statement which makes little pretence to rhetorical merit, and which from beginning to end is severely business-like, he endeavors to show that the statesman who opened the debate is wrong in his tacts, and untrustworthy in his conclusions. The speech of this gentleman, who is a :. c of State, possibly the leader of the House — though, as a rule, it is upon the leader of the House that the duty falls of replying on the whole discussion towards the small hours of the morning — occupies, per- haps, rather more than an hour. It is now close upon half-] seven, and honorable members commence to leave the Bouse, intent upon dinner. Yet though the benches are almost deserted, the tide of speech still rolls on. After a space of about eighty minutes, : House gradually recovers from its condition of emptiness and I guor. A brisk interchange of fire commences along the whole line of the two political armies. The sharpshooters stand forth, and in 384 ENGLAND. more or less animated harangues of twenty minutes endeavor to spread confusion among the ranks of their opponents, and the rest of the evening- is occupied with a series of duels in the conduct of which the chief of the two sets of combatants exercise then* author- ity and give counsel. All this time there have been busily moving in and out, never sitting down, and never absent from the House for many minutes together, four or five gentlemen, whose chief business it seems to come in, look around, consult a piece of paper in their hands, make a memorandum, whisper a few words into the ear of an honorable member, and then disappear, only to re-appear and again to do precisely the same thing. These are the whips, three of whom are officials, while the other two act for the Opposition. It is the func- tion of the whip to see that the members of his party are on the spot when a division is imminent, and that the debate is conducted according to the lines laid down. But he has other work than this to do. He must be imperturbable in his temper, unerring in his tact. If he can win a vote he must accept any number of snubs, and honorable members generally are very fond of snubbing whips. He must observe every thing, and appear to observe nothing. He must be omniscient without being inquisitive. He will carry to the Prime Minister a faithful and particular report of all that he sees and hears, and the Prime Minister from that information will judge what he can and cannot achieve, and will regulate his policy accord- ingly. The Prime Minister may regard a Bill as the embodiment of a political principle; the whip looks at every thing not in the light of a principle, but as a question. The mere machinery by which a Treasury whip brings his men to the House is simple enough. At six p. m., he knows that an important division will be taken next day. He communicates with the individual who acts as a kind of clerk to the Patronage Secre- tary of the Treasury, and who, be the Ministry Whig or Tory, pre- serves to each in turn on its accession to power a profound silence as to the tactics of its predecessor. This gentleman, on receiving his instructions, repairs to his office in King Street, the lithograph machines are set to work, and before the arrival of the post next morning the doubly, or trebly, or quadruply underscored notes are delivered with the parliamentary notices to honorable members. Having issued the whip, the great thing for the whip himself is to see that members do not slip through his fingers. Hence he may have to scour the clubs, as well as to guard religiously the portals of the Senate. Further, while the model whip must be vigilant aa THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. Cerberus and as active as an acrobat, he must be careful nol bo seem the despot that he really is. He must be absolutely incor- ruptible, and that in the midst of transactions which have a flavor of jobbery about them. There are a number of small pieces «>t' patronage in the hands of the Treasury of some £80 or £100 a year, and it is the business of the Treasury whip, as Patronage Secretary, to discover how these may be most advantageously disposed o£ He must exercise the same judgment in deciding who and what are the proper objects of assistance from the private funds of (lie part} ; an individual, it may be, in the costly struggle of a contested elec- I tion, or possibly a newsixrper in the depths of chronic Lmpecuniosity. Nor must the Treasury whip merely pay studious heed to the con- venience and even the caprice of the ministerial flock. It is neces- sary that he should cultivate the good opinion of his opponents, and it is especially necessary that he should be in the confidence of the gentleman who, as his personal rival on the Opposition benches, is the candidate for the post which he himself holds. But let us suppose that the hostilities are now practically con- cluded, and that the final issue is about to be decided. The Speaker has for the last time put the question. The cry, "Division! vision! 'vision!" has been rung out by the doorkeepers and police. The ' division bells have been set ringing from one end of the vast build- ing to the other. -Scouts have been dispatched in swift hansoms to the clubs to collect laggards and deserters, and diners and smokers at the St. Stephen's Club, hard by, have been startled by the sudden sound of the electric alarum. They have mustered at last, and a closely-packed phalanx has been collected under the Peers' gallery. The final order is given — ayes to the right, and noes to the left Slowly and quietly do they file out into the respective lobbies. The doorkeepers come in, see that no honorable member is left behind, peer under the benches and lock the doors. In the course of two or three minutes they begin to defile on their return journey throng i the re-opened portals. At last, in the space perhaps of a quarter of fin hour, the House is completely refilled. The four tellers, bowing at every step, march up to the Speaker's table, and the result is known. The Government have a majority of nearly two to one. It I is an hour past midnight, an hour at which some latitude is to be expected and allowed. The spirit of the school-boy lives in the breast of many a middle-aged M.P. Leaps are made from the floors to the benches, huzzas are heard. No one knows what representaf govermnent is, till he has beheld, on an exciting issue, a division in the House of Commons. 25 386 ENGLAND. . But it is not to be supposed that the House always transacts its business at this point of high-pressure, and if we wish to see what are its more normal condition and atmosphere we must visit it upon a less stirring occasion. The House of Commons is the manufactory of statute law, and its first business is to legislate. It will, there- fore, be not amiss briefly to glance at the various stages in the prog- ress of a Bill through Parliament, from the moment of its introduc- tion till it receives the royal assent. It has many vicissitudes to encounter, and many risks to run. First comes the oral statement of the purport of the measure — technically known as the request for leave'to introduce it — made by its promoter, who afterwards appears at the bar of the House and is summoned by the Speaker. Then follows the first reading, and though the measure might be opposed at this period, it is seldom, or never, that such opposition is forth- coming. The real contest begins when, probably in about three weeks from this date, the motion is made that the Bill shall be read a second time. The debate which arises on the second reading of any measure submitted to Parliament centers round the principle of the proposed legislation, and if that legislation is not vetoed then, the project, though it may be materially modified in committee, is not likely to be ultimately rejected. Let it then be assumed that a parliamentary Bill has passed the stage of its second reading — and if the measure is of great importance, the debate which will have attended this consummation will have been full of interest and ex- citement — and that the motion before the House at the present moment is that the assembled members resolve themselves into committee, or, as the Speaker puts it, that "I do now leave this chair." Here the opposition which was possible on, and even be- fore, the first reading of the measure, and which was very likely actively forthcoming on the second reading, may be renewed. An- other long debate may ensue, amendments may be proposed which deny the expediency of any legislation at all, or insist that if legisla- tion be forthcoming it shall assume a different shape. The babel of tongues is once more heard, and the familiar scene of rhetorical* controversy is repeated. At last the motion is carried, and the House of Commons has affirmed by a majority — though, of course, thei'e need not have been any division on the subject at all — the proposal to go into committee, and to replace the Speaker for the time being by the Chairman of Ways and Means. There is little visible difference except the substitution of the latter for the former officer of the House between the Commons in committee and in ordinary debate The step taken is an historical survival of the old THE HOUSE OE COMMONS. 881 days of the Tudor and the Stuart despotism. "The exclusion of the king's emissary and spy — their Speaker --was the sole motive* why the Commons elected to convert themselves into a conclave" called a committee, that they might meet together as usual, but without his presence."* Every clause of the measure now before the Bouse is gone* through, amendments are forthcoming, are accepted by the Gov- ernment or by the authors of the Bill, or are rej <•' id and divided on, as the case may be. Sometimes it happens that an amendment is passed in committee and is carried, which affects a vital point in , the measure, and materially alters its character. In this case the member who is specially charged with the interests of the Bill will perhaps rise and propose to report progress — in other words, that the House shall resume — so that he may have an opportunity of consulting with his colleagues. Nothing can exceed the thorough- ness, and occasionally the pertinacity, exhibited in committee of tho whole House. Sometimes there are set speeches made, which were" perhaps intended to be delivered on the occasion of the second read- ing of the measure, but for which the opportunity could not be found. , For the most part, however, the discussion is conversational, honor- able members speaking not for effect, but simply with an eye to business. No student of the House of Commons on these occasions can fail to be struck by the ready amount of varied and practical knowledge which its members display. Honorable gentlemen, whoso voices are seldom or never heard in the course of great debates, riso up again and again — for when the House is in committee th< re is no limit to the number of times which a member may speak — and are found to have a minute acquaintance and a grasp of the subject which were but little suspected. It may be lightly said of a par- ticular House of Commons that it is the reverse of brilliant, but whether this reproach has or has not any truth, it may be declared with confidence that no House of Commons ever sits at Westminster which does not creditably reflect the intelligence of the nation, and whose members, if they are not heaven-born statesmen, fail t<> dis- play a singularly creditable aptitude for, and insight into, public affairs. Our imaginary parliamentary Bill is now so far advanced on tho high road towards becoming a parliamentary Act, that it has em< r I from committee modified, we may hope improved, but still substan- tially the same measure as when it was read a second time. Tho * "The House of Commons," p. 11. 388 ENGLAND. Speaker is once more in his chair, and the motion which he proposes to the House is, that the Bill, as amended by committee, shall be received. Here, again, the opportunity of opposition is renewed, nor is this the last chance that the more obstinate opponents of the measure may have of thwarting it. Having gone through the Commons, the Bill will be sent up to the Lords, and the Upper House will have precisely the same power of remodeling it as the Lower has enjoyed. But the people's representatives do not sur- render their right of veto upon any changes which may have been insisted in the measure by the hereditary legislators. The Bill once more formally comes before them, and the Commons are invited to prorj ounce upon the Lords' amendments. Granted that even this further ordeal is over, and that nothing remains but the formal bestowal of the royal consent for the measure to become law, that will be formally given upon some future day. One afternoon while petitions are being presented in the House of Commons, a rumor suddenly runs round the benches that there is a message from the Lords. In a moment the door of the House is closed, three loud knocks against it are heard, and it is known that Black Rod demands admittance. The doorkeeper, who has previously slammed the portal in the face of this august official, now opens a wicket, like that of a Freemasons' Lodge, peers out at Black Bod through it, next unlocks the door, and proclaims in a loud voice to the assembled Commons, "Message from the Lords." Then the door opens to admit a gen- tleman with a cocked hat in one hand, and a scepter in the other, habited in black breeches, who walks with a bow at every step up the House, till he finds himself opposite the Speaker, the Speaker himself rising to receive him and returning the reverential salute. He then informs "this Honorable House," that the Lords desire its presence to hear the royal assent given to some Bills. After having delivered this message he retires, walking backwards from the Com- mons' Chamber, bowing all the way, a feat not to be accomplished without considerable practice, as well as natural skill. The next thing is for the Sergeant-at-Arms to lift the mace from the table, and to lead the way to the bar of the Peers' Chamber, followed by the Speaker, who is the representative in his own person of the collective assemblage over which he presides. Now may be wit- nessed in the body of the Peers' Chamber a curious and interesting sight. On the woolsack is seated the Lord Chancellor, as the chief of the commissioners to whom the Queen has delegated that attribute which makes her supreme over the national legislature. The keeper of Her Majesty's conscience wears a triangular cocked hat on his THE HOUSE OE COMMOt | wig, the other peers composing the commission wear those oocki I hats which are best known as fore-and-aft, and are also dad in th( It BCarlet rohes. Presently there advance t'roin the table a sliorl clerk and a tall clerk, of whom one reads the commission, in which Li I declared that the Sovereign intrusts her royal prerogative, upon I present occasion, \o these her well-beloved Lords, and a-> each pe name is recited, he raises his hat. Then, last of all, the formula m uttered with the traditional pronunciation which is nol exact] of Parisian French, "La reyne le veulfc" It' the measure hap] to be a money Bill, the phrase used is. " La rej ae remercie em a b - snjets, accepte leurs benevolences, et ainsi le veult." The Speaker cannot leave the chair o\' the House of Commons until the adjournment is formally moved, and there is a Btoiy told, which is perfectly true, of a distressing, or rather humorous, con- tretemps, which once occurred towards the close of a sitting of ' House. It was long past midnight, the House was deserted, • by the Speaker himself. He, however, sat on, and seemed likely to continue to sit on, for no member had formally moved the adjourn* inent; nor could he he released from this durance until a senator, recalled from his homeward course, had brought forward the neces- sary motion, in the appropriate phraseology. Mr. Speaker I >• oisonj writes Mr. Palgrave, on this incident, was, "during those minut of detention, doing penance for the misdeeds oi his pr< decessorsj because Speaker Finch, or Speaker Seymour, obliging their ro J 1 master, and disobeying the wish of the House, had often abruptly stopped debate, by hurriedly 'pattering down' from their chair I away out of the chamber; practices which, centuries ago, compelli I the Commons to establish as a rigid rule, that come wiiat may, their adjournment must ever be upon a motion put from the Chair, v. I i every consecpient formality." Instead of their being any jealousy of the Speaker now as the representative and custodian of kingly power, there exists an immense respect for his office. In magnify- ing his authority, the Commons are indeed magnifying their own. Disrespect to him is disrespect to the House. He is the depositary of the collective dignities, rights, and privileges of membera Hence hi- ruling is never d< murred to: and the member who did QOi com- port himself deferentially to the Chair would be held to bare sini l against the unwritten law of the House. Advised bj a counsel, i - m -essary that he should Lean authority on matters of COnstitutioi 1 law, and that he should he infallible on all matters of partial:. procedure. In this latter task he is much I by the Chief CL at the table. He has authority over the wording of all mo; ml 390 ENGLAND. of all questions asked or proposed to be asked by honorable mem- bers of the Government; and it is his duty to see that no debatable matter, and nothing which can be construed as directly involving an argument or an inference is imported into them. What ordinarily takes place when the sitting of the House has . come to an end is, that the Speaker rising from his chair, bows, not as might have been supposed, to the leader of the House, but to the Secretary of the Treasury, who acts as his adjutant, and who returns the obeisance. Immediately after this is audible the cry, " Who goes home '? " — a relic of those times when members of Parliament used to make up parties for the homeward journey to protect themselves against the attacks of highwaymen. The police m the lobbies, how- ever, do not echo this shout, but simply announce " House is up." Something must be said about a few of the chief rules and prac- tices of the House of Commons. No member of Parliament can address the House, unless there is before it a substantive motion; if, therefore, he wishes to direct its attention to some matter, per- sonal to himself, or if he wishes generally to attack the conduct of the Government, and has had no opportunity for doing this in the course of regular debate, he jmts himself in order, by rising after the questions have been asked, and announcing that at the com- mencement of his remarks he will conclude with a motion. This motion is one for the adjournment of the House, and it is theoret- ically open to members to bring it forward whenever they think fit. But inasmuch as it involves a considerable loss of time, there is the strongest feeling against resorting to the expedient, save upon the most pressing urgency; and unless the occasion be extremely grave, or the reputation and popularity of the member moving the adjourn- ment such that they can submit to a very considerable strain, the experiment will be made amid a storm of angry and disapprov- ing shouts. The House almost always adjourns, if news suddenly reaches it of any very touching or terrible event. It did so when there arrived the news of the murder of President Lincoln; and much more recently, when it was announced that one of its mem- bers had just expired in the Library. The Speaker has, among many other duties, two particular func- tions to discharge. In the first place, he has to see that the debate does not stray hopelessly from its original subject; in the second, that none of the laws of parliamentary courtesy or business are in- fringed ; thirdly, it rests with him very much to arrange the plan of a debate. As regards the first, it has been illustrated recently, in a case spoken of by Mr. Palgrave, when the subject of the discussion THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 891 was the silk duty. One honorable member seized the a of delivering- an harangue denouncing the love oi moo 3 and its dete- riorating effects on ;h • national character. The Sp ■!. rtl . inter- posed, and endeavored to guide the discussion back t.» its proper channel; a second diversion took place when another bonorable member drew attention to the taxes imposed on co d the Speaker interfered again; a third time, the discussion 1 from silk to the state of commerce generally, and once 1 Speaker mildly protested. As regards the real fun< Speaker, it is comparatively seldom that he is called up exer- cise his authority. The personalities which were common in t House at the beginning of the century have almost ured now. As regards the third of the attributes of this fundi the management of debates, it is one in which impartiality is ab essential, and which is usually exercised, in common with the whips, on both sides. The theory, of coins', is that a memb ae to speak has only to catch the Speaker's eve. and to receive his nod; but, as a matter of tact, it is pretty well known and Bettl Lb Pore- hand, whom the Speaker will contrive to see. The member of Par- liament in question has either intimated directly to the Speaker his wish to take part at a particular stage in a particular debate, and has received his approval of the idea, or else, having mentioned the matter to the whip of his party, has secured for himself a place on the list of speakers, which is suggested to the occupant of the chair. Every member, when speaking, is obliged to stand with his head uncovered, unless indeed he happens to draw attention ; thing connected with the division, while the division is actually in prog- ress, in which case he speaks sitting and covered. Private mem- bers have, as has been already said, the right to bring forward their motions on those nights on which the order is Supply. Now Supply can only be granted in committee; therefore, the first thing to \<<- done is for the Speaker to put the question, when the words Supply Committee are read by the clerk at the table, "Thai 1 now leave the chair." Upon this the member who has prec I -nee with the motion of which he has given notice, rises up and 1 1 The Speaker thi ;i pats to the House, as an amendment to the question, "That I now leave the chair," the proposal to ins it ;l:';. ■:■ the word "that"th< on to be brought forward by the particular member, instead of the words, "I now have the chair.' The Speaker con- tinues in his place, and the motion of the private member pfc- ed or be. Supposing that there art <>t! motions on the paper, and that there is tine' to d I t, it is 392 ENGLAND. one of the rules of the House that they should not be divided on, the explanation being, that the House has already decided that the question shall be put, that the Speaker shall leave the chair, that it cannot reconsider the decision, and this being impossible, that there is no way of moving an amendment, which is the form technically assumed by every motion on Supply. As the Speaker is the great leviathan of the House of Commons, the incarnation and the tutelary governor of its dignities, rights, and privileges, so the Sergeant-at-Arms is the officer who guards his j^er- sonal majesty — and therefore that of the House — while the clerks, at whom we glanced in our hurried bird's-eye view of the chamber, are his agents and deputies. Though there are only three clerks acfaially sitting at the table of the House of Commons, the staff of House of Commons' clerks includes a great many others. There are indeed no fewer than four distinct offices in the House, each furnished with a clerkly staff numbering some six or seven officials. Of these the first is the Public Bill Office, which receives and exam- ines public Bills, is responsible for correct printing, and the inser- tion of all amendments; the Journal Office sees that the diary of the House of Commons is properly drawn up from the vote; and also by keeping an account of these votes acts as a check on the Treasury; the Committee Office keeps the Minutes, and sends clerks to the Committee. The record of the business of the House of Com- mons actually dispatched is known by the name of Minutes, while the Order Book relates to the impending business; both are in the hands of the clerks. As regards the private Bill procedure, it is the duty of the Private Bill Office to see that these measures are in proper form, and the Speaker's counsel looks through them to see that there is no informality. In addition to the subjects already mentioned are those which come within the province of the private Bill; all questions relating to naturalization and devolution of estate come within its scope. In addition to the Committee on Petitions, there are several other committees which meet periodically during the session. Of these the most popular and the best attended is the Committee on Kitchen and Refreshments, the only one at which members are allowed to smoke, and which meets on Wednesday afternoons when the House of Commons is sitting; though its pro- ceedings only become of any great interest or importance when dis- cussions of an exceptionally stormy character are expected. With the exception of this committee, which meets, as has been said, on Wednesday, these bodies generally assemble on Monday or Thurs- day, Tuesday or Friday. The nomination of members of Parlia- THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. H03 ment to sit on these practically belongs to the undcr-uhips on the two sides. Altogether, there will be probably mtting at the height of the session, from fifteen to twenty committees, many of them being, of course, select ones, to which Bills are referred, and whose deliberations immensely assist the progress of parliamentary business. Canning was called by John Wilson ("Christopher North") "the last of the rhetoricians," and often, since his death, the complaint has been hoard that the art of parliamentary eloquence is extinct; it has been said, "There are long speeches, sarcastic speeches, and crack speeches; but they are not such speeches as fell from the lips of Burke, Pitt, and Fox, or, more recently still, from Canning and Brougham." The truth of this remark may be frankly admitted; let us endeavor to explain the conditions winch may be held to ac- count for the fact. In the first place, it is as unreasonable to expect the oratory of Burke and Pitt, or of Canning and Brougham, in a Parliament elected under household suffrage, as it would be to ex- pect their policy. The policy of an administration depends upon the character of the House of Commons for the time being; bo, too, must the standard of parliamentary oratory. "The grand debate, the popular harangue," which we look for and find in the Georgian era of parliamentary eloquence, existed under a condition of tilings which cannot be recalled at will. Instead of the real opposition be- tween Whig and Tory, at a tune when they differed on fundamental principles, and were perpetually challenging each other on moment- ous issues, that struck at the root of government, we seem to have little more now than the antagonism between the ins and the outs. From the Exclusion Bill to 1714 Whigs and Tories were separated by the disputed succession of a Popish sovereign. Later on, in the days of Lord Melbourne even, there was the controversy between the country gentleman and the commercial class — the former com- plaining that the corruption exercised by the latter upon the Gov- ernment was fatal to the best interests of the realm. From the days of George III. to William IV. Whigs and Tories were mutually dis- tinguished by different views of the royal prerogative. Blor over, the time was eminently calculated to inspire patriots and politicians with great thoughts, and with noble language in which to expr< them. The existence of England as a nation was menaced, and ev< n domestic policy was debated from an imperial standpoint. The sit- uation was full of dignity and danger. Men rose to it unconsciously, and the entire atmosphere was ennobling. When the thirty tyrants at Athens wished to check the liood of Attic eloquence, fchey reven 1 394 ENGLAND. the bema on the Pnn, so that the speaker should no longer catch Ins inspiration from the prospect of the sea, the scene of the greatest Athenian triumphs. This simple historic circumstance remains for all ae - es the symbol of the influence which national spirit must exer- cise over national eloquence. Year after year the tendency asserts itself more and more with the constituencies to send to Parliament I as then representatives men who are rather specialists than states- men. The favored candidate is he who has made a particular study of some particular branch of political or social knowledge; who is master of the whole question of local taxation; who is versed in all the mysteries of poor-law administration; who is conversant with Bank Currency and Consolidated Funds; with drains and sewers; with School Boards and the new Educational Code. And this is in- evitable. The British elector, in showing himself more or less a be- liever in the philosophy of Mr. Graclgrind, is true to the practical spirit of this very practical age. There is little or no scope for the exercise of imagination or the display of taste in the arena of politi- cal discussion. "What the House of Commons has for the most part to consider, is not so much broad questions of policy, or great prob- lems which lie at the root of society and government, as technical points of political economy, and dry and minute details of commer- cial and industrial arrangement. The machine of government has grown terribly complex; its movement is necessarily less rapid. It would be unreasonable to expect from those who regulate it, the rush and vigor of the age of Pitt and Fox. Again, the House of Commons is necessarily, in a sense, the edu- cational miiTor of the nation, and its speakers naturally reflect the dominant intellectual influences of their day. The present age is / one of educational transition. The literary, and above all, the clas- sical hues of the past are being deserted. The expulsion of the Muses from the national curriculum is rapidly becoming an accom- plished fact, and the goddess Scientia is being enthroned in their place. The chief cause of the richness and elegance of the general standard of debate which formerly existed in the Commons was the education which its members received. The groundwork of that education was literary; the intellectual influences, to which they were from the first subjected, was classical. Eloquence and oratory are essentially Greek and Roman arts, and our first statesmen have, without exception, learned them from the Greek and Roman models. The entire atmosphere of the House was suffused, as it were, with a classical aroma. The ablest metaphors, the happiest repartees were drawn from the classical store-house. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 395 But if we have seen the last of the school of literary and classi- cal speakers, there is no reason whatever to anticipate a decline in the debating- power of the popular chamber of the legislature. There may be less of art or artifice, but there is no diminution of vigor, nor is there any slackness of appreciation on the part of the people's representatives of really good speaking. The House of Commons is always profoundly impressed by any thing which strikes them as unlabored and natural. Hence the great success of Mr. Bright's speeches in Parliament as elsewhere ; they are instinct with genuine pathos, a pathos which is dependent not merely on the wonderful simplicity of the language itself, but on the tone and manner of the speaker. On the other hand, there is nothing which the House of Commons objects to more than the assumption of infallibility on the part of any of its members. The House is in this, as in many other things, a reflection of the most strongly pronounced traits in our national character. The feelings which dominate the public school, the regiment, the college, the profession, and any other society of Englishmen of whatever age, are also those which are represented in the House of Commons. Simplicity, directness, business-like dis- j>atch — all these are qualities eminently valuable in the eyes of members of Parliament. There is no reproach greater than that of exaggerated self-sufficiency to be brought against one of the re- presentatives of the people. Just as the House dislikes above every thing the man who shows that he is free from any kind of doubt or scruple upon every subject, so also does it show the sentiment of its dislike in an unmistakable manner. The stubborn member who will not yield to its collective will when indubitably expressed, the mem- ber who speaks with the affectation of dogmatic certainty on all sub- jects, the member who is under the influence of strong animosities, members who have bad tempers, or who are without the gift of con- cealing them, usually fail in parliamentary life. It must always be recollected that English politics are free from that acerbity which infuses the venom of bitterness into the political life of France, and that political differences do not operate as any bar to personal good-will. / CHAPTER XXIII. THE HOUSE OF LORDS. Reasons for treating the House of Lords after the House of Commons — Reasons ■why the Proceedings of the Peers have latterly increased in Interest and Importance — Class of Questions in which the House of Lords from its Composition is specially competent to instruct the Public — General Re- lations between the Two Houses— Legislative Activity of the Lords — Difficulties of Young Peers — The House of Lords in Action — Inside the House — Points of Difference from Commons — The Whips — Questions — Progress of Debate — General Conduct of Business — Questions of Possible Reforms — Future of Parliament. F considerations of dignity, and of fidelity to the letter of the Constitution had influenced us, we should not have given pri- ority of treatment to the House of Commons over the House of Lords. But our object is to show the British Constitution actually at work, not to analyze its component parts in a state of quiescence. The practical business of Parliament is to maintain the government and to legislate. Neither can be done apart from the House of Commons; and if that House has made up its mind on which way either the one or the other task is to be accomplished, it may be predicted with certainty that the House of Lords will eventually shape its course accordingly. But to say this is not to imply that in its own particular sphere the House of Lords is subordinated to the House of Commons. As a matter of fact, since IS 74 an unusu- ally large number of national measures have originated in the chamber of our hereditary legislators; it has been the scene of many debates of great moment and of rare excellence; it has wit- nessed the rise and develojnnent of one or two parliamentary repu- tations on a more striking scale than the House of Commons has known. The statesmanship, the oratory, the wisdom, and the de- bating power of the Peers will compare favorably with the best standard of the Commons. It was Sir Robert Peel's opinion that the statesman primarily responsible for the conduct of Her Maj- esty's Government could not possibly discharge all the duties of THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 397 his position in the House of Commons; and in an address which ho delivered in August, 1876, at Aylesbury, Lord Beaconsfield may bo said to have indorsed and emphasized ibis verdict of his ancient foe. Further, there is the noticeable fact that half of the Select Committee known as the Cabinet, which initiates the legislation of the country, and on whose conduct the fate of the Government and parties depend, have seats in the House of Lords. The Ministry formed in 1874 has, in fact, been extremely weak in debating re- sources and rhetorical capacity in the House of Commons, and ab- normally strong in the House of Lords. This is exactly the reverse of the Conservative situation thirty years ago, when Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, was summoned in the life-time of his father to the Upper House, to reinforce and to inspire the enfeebled and dispirited Tories. Again, the character of the debates in which the House of Lords has been principally engaged has been favorable to the display of those peculiar qualities which secure a strong influence for the Peers over public opinion. Knowledge is power, and where knowledge is authority is sure to drift. To address the House of Lords on cer- I tain questions is to address a jury of experts. Not only is there represented in that House all the matured wisdom and ripe experi- ence of the Commons, added to all that is most characteristic of the traditions, pride, and prejudice of the peerage: among those who take their place in the ranks of our hereditary legislators are men who have controlled important dependencies of the Empire of Great Britain, and who have acquired an. insight, by long residence in for- eign capitals, into the diplomatic secrets of European Cabinets, and into the hidden tendencies of the popular will — former and future ambassadors, the governors of important colonies, generals who have held the highest military commands, viceroys who have ad- ministered our Indian possessions, in comparison with which the British Isles are but as a speck in the ocean; these, to say nothing of men who have been steeped in the atmosphere of statesmanship and office from their infancy, are prominent in the Peers' assembly during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.* Hence, seeing * It is further to be noticed that the principal leaders of debate in the House of Commons are now— more than formerly— transferred to the House of Lor.! ;. Thus the two front benches of the House of Lords in 1879 number among tin ir occupants the former Mr. Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), Mr. Gathorne Hardy (Lord Cranbrook\ Sir Roundell Palmer (Lord Selbornc), Mr. Bruce (Lord Abcr- dare), Mr. Card well (Lord Cardwell)— all of them formerly parliamentary 1 ers in the Commons. 393 ENGLAND. that in the past few years foreign policy has been a conspicuous theme in Pailiamentary debate, the proceedings of the House of Lords have acquired a new interest and importance. Granting that the average of rhetorical skill in both Houses is pretty nearly equal, the average of superior merit is higher in the Peers than in the Commons. Further, the speeches made in the House of Lords have not only been often better than those made in the House of Com- mons, they have often been better reported; first, because as a rule they are shorter; secondly, because they are, as a rule, delivered much earlier. Only on three occasions since the Reform Bill of 1832 has there been am- appearance or danger of a collision be- tween the two Houses of Parliament. The first of these was in 1860. On May 21st, the House of Lords had thrown out the Bill for the remission of the paper tax by a majority of 89. The Oppo- sition was successfully led by the venerable Lord Lyndhurst, who, on his 81st birthday, spoke with all the eloquence and acumen which had made him famous half a century before. The question was whether the Peers had a right to reject a money Bill. It was admitted that thev had no ri^ht so to amend a monev Bill as to change the amount or incidence of taxation in any degree. On the other hand, it was shown by Lord Lyndhurst that the right now claimed by the Peers of rejection had been exercised before, and was logically implied in the discussion by the House of Lords of such legislation. These arguments were not replies to the conten- tion that it was inexpedient to assert the privilege, and as is gener- ally the case when a consideration of technical legality arises, the controversy was ultimately decided, not by the division in the House of Lords, but on the broad grounds of constitutional policy and pru- dence. The matter was first relegated to a committee, and then settled by Lord Palmerston's resolutions of July 5th, 1860. It is only necessary to mention by name the two other instances in which differences between the House of Lords and Commons have menaced a legislative deadlock. Of these the former occurred when the Bill for the abolition of the Irish Church debate was going through Par- liament in 186S, the Peers ultimately giving way. The latter took place three years later, when then lordships rejected the Bill for the abolition of army purchase. Since then, unless, indeed, it be during the first and second sessions of the Parliament elected in 1874, when the Public Worship Bill — so far as concerned the ques- tion whether the discretionary power should be vested in the bish- ops, or only in the archbishops — and the Appellate Jurisdiction Bill, respectively, underwent considerable modification at the instance of THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 399 the Lords, there has been no hitch in the amicable relations of tlio two Houses. The legislative activity of the House of Lords has also been noticeable since 1874. The Public Worship Bill in 1874, and the Judicature Act in 1875, both owed their parentage to our hered- itary legislators, and in the following year, the Oxford Reform Bill first saw the light in front of the woolsack, and was the occasion of one of the most noteworthy speeches of the session from the Arch- bishop of Canterbury. It is to be noticed also that the recent debates in the House of Lords have not only been in many cases of a high order of excel- lence, but that they have introduced to public attention a larger proportion of capable candidates for political eminence compara- tively, if not absolutely, than has been observed in the House of Commons elected in 1873. This is the more remarkable, seeing that the number of those who habitually take part in parliamentary debate is much smaller in the House of Lords than in the House of Commons. In the latter, the total may perhaps, roughly speaking, be fifty, in the former it is probably not more than fifteen. Fur- ther, difficult as it may be for a young and untried man to get the ear of the House of Commons, that difficulty is very much greater in the House of Lords. The young peer rises full of suppressed fire and enthusiasm, to meet with as chilling a reception as a well- bred audience can give. He is ignored; he is silenced by a general undertone of conversation; or he finds that he is defeated by the peculiar acoustic qualities of the chamber in which he essays to speak. It is a different thing if he belongs to a family traditionally famous in parliamentary annals. If he is a Duke of Richmond, a Marquis of Salisbury, an Earl of Derby, Carnarvon, or Clarendon, or the representative of any other great political house, he will be sure of attention. But at all times the sphere of active statesman- ship in the House of Lords has conformed to the conditions of a close borough, and unknown aspirants to parliamentary fame have not been encouraged, and have proclaimed their ambition only to insure collapse. That this tradition has to a great extent been broken through in the course of the past year must be partly per- haps ascribed to the circumstance that the House of Lords lias sig- nally ceased to be under the domination of one or two individuals, and thus for the present the paralyzing influences which such a re- gime naturally exercises upon the rest of its members have pas i 1 away. Its ruling spirits, of course, assert themselves. But nothing like the dictatorship which, in times past, Lord Thurlow, Lord El- don, the Duke of "Wellington, and Lord Lyndhurst exercised, can 400 ENGLAND. now be found. There is undoubtedly a growing tendency among their lordships to give the rising talent of their House a chance, and this tendency has already had the happiest results. For the purpose of acquiring a general view of the House of Lords, its chief members, and the manner in which business is con- ducted therein, perhaps it will be permitted to ask the reader to accompany us thither in imagination, on any afternoon during the session. It is essential that the weather should be fine, for the Peers' Chamber is dependent upon the beams of the sun for its picturesqueness of effect. It is five o'clock, and in another place — the House of Commons — work has been going on for three-quarters of an hour. Most of the gentlemen strolling- through St. James's Park in the direction of Palace Yard, or dismounting from carriage and horse, there or at the entrance to St. Stephen's from the side of Poets' Corner, are peers, and from then' number it may be inferred that an interesting or inrportant debate is expected. The House is beginning gradually to fill as the visitor takes his seat, not behind the bar, nor in front of the House — positions the best for the pur- poses of hearing, but the worst for purposes of vision — but in the front row of the strangers' gallery. The afternoon sun pours in through the painted windows, illuminating the gilding of the decora- tions and bathing in luster the green carpet with its prince's feath- ers of gold, and the crimson morocco of the benches. If there is something barbaric in the hues and patterns, there is some effect of historic dignity in the statues of the famous founders of noble houses which adorn the niches in the wall, and under which are in- scribed names immortalized in our national history. On each side of the chamber, save the side allotted to reporters, is the Peeresses' gallery— that structure against which Lord Redesdale so emphatic- ally protested, on the ground that it would make the House of Lords like a casino. If gay dresses can produce this result there is cer- tainly some danger of Lord Redesdale's apprehension being fulfilled. Given only fine weather and an attractive debate, and the Peeresses' gallery will be a parterre of elaborate and multicolored toilettes, rivaling in their resplendent variety the innumerable tints which the decorative taste of Barry has impressed upon the architecture of the fabric. It is not only in these respects — sumptuous ornamentation, the presence of ladies, full in the sight of assembled legislators — that the interior of the House of Lords presents such a contrast to the House of Commons. There is an air of agreeable abandon in the mien and behavior of their lordships. The countenances of the mem- ! THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 401 bers of the House of Commons have for the most pari, a 1 ok of anxiety or preoccupation. They enter their chamber like men op- pressed with the consciousness of responsibility, burdened by a despotism of immutable laws and rigid etiquette. There is nothing of the sort in the House of Lords — no painful evidence of the thrall- dom of ceremonial rules or customs, or of the ruthless sacrifice of pleasure to duty. The whole atmosphere is redolent of well-bred nonchalance and aristocratic repose. For instance, there is in theory a Speaker of the House of Lords, called though he always is the ( !han- cellor, just as there is a Speaker of the House of Commons; but the functions of the two are separated by a gulf which is conclusive as to the difference of their relative positions, and also as to the spirit in which the business of the two Houses is conducted. The Speaker of the House of Commons is something more than primus inter pare*. For the time being he is regarded as of a nature different from, and superior to the honorable gentlemen by whom he is surrounded. Though there is nothing which the House of Commons likes better than a personal encounter, or a vituperative duel between any two members, there is nothing approaching to disrespect to the gentle- man who is the first commoner in England — the custodian and em- bodiment of its privileges — that it will tolerate. The Speaker of the House of Commons is, in fact, the Commissioner-in-Chief of the privileges and prerogatives of the House of Commons — whom the House has agreed to make the depositary of its ceremonial interests. To the Lord Chancellor no such trust has been delivered, the Peers are a self-governed body, the preservers of their own " order,"' and the protectors of their own privileges. Though the keeper of the Queen's conscience may sit enthroned in majesty on the woolsack, he is not fenced round by a divinity sufficient to deter noble lords from lounging indolently at half-length upon its well-padded sides. Save for the dignity of his garb the Chancellor might be nothing 'more than the usher of the court; unlike the Speaker in the House of Commons, his lordship does not decide who shall have priority. When more than one peer rises, their lordships keep order for them- selves; the Chancellor has not even a casting-vote when the numbers in a division are equal, and his only strictly presidential duty is to put the question, and read the titles of measures. On the other hand, he is the direct representative of royalty on all occasions when the Sovereign communicates with Parliament, and he is the repre- sentative official mouth-piece of the House of Peers when they hoi 1 intercourse with public bodies, or individuals outside. It is rare to find more than a third of the sittings of the House of Lords occu- f 402 ENGLAND. pied. There is no need for members, as in the House of Commons, to come down a couple of hours before the business of the day begins, and bespeak a place for themselves by affixing a card. All is calm; there is no haste, no rude competition, no uncere- monious jostling. It is five minutes past five, and Lord Cairns has taken his seat upon the woolsack. The proceedings of their lord- ships begin with what, to the spectator from the gallery, is merely a dumb show. The Chancellor rises, repeats a cabalistic formula, which is in effect the titles of the measures that are not opposed — private Bills, and so forth — and after having murmured, in tones au- dible to few but himself, some twenty times, that the " contents have it," sits down, and waits for his colleagues on the ministerial bench, or his noble opponents on the Opposition bench, to commence. Independently of the condition of the galleries, and the space be- fore the throne and in front of the bar, behind the iron benches at the opposite end of the House, there are other signs which will ac- quaint the visitor whether a keen debate or important division is expected. If it is he will notice that the parliamentary clerk, who stands a little in front, and to the right of the entrance on the left side of the throne, is particularly busy in writing down on a tab- let which he carries in his hands the name of every peer whom he can see. He will also notice that a gentleman of pleasant ajypear- ance and polished address is particularly active in saluting noble lords as they come into the chamber, or after they have taken their seats. Presently the same gentleman hurriedly commits a number of names to paper, under the heading C. and N. C, not before he has first conferred with the above-named parliamentary clerk for the purpose of verifying his catalogue, standing a little aloof, smooth- ing with his hand, at intervals during the process, his flowing beard. At last his task is over. He completes his calculation with a smile of satisfaction, and walks leisurely up to the Government leader in the House of Lords to whisper a few words in his ear. The Govern- ment leader is for the time the President of the Council, and his friend and coUeague is the saost popular and assiduous ministerial "whip" ever known in then lordships' House. Meanwhile minis- ters are answering the few questions to which in the House of Lords they are ever called upon to respond. The curious feature in the collective hfe of the House of Lords at the present moment is that no one seems to care for what his neighbor is doing or saving. The Chancellor is writing a note on his knee. The Primate is talking to an archdeacon whom he has introduced into the House on the left of the Episcopal Bench. The Lord President of the Council is THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 403 strolling into the lobby. The leader of the Opposition is (batting to a noble duke who sits immediately behind him. But after a while the preliminaries come to an end, and then, if there is to be a real debate, and not merely a discursive conversation, the debate begins. It is not to be supposed that the debate itself will be wanting either in interest or excitement. The speeches, whatever the Bubject may be, which are most successful, and which elicit the greatest manifestations of applause, are to all intents and purposes House of Commons' speeches, yet the interest attaching to the discussion is of a kind entirely different from that attaching to debates in the Lower Chamber of the legislature. There is no widely diffused sense of the collective wisdom of the assemblage; the object is not to know 7 what the House wdll say, but what particular members of the House will say. The attraction is found rather in the individuals than in the institution, whereas it is just the reverse of this which holds true in the case of the House of Commons. It may, indeed, ahnost be said that the fame of a few illustrious peers eclipses the prestige of the assembly in which they sit, and though the House of Peers ow T es much of its power and influence to the fact that its mem- bers have then* seats there by right of birth, it is not, and it never has been, a house where the most influential members are the great- est noblemen. Here there is at work, as elsewhere in our constitu- tion, that subtly democratizing tendency which is yet such a guar- antee of the stability of our aristocratic system. The vote and speech of the biggest duke do not, because of the accident of the ducal dig- nity, carry more weight than that of the viscount or baron. It is true that, as has been already said, there is in the House of Lords a sort of imperium in imperio, and that the rank and file of the mem- bers do not as a rule actively take part in the proceedings. But when once the critic comes to the charmed circle he will find that its most important members are those of the highest political aptitude. All this tune the reader has been kept waiting on the threshold of the actual discussion. Under the strangers' gallery, immediately opposite the semicircular space where the throne is, and which is reserved for Privy Councilors and the sons of peers, is an oblong inclosure, also railed oil', which is known as the bar. Hither press a mixed throng of members of the House of Commons and visitors from outside, for an important discussion is expected, and it may even be that their lordships will stoop to personalities. The de- bate begins with dignity, and, save for the voice of the speaker, with silence. There are few cries of " hear, hear," there are fewer cheers. The orator may be the Prime Minister himself, but his au- 404 ENGLAND. dience succeed in presenting an appearance of comparative indiffer- ence. One noble lord transacts as much as he can of his private and official correspondence, leaning forward to the table ever and anon to dip his pen in the ink; another beats time to an imaginary melody with his fingers on his knees; a third lapses into seeming somnolence; a fourth, and he, perhaps, the most keenly interested of all, folds his arms and sits unmoved and immovable, to all out- ward seeming, as granite. This state of things lasts for some little time, until, indeed, either the present or some subsequent speaker touches upon a theme which at once lets loose the bitter waters of party or personal strife. Some inrputation has been made, and an explanation is demanded; it is given, it is not satisfactory, and thus the wrangle continues. But these effervescences are of very excep- tional occurrence, and, indeed, it is rare when any debate in the Lords takes place which is not concluded before the dinner-hour. More than one proposal has recently been made that the House of Lords should meet earlier and rise later, and there are signs of a growing appetite for work at the present time among the Peers. Momentous questions of foreign policy will perhaps never be the subject of general debate, but it is pointed out that there are a host of matters connected with army reform, local government, railway business, and a variety of matters connected with domestic adminis- tration on which many noblemen who are now systematically silent might make themselves periodically heard, and might, by speaking on these matters, acquire a valuable parliamentary training. As matters are, it is part of the duty of lords in waiting to do regular work in a Government office during the tenure of their posts, and I consequently these officials are no longer the mere ornaments of a Court that they once Avere. Why, it has been asked, should not the number of these aj)pointments with their corresponding obligations be increased, and if that step prove impracticable, why should not some sort of occupation be found? It must, however, be remem- bered that their lordships accomjnish a great deal more work now than meets the public eye. The House of Lords, too, has, like the House of Commons, its own elaborate system of private Bill legisla- tion, and attendance at select committees is quite as much the duty of the hereditary as of the elective legislator. Whenever any of the proposals which have been made above are suggested, the answer is that there is already experienced a great difficulty in insuring an adequate attendance of members on these select committees. The powers which may be exercised by the Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords are so extensive and even absolute that no com- THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 405 panson in this respect between the two assemblies is possible. The present holder of the office in the Peers — the Earl of Redesdale — may be also described as a sort of constitution in himself. Th is a more specific difference between Ihe procedure of the select committees of the House of Commons and select committees of the House of Lords, that in the former case, whereas the public are, as a rule, admitted, from the latter they are, with few exceptions,' excluded. Between the rides and the routine of the two Chambers of tho legislature there is a general resemblance. The quorum of the i Upper House is not forty, but three. At the table of the House are seated the three clerks, as in the case of the House of Commons, who take down minutes of the proceedings and receive all notices of motion. Much greater laxity prevails as to the rules regulating the asking of questions in the Lords than in the Commons. Ques- tions are very often asked by members of the Opposition of the Government, or by one peer of another, with a notice that would be deemed inadequate in the Commons, or, j)Ossibly, without any notice at all. Nor, although it is prohibited to mention by name in the course of a debate any peer, has that rule been as rigidly adhered to in the Peers during the last few years as in the Commons. Here, as in the Commons, all proposals submitted to the House resolve themselves into questions asked of the Speaker, which have to be answered in the negative or affirmative. But in the House of Lords the "ayes" are spoken of as the "contents," and the "noes" as the "non-contents." The maimer of taking a division resembles, since effect was given to certain changes made on the motion of the late Lord Stanhope, that adopted in the Commons. The lobbies on the right and left of the House, after having been cleared of stran- gers, are guarded with locked doors; two tellers are appointed for ,' each party; the contents going into the right lobby and the non- contents into the left, and as they return into the House the voles are counted and are announced to the Lord Chancellor or to the Speaker of the House, who is, of course, the chairman, if the divi- sion has taken place in committee. In this general review of the House of Lords, as it at present exists, two or three facts prominently stand forth. In the first pla while the House of Lords is an assembly representative of great interests, high intellectual excellence, success and prosperity, and all the qualities which command success and prosperity, it retains its aristocratic prestige unimpaired. Secondly, valuable as its dis- cussions always are on critical and complicated themes of imperial 406 ENGLAND. policy, mature and finished as is the quality of its statesmanship, there is a definite promise of more legislative activity and influence among its rising members. Eence in a democratic age, it is gain- ing rather than losing power, and, although the traditions and habits of aristocratic dependence have disappeared, it is felt that an aristo- cratic hereditary legislature, which does its work well, stands on unassailable ground. The very fact that the functions of the House of Lords are critical rather than constructive, while it gives their lordships less opportunity of national display, increases their capa- cities for national usefulness. It is also to the House of Lords, rather than to the House of Commons, that we must look to pre- serve the standard of English statesmanship and English parliament- ary speaking. Incompetent speakers there doubtless are among the peers, but they perhaps break silence less often than in the House of Commons. As for the best of the regular speakers, their utter- ances are seldom without two merits — lucidity and compression. As a corrective to the diffuseness and obscurity which are the bane of the House of Commons' rhetoricians, the speeches in the House of Lords would alone be of extreme value. A few words remain to be said on the relation in which the House of Lords stands to the two great parties in the State. Whereas there are few respects in which the stanch Liberal would advocate reform in our second Chamber, the Conservative would not deny that then lordships' House might submit to several modi- fications with advantage. Thus there are many Conservatives in favor of the creation of life-peers; but, with two exceptions, it is exceedingly doubtfrd how far the representative Liberal would be in favor 01 any reform at all in then lordships' body. These ex- ceptions are the disqualification of bishops to sit in the Peers, and the introduction of the ilinority Yote into the election of Scotch and Irish representative peers; the former would be hailed by Lib- eralism as a step towards, and as involving the principle of, the dis- establishment of the English Church; the second, as a guarantee that the representative lords of Leland and Scotland woidd be, in some cases, Liberals. For the rest, the Liberal politician would oppose reform of the House of Lords for the same reasons that the Conservative would advocate it; such a measure, the former would contend, must strengthen and not weaken the influence of a second Chamber, whereas a certain phase of Liberalism is pretty generally opposed to the existence of any second Chamber at all. The House of Lords, argues the Liberal, is quite strong enough as matters are, and exercises a sufficiently sinister force upon the course of legislation THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 407 That the influence of the House of Lords upon the deliberations! and the Acts of Parliament is, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a very real thing, there can be no doubt. But it is nol ex- ercised in the old way, nor is ii exercised in the manner which some persons may alone imagine to be possible. Such collisions between the two Houses as those which took place over the Reform Hill in 1832, or in the matter of the repeal of the paper duty, arc no, to come again. So far as the course of legislation is concern d, once it has commenced, the authority of the Peers is rather seen, as lias been said, in the revision of the edicts of the Commons than in the thwarting of them. But there is a great deal of authority exer- cised which does not come before the public- at all. The real influ- ence of their lordships is invisible rather than visible. They prevent certain measures being introduced quite as much as they control them when introduced. "Whatever may be the case with the coun- try, the Conservative party are always sure to have an overwhelming majority amongst the Peers. Hence, it is always theoretically possi- ble for the Upper House to reject any measure passed by the Lower House which may offend the prejudices of Conservatism. A Liberal Cabinet, we may suppose, meditates the introduction of a Bill which is considered fatally to affect some great Conservative interest; their lordships get wind of the proposal, and politely, but firmly, hint that it will not do. What is, or, at least, what may be the conse- quence? The measure is either shelved or else watered down to such an extent that its drastic powers disappear. Further, it must always be remembered that the solid and sub- stantial interests of a majority of the Whig aristocracy are, in their essence, identical with those of the Tory peers. Our British nobl. exists upon a basis of landed property. Nothing which does not strike at these exclusive territorial privileges can seriously impair the position of the Conservative peer; nothing which does so strike at them can be acceptable to the Whigs. Again, there are certain constitutional rights, the collective possession of the House of Lords, in whose preservation Whigs and Tories are equally interested. A few years ago, when it was proposed to rob their lordships of their judicial powers, a great Tory nobleman, who was in the habit of holding weekly a lodge at his private house — the gentlemen attend- ing which made it their special business t<> watch current or expect- ed legislation in the interests of Conservatism rallied round him at the critical moment the support not only of the peers of his own party, but of many who on ordinary occasions were opposed to him. So strong was this combination of noblemen, taking their stand upon 498 ENGLAND. the common ground of the privileges of nobility, that the Lord Chancellor of the day was compelled to surrender those clauses of a measure which would have transferred the judicial attributes of their lordships to u committee. The Lords and Commons may still look at matters from a differ- ent point of view, but they do not parade their quarrels as they formerly did. Their disputes have ceased to take place in public, and all that the public knows of the dispute is the result born of diplomatic negotiation and compromise. Now, compromise beyond a certain point is the one thing which the thorough-going Liberal disapproves, and hence his natural dislike of a House of Lords, or of any second Chamber at all. In the natural antagonism, some- times suppressed, at others openly asserted, between the principles of Liberalism and the House of Lords, niay be seen the reason why all Liberal administrations are likely to be less long-lived than Conservative. Between a Conservative Government and a House of Lords there is an open and durable alliance ; between a Liberal administration and a House of Lords there is constantly present the probability of feud. Sooner or later the elements of strife assert themselves, the water begins to be troublesome, and the foundering of the ship is imminent. In 18G9 the Liberal majority in the House of Commons could have carried absolute fixity of tenure in the Lish Land Act, but it was known that the House of Lords, as an assem- blage of landowners, would not submit to such a clause, and it was consequently deemed impracticable to pursue the idea. So far as the political and constitutional future of England is concerned, there are two prophecies which may be made without incurring the charge of rashness proverbially attendant on predic- tion. It can scarcely be doubted that when household suffrage is given, as sooner or later it is sure to be, to country voters, the entire as£>ect of party politics will be materially altered. For the first time in the parliamentary history of England it is possible that even in the representation of counties — -those strongholds of Toryism — the Liberals would command an absolute majority. This majority would enable Liberal statesmanship to proceed in a more daring spirit, and to attempt to realize bolder and more sweeping conceptions than it has yet ventured to do. "What actual use would be made of this opportunity, what practical result the possibility would yield, must be matter of opinion. There are those who hold that the latent revolutionary instincts of the English people would display them- selves without disguise, and that we should at once enter upon a new order of subversive legislative enterprise. On the other hand, THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 409 there will be those who, giving their due weight to the facta and illustrations which have been produced elsewhere in this work, and recollecting that the political life of Englishmen is not dis- tinct from their social life; that the influences which leaven the masses are not democratic but aristocratic, or as aristocratic as the plutocratic agencies at work will allow; that there is no im- passable gulf fixed between one class and another, and that admi- ration for rank almost seems innate in the English breast — there are those Avho bearing these circumstances in mind, will hold that household suffrage in counties will bring us no nearer to revolution than did the Reform Bill of 1832, which, it was ominously predicted at the time, by alarmist prophets would be quickly followed by a reign of terror. These are questions which the reader must decide for himself. One other point there is on which a definite opinion may be ex- pressed. It is conceivable that in years to come events may occur tending in the direction of a very grave strife between the privileged classes and the multitude on property in land. But imagine the most disastrous contingency that can possibly be realized, a strife that should practically culminate in civil war. How would this af- fect the tenure of the Crown? The Crown would certainly have nothing to gain by flinging its influence into the scale of the aris- tocracy, and it w T ould certainly have much to lose if the aristocracy were beaten. Probably there is no practical politician living who holds that any political conjuncture at home is likely to present itself which can seriously jeopardize the existence of the monarchy. M a Nero or Caligula were to come to the throne, possibly there would be more than danger; there might be certainty of overthrow. But these are not the monsters which the atmosphere of royalty in the nineteenth century develops. Follies and extravagances we indeed may have, and it is perhaps more reasonable to anticipate the theat- rical wantonness of a Louis of Bavaria than the portentous eccen- tricities of the most debased of the Caesars, or even the attempted personal government of the last of the Hanoverian kings. It is not jjossible to conceive of the English monarchy as perishing except amid a universal cataclysm.* A colossal European war, followed by grinding taxation, the total loss of our carrying trade at the hands * A distingiiished statesman writes to me as follows on the opinion expressed in the text:— "This, I admit, a fair and reasonable view; but I can easily con- ceive another alternative, and one quite as probable. The ordinary progress of modern democracy might silently and gradually absorb the monarchy into a presidency without cataclysm or even struggle." 410 ENGLAND. of privateers scouring the high seas, the consequent deprivation of industry and livelihood to thousands of our population which this loss would imply, the blocking up of the channels of emigration, at- tended perhaps by the secession or the conquest of some of our most important colonies, a population overgrown, starving and des- perate, pent up within the narrow limits of the United Kingdom — this is a combination of calamities which might indeed provoke a movement fatal to the English monarchy; but before that went every thing else would have gone. The Crown would not perish singly, and on the day that it ceased to exist as an institution the structure of English society would be in danger of falling to pieces. It is only upon the fulfillment of some such hypothesis as this, and not as a consequence of any national fit of political discontent, however deep or long, that the destruction of the monarchy can present itself as a contingency that need be reckoned with. CHAPTER XXIV. THE LAW COURTS. The Policeman — Police Courts — Committal— Quarter Sessions — Grand Jury — ■ Trial of Indictment — Court of Crown Cases — High Court — Writ— Sheriff's Court — Pleadings — Law and Equity — Judges' Chambers — Interrogatories — Trial of Action — Divisional Court — Court of Appeal — Supreme Court— House of Lords — County Courts — Judgment Summonses — Appeal from County Courts — Courts Spiritual — The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. TO a vast number of law-obeying and law-protected Englishmen and women the only visible embodiment of the law under 1 which they live is the police constable. He is the outermost wheel in the great and complicated mechanism which is charged with the duty of maintaining the broad outline of social relations. Fortunate- ly, he is himself a very simple legal unit, being little more than one of the people put into a blue uniform, his figure improved by drill, and his intelligence sharpened by experience in applying mi emer- gencies a few plain rules. In England he is not, as in other coun- tries, much under the control of the central Government, being ap- pointed and regulated by county justices, or the local authority of a borough. He is, in fact, the servant of the people and of the law. Stationed in a country village, he is looked up to as an oracle, and in the crowded courts and alleys of a town, where from want of el- bow-room much friction of the social machine occurs, he is often the needful arbitrator and peacemaker. In this character he may be considered a legal tribunal of the very first instance. Apart from the visible presence of the police constable, the law is hardly realized until it is broken. Like the air, it is always above and around us, but is not fully valued until withdrawn ( 'antabit mus coram latrone viator; but eveiy one who carries about him what is worth stealing is constantly in need of the protection of the law. Viator may pass half a life-time without knowing any thing of the actual working of his omnipresent protector, yet one day he may be looking into a shop-window and feel a tug at his watch. 412 ENGLAND. The instinct of self-protection makes him seize the man standing near, who, he believes, has it. Then he remembers the police con- stable, and at once the law becomes to him a real existence. A po- liceman arrives, and the first thing he does after hearing what has happened is to ask, " Do you give him in charge ? " Viator thinks he cannot be mistaken; there was only one other person before the shop-window besides himself and the man in question, and that per- son has disappeared. On the other hand, the captive is loud in his protestations. He is an honest man, one Latro, a French-polisher, who lives in Furcifer Street. He is as innocent as the babe unborn. Let them search him, and if he has the gentleman's watch, he will say no more. This flood of eloquence a little puzzles Viator, but it seems to have little effect on the constable, and Latro is given in charge. The law has now been fairly set in motion, and we shall see what happens next. The constable and Latro start together to the police-station, and Viator is desired to follow. Here they find an inspector of police, who enters the charge in the station records. Latro is searched and no watch is found on him, but meanwhile a constable has gone round to Furcifer Street, and no Latro is known at the address, nor any French-polisher. Prosecutor, constable, and prisoner there- upon jn'oceed to the police court, and we now first find ourselves in a court of law. The magistrate is seated, without official dress, at a desk placed in front of a small library of law books. He is a lawyer, of the class called stipendiary magistrates, who, in places wbere the magisterial work is arduous, are commonly substituted for the Petty Sessions, that is to say, two or more country gentle- men, or it may be aldermen, who, without salary, exercise the same jurisdiction as the stipendiary in districts where the business is lighter. Opposite to the magistrate, and at the end of a table, at which there are seats for the lawyers, is the dock, inclosed with an iron rail; and at the other end of the table, under the magistrate, sits the clerk of the court, whose duty it is to take notes of the evi- dence. The magistrate is just finishing his list of " night charges," and the latest claimants for justice must wait their turn. Cases of drunkenness are visited with a fine of some shillings, or in the al- ternative a few days' imprisonment. Then there are cases of vio- lence. A husband has been beating his wife and the wife, having given him into custody, now begs earnestly for his release. In an- other case the assault is very grievous, and the husband has drawn so often on the wife's forbearance that the fund is exhausted. The magistrate orders a separation, under a statute passed in the year THE LAW COURTS. 413 1878, so that the wife is acquitted of her matrimonial misadventure, although to allow her to marry again is beyond magisterial jurisdic- tion. After these charges there is a prisoner who lias been caught in the act of attempted robbery during the day. His offense, being the first, is sufficiently punished by four months' imprisonment. It was but an hour ago that the law was broken, and its vindication has been speedy. At length Latro is put into the dock, and is for I the first time a little abashed by the scrutinizing glance of the jailer in court. Viator is sworn as a witness, and details his mishap. The policeman is sworn also, and proof is given that the prisoner's ad- dress was false. But the evidence, although suspicious, is not suf- ficient, as Viator did not see his watch taken, and no watch has been found. Then the magistrate asks, "Is any thing known of the man? " . and the jailer replies that he thinks he is known; whereupon a re- mand is ordered, and Latro is locked up. Interested in what are to him novel proceedings, Viator remains a short time in court. He hears an affiliation order made for the payment of five shillings a week by the father of the child ; and a summons against a licensed victualer for Sunday trading dismissed, on the ground that the person served was a bona fide traveler, and therefore legitimately thirst}*. There are besides cross-summonses with most conflicting evidence for assaults and a case of burglary depending entirely on circumstantial evidence adjourned from a previous sitting. Finally Viator goes away leaving the magistrate painfully unraveling a charge of commercial fraud. A clay or two later Viator is required again at the station to see whether he can identify the man who ran away when his watch was stolen, as the police think they have found him. He is taken into a room where there are seven or eight men, and among them he recognizes the eloper. A description of the watch had been inserted in the Police Gazette, and information had been obtained that the watch was offered in pawn by a woman who turned out to be the wife of the man now identified. The watch was found in his house, and both he and the man already in custody have been previously convicted of stealing. The evidence is now complete, and when all concerned go before the magistrate, both prisoners are committed to take their trial before a jury, as the magistrate has no power 1 1 1 ( dispose summarily of such repeated offenders. The offense was not committed within the district of the Central Criminal Court, so that the prisoners must be tried either at the Assizes when the judge comes round on circuit, or at the Quarter Sessions, which have power to try most criminal cases except burglary and murder. 414 ENGLAND. The sessions take place first, and accordingly the prisoners are com- mitted for trial at that Court. On the Bench of the Quarter Sessions we find a county magnate by wav of Chairman, with another magistrate on each side of him. Neither of the three is a lawyer or has had any legal training, but they administer justice gratuitously, with the assistance of the Clerk of the Peace, who is a salaried lawyer occupying no mean position in the county. The Quarter Sessions sat yesterday in a numerous body to administer the business of the county in respect of bridges, police, and the like, and to-day they meet for judicial purposes. The first business is to charge the Grand Jury. They are gentle- men of the county and respectable yeomen, although of a lower social rank than at the Assizes, where the Grand Jury are reinforced by men of the class who now sit on the Bench. The Grand Jurors, some twenty in all, are sworn, standing in a gallery at one side of the Court, and the Chairman proceeds to charge them by referring shortly to the cases in the calendar of criminals, and telling them that if they think there is sufficient evidence to make it proper for the case to be tried they ought to find a true bill. The Grand Jury then retire to their room, for then - sittings are held in private, and they are bound not to disclose then- deliberations. In due course Viator and the other witnesses in his case are summoned into the Grand Jury room, and tell their story shortly to the Grand Jury. After a time the Grand Jury reappear in their gallery, the foreman carrying several pieces of parchment in his hand. These are handed down to the Clerk of the Peace, who sits under the Bench for the purpose of giving the magistrates legal advice. The Clerk of the Peace looks at the back of each document to see what the Grand Jurors have there certified under the hand of their foreman. "Gen- tlemen of the Grand Jury, you find a true bill against Latro and another for larceny from the person." The foreman bows, and thus the "bill," which had been prepared in legal form for the Grand Jury's authorization, becomes the " indictment," or formal charge upon which the prisoners will be tried. It is some time before Viator's case comes on for trial, and he wanders into the second court. This court is a dujxlicate of the other, but as it has no Grand Jury to charge it takes in hand some of the civil and appellate cases which come before the Quarter Ses- sions. Permission is given to one applicant to keep a lunatic asy- lum ; to another to open a slaughter-house ; to a third to divert a road passing over his property. Then a licensing appeal is heard. Mr. Boniface, through his counsel, complains that the magistrates THE LAW COURTS. 415 who sat to grant licenses have improperly declined to renew his license. His house has been in existence for twenty years, and there have been no complaints. On the oilier hand, a rival to Boni- face, who has taken up the case against him, declares thai more licenses are by no means required in his neighborhood, and Boni- face has opened a tap at the side of his house in a fashionable thor- oughfare which is an annoyance to promenaders. The matter <■ by Boniface promising to close the tap, and obtaining liis license. Next, there is an appeal from a summary decision of the stipendiary whose acquaintance Ave have already made, convicting the appellant of an assault; witnesses are called and the case is tried all over again. The Quarter Sessions affirm or quash the conviction, as justice, in their opinion, requires. But Viator is called away, as his case is about to begin. " Latro, you are charged with stealing a watch on such a day from the per- son of Viator; are you guilty or not guilty?" This comes froin the Clerk of the Peace, and Latro replies "Not Guilty." A similar cere- mony is gone through with the other prisoner. They have in legal phrase "put themselves on the country," and their country is rap- idly represented, subject perhaps to the winnowing process of chal- lenging the jurors, by twelve men in the jury-box, mostly farm, rs and tradesmen, who are sworn, "Well and truly to try the issue joined between our Sovereign Lady the Queen and the prisoners at the bar, and a true verdict give according to the evidence." The counsel for the prosecution first briefly details the facts of the case. He is a young barrister, for it is at Quarter Sessions that young barristers are trained to the work of their profession. He then calls the witnesses and elicits the facts from them by questions. The prisoners have no counsel to defend them, but Latro cross-examines the witnesses with some ingenuity. His companion in durance is stolidly silent all through. The prisoners call no witnesses, but Lai ro makes a voluble appeal to the jury, disclaiming anv knowledge of the other man, and protesting that they cannot convict him simply be- cause he happened to be standing by when the gentleman lost his watch. What surprises Viator is that all through the trial not a single reference is made to the previous conviction of both pris- oners, facts in his opinion most significant. But the law is of opin- ion that facts like these, if known to the jury, will prejudice the fair trial of the existing charge, and it is not until the jury have found a verdict of "Guiltv" that the prisoners are ashed whether they have not been previously convicted of stealing a pair of boots. They both plead guilty to this fact, although Latro, amid Laughter, says 41 G ENGLAND. he did not take the boots all the same, a:id are sentenced to penal servitude — which has been defined by a Chief Justice as a condition of slavery — for seven years. M< >st criminal trials end with the verdict and sentence, and in the case of a simple crime no difficult point of law is likely to aris9 to require consideration in a higher court. Still, even in an ordi- nary case of stealing there may be a question of law, such as whether an admission of the accused tending to show his guilt was admis- sible in evidence; for the English law has a constitutional horror of proving guilt from the mouth of the prisoner, and always rejects an admission if there was any appearance of its being extorted either by fear of punishment or hope of escape. If the judge at the trial thinks there is a point of law in a criminal case, he states the facts in writing for the opinion of the Court for the Consideration of Crown Cases Reserved, where it is argued and determined. This court is as numerous in its composition as its name is long, being composed of all the three-and-twenty judges of the High Court of Justice. Ordinarily five judges only sit, but in the celebrated case of the Franconia, the German vessel which ran down an English ship within three miles of our shore, fourteen judges sat to decide whether the captain, who was a German, was criminally respon- sible in the English courts. Six judges thought he was, and seven thought he was not, while the fourteenth died between the argu- ment and the judgment, thus perhaps saving the court from being equally divided. Quantity rather than quality is not a satisfactory basis for a Court of Appeal, and the time may come when criminal appeals will be taken like other appeals to the House of Lords. To have but one Court of Appeal favors the expedition which is essen- tial to the due punishment of crime; but when appeals are few, to take them to the highest source of law is not likely much to prejudice persons in the position of Viator. H Viator only makes acquaintance with the law through a casual loss of his watch, law is to Dominus more or less a matter of busi- ness. Dominus has money invested in house property, and he must be a lucky man indeed if he does not every now and again find the law's assistance necessary to the management of his investments. Possessor is the tenant of one of his houses, with a lease for fourteen years, subject to a rent payable quarterly, and a liability of the ten- ant to repair. The rent is in arrear for a whole year, the premises are grievously out of repair, and altogether Possessor is an unsat- isfactory tenant. Dominus wishes to get rid of his tenant, and con- sults his solicitor. The lease, as usual, contains a provision that if THE LAW COURTS. 417 the rent is in arrear, and the premises in disrepair, the remainder of the term is to be forfeited and the landlord may recover posses- sion of his property. An action of ejectment is therefore advised to carry out this desirable purpose. Accordingly a writ is issued. in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, claim- ing, according to the indorsement on the back, possession of the house, the rent due, and damages for failure to repair. L possible that Possessor may not care to defend his leas i, and al- though the writ is served upon him, does not intimate his intention of disputing the claim by entering - an appearance at the offi< of the court. In this case Dominus may sign judgment upon the ! tpse of a specified time, and his damages for dilapidations will be as I by a jury in the Sheriff's Court, where assessments of damages upon non-appearance to the writ usually take place. But Possessor is a much more accommodating tenant than is usual with his class if he takes- this course. In all probability he will appear, and Dominus must prepare himself for a regular legal campaign. He has first of all to extend his line in the form of a " Claim." This is the beginning of the so-called " pleadings," which are not pleadings in the ordinary sense at all, but a series of written attacks on the enemy made by each side alternately for the purpose of rec- j onnoitering one another's positions, before actually engaging in open Court. Formerly pleading was a mystery known to few but "special pleaders." These practitioners still exist, but the class is rapidly becoming absorbed into the ordinary ranks of lawyers, and the business of a special pleader is sadly curtailed by reason of the inroads made of late years by common sense upon legal cobwebs, . especially the Common Law Procedure Act of 1852, and the Judi- cature Act of 1873. Dominus will find the " claim" in his case, al- though prepared by counsel learned in the law, to be moderately intelligible to lay capacity. It propounds the facts that he is owner of the property; that he granted the lease to Possessor, the de- fendant; that the lease contained covenants to pay rent and repair, and a clause of forfeiture upon breach of those covenants; that the covenants have been broken, and that accordingly Dominus wants his property back, together with his rent, and damages for not re- pairing. Possessor's turn now comes, and he retorts with his " De- fense," in which he states that he pays into court the rent in arrear, together with interest, and denies that the premises are out of repair. All that Dominus can do in answer is to take his rent out of court, and in his " Reply," which is the next step in the pleadings, to " take issue" on the cpiestion of the repairs, which is the orthodox, way of 413 ENGLAND. reiterating his view of the facts, and avowing his readiness to estab- lish it by proof in court. In order to understand the meaning of Possessor's maneuver, something of the difference in the English system of jurisprudence between lav/ and equity must be known. Law as distinguished from equity always keeps a man strictly to his bond. Whatever he undertakes to do, unless it is either illegal or plrysically impossible, he must do, or must suffer the consequences prescribed in his con- tract. Equity is less logical, and if the consequences are cruel, or altogether disproportionate to the offense, it releases the person under the obligation from the consequences of breaking it. For instance, according to the lease granted by Doinmus, if the rent were in arrear for a fixed time, the term granted was, according to the principles of law, at once forfeited, although the rent were tend- ered the day after the expiration of the time fixed. According, how- ever, to a rule established in equity, if the tenant, on an attempt being made to evict him, paid the rent, together with interest and the costs incurred by the landlord, he might retain the lease. This is why Possessor paid the rent into court. As, however, he resisted giving up the property, he was bound to dispute that it was out of repair, because equity has declined to interfere with the strict prin- ciple of law in the case where a forfeiture occurs through not re- pairing. This inconsistency shows that equity, although originally founded on the attribute from which it takes its name, is as rigid in its rules as law itself. Until the reform lately carried by Lords Selborne and Cairns, instead of pleading equity as a defense, it was necessary to go to the Court of Chancery to have one's oppo- nent ordered not to press his rights in the other courts, which were courts of law only. There were, in fact, two jurisprudential estab- lishments, each with no connection with its rival over the way, and in then* early days of rivalry cordially hating one another. The re- form referred to, which rather late in the day adopted an established principle of business in legal administration, makes it possible to obtain all the law and equity requisite for one's case at the same store. It thus came about that Dominus and Possessor Mere at issue on the question of repairs. Meanwhile, there has been some little skirmishing at "Judges' Chambers." These are rooms in Bolls Gardens, Chancery Lane, where a judge sits to bring to book either side who in the recon- noitering preliminary to trial, may have offended against the laws of war. If the pleading be worded vaguely or evasively, the offender is made to repent and amend. "Interrogatories" are another form THE LAW COURTS. Ill) of attack which have often to be regulated at Judges' Chambers. These are the only instrument of torture now known to the law, by means of which a litigant may ash his antagonist on paper an\ qu tions material to the action, and have them answered in the same way. Possessor has asked Dominus some very troublesome ques* tions, tending to show that Dominus condoned the forfeiture of the lease. Dominus appeals to the judge at chambers to say whether he is to submit to the impertinence. He has to submit, hut finds when he swears his answer, as drawn up by his lawyers, that lie lias not given his adversary much information of any use to him after all. All the preliminaries having been settled, Dominus now gives his adversary notice that he is ready to try the case before a special jury of Middlesex — that is to say, a jury composed of merchants, bankers, and professional men, as distinguished from the rank and tile of jurors. After the delay inseparable from law, Dominus sees the case of "Dominus v. Possessor" in the law notices of his morning's newspaper, and posts dow r n to Westminster Hall. There was no reason for any great hurry, as there are several cases in front. The judge is sittting in the plain black robes always worn when a judge sits alone to try civil cases, in a court full of law and lawyers, hut deficient in ah*. There is a great display of bleached horsehair on the Bar benches. Those gentlemen in silk gowns in the front row are Queen's counsel. The gentlemen in stuff gowns on the back benches are junior counsel, not honored with the complimentary retainer of the Crown. The difference between the two is substan- tial. Queen's counsel earn higher fees, but are not able to do rou- tine w r ork, such as devising those pleadings and answers to interrog- atories before mentioned. Nominally, the higher rank is conferred through the grace and favor of the Crown; but, in fact, any barrister of reputation, if there is room for a new Queen's counsel on his circuit, may "take silk" by asking the Chancellor. Many find the humbler "stuff" more remunerative. In the "well," a seat a step below that of the Queen's counsel, sit the solicitors, ready to give then- counsel a reminder when needed. But the Associate, the official sitting under the judge, has sworn the jury, and a case has begun. It is an action brought by a man who fell down a cellar in a public-house, and claims compensation The next ease is an action on a bill of exchange, in which the defendant contends that he was induced to give the bill by fraud. Then follows an action in which the plaintiff, a maiden lady, complains of a livery stable as a nuis- ance. The horses, she says, make a great noise, and keep her awake, and she asks for an injunction to the defendant to conduct his busi- 420 ENGLAND. ness with more consideration for her nerves. Then we have an action for the non-delivery of a cargo of wheat, and an action for breach of promise of marriage, in which the young lady creates the usual amount of interest, and the man has written the ordinary quantity of nonsense. Then comes an action of libel, which the jury seem to think is a case of the pot against the kettle, as they return as damages the farthing which has so often been given in the same circumstances, but from which so few take warning not to tempt then fate. At last, and perhaps after a day or two of waiting, "Dominus and Possessor" is called, and the jury are sworn. Each side is represented by a Queen's counsel and a junior counsel. The junior counsel for the plaintiff begins by "opening the pleadings" — that is, informing the jury in a dozen words or so what are the names of the litigants, what the action is about, and what questions appear to be in dispute between them. His "leader" then rises and addresses the court and jury at length, telling the whole story of the difficulties of Dominus with his tenant, and asks the jury to end them by turn- ing the tenant out. Dominus himself is then sworn, and is exam- ined by his junior counsel. He is cross-examined by the defendant's Queen's counsel, and a few questions are put to him thirdly by his own leading counsel, with a view to re-establish his evidence if at all damaged by the cross-examination. The same process is gone through in the case of the surveyor and the builder, who are next called. "While these witnesses are examined the judge inquires whether the jury are to be asked to assess the amount, if any, which Possessor ought to have spent on repairs. The counsel for Dominus thereupon suggests that the amount should be referred to an official referee, if the jury find that some repairs ought to have been done. The defendant's counsel agree, and Dominus is content, because if he can turn Possessor out to make room for a better tenant, he does not care much for the repairs. The surveyor goes on to detail how the ceiling of the back parlor had fallen in, the boiler and water-pipes were out of order, the floor of the pantry damaged, and so on. The defendant's Queen's counsel then takes up the parable, and declares that Dominus with his rent in his pocket, and his house in a tolerably good state of repair, is as well off as he deserves, without wanting to turn Possessor out into the street. As to the house, Dominus knew its state all along, and has taken rent from Possessor since, and therefore he cannot now forfeit the lease on the allegation that it is' out of repair. "Witnesses are called to support this view of the matter, and Dominus, to his THE LAW COURTS. \l\ surprise, finds his own witnesses about tlie want of repairs flatly contradicted. The counsel for his opponent then "sums up" liis evidence, and his own counsel replies on the whole case. The judge then proceeds to charge the jury, and tells them that they must first consider whether the house was substantially in want of repair, and if they after weighing the evidence think that it was, then, did the plaintiff receive rent knowing what the real state of the house was, so as to waive or condone the forfeiture. The jury, after retiring to consult, find as their verdict that the house -was out of repair, but that the plaintiff knew of its state and took his rent, but thai the house had again fallen into disrepair since. Both sides upon this claim the verdict, and the judge says that he cannot give his decision now, but must reserve the matter for further consideration. Dominus now finds himself embarked on a considerable litiga- tion. The judge after a week or two hears an argument on the question of law, and decides against Dominus. Thereupon he ap- peals to the Court of Appeal, but meanwhile Possessor, not to be outdone, applies to a Divisional Court for a new trial on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence with regard to the need of repairs, and that the judge did not rightly direct the jury in point of law. The law does not consider juries infallible, and sometimes sets their verdicts aside, if the judge who tried the case thinks that they were misled. In the Divisional Court Dominus finds two judges, one of whom happens to be the judge who tried his case. They wear scarlet and ermine robes, as it is a saint's day, and not the black and ermine ordinarily worn in the Divisional Court in winter, or the violet robes of summer. Possessor has obtained an order to show cause why there should not be a new trial, and Dominus's counsel have to show cause. Possessor's coun- sel are then heard in support of his contention, and the judges decide that there must be no new trial. The verdict therefore stands, and success for Dominus dejoends on his persuading the Court of Appeal that its effect is to entitle him to judgment. The Court of Appeal is composed of three Lords Justices. The other three, making up the six permanent judges of the Court, are sitting in another chamber, hearing appeals which have more equity than law in them. The three judges in either chamber are some- times supplemented by the Lord Chancellor himself, who ordinarily only sits in the House of Lords; or the Master of the I tolls, who is commonly to be found sitting by himself, hearing equity cases; or the Chief Justice of England, the Chief Justice of the < iommoD Pleas, or the Chief Baron, who usually preside in Divisional Couri 3 or take 422 ENGLAND. jury cases. These supplementary judges of the Coiu*t of Appeal be- long both to that court and the High Court, which together are called the Supreme Court of Judicature. The Lords Justices wear their judicial wigs, but nothing more showy in the way of judicial costume than the black silk gown which is the least of the cere- monial costumes of the judges. Doniinus wonders why an Appeal Court should be arrayed in less glory than the Court below. But the fact is, the Court of Appeal took its origin from a court of con- ' sulfation rather than of jurisdiction, and the black gown is the fa- tigue dress of judges. The mysteries of judicial millinery are indeed great, and can be fathomed probably by no one but the oldest " body clerk " among the attendants of the judges. On the first day of Michaelmas sittings the Lords Justices, when they march up "Westminster Hall, wear a black robe liberally sprinkled with gold lace; but when they go circuit, and try prisoners, they become "red judges " so familiar to the eyes of the criminal classes. On solemn occasions, as in the Westminster Hall procession or in charging- a Grand Jury, the judges always wear the full-bottomed wig, a head- dress which looks from behind like a straw bee-hive and in front <_rives them the appearance of Egyptian sphinxes — instead of the short uncurled wig now worn by the Lords Justices. For Court or personal mourning, both judges and Queen's counsel wear their bands with a strip or fold down the middle, and lawn cuffs or •"weep- ers " on their sleeves. Both the counsel of Dominus are heard in support of the appeal, and Possessor's counsel are heard on the other side. A great deal is said about continuous breach, and waiver, and other things which Dominus imperfectly understands but the upshot is that the court reverse the decision of the judge, and enter judgment for Dominus. But Possessor will not give up his judgment easily, and he ap- peals to the House of Lords, the court of law of the last resort for Great Britain and Ireland. Here English cases find themselves in company with Irish appeals, which are similar in kind, and decided according to the same legal principles, and Scotch ajipeals coming from an altogether distinct jurisprudence, with law terms strange and uncouth to the English lawyer, in whose eyes the law of Scot- land is the law of a foreign country. The argument takes place in the gilded chamber where the Lords sit tor legislation. The Quean's counsel are in their full-bottomed wigs; the Lord Chancellor is . a the woolsack in his wig and robes, but the other members present although lawyers, wear no official costume. They sit not as judj i ^, nor as lawyers, but as peers; and it is only by a custom barely a THE LAW COURTS. VI?, hundred years old that lay peers do not take part La the d . the legal questions submitted to their House. Of Late 3 cars, under an Act of Parliament passed in 1876, peerages for life have been insti- \ tuted for the purpose of conferring them <>n lawyers; and these 1 peers, together with the ex-Chancellors and other lawyers M have beeu ennobled, are the effective force of the House as a Law court. Dominus observes that the atmosphere of the highest Court of Appeal in the country is serener than that of the courts below. The arguments proceed smoothly and with little interruption, and afterwards the Lords deliver their opinions one by one, in the form of arguments for the consideration of the House, and not j >nts. The opinion of the Lords is the same as that of the Court of Appeal, and Dominus is triumphant. All this time, however, Possessor lias stuck to the house like a limpet, and the lease has become appreci- ably less since the writ was issued. Moreover, Dominus has in- curred some heavy costs, which it does not seem clear that Posses- sor, although condemned in costs, will entirely defray; and his triumph is dashed with the reflection that going to law, however pleasing the excitement, is an expensive luxury. The rooted horror of law, induced by fear of a lawyer's bill, ac- counts for much of the Englishman's want of acquaintance with legal procedure. He will generally pay any moderate claim made upon him, so long as it does not amount to extortion. If his wife hires a housemaid who turns out badly, the master gets rid of the servant, but pays the month's wages in lieu of notice, although if the servant is in the wrong she is not entitled to them. Sometimes, however, a principle is, or is supposed to be, involved, in which case the En- glishman will do his duty in his family, as he is expected to do it elsewhere. The cook, let us say, gives herself airs; one morning she takes it into her head not to come to family prayers, and when her mistress remonstrates with her, declares it to be her fixed intention not to attend prayers. She gives no reason for her resolve: per- haps she thinks the prayers too long, or too short, or devoid of earnestness, or too unctuous; perhaps she has a philosophical re- gard for the maxim that "labor is prayer," and 1 be sure that the breakfast coffee is in good order. At any rate, she declines to come, and Paterfamilias resolves that if so she shall go alt >gether. His resolution is the more firm as he finds that absence from j does not insure perfect coffee. Family prayers to his mind are not only a religious exercise, but a morning parade of the servant."., which a reasonable regard for discipline requires. If the servants do not all attend, he may have a sonant in his employ for yen -, 424 ENGLAND. without even knowing it. He thinks they ought to attend, down to the sculleryniaid. Accordingly he dismisses the cook, and this time he declines to give her the month's wages for the time which she has not served. A cook with such independent notions has, of course, friends and advisers outside, and a solicitor of the clasi or- dinarily practicing in County Courts is without difficulty found to take the matter up. Paterfamilias receives a polite letter, asking on "behalf of his client, Ancilla, the cook, that the month's wages may be paid, together with law charges, or the writer referred to the so- licitor of Paterfamilias who may accept service of a summons in the County Court. It is an odd example of the Englishman's almost superstitious respect for the law, that he will often not only give way on receipt of a lawyer's letter of this kind, but will also pay the lawyer's charges, which the lawyer has not the shadow of right to enforce, but for which he always asks. Paterfamilias, however, on the question of principle is of sterner stuff; he does not care to con- sult the family solicitor, who, he knows 4 never goes near a County Court, and he is a little curious to see how the matter will go if left to itself. He, accordingly, writes and asks that the summons may be sent to him, and in due course it arrives. This is how the action of "Ancilla against Paterfamilias" comes into existence. Paterfamilias finds that he does not require to be much of a law- yer to carry his case through. In the County Court there is not, as in the High Court, any of the preliminary skirmishing of pleadings. He finds that the summons kindly tells him in very plain language what he is to do. If the defendant wishes to set up as a defense that she is a married woman, or infancy, or that the statute of limit- ation has run out, the summons says that notice must be given to the plaintiff. But Paterfamilias only wishes to set up that the cook would not come to prayers, so he leaves things alone, and awaits the day in the next month named for the hearing of the case. Arrived at the court-house he finds the officials ready enough to give him information. Under their guidance he first attends the Ptegistrar's room, where he hears "Ancilla against Paterfamilias" called out among some hundred others, and is asked whether the claim is disputed. He says that it is, and is told that the case will be heard before the judge. As soon as the judge arrives, he plunges at once into the judgment summonses, which are a most important part of the jurisdiction of County Courts. Until recently the very sound principle of rnoralhy that a man ought to pay his debts was enforced by putting the defaulter into prison. If a man has money, he will generally spend it rather than go to prison; and if his friends THE LA IV COURTS. 12.", have money they "will, until tired of so doing, come i<> his help. The power of imprisonment was thus a valuable ally of the creditor, and if the debtor had no money and no friends, the creditor had at hast the satisfaction of having his debtor locked up. It was, however, thought that vengeance did not belong to the creditor, and that it was not right to put indirect pressure on his friends. Accordingly, in 1869, imprisonment for debt was abolished, unless it were proved that the debtor had means, but woidd not pay. As the County Courts are the machinery for collecting a great number of debts which cannot be disputed, the judges are constantly called upon to say whether a man has or has not the means of paying. Pater- familias observes that many of the debtors whose cases are brought before the judge seem to be living very .comfortably, but they al- ways explain that they are living with their mother-in-law, or that a kind uucle supplies their necessities. Imprisonment, therefore, is not ordered very often, and on the whole Paterfamilias thinks that the burden of proof has been thrown on the wrong shoulders, and the debtor ought to prove that he has no means, and not the cred- itor that he has. What generally happens in a County Court is that the judge breaks the blow of his judgment by allowing the defaulter to satisfy the claim in easy installments. The ordinary run of County Court cases follows. There are two little boxes, one on the judge's right and the other on his left, which are occupied respectively by the plaintiff and the defendant. They stand here after the manner of lighting-cocks held in check, and a torrent of vituperation is often exchanged across the table, espe- cially when there are female litigants. A laundress sues for the amount of a washing bill, and the employer resists the claim on the ground that her collars and cuffs have been lost, and her hus- band's shirt-fronts spoiled by bad ironing. A Jew money-lender sues a clerk in a bank on a bill for £20, which includes interest at sixty per cent. The defendant declares that the Jew knew he was only surety for a fellow clerk, and yet he allowed the other clerk to leave the country without suing him. A baker claims for bread supplied, and the customer affirms that his wife paid the baker's man. An old lady demands compensation for tumbling into a coal- hole left open in the street. The householder says it v*is not his fault, but the coal merchant's, whose men left the coal-plate open. In most of these cases there is a great conflict of evidence, but ilie judge manages to make up his mind quickly, being guided by the appearance and manner of the witnesses, as their words alone are commonly in direct opposition to those of the witnesses on the other 426 ENGLAND. side. Sometimes a jury of five men substituted in the County Court for the traditional twelve is called to the judge's assistance, espe- cially if the case, being too trilling for the higher tribunal, has been sent down to be tried from the High Court; but Paterfamilias ob- serves that jury trial hardly nourishes in the alien soil of the County Court. The judge is so used to try the facts himself, that he tries them when it is not his but the jury's duty to do so. This is the sort of dialogue that Paterfamilias hears at the end of a jury case. Judge: " Gentlemen of the jury, the evidence clearly points to a ver- dict for the Railway Company." Foreman: "The jury find for the plaintiff with £20 damages." Advocate: "I move, sir, for a new trial." Judge: "New trial granted." The case of "Ancilla against Paterfamilias," when called on, does not take long to try. The cook's solicitor details the facts with as much of flourish as he can introduce. Paterfamilias admits them all, and explains that the refusal of the cook to attend prayers was the ground of her dismissal. It would be hazardous to say what the decision of the County Court judge on so weighty a question of domestic government would or ought to be. Perhaps the judge is epigrammatic, and says that Ancilla was hired " to cook and not to pray," or perhaps he takes a broader view. If the judge is against Paterfamilias he may appeal if he can make out that a question of law is involved. If there is an appeal, the case then gets into the hands of Paterfamilias' solicitor, and is heard before one of the Divisional Courts, which have already been described. Whatever the condition of knowledge among the Queen's subjects of the working of the law temporal, it could hardly be expected that they should know much of the procedure of the spiritual courts. When lawyers meet clergymen, we may expect something of sub- tlety and obscurity. Still, the necessities of an era in the history of the Church of England have brought out many instruments of ec- clesiastical procedure from their dusty receptacles, and precedents from dark corners of the law blink their eyes in the light of day. If it depended on individuals to put ecclesiastical law in force, the dust and darkness would undoubtedly remain little disturbed. But the Church at that time was divided into High Church and Low Church camps, the one ranging itself under the Church Union, and the other under the Church Association, both being well organized bodies, with funds and energy enough to carry through a suit. The accused in an ecclesiastical suit might generally be assumed to have behind him the former, and the accuser the latter of these organizations. THE LAW COURTS. 427 The main outlines of ecclesiastical procedure are now I" found in the Public "Worship Regulation Act, passed in L874, with a view to simplify the difficulties of the law, which were consider id to favor unduly those who at the time were described as intro- ducing "the mass in masquerade" into the Church. Simplicius, let us assume, is an inhabitant of a parish of which Laticlavius lias b< en appointed parson. Laticlavius belongs to the section of the High I Church party which are generally called Ritualists. His church has more the outward appearance of a Roman Catholic than an English church. He has a crucifix on the screen, and lighted caudles on the altar, and the scent of incense pervades the building. He affects colored stoles, and wears vestments during the celebration of the Holy Communion, and turns his back on the people in breaking the bread and taking the cup. He mixes water with the wine, and uses wafer bread. These things grate on the feelings of Simplicius and many other parishioners, who consider them inconsistent with the simplicity of worship which they prefer, and to which they have hitherto been used, and suggestive of doctrines not recognized by the Church of England. Laticlavius is appealed to, but he is un- able with any loyalty to his principles to alter his practice. Noth- ing remains but an appeal to the law, and the first step is to repre- sent the grievance of the parishioners to the bishop of the diocese. The representation is made in the name of Simplicius and two other parishioners, and is a formal document setting out the heads / of complaint. Upon reading this representation it is open to the Bishop to decide that further proceedings shall not be taken, but lie must give the reasons of his opinion in writing to be solemnly filed in the diocesan registry. In the case in question he thinks there is good ground for complaint, and he sends the representation to the accused parson, and proposes to him and also the complainants a friendly arbitration between them. Neither party is prepared to agree to this course, and the matter is thereupon transmitted to the ecclesiastical judge, whose office was in the Public Worship Regula- tion Act constituted or rather reconstituted by Parliament. Lati- clavius has time given him to answer in writing the charge made, and on the appointed day the judge hears the witnesses which both sides produce, and the arguments of their counsel. He is of opinion that Laticlavius has infringed the law, and issues a monition to him to abstain for the future from the practices which the judge con- siders illegal If Laticlavius should not submit to this decision, an order will be made upon him forbidding him to perform service in the church or to exercise the cure of souls for a term of not in 428 ENGLAND. than three months. This is by way of punishment for contumacy, and if before the end. of the term Laticlavius should not submit in writing, the prohibition is continued indefinitely, and he eventually ■will lose his living. But an appeal lies from the decision of the judge to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and Laticlavius takes advantage of this respite. Ecclesiastical appeals are part of the miscellaneous jurisdiction of this anomalous court of law. Simplicius will find it sitting, not at Westminster or Lincoln's Inn, but in a pleasant and luxurious room, not easily discovered, in the office of the Privy Coun- cil just round the corner of Downing Street. There is a desk for the counsel who is arguing, some seats round a table for others who have business here, and very scanty accommodation for the outside public. The rest of the room, and by far its greater portion, is railed off for the judicial Privy Councilors, who sit scattered about it in comfortable chairs. The place has not the appearance of a court of law, and its ways are not the ways of the ordinary law courts. There is an air of officialism rather than of publicity about it. It is not open half an hour before the sitting begins as is usual with law courts, and the Privy Councilors do not enter the court like judges. But as soon as the Privy Councilors are seated, the doors are opened, and the lawyers and public admitted. When a case has been argued, the profane vulgar are turned out and are recalled, while one of the Privy Councilors delivers their decision, which is not a judgment, but in the form of advice to the Queen. The members of the com- mittee, from time to time, include the Lord Chancellor, the ex-Chan- cellors, the Chief Justice of England, the Master of the Polls, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the Lords Justices, and other judges, who may have been made Privy Councilors, and certain permanent judges raised from the Bench, either of England or India; but they do not, as in their own courts, deliver each his own judgment; the judgment of the majority is delivered for all, and an expression of dissent is not allowed. Simplicius has the curiosity to attend the committee before his case is heard. Appeals from the courts of the Queen's dominions abroad are the staple of the business, varied by an occasional half judicial, half administrative case, such as an application for the ex- tension of a patent beyond the usual fourteen years by an inventor who has not reaped so much advantage from it as he ought. Near home, cases come from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Rajahs and Zemindars, and Parsee merchants carry their disputes here from India, and find themselves litigants side by side with THE LAW COURTS. 429 "West Indian planters. The French civil code of Canada has to be interpreted, and a meaning given to the Roman-Dutch law of Cey- lon. Australia sends a supply of knotty commercial difficulties, and even the west coast of Africa is not without a share in the argu- ments. Every quarter of the globe exports litigation to the Judi- cial Committee of the Privy Council. A day is specially appointed to hear the appeal of Laticlavius, because there must be ecclesiastical assessors. An archbishop and four bishops support the lay Privy Councilors. On the question of the vestments, the difference between the Ritualists and their opponents seems to he in a narrow compass. By the Act of Uni- formity, passed in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, it is directed that " the ornaments of the Church, and the mhhsters thereof, shall be retained and be in use as were in this Church of England, by authority of Parliament, in the second year of King Edward VI., until other order shall be therein taken by the authority of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of the Ecclesiastical Commis- sioners, or of the metropolitan of this realm." Both sides admit that in the second year of King Edward VI. vestments were in use by authority of Parliament, but certain " advertisem< ats," or admo- nitions, were issued by the Queen in 155G with the advice required by the Act of Uniformity, which provide " that every minister say- ing public prayers, or ministering the sacraments or other rites of the Church, shall wear a comely surplice with sleeves." The Rit- ualists say that this direction is not an " other order " contemplated by the Act of Uniformity, because it forbids nothing, and only enjoins at least a " comely surplice with sleeves," to which they are entitled to add cope, alb, and chasuble. The Judicial Committee, however, had previously disagreed with this latter view; they in this case maintain then -previous decisions, so that the monition to Laticlavius is affirmed. The law and the law courts, as will partly be gathered from the foregoing illustrations of legal administration, are constantly, like other institutions of the country, in a state of transition. The Judi- cature Acts concentrated into one Supreme Court the whole judicial staff, which had up to that time been scattered among distinct cmnts of equal rank, and effected a fusion of the divergent principles which those courts acknowledged, but time was required to reap the full fruits of the reform. The relation between the Supr< me Court and the County Courts is among the legal subjects which from time to time occupy the attention of the Legislature, the question being whether the true policy is to 'strengthen the caliber of the County 430 ENGLAND. Court judges, or to put a stop to the transfer of legal business to these lower tribunals, which has been on the increase year by year. Other subjects are canvassed from time to time. The Judicial Com- mittee of the Privy Council, in its colonial as "well as its ecclesiastical jurisdiction, has been, in regard to the mode of choosing the judges who are summoned to its deliberations and the conduct of its busi- ness, subjected to criticisms which are well enough deserved to por- tend a modification of some of its anomalies. It is thus evident that the law of England and the law courts are not behind the times, but adapt themselves with as much readiness as the necessarily conserv- ative character of law and lawyers allows to the requirements of the day. A capability of change is perhaps the strongest evidence of vitality. CHAPTER XXV. THE SERVICES. Position of the British Navy compared with that of others — Present Importance of Superior Organization and an Instructed Personnel — Training of Boys and Seamen — Gunners — Royal Marines — Naval Artificers— Education of Officers— Young Officers of the Present Day — Higher Ranks and Different Branches of the Service — Inner Life of a Man-of-war — Central Administra- tion — Peculiar Independence of the Admiralty — Difficulty of Organically changing the British Army — Efforts at Army Reform — Why the General Outlines of the Army must always remain the same — Chief Changes de- scribed within these Outlines — The Abolition of Purchase and Change in the Prospects of Officers — Their Professional Improvements in Recent Years — Short Service — The Formation of the Soldier — Progress of the Recruit — Drill, Discipline, Crimes, Penalties, and Rewards — Insufficiency of Regular Army — Supplemented by Militia and Volunteers — Militia and Volunteers described. THE relations in which England, as the mistress of a powerful navy, stands to the other maritime Powers of the world are marked by certain peculiarities. Owing to the insular position of the United Kingdom, a fleet is naturally regarded as the firsi and most important line of defense against aggression. In Continental states, on the other hand, an army affords the best security against the attempts of hostile neighbors. A threat of war turns the thoughts of Englishmen to the condition of the navy which an enemy must first overcome before he can throw an expedition upon our shores; on the Continent it at once directs attention to the effi- ciency of the land forces to prevent a violation of the territory. Most Continental nations will have a neutral state, upon some divi- sion of then- frontier, through which, in the present highly-advanced condition of land communications, trade, though somewhal turned aside from its habitual channels, may still puss unmolesl I. The external trade of an island must, in the nature of things be carried on by sea, and only a naval force can guarantee it against blockade. Where, as in our own case, the insular people are their own carriers, 432 ENGLAND. the necessity in war to protect private property at sea leads at once to an addition to the functions of the navy. If we add to this the consideration of the vast extent of our transmarine dominions, pro- tected chiefly, if not solely, by the maritime power of the mother country, and the important fact that year by year we are more de- pendent upon foreign imports for our food — it will be easy to per- ceive how much more extensive are the duties of our navy than those of the fleets of the other great European powers. Progress in the arts and sciences, and the cosmopolitan charac- ter of modern commerce, have practically insured to all maritime states an equality in excellence of materiel. If the natural resources of a country do not suffice for, or the skill of its artificers prove un- equal to, the production of the ships and equipment now necessary in an efficient fleet, recourse may be had to foreign factories and building-yards. If the money only can be provided, as it, as a rule, seems it can be, any country with a coast may have at least the in- animate components of a navy. The armor-clad ships of Turkey, for instance, form a squadron only surpassed, in number and quality, by those of two other Powers. The chief superiority of our own country, therefore, lies in the nautical aptitude of the population; and, as might be expected, to develop this advantage to the fullest extent possible, by the careful organization and systematic training of the personnel, is a prominent feature of the naval policy of the present day. Maritime tastes prevail in all classes. To go to sea is, at one time or other, the desire of nearly every English boy. By a politic arrangement the State takes advantage of this wide-spread feeling. Recruits present themselves in greater numbers than are required; ships can be easily manned; habits of discipline and a knowledge of the duties that have to be performed are early instilled into the mind of the young sailor; and hundreds of lads are provided with the means of gaining an honorable livelihood. The advantages which a naval career offers to a boy are sufficiently great to attract to the service the sons of many parents considerably above the low- est class. The limits of age on entering the service — from fifteen to sixteen and a half — and the educational and physical tests are sufficient indication that the boys, for the most part, must have been at decent schools and have been reared in comfort. The prohibi- tion of the enrollment of vouths from reformatories and industrial schools guards them against association with crime and depravity. To the enrollment and engagement to remain in the service for ten years after their eighteenth birthday, the consent of their parents is THE SERVICES. 433 necessary; whilst provision is made for a subsequent change in the family fortunes by permitting the purchase of a discharge on not very onerous terras. The first step in the boy's career is embarkation on board a sfa- tionary training-ship at Portsmouth, or some other southern port. I His uniform — supplied at his own cost, but provided for to Borne extent out of a money grant subsequently awarded for the purpose ■ — is ready for him in a few days, and he soon appears as a small, but veritable, "blue-jacket." The course of instruction which he has to undergo is elaborate and exact. He begins by learning how to pay respect to his superiors, how to lash up his hammock, and how to fold up and put away his clothes in the sailor's only ward- robe — his bag. His day commences with washing the decks, and his hours of instruction with public prayers conducted by the chap- lain. He is taught to wash his clothes, and to keep himself clean in person and neat in outward appearance. Half his time is devoted to regular school work — unless he be qualified for the "upper school," when the school-masters see less of him — and half to in- struction in a sailor's duties. Rowing, reefing, furling, rigging, steering, sail-making, are taught him as soon as he has mastered the technical terms of the new language which he will have to speak. Drill with guns, with rifles, and with cutlasses goes on in the inter- vals between other lessons. In summer every boy is taught to swim. The whole course lasts a year, and at the end of it he becomes a " 1st class bo3 r ," and is sent for a short cruise in the Channel in a training-brig, where he makes his earliest acquaintance with blue water. The school-master and the instructor follow him here; but his time is chiefly and properly taken up in the practical work of his calling. At eighteen he ceases to be a boy, and is officially raised to the rank of a man by being "rated" ordinary seaman. His pay hitherto has been but sixpence and sevenpence a day, which has gone principally to supply clothing and a small allowance of weekly pocket-money. The excellence of the diet in the training- ship frees him from the necessity of spending any thing on food. As a man he receives higher pay, is allowed a ration of grog, and may — if so minded — use tobacco. Every man in the navy is practi- cally drilled and instructed until his last day afloat; but compulsory training in the technical sense diminishes considerably with man- hood, and ends altogether with the final graduation as able seaman, or A.B. The importance of excellence in the practice of naval gunnery 28 43J: ENGLAND. in modern war-fleets is universally recognized, and has led to the introduction of gunnery-ships, on board which the men who are to become seamen-gunners are carefully instructed. Those who join them do so voluntarily, attracted by additions to their wages in accordance with the class of certificate gained, and other induce- ments, such as diminution in the period of service entitling tliem to a pension. The course lasts several months, and includes drill with great guns, with cutlasses, in musketry firing, in the manage- ment of torpedoes, and in the evolutions of infantry and field-artil- lery. As a fact, all the seamen of the fleet are trained in thpse things, but the instruction is more thorough and extended in the case of seanien-gunners. A trained sailor may be reefing or furling sails on Monday, acting as a rifleman on Tuesday, maneuvering a field-gun on Wednesday, practicing the " cuts and guards " on Thursday, and be working an eighteen-ton-gun on Friday. A gunner must not only be conversant with the practical work of the various branches of naval gunnery, but must be capable of in- structing others as weU. The most promising men are put through a more advanced course of instruction and become teachers them- selves, with the official designation of Instructors. The A.B. an- swers to the private soldier, and — whether trained in a gunnery- ship or not — can be advanced to higher grades as a petty officer. He may become coxswain of a boat, captain of a top, or boatswain's or gunner's mate, and thus obtain command over others, increased pay, and the right to wear a badge or symbol of rank upon his sleeve; or he may reach the highest position open to a 'fore-mast hand — the grade of boatswain or gunner. The seamen proper fomi but a portion of the crew of a ship. There are many other classes " before the mast." Every vessel car- ries a considerable detachment of Royal Marines, made up of both artillerymen and infantry, the former being selected from the latter, and subjected to a special training. These men are enlisted on terms somewhat different from those which obtain in the army of the hue. They enlist for long service, whilst the men of the army have superior advantages in the way of pay, pension, and promo- tion from the ranks. Though the requirements in height and chest measurement for the marines, exceed those for army recruits, there is never any difficulty in obtaining men; in fact, it has been neces- sary upon several occasions to raise the standard in order to keep the force within the established strength. The marines are distrib- uted in divisions at the principal naval ports. They supply the guards and sentries on board, and some few of them are permitted THE services. I:;.-, to act as servants to the officers. Together with the blue-jackets they man the guns, and in all duties— which do not require their presence aloft or at the oars — they share equally with the sailors. Their training, which, as they enter the service as grown men. is shorter than that of their shipmates, is conducted al their own head-quarters, and is so perfect and carefully supervised that, in spite of long absences from a parade ground, their qualities as sol- diers are second to those of none in the world. Tluir discipline is admirable, and their fidelity so well established as to have almost passed into a proverb. The position of the corps is not so good as its deserts; for, owing to long service enlistment and the require- ments of the authorities, they form a corps d'ilite. Of late years, however, the sailor has been more and more trained and drilled a.s if it were intended that he should be able to perform the duties of a soldier. His military education naturally absorbs a good deal of his time; and it is a common cause of complaint amongst officers of the marines that then- men are taken from legitimate duties to perform others and subordinate ones rightly the work of seamen. Besides there are stokers for the work of the engine-room and stokehole, and endless varieties of artificers. Nor is a crew com- plete which has not on its lists carpenters, calkers, shipwrights, blacksmiths, armorers, and painters, each with their separate grades; whilst in large ships are also to be found butchers, tinsmiths, coop- ers, and lamp-trimmers. Vessels of all classes carry stewards, cooks, sick -berth attendants and servants. The officers who have to command these men begin their career at an earlier age than the "'fore-mast hands." To become a naval cadet a boy must be more than twelve and less than thirteen years and a half old. Those who have succeeded in obtaining a cadetship have to pass an examination for school subjects, held twice a year, before they can be appointed to the officers' school-ship, the Britan- nia. It is also necessary to pass an examination in physical qualifi- cations before a board of medical men. The duration of the school- ing in the Britannia is two years; the cadet being instructed chiefly in the theoretical subjects, with which he must become conversant before he can gain a correct knowledge of the duties of his prof sion. The education is to a great extent mathematical, and is alm< si purely scholastic, in order that the withdrawal of boys at so ten- der an age from the usual studies of persons of their class in life may be in some measure made up to them. At its conclusion tl are sent to the larger of the regular sea-going ships of the fleet, which is the real beginning of the young officer's naval life, ilis 436 ENGLAND. schooling, however, still continues; the naval instructor — an officer appointed specially for the purpose — claims him for a great part of the day, the desk being really the true scene of the modern midshipman's labors. Examinations are frequent, and future ad- vancement in the service depends on success in them. It will there- fore be readily understood froni this that the "middies'" of the day differ greatly from the " reefers" of Marryat's time. They are school-boys now rather than officers; purely academic tests being powerful to fix then* position in the least academic of services. They still command boats and have charge of tops; but the former are too often steam launches, and in ironclads the latter are seldom practi- cally used to set or take in sail. After some four years spent at sea, the passing of a series of examinations entitles the midshipman to his first commission as a sub-lieutenant, and marks the end of the obligatory status pup ill oris. He may, when promoted to the next rank — that of lieutenant — vol- untarily undergo a course of study in naval gunnery, or in torpedo science; or he can, in any rank bearing a commission, study at the college at Greenwich. But the end of his midshipman's term and its several " final " examinations terminate his school-boy days. Promotion to a lieutenancy goes practically by seniority, and should be attained about the twenty-fourth year; to commander, and after- wards to captain, it is by selection; to the various grades of flag- officers, strictly by seniority. A man may be a commander by five- and-thirtv or sooner, and a captain four or five years later. Lar^e ships carry an officer of each of these ranks, whilst small vessels with, less than about one hundred and fifty men are frequently in sole charge of a commander. Besides the great body of naval officers, there are in the service many branches, e. g., the chaplains, the in- creasingly important engineers, the medical officers, the paymas- ters, <£c. At least one representative of every class is to be found aboard most men-of-war. Indeed, H.M. ships resemble little worlds in the completeness and variety of the callings which then' crews embrace. It is when the officers and men, of whom so much has now been said, are brought together afloat, that the inner life on board ship may be seen in the customs and manners which prevail through- out the navy. The early and thorough cleansing of every part of the ship, which begins the day; the polishing and beautifying all within and without which follows; the forenoons and afternoons given up to drill and instruction; the busy work of the carpenters, blacksmiths, sail-makers, and other artificers; the whirr of the lathe of the engi- THE SERVICES. 117 neers — all these are reproduced throughout hundreds of ships in all parts of the world. At oue time a row of men are standing ready for inspection before having leave or ''liberty" to go on shore. At another, a less eager rank is drawn up before the commander, or senior lieutenant (the second in command, by whom the internal economy is supervised), awaiting trial for small offenses. Red- coated sentries pace to and fro; the captain quits or returns to the ship amid a shrill nourish of whistles; the doctors inspect their pa- tients in the hospitals, or "sick-bay." The working hours may be said.to end after the early supper of the men at half-past four is fin- ished, when the long-wished-for pipe may be smoked. As the bells strike the hour the watch is called. The pipe of the boatswain's mate conveys orders given by the ever-present lieutenant of the watch. The whole busy scene of ship life is intended as a prepa- ration for war, and the steady and continuous instruction given has provided the fleet of the country with a class of "trained cut- lasses " to which even the " educated bayonets " of Prussia are not superior. The central government of the naval service resides at the A<1- miraltv, and is carried on by a Board called the Board of Admiralty, \ the members being styled "Lords Commissioners for Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral." There are five members of the Board, namely: — The First Lord, who is a member of the Cabinet, and four assistant Commissioners. To the First Lord is intrusted the general supervision, the control, in great measure, of the naval policy of the country, and the appointment of officers to high com- mands. His power over his colleagues is practically supreme, but in the division of labor amongst them these important matters as a rule fall to him. Next come three Naval Lords, known as the r Senior Naval Lord, Third Lord, and Junior Naval Lord, of whom the first superintends the discipline of the fleet, the Third Lord attends to construction and the dockyards, and the Junior Na- val Lord to victualing and transport. The fifth member of the Board is the Civil Lord, who attends to finance. Secretaries take i other duties, and the Controller — the greatest officer of the navy who has not a seat at the Board — has care of the materiel and armament. In the discharge of his important duties he has to approve designs of ships, armored and unarmored — from the turret-ship carrying guns weighing eighty tons, and armor twenty-four inches thick, to the gun-boat not much bigger than a Cowes yacht. With his department rests the decision as to the weapons to be carrie 1; 438 ENGLAND. the size and position of the guns, and of the new and important weapon — the torpedo. His relations with the dockyards — the vast establishments in which ships are built or repaired — are naturally in- timate. The dockyards represent, to some extent, outlying branches of his great department, and have their off-shoots at many places, thousands of miles off, in our colonial dependencies. In the same way the victualing-yards, or establishments for supplying the fleet with food and other necessaries, are distributed about the world. The Admiralty, as head of the navy, enjoys a curious constitutional independence; it can appoint officers independently of the Sover- eign's sign-manual; its Mutiny Act — the Naval Discipline Act — does not require renewal. Another peculiarity is the method of voting the estimates. In the army the number of men and the charges for pay and maintenance are made the subject of votes. In the navy the wages only for so many men and boys are voted. In fact, though many of its privileges have been abolished or exchanged, the Admi- ralty still occupies a unique position amongst the great departments of the State.* The British army of to-day may be compared to an - old-fashioned house in one of the principal London thoroughfares, which has been refronted and redecorated to meet the imperious needs of modern progress. Till the portals have been passed no one would recognize the dwelling. Ouside, the architect, lavish with plate-glass, with stone mullions and crimson bricks, has worked wonders; but he has not been equally successful within. All his efforts to recast the interior of the house and lay it out afresh have been at best half failures. He has thrown down partitions, altered levels, added here and rebuilt there; but his difficulties were too great to be completely surmounted, and everywhere the old character of the place crops up irrepressibly. Great structural changes have been impracticable; conflicting interests and vested rights, questions of free access, party-walls and light impeded, have tied his hands. He has been forbidden to increase the limits of the edifice, which must still be contained within its old four walls. Consequently, there are still low ceilings, narrow corridors leading to culs-de-sac, curious corners where the daylight cannot penetrate, and where the dust will still gather in spite of new brooms. Nothing better, indeed, could be * The numbers provided for in the last naval estimates are as follows: — For the fleet — Seamen, 34,100; boys, 0,300; marines afloat, 7,000; marines ashore, 7,000. For the coastguard — Afloat (included with fleet); on shore, officers and men, 4,300; Indian service, 1,300. Total, 60,000. Ships and vessels of all sorts, 249. THE SERVICES. 439 done, at least until the advent of a general conflagration, an (.•nth- quake, or some abnormal cataclysm which, spreading ruin and des- olation around, shall leave the site unencumbered Eor the erection of another mansion, new, from basement to roof-tree, and construe I from first to last on entirely different lines. It is precisely the same with our army. The necesi thorough reconstitution and reform has long - been admitted on every side, and statesmen, soldiers, officials, experts of every b have had a hand to the job. The War Office has proved a sure avenue to the jDeerage for cabinet ministers, who, recognizing importance of the work, have strenuously put their shoulder to the wheel. A host of specialists, some merely outsiders, others in 1 j>lace at the War Office and on the staff, have assisted in the v. >rk of revision, recommendation, and substitution: yet in spite of the efforts of all, it is only upon the surface, only in its external aspect, not in its internal framework and principal lines, that the army has been changed. There are, in fact, certain seemingly inalienable peculiarities which continually run counter to drastic reform. Complications crop up at every turn; grave constitutional and political questions are intimately connected with the whole subject. The responsi- bilities of the most extensive and varied empire which the world ever knew, intensify a thousand-fold the difficulties of army admin- istration and organization. The usual formula, that liberties are in danger, is echoed on every side at the first hint of the possible necessity for universal service. While parliamentary government remains what it is, the exigencies of " party " warfare will alv, override the obvious advantages of military efficiency and thorough preparedness for war. The same principle of government carries with it the inevitable consequence that the supreme head of the army must be a civilian statesman. Even if there were not an invincible national repugnance to the mere name of "conscription," the varied character of the service which our soldiers are called upon to perform, often in lethal climates, exiled and at a distance from home, would render compulsory service practically impossible with us. We alone among great European Powers must continue, therefore, to recruit our army by voluntary enlistments, accepting the pecuniary burden which it entails — a tax, however, which ends with the money spent, and does not, as in Germany and elsewhere, seriously sap the national prosperity and progress. Again, it is this unalterable rule of voluntary service which fixes the quality and status of the men who constitute the rank and file. These can- 440 ENGLAND. not, as in countries where all classes alike supply their quota, be drawn from more than one source of supply. This source, with us, must be the market for unskilled labor, in which alone Government competes against other employers for the thews and muscles it re- quires. Finally, the peculiar fascinations which the profession of arms seems to possess for the sons of the aristocracy and of well-to- do j^eople of the upper and middle classes provide an inexhaustible contingent of candidates for commissions. There is an increase rather than a diminution in the supply, and this in spite of changes which might have been thought to reduce appreciably the attrac- tions of the military career. Notwithstanding the abolition of pur- chase, the difficulties thrown in the way of exchanges from regiment to regiment to suit individual convenience, and the prospect of stag- nation in promotion which can be relieved only at the cost of much hardship, army officers as a body are and will continue to be of the class of gentlemen bred and born. But although the general outlines and principal conditions of military service remain much what they were a hundred years ago, it cannot be denied that there have been recently great changes and improvements in matters of detail. Of these the most noticeable are (1) the more thorough consolidation of the governing bodies, which has been effected through the removal of the Horse Guards' staff from Whitehall to the War Office; (2) the abolition of purchase among officers and the concurrent, but not necessarily, consequent increase of professional knowledge and acquirements among them; (3) the complete adoption of the principle of short enlistments for the rank and file; (4) a general careful revision of the training, con- stitution, equipment, and weapons of the three arms. I. Before the Crimean campaign there was practically no single great office charged with the administration of the army as a whole. A number of small independent jurisdictions controlled the several branches, working in harmony or not, according to the chances of the case, but imperfectly impressed with their true functions or the importance of maintaining the army itself in a high state of effi- ciency. The results of this pernicious want of one unified system were painfully apparent in the terrible chaos which promptly su- pervened during our war with Russia, and one of the first efforts towards reform was in administration. The creation of a new Sec- retary of State specially appointed " for war " was followed by nu- merous alterations in names, offices, and business performed, but all having the same object of concentrating authority under one head. The edifice was not crowned until the commander-in-chief THE SERVICES. Ill was forcibly moved from Whitehall. The Duke of Cambridge had always cheerfully recognized the power and superiority of the 8 retary of State as the official really responsible to the Queen and Parliament; but this subordination continued to be in a measure misunderstood so long as the two remained under differenl roofs and, at least in appearance, independent of each other. Now the fusion is complete and real. The Secretary of State for War stands next the Sovereign, and holds by delegation the supreme authorily and command. Upon his staff are three great officers. Two of these are parliamentary officials having seats in the House, and charged, respectively, with the departments of supply of stores, and finance; the third is the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chicf, who exercises the purely military functions. The measures by which this consolidation was brought about did not at first find favor with all concerned; but the necessity was indisputable, and now that some six or seven years have elapsed, the system has been accepted and acquiesced hi with the best grace in the world. The fact is, the introduction into the War Office of a large leaven of the military element has tended to increase the dignity and influence of the Commander-in-Chief. Clerkdom has in a measure succumbed. The soldiers, although nominally more subordinated, are actually more powerful now when they are on the spot, and their voices can be more quickly heard, than when they transacted their business from a distance by communications on paper, or by visits which were formal and rare. II. The precise aims and objects which the Government of the \ day had in view when it proposed to abolish the long-established practice of buying and selling commissions hi the army will never perhaps be accurately known. The occasion was one of general ex- citement, and nothing less than some large scheme of military reor- ganization and reform, or the semblance of it, would have satisfied the public mind. Purchase being theoretically quite indefensible, nothing was easier than to charge it with the Haws and failures of the whole system. It was said to impede and interfere with any ar- rangements for increasing the symmetry and efficiency of the ser- vice; the vested rights of the officers stood continually in the way. If a man had purchased his promotion, it was almost impossible to remove him, however incompetent, from regimental command. Merit was repeatedly overlooked; promotion following not &tn but the length of a man's purse. These and other strong reasons sufficiently justified the attack made upon an institution which might be time-honored, but which on the face of it had little to 442 ENGLAND. recommend, it. But they did not easily overbear the opposition which the proposal encountered from the first. There were niany practical minds who, while they admitted the disadvantages of pur- chase, upheld it on grounds of its economy and convenience. It was a system by which a large body of servants of the Crown pro- vided theh own pensions without costing the public exchequer a penny. It secured a reasonably rapid flow of promotion; and if, in theory, it bore hardly upon some deserving officers who had not the means to purchase, matters righted themselves in the long run, and, as a matter of fact, they often benefited more largely by the system than their comrades who paid. For the non-purchase officer who constantly gained promotion by seniority and other means, became entitled to precisely the same sums on retirement as the purchase officer, while the constant movement of men coming and going pushed him steadily to the top of the tree. Nevertheless, although the contest was fierce and protracted, purchase was definitely swept away in 1871. In the years which have since elapsed there have been many opportunities of testing the wisdom of the change, although it would be premature to pro- nounce as yet upon its failure or success. Certain consequences, however, which are directly traceable to it have already become plainly apparent. Chief among these is the unsatisfactory conclu- sion that the eight millions voted to " buy back our army " represents but a fraction of the total outlay involved; promotion almost imme- diately stagnated, and threatened soon to cease altogether unless some artificial means were devised to quicken it and keep it alive. This entailed an elaborate scheme of retirements with bonuses and pensions which, when in full working order, will fall heavily upon the public purse; while the provisions of the warrant will not im- probably prove, in many cases, a distinct hardship to officers them- selves. The basis of the new arrangements is that all who, at a certain age, have not ascended above a certain grade shall be com- pelled to retire. In other words, a captain who is still a captain at forty, a major still a major at forty-seven, and so on through the various grades, must, although theh retardation will probably have been their misfortune and not theh fault, take their pensions and retire jDermanently from active employment. This rule niay have been a logical necessity. It cannot be doubted that strong reasons existed why this stagnation should be relieved by application of the scheme to other than the very highest ranks. But the immediate results of the plan will be in many cases hardship to individual officers and to the country at large, a tax for pensions to men still THE SERVICES. \\:\ full of health and eager for work. Nor must it be ov< the retired military officer forty years of age has but few a of employment open to him. It is not easy to forecast the future of the pensioned captains and majors who, with a pittance of a .< hundreds a year, are sent adrift from the profession in which they have spent their best years. AVith an income in itself insufficient, and unless they have fair private means, no other prospects but emigration or genteel poverty, it is already clear that the te] of the new retirement scheme is decidedly reactionary, and that the army will now less than ever be a profession for poor men. How far the abolition of purchase can be credited with the recent distinct improvements in the professional efficiency of the body of officers is another point which cannot be exactly determined. N i > doubt, the knowledge that promotion can no longer be purchased, but may be determined by merit, has proved an incentive to exer- tion; although even now, it is no more certain that merit in the abstract will insure advancement, than that incompetence will be a bar to high commands. But other causes have also been at work. The i:>resent generation has seen a more wide-spread development of military science than any which preceded it, and the same influ- ences which brought about German triumphs and French disasters have been indirectly, but yet disproportionately, felt in England. The paramount necessity for progressive improvement has been impressed with irresistible logic upon an important section of our military officers, and these have, in their turn, authoritatively, or by the more effective suasion of precept and personal example, helped to introduce a new tone throughout the service and establish a new order of things. Under the present regime, military subjects are no longer tabooed, as they once were among military men. Military literature finds a wide -circle of military readers. Military games are played by the dandified guardsman or the once professionally illiterate dragoon. Schools, classes, lectures in London and the principal garrisons and canrps provide all ranks with abund; opportunities for self-improvement, of which numbers gladly avail themselves to the full. This marked and very general change in the ambitions and aptitudes of ovu' military officers is one of the most satisfactory signs for the future of our military institutions. Although yielding to none in the whole world in gallantry and de- votion when tried in the hour of supreme danger — it might once have been urged against them that then- scientific . were limited; that, beyond the perfunctory discharge of routine duties, as quickly forgotten as the uniform coat was exchanged 444 ENGLAND. mufti, they had no claim to be called soldiers in the modern sense of the term. But officers now, as a body, are rapidly escaping any such reproach. From the moment the young cadet, released from Sandhurst, matriculates, so to speak, at the alma mater of his corps, he is subjected to a system of progress or training which cannot fail to perfect him in the work he has or will have to do. He is still encouraged, as of old, to play games and patronize sport, to shoot, hunt, fish, and show his prowess in those manly exercises which have in times past given English officers a peculiar advantage when sent into the field. He is still constantly reminded by the tone and spirit of those among whom he lives, and who soon become his life-long friends, that unfailing courtesy, a chivalrous bearing and pleasant address, frank manliness, and straightforward and honorable deal- ings with all the world, are the traits of "the officer and the gentle- man." This composite expression appears to be in no immediate danger of alteration. It was thought at the time that the action of recent reforms woidd tend to lower appreciably the social status of English officers as a whole. But although the expression "Mr. Cardwell's young men " was for a short period often employed as a term of contempt, it had never real meaning or foundation. Now, from causes already indicated, the tendency is more than ever to fill our regiments with officers drawn exclusively from the moneyed classes. Armies will still be led by the gentlemen of England as of old; but they will be gentlemen who can rely no less on their own professional knowledge than on their personal qualities, to win the esteem and respect of then - men. III. Not less disruptive and drastic in character than the changes introduced in the prospects of officers were the measures adopted about the same time for revising the conditions of service for the rank and file. The Enlistment Act of 1871 was a well-digested scheme for the consolidation of the whole of our military forces. The adoption of the principle of enlistment for short periods of service with the colors, followed by a longer time in a reserve pre- sumably within easy reach, is only of recent date, but it has already modified considerably the aspect and intrinsic value of the army as a whole. Previous to 1870 there had been repeated changes in the terms and conditions of service. Men had been enlisted for life, for twenty-one, for twelve, and last of all for ten years. But none of these systems had aimed to do more than fill the ranks. The recruit who joined under them served always at head-quarters; it was not .incumbent upon him, it was not even open to him, to pass into a reserve except under conditions which were not sufficiently THE SERVICES. \ [", attractive to induce him thus to become bound for a further term. \ The Armv Enlistment Act of 1870, which is now in force, was a new and logical attempt to alter this. Under its provisions the recruit is enlisted for either long- or short service. If he chooses the Ion the soldier engages to serve twelve years with the colors, and has the option of re-engaging for another term of nine years at (lie end of the first period. For short service, he engages to Berve six years with the colors and six in the reserve; but at anytime aft ir three years he may be dismissed to the reserve with a retaining fee in the shape of a modicum of daily pay, which acts as a lien upon him to return and complete the full term should his services under any emergency be urgently required. No doubt, the intentions of the framers of this rule were excellent; and it is but fair to admit that so far as the formation of reserves, which could be promptly utilized and in considerable numbers, is concerned, their endeavors have been crowned with a certain success. The ease and rapidity with which, in spite of friction and small flaws in administrative ma- chinery, these reserves were mobilized when war with Russia was imminent sufficiently established the wisdom of the .system in this particular respect. But there are, on the other hand, uncomfort- able misgivings that the principle of short service has tended to alter greatly the physical character of the army as a whole, and in a measure to reduce its soldierly efficiency. The reserves, it is to be feared, are kept up at the expense of the service battalions. The latter have become merely feed-pipes, so to speak, a constant stream towards the reservoir of the reserve. The service army is always in a fluid condition; it never crystallizes and consolidi itself. The bronzed and bearded veterans, the old s< ildiers, full of the cunning of experience, the self-reliant, full-grown men who won I for Great Britain its records of imperishable fame, are absoli wanting in our regiments of to-day. That the lads and stripli who have replaced them are animated by the same spirit is prob- able enough, but they cannot be equal to them in strength and physique, nor are they to be blamed if they exhibit unsteadiness or want of stamina when sorely tried. It is already becoming p] and the most recent experience in Zululand is a newer and stronger proof of the fact, that some modifications of the principle of shorl service must be immediately made, so as to secure for every r< mont a certain leaven of older men. This may be obtained by offering good non-commissioned officers more substantial indu ments to serve on uninterruptedly for a term of twenty-one y< and, secondly, by similar inducements insuring that a certain p. - 4-16 ENGLAND. portion, say ten per cent., of the rank and file should be composed of old soldiers.* IV. But if nowadays our soldiers are merely warriors in embryo, who for the reasons just detailed, can neyer reach their full devel- opment, no pains have been spared to carry their training as far as it can go, to improye their equipment, and generally to secure their comfort and well-being-. The life of the recruit, from the moment he takes the shilling until he is dismissed drill, fully proves this. Vhether picked up by the recruiting sergeant in metropolitan pur- lieus, whether drawn from agricultural district or busy manufact- uring town, or whether coming into barracks of his own free will, seeking enrploynient after a run of bad luck in other spheres, the reeruit is carefully protected and looked after from the first. He must be sworn in and attested before a magistrate after a certain lapse of hours, to prove that he has not been inveigled into enlist- ment unawares. To secure his independence still further, he joins his depot or the head-quarters of the corps by himself, and not, as in times past, under an escort. Arrived at barracks, he undergoes a second medical examination, is bathed, clothed in fatigue dress, and handed over to his " company " sergeant to be lodged in a bar- rack-room, made one of a "mess"; and within the day is included in a squad of others like himself about to be initiated into the mys- teries of his profession. From the goose step, the infantry recruit passes through the " extension motions " to club-drill, and so on through slow marching, marching in quick and double time, to the use of his weapons, and then to more intricate movements in com- pany and battalion drill, followed last of all by careful instruction in " loose order " fighting or independent skirmishing. The process is naturally more intricate and lengthened with the cavalry recruit, the artilleryman, and the engineer. The riding-school is the promi- nent feature with the first named, and a source of no little discom- fort to the yokel or city vaurien, who has never before been in a saddle. Cavalry exercises, again, are difficult to master because the pupil must learn to handle not a rille only, but a sword, carbine, pistol, and lance. The gunner's training is never, practically, com- pleted; the horse-artilleryman must learn to ride as well as work his guns, and the garrison gunner has an endless coiu'se of instruc- * A year suffices to teach every thing to an infantry soldier in the way of drill, but six years is only enough to tra'm him — to give him the military in- stinct, which is so valuable in a crisis. Why should not reserves be composed partly of men of one year's service, partly of men of twelve; the majority of the men in a regiment being enlisted for twelve years with the colors? THE SERVICES. | 17 tion in manipulating the multitudinous appliances and machinery of modern ordnance. The sapper or engineer begins with the knowledge of some handicraft or trade, which is an indispensable qualification for enlistment into that arm; but he also has an inter- minable course of instruction in the various processes which the modern scientific soldier has at command. It is on account of i time and trouble needed to perfect the military education of the several arms that the short-service system, as it exists in the in- fantry, has never yet been extended to the cavalry and the scientific corps. But the education of the young soldier is not entirety technical and mechanical. "While thus undergoing- that perpetual repetition of exercises which gradually makes their performance almost auto- matic, he is insensibly subjected to the influences of discipline, and almost impalpably assimilates those notions of perfect obedience to orders, and implicit subordination of will, which, when thoroughly understood, makes an army, as Locke has it, " a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man." According as he submits to the iron rule, grudgingly, with a good will, or not at all, must his value as a soldier be measured. If he kick against the pricks, and chafe at the petty despotism of stripling sergeant or callow corporal, who but the day previous was but a recruit like himself, he may enter upon a career of misconduct, which, commencing in trifling laches — such as short absences without leave, occasional resistance to author- ity — may .culminate one day in defiant conduct and desertion of the colors. For each and all of the first named he will have to endure penalties — such as loss of pay and liberty, dull repetitions of drill, with possibly a short confinement to provost cells. If his insubor- dination go to the length of real violence he will be tried by court- martial, and may find himself in prison for a lengthy term, as he will assuredly do should his desertion end, as it very often but, un- happily, not always ends, in detection and recapture. On the other hand, the well-conducted soldier, save and except for a more or less constant ennui, born of the narrow and objectless life he leads, may pass his days in comparative comfort and freedom from care. Ho is relieved of all responsibilities of maintenance, is fed, lod clothed, with the most punctilious attention to his wants and re- quirements. Officers inspect his food, his barrack-rooms, doctors prescribe for him if his finger aches, he has "his rights," as he calls them, and may complain whenever he feels aggrieved to the highest authority. The sum of 2d. a day is placed to his credit under the name of deferred pay, so that when he obtains his discharge he m 448 ENGLAND. not be without funds with which to start in his old trade, or on which he can exist till he finds an opening - in civil life. But for occasional exile and the somewhat remote responsibility of being called upon to risk his life for his country, the private soldier, in the society of congenial companions, and with just enough exercise to keep himself in health, is perhaps more of a gentleman at large than any other member of the working community. Were it not for their rawness and crudity, no grave fault could be found with the rank and file of by far the larger portion of our regular army. Our infantry soldiers are armed with an admirable breech-loader, which they are taught to handle with skill and effect. The cavalry are well mounted and fairly equipped, although there is room for improvement still, in weapons and gear, in organization and tactics, whether for man or horse. As for the artillerv and en- gineers, they may compare with advantage with any in Europe. The intelligence of our officers and their good qualities have been already adverted to, while the action of those in authority and in the superior grades, in raising the level of excellence, is an exceed- ingly hopeful sign for the future of our army. Yet one serious de- fect remains, and is likely to remain unremedied until some almost irreparable disaster overtakes us. This is the insufficiency of our regular forces, all told, for the services they may be called irpon to / perform. What with the demands made by India, the Crown col- onies, and occasional savage wars in possessions beyond the seas, our regular army is always broken up into fractions and distributed over the face of the earth.* The balance available for service with- in the United Kingdom, as garrison and safeguard against foreign attack, is altogether inadequate in view of the mammoth armies which our neighbors control; nor is the common explanation that our navy is oiti- first line of defense sufficient to set all doubts at rest. This is plainly shown by our consistent efforts to organize citizen forces to supplement our home army should occasion arise. I Of these, the first, the militia, is an institution practically coeval with the nation, which bases its right to exist upon the claim the State has upon every citizen to serve in defense of his health and * The army localization scheme may also require amendment. As matters are, it is only the depot which is localized, while the regiment is probahly never quartered in its district. The mobilization scheme for home defense is antago- nistic to localization, while a mobilization scheme for foreign service does not exist. Lastly, when regiments are required to go on foreign service they have, as matters are, to be made up from drafts from possibly half a dozen other regiments. THE SERVICES. 419 home; the second — the volunteers — is an admirable exponent of tho spirit and martial enterprise of the nation at Lar The loyalty of the militia to the State rather than to the individ- ual has always been marked, so much so that at one period of our history it was relied upon as the most effectual safeguard of the lib- erties of the people against the menace of a standing army. li was recruited bv ballot, and though this method has now fallen into abey- ance, the statutory power to enforce it still remains. It is perhaps needless to remark that any attempt to carry it into effect would, in the present state of public opinion, lead to determined resistance. / Nevertheless, the ballot remains as a last resource in a time of na- tional emergency. Time was when the militia as an element of mili- tary strength was somewhat underestimated. For numbers of years it was never called out, and its existence was almost forgotten. Then after it had done good service, as during the Crimean war and In- dian Mutiny, it was long subordinated to the volunteers. It has, however, regained its proper place in public esteem, and is now closely interwoven with the whole scheme of military organization for purposes of recruiting; militia regiments being affiliated to cer- tain line regiments, to which they act as supports and reserves. More careful supervision and a change in the system of officering, with longer trainings and more frequent practice in association with other troops, have in recent years considerably developed the effi- ciency of the whole force. As for the volunteers, their wonderful I vitality, in spite of snubs and sneers, accompanied not unfrequently by contemptuous distrustfulness as to their real value in time of need, still maintains their prestige. The volunteer movement wits the natural outcome of the wave of military enthusiasm which swept over the land in 1859. Many causes had been working upon the na- tional spirit. The Crimean war and the Indian Mutiny had devel- oped rather than diminished our offensive strength, but it was at the cost of our defensive resources. The militia had been call I upon, and had responded well; but even of militia we had too few. It was at this juncture that the apparently aggressive policy of Emperor Napoleon III. led people to think once more of the prox- imity of France to our own shores, and gave rise to rumorSj intan- gible enough, but widely circulated and believed, that an invasion of England was not an impossible contingency. There is no doubt that the volunteers were very much in earnest, and, as might have been predicted of the stubborn national character, the only result of the ridicule and satire expended upon them was to intensify their perseverance and confirm their resolution. They are now excellent 29 450 ENGLAND. soldiers, in some points superior to regulars or militia; they are mostly expert marksmen, and they exhibit a high degiee of intelli- gence, being generally recruited from the educated classes. The defective arrangements for their equipment upon a war footing, and for the practice of military exercises, are the great faults of the system. In the present state of our general military organization, however, it is not quite clear whether, in case of invasion, the vol- unteers would be much worse off than the regular troops as far as mobilization is concerned. In any case, it is a great point gained to have the men; and though, with regard to the status of the vol- unteer force anomalies at present exist which woidd not be toler- ated in Continental armies, it forms an item of our defensive, and presumptively of our offensive, strength which no Continental critic attempts to ignore. In round numbers the strength of the force is 290,000 men, besides half a million more or less who have passed through its ranks. In an appendix will be found some information on the subjects of the reserves, the staff, the strength of the army, and the equipments. APPENDIX. The Reserves. — The first-class army reserve is composed of men who have served in the ranks. Short service and voluntary enlistment necessitated an arrangement of this sort. After a minimum service of three years men may pass into the reserve, and are liable to be called out in case of an emergency arising during the period fixed for their service in it. They receive, whilst unembodied, pay at the rate of fourpence a day. The number at which the ultimate strength of the force is to stand has been fixed by the Act of 1870 at 60,000. At present, however, owing to the short time the system has been at work, it is not nearly this strength. In the meantime an attempt has been made to supply its place by the formation of a militia reserve. The Staff. — The staff is charged with most important duties. The head- quarter staff at the War Office superintends the whole business of the army. The general staff is composed of picked men who in most instances have passed through the Staff College, where they have received a special training. This rule, however, is not invariable, as good service in the field and recognized ability also open the door to staff employment. In our service the staff system is somewhat complicated, officers being too frequently set to perform duties of ordinary routine, which in Continental armies would not be regarded as falling within their proper functions. Military Strenc.th of Great Britain. — According to the army estimates for the year ending March 31st, 1879, the regular army of the United Kingdom, exclusive of India, was to consist of 7,199 commissioned officers, 17,199 non- commissioned officers, trumpeters, and drummers, and 111,054 rank and file, or a total of all ranks of 135,452. The proportions of various arms are: — ■ THE SERVICES. |.-,L Officers. N.-O. Offla ra. Ui a. Royal Horse Artillery, inch: ding riding establishment. 129.... 226... 'J.Ts:} Cavalry, including Household Regiments 621. .. .1,378. . . . 10,928 Royal Artillery 095. . . .1,650. . . . 17,085 Royal Engineers 393. .. . 7 is . . . . I. i Army Service Corps 8 500 2,566 Infantry 3,327. . . .7,021 . . . .69,690 Army Hospital Corps 45. . . . 203. . . . 1,398 West India Regiments 102 156 1,580 Colonial Corps 20. . . . 61 566 To these must be added the general and departmental staff, the militia staff, and the staff of the various military institutions, making up the total as above. The following table recapitulates the various totals:— N.-C. Officers, Bank Officers. Trumpeters, & and Drummers. File. Total General and Departmental Staff 1,446. . . . 151 " Regiments 5,340. . . .11,943. . . .110,754 " Staff of Militia 298. .. . 4,655 " Miscellaneous Staff 115... 450.... 300 Total regular army, the cost of which is defrayed from the estimates 7,199 17,199 111;054 The British army in India for the same year amounted to 62,650 men of all ranks. Further, there are four classes of auxiliary forces: — Militia 136,778 Yeomanry 14, 614 Volunteers 182,810 Reserve, 1st Class 19,000 2d Class 24,000 Total 377,202 Arms e:\iployed rx Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery. — The infantry are armed with breech-loading rifles and bayonets. The range of the rifle for prac- tical purposes was estimated at 900 yards, but recent experience has shown I long-range fire, i. e., at much greater distances, will probably be utilized in future wars. Cavalry soldiers are armed with sword and breech-loading car- bine, lancers with the lance. The naked weapon or arme blanch i I tin- weapon of the mounted cavalry soldier. Dismounted, he can use his carbine with effi ct. The arm of the artillery is the gun: light field batteries and horse-artilLrv bat- teries with muzzle-loading rifled field guns, 9-pounders; heavy field batteries with 16-pounder guns; mountain batteries with steel 7-pounder guns: batteries of position with 40-pounder guns. A proportion of the men are provide! with carbines and swords, for individual defense or for outpost and garrison purposes. CHAPTER XXYI. RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. Various Religious Sects in England — General Spirit of Toleration — Two Oppo- site Tendencies in most Creeds : (1) Towards Excessive Organization, (2) Reaction from Dogmatic Spirit — General Survey of Activity of Church of England — Anglican Theology: its Chief Aspects — Contemporary Aspects contrasted with those of a Former Period — Importance of the Question, whether Theology is Progressive — On the Answer given to this Inquiry, Sectarian Differences depend — Some Tendencies of Broad Church Theology — Dr. Ince — Dean Stanley — Mr. Jowett — Mr. Matthew Arnold — Present Prov- ince of Theological Controversy — The High Church and Ritualistic Party: their Differences and Resemblances — The Evangelical Party — Organiza- tion of Church of England — Rectors ; Vicars ; Perpetual Curates — Great and Small Tithes — The Diocesan System: Bishops; Archdeacons; Deans; Rural Deans — Organization of Protestant Nonconformists: Independents; "Wesleyans — Organization of the Roman Catholic Church in England — Religious and Social Organization of the Jews — Common Meeting Ground of all Sects — Future of Religion in England. IF variety of religious sects were any test of the earnestness of a nation's religious life, nineteenth-century England might be esteemed in an enviable condition. The total number of separate denominations having one or more certificated places of worship exceeds one hundred and thirty. These, of course, represent not merely divisions of the same parent faith, and subdivisions, but subdivisions minutely subdivided. In many cases, apparently, the distinction is not so much theological as social or political. Thus Christian Teetotalers are registered independently of the "Temper- ance Church,*' while the " Church of Progress " and the " Church of the People " are the titles of two other mutually separate commun- ions. Scarcely less suggestive than this diversity of nomenclature is the multitude of announcements which are made in the London papers published on Saturday, under the heading "London Preach- ers for To-morrow." The Establishment itself comprehends a list representing many types of Christianity, churchmen, and preachers. If we look at the intimations which follow the words ""Nonconformist Churches," there is no species of Latitudinarianism or Free Thought, RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. ,|.-,:; whose prophets are not announced to appear in pulpii or on plat- form. In these rases, not merely is the name of the particular com- munion given, but of the precise subject on which the speaker may be expected to bold forth. A very cursory glance at the Long cata- logue will furnish some idea of the extent to which the practical assertion of the principle of individualism in religious mat Ins has been carried. Some of these topics are colorless ethical abstra< tions. Others testify to different degrees of fanaticism, or fantasy, or anti- Christian and anti-religious malignity. Side by side with the an- nouncement that one evangelist of Nonconformity will treat of the "Life and Times of the Prophet Jeremiah," we are told that an ingenious and speculative schismatic will favor his bearers with the result of his researches in the matter of "Lilith, Adam's first wife," or that another gentleman will lecture on "The Theater and the People," or that a distinguished astronomer will discourse to an audience on "Meteorites and Shooting Stars," or that there will be a prelection in some secular conventicle at the East End of London apropros of the inquiry "Ought England to be a Republic?" or that a lady preacher of the school which rejects all that there is in revelation and much that there is in morality, will candidly in- vestigate "whether virtue is compatible with Christianity." These announcements, which in each case have been taken liter- ally from the newspapers of the clay, the name of the preacher and of the chapel alone having been suppressed, will be regarded ac- cording to the temper of the critic, either as evidence of the multi- plicity of error, or of the praiseworthy activity of the modern mind in declining to take anything for granted, and in not being deterred from the duties of original investigation of the loftiest subjects which can engage the human mind. The age has been variously spoken of as one of religious indifferentism and religious zeal, of generally ex- tended belief, and of wide-spread skepticism. It possesses, m > doubt, some of each of these more or less various characteristics. Perhaps its two most real and distinctive features in all that appertains to affairs of spiritual faith are its activity and its toleration. Here, as eveiywhere in this last quarter of the nineteenth century, are percep- tible the different influences of the spirit of transition and of organ- ization. At the very moment that men are quick to take sides, keen to identify themselves with some phase or other of the religious . >r irreligious development of the time, they are disposed to admit that theological truth may reside in an entirely different direction, that truth itself is not to be found in its integrity anywhere, and that scattered elements of truth may be discovered in every quarter. It 454 ENGLAND. is not, perhaps, an age in which men would go to the stake with an unshaken conviction that they were sacrificing life for an infallible faith. It is rather an age in which men write pamphlets and essays, promulgate manifestoes, and, if necessary, incur lawsuits, with the loud-voiced and often-repeated asseveration that they and those who hold with them are, and only can be, in the right. It is an age in which obstinacy is likely to be mistaken for belief, and in which the passion for controversy may sometimes appear a heart-deep devo- tion to fundamental principles: an age in which enthusiasm does not necessarily mean intensity, and in which fervor is often in an inverse proportion to noise; an age in which all religions are highly organized, but not on that account generally and profoundly be- lieved in ; an age of observance, more than conviction, of worship in a greater degree than faith. A short examination of the existing condition of the Church of England will suffice to explain and justify the views which have just been advanced. The Establishment, it may be perhaps ob- jected, of the religion of a half, possibly of a bare majority, of the people of England, is no longer co-extensive with the Kingdom, and is itself split up into sects many of them differing more widely from each other than they do respectively from many Roman Catholics and Protestant Nonconformists outside its pale. Still, the Estab- lishment is entitled to be considered as fairly representative of the nation, while above and beyond this is the fact, that the Establish- ment is a church, and, as such, subject to much the same influences, distracted by nearly the same internal differences and controversies as other churches. Thus the various parties that may be seen in the Anghcan communion have their reflections and analogues in the parties which divide Roman Catholicism or Protestant Noncon- formity — the difference in the case of the former being that the supreme perfection of its discipline dwarfs or suppresses much that might otherwise be fully developed in openly asserted schism. If the Church of England is tolerant and comprehensive, it is because comprehensiveness and tolerance are the notes of the times, and as is the tendency of the day such is certain to be the spirit of the administration of any particular church. But concurrently with the general attitude of forbearance may be noticed that excessive addiction to organization, of which mention has already been made. Let us place the two in close juxtaposition, directing our attention first to the latter. How elaborate is the machinery for guaranteeing the due observ- ance of the Anglican ritual may be judged from the following sta- RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. IV" tistics. Out of 854 churches within the i. litan area tin is a weekly celebration of the Holy Communion in 390, nearly one half; daily Holy Communion in 42, one church in every 20; early Communion in 458, more than one half; choral celebration in 12(>. nearly one seventh; evening- Holy Communion in 246, more th one fourth. There is service on saints' days in 415 churches, nearly one half; daily service in 243, more than one fourth; while in I cases, nearly one sixth, there is no week-day service. The service is fully choral in 2(51 churches, nearly one third, and partly choral in 240, or two sevenths, thus giving 501 churches out of 854 where the Psalms are chanted. There is a surpliced choir in 355, more than two fifths; the choir is paid or partly paid in '220, more than one fourth, and voluntary in 386, more than two fifths. Gregorian tones are used wholly or partly in 115, nearly one seventh. The seats are free and open in 252, more than one fourth; and th< re is a weekly offertory in 405, more than one half. The surplice is worn in preaching in 463, more than one half. The eucharistic v stments are adopted in 35, or one church in every 24; incense is used in 14, and altar-lights are used in 58, one ninth; while in 41 other chin. ' there are candles on the altar, but they are not lighted. The east- ward position is adopted by the celebrant at the Holy Communion in 179 churches, nearly one fifth; 123, nearly one seventh, are open daily for private prayer; floral decorations are introduced at 2 more than one fourth; the feast of dedication is observed at 149, nearly one sixth; the shortened form of daily service sanctioned by the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act is used at 88, nearly one tenth; the Sunday services are separated at 40; the old lectionary is still used exclusively at 12 churches, and the old and new optionally at six. * If to the above statement we add the total expenditure of energy, piety, and good works, which the parochial system of the Church of England involves, if we further remember that larger benefactions are being perpetually made by private persons to the Establishment — that the wealth of the manufacturers of the north of the United Kingdom is often devoted to the building and the endowment of new churches in districts that are supposed to n them, it will be apparent that the zeal which Anglicanism can bo is at its disposal is very remarkable, both as regards character and degree. It is significant, and it is only just, to place by the side of * These facts and figures are taken from tlie thirteenth issue of Mi "Guide to the Churches of London and its Suburbs," and in this matter L a don may be regarded as fairly representative of the rest of England. 456 ENGLAND. sucli facts as these some to which attention is less frequently or less publicly directed The signs of external activity which the Church of England possesses may be all that are admirable; what is to be said of the evidences of her internal spiritual hie '? A distinguished living theologian, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, has drawn attention, in an introductory lecture, to the vicissitudes which English theology has experienced. Eroin the Reformation to the middle of the seventeenth century, Dr. Ince remarks, his own university was given up to the disputes between the Roman Catho- lic and the Protestants, or between the Calvinists and the Arcnin- ians. From 1650 to 1750, theology was merged in politics, and the great texts of the pulpit were those which bore on the divine right of kings, and the duty of non-resistance. Then came the struggle about the evidences of Christianity, which was followed by the Tract- arian movement. What are the issues now substituted for those which that movement raised? * Whereas formerly, the questions dis- cussed in the Divinity Schools at Oxford were five : " predestination, universal redemption, reprobation, irresistible grace, final persever- ance," the vexed points now are — incenses, lights, vestments, east- ward position, wafer bread, mixed chalice. These, indeed, are not the only subjects which engage the atten- tion of contemporary theologians. The discussion between the most eminent of our theological controversialists is not so much on the doctrines of the English Church, as on the nature of the scriptural record. This, it may be urged, involves principles still more mo- mentous than those which underlay the inquiries of an earlier period into the nature of predestination, and the other points enumerated above. For these doctrines can only be verified in the last degree by the testimony of the Bible, to which some would add the concur- rent testimony of ecclesiastical tradition. The questions which such theologians as Bishop Lightfoot, Professor Westcott, and Mr. San- day are endeavoring to decide is of what the really inspired writings consist, and to what exactly inspiration itself amounts. Of course, there are other problems in addition to those mentioned — the eter- nity of punishment, and the final restoration of all things. But the tendency is for the more scientific, who in this case are the more practical of theologians, to lay less stress upon these subjects, as ad- mitting possibly of no scientific demonstration, and to weigh all the evidence for and against the alleged antiquity of certain writings, and the degree of authority which they may be regarded as carry- ing with them. This is the positive and historic method, and in some ways it indicates an immense advance within the pale of the RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. 457 Anglican Church since Dr. Hampden wis almost excommunicated for remarking on the obsoleteness of the phraseology of the Athan- asian Creed, or the authors of "Essays and Reviews" weri con- demned by Convocation for the production of a blasphemous and heretical book. "What has just been said will enable us to form a better idea of the exact position of the Broad Church part} al the present day. It is scarcely too much to state that there is a single question the answer given to which would serve definitely to lix. a man's place in relation to the several sects of Anghcan Christianity. This question is: Can theology be called a progressive science ? According to all the great leaders of the Broad Church party, it can. On this, poi hear Dean Stanley: — "What has become of the belief once abso- lutely universal in Christendom, that unless by-some altogether i ceptional intervention, no human being could be saved who had not passed through the waters of baptism ; that even innocent children, if not immersed in the font, were doomed to endless perdition ? Or where are the interminable questions respecting the doctrine of pre- destination or the mode of justification which occupied the middle of the sixteenth century in Protestant churches? Into what limbo has passed the terrible conflict between the Burghers and the Anti- Burghers amongst the now United Presbyterians? What do we now hear of "the doctrine of the Double Procession, or of the Light on Mount Tabor, which in the ninth century and in the fifteenth, filled the mind of Eastern Christendom? These questions for the time occupied, in these several churches, the whole horizon of theo- logical thought. They are dead and buried; and for us, standing on their graves, it is idle to say that theology has not changed. It has changed. Religion has survived those changes; and tins is the historical pledge that it may, that it will survive a thousand more." Of course, in one sense, this indicates a real progress, but prog- whence and whither? Scarcely from a less belief in the letter of revealed religion to a greater. The dispute now, in i';u\, is not as it once was about the interpretation of the dogmatic tern ts of relig- ion, but about the nature of religion itself. Those who hold by the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of Scripture, and the unbroken tradition of the Church, cannot mean the same thing when tl speak of religion, theology, or Christianity, as those who COnsid< r that religion is progressive in the sense already explained, and who admit, as Dr. Ince and others do, that many notions concerning the * "Sermons and Addresses," by the Dean of Westiuins!.. r. Macmillan, i 458 ENGLAND. books of the Bible once deemed orthodox are erroneous. When men do not use the same words in the same sense, it is out of the question that any agreement shall ever be arrived at between them. Thus when Dean Stanley substitutes for the phrase " the reconcilia- tion of theology and religion/' " the recognition that so far as they meet, theology and science are one and indivisible," he scarcely sig- nifies by theology all that those who are persuaded that the text of the Bible as we have it, is the precisely written word of Omnipo- tence signify; or by science, all that to Professor Huxley that word implies. Such expressions as " whatever enlarges our ideas of na- ture, enlarges our ideas of God;" "whatever is bad theology is bad science;" "whatever is good science is good theology," are open to the same criticism. When, therefore, an analogy is drawn between the progressiveness of astronomy and theology, it must be accepted with some reserve. The historical method of which literary criti- cism is an integral part has changed — euphemistically speaking — has enlarged, our conception of certain central theological facts, has disposed, as Dean Stanley reminds us, of " untenable interpreta- tions;" "wrong translations;" "mistaken punctuation." But what is the relation in which these instruments of progress stand to the miracles, and other great facts, belief in which is an essential part of Christianity, as Christianity has in time past been understood ? Is it not much the same thing to say that there has been an advance in theology as it would be to say that there has been an advance in astronomy if a convenient compromise had been found possible be- tween those who accepted and those who rejected the idea of the law of gravitation, or of the sphericity of the earth ? Dean Stanley is far from being an extreme illustration of this tendency. The religion of latitudinarianism is not a religion in the same sense as the religion of the High Church or of the Evangelical party. The truth is, that the doctors of the Broad Church school use the current terms of theology in an esoteric sense peculiar to themselves. Thus in a recent sermon Mr. Jowett, the Master of Balliol,* spoke of the divinity of Christ's life, but he did not mean that Christ was divine. He spoke of the overshadowing providence of God, but he did not mean a personal God. He spoke of a Chris- tian Trinity, but he defined its three elements to be a pantheistic conception of Godhead; all that is Godlike in human life and char- acter, and all well-attested facts of science and history. This is scarcely the Trinity of the divinity schools. Or take the case of * Preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, February 1G, 1879. RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. r,:» tlie most accomplished literary critic, and almost the i poet | of the day: Mr. Matthew Arnold Mr. Arnold is. according to his own view, not only a poet and critic, but a theologian. Be ha, written in defense of the Church of England, as a center of relic- ious sweetness, light, and culture, against the attacks of political Non- conformists. He holds that the Church is "a national society for the dili'usion of goodness," and, holding this view, he claims to 1. very good Churchman. The instruments to be employed by the Church in the attainment of the end of its existence are Chri tianity and the Bible. But in what sense can Mr. Arnold be said to accept either, when he interprets three fundamental doctrines of Christi- anity in the following words: "Eternal life? Yes, the life in tlio higher and undying self of men. Judgment? Yes, the trying, in conscience, of the claims and instigations of the two lives, and the de- cision between them. Resurrection? Yes, the rising from bond and transience with the lower life to victory and permanence with the higher. The kingdom of God? Yes, the reign amongst man- kind of the higher life. The Christ the Son of God? Yes, the bringer-in and founder of this reign of the higher life, this true kingdom of God." Of course, these views, or any thing approaching to these views, would be conscientiously repudiated by many distinguished mem- bers o*f the Broad Church party. Nevertheless, it may be questioned whether this is not the tendency of all Broad Church theology, and whether the boldly-avowed opinions of Mr. Matthew Arnold do not represent the ultimate analysis of some of the cardinal ideas of eccle- siastical latitudinarianism. As it is the historical method which is ■ chiefly characteristic of the Broad Church party, so, too, there is an historical aspect to the party which is at the opposite pole of con- tenrporary ecclesiasticism — the Ritualists. For the multitude, it may safely be said, Ritualism is little more than an affair of p ure, millinery, music, and decoration. The ground on which the lengths resorted to by Ritualists in each of these matters are de- fended is, that such extremes are historically justifiable, thai tl are what the rubric of the Anglican Church enjoins, or that they are what the spiritual rulers of that Church have an historical claim to command. Eminently historical, too, were, in a sense, the infl which presided over the birth of the party that for practical pur- poses has become merged in the Ritualists. There came up to Oxford, between the years 1820 and 1840, a number of under-gra I- uates, most of whom had been educated under Evangelical intlu- ences, and including John Henry Newman, Pusey, KebL G Ley, 460 ENGLAND. Manning, Faber, Froude, Palmer, Perceval, Churton. The avowed object of these men was to withstand all changes, and to maintain pure doctrine and primitive practice. The profession of these views was followed by the study of history. The records of the third cen- tury were investigated, the ritual and creed of Pome examined. A sentiment of hostility to the Reformation developed itself. Opinions not held in the third century began to be entertained. Purgatory, prayers for the dead, the confessional, the saints, baptismal regener- ation, were regarded with reverence. The direct descendants of these men, in that state of their belief before these views were carried to their logical results, there still are among us, but the undoubted tendency is to sink the High Church party in the Eitualists. There can be no greater contrast than that between the religious ceremonial of the first founders of the school and the cultus of contemporary Ritualism. The old type of High Church divine, a . scholastic gentleman, well read in the Fathers, and well informed generally on subjects of architecture and archaeology, betraying a quiet weakness for anthems and painted glass, a cultivated and agreeable companion, is seldom met with now. The later specimen is a more or less boisterous young divine, much given to the inarticulate mumbling of many services. He is, per- haps, less particular about the cleanliness of his surplice than his predecessor, but is very precise as to the fit of his colored and em- broidered stole. He is fond of speaking in his sermons about the Church, and her kindness to her ungrateful children. This phrase- ology is often confusing to the lower classes, and a ballad has been written, which has obtained much popularity, embodying the com- plaint of an old-fashioned villager at the new style. He used, he says, to understand when he heard of " Christ our Lord," of " His work" and "His love"; now, he addresses his clergyman, "you only- talk of she." The same person is represented as saying, that no doubt the painted glass windows may be very fine, but then he re- grets the days when he could look through the panes upon the blue sky and the climbing roses. The Ritualist curate, or the newly- fledged Ritualist rector, betrays certain resemblances to those re- ligious sects whom of all others they detest — the Protestant Dis- senters — in their occasional disregard for scholarship and culture, and in their invectives against State tyranny. The Ritualistic divine of this order, who has been known before now to engage the services of a sacristan, to drill his choir in the movements of the Sarum Mass, must be carefully distinguished from the Anglican parish priest, devoted to the spiritual and temporal RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. hit welfare of his flock, who is to be found constantly al the villa school, by the bedside of the sick and dying, in the cottages of the poor and the hovels of the afflicted. Nor while the ringing voice of Canon Liddon thrills through the dome of Si. Paul's Cathedral, and while that Cathedral in its Dean, Dr. Church, possesses the Bcholar- like biographer of Archbishop Anselni. can it be Baid thai the found- ers of the High Church party are without true and worthy represent- atives. Essentially anti-popular as the pretensions of Ritualism, or to speak of it by the name which is most convenient in this conto Anglican Sacerdotalism is — there can be no doubt that it attracts an increasing number of adherents. It is immaterial to the multitude of those who flock to witness the ornate ceremonial of Ritualism, that the theory of these services is, that they are performed by the priest for the people, and that the priesthood thus performing thi is a body divinely appointed, a caste by itself gifted with the power of the remission of sins. The exaltation of priestly authority to this point may be in its idea distasteful to the English people, but it is not with the idea that thev are concerned. Thev are onlv consci of the odors of incense, of the brilliance of many-colored vestures, of melodious notes, of all the influences which can lull or excite the senses. It is a decorative age, and Ritualism is above all thin ornamental. It is an emotional age, and Ritualism appeals pre-em- inently to the emotions. Ritualism has supplied the want long felt by the aesthetic element in religion, and Ritualism had its begin- nings in earnest and pious efforts to secure for the solemnization of the services of the Church more of dignity and propriety, better fabrics, and better music. While it is certain that the services of Ritualism attract many of both sexes, who would otherwise have found their place in the Evan- gelical fold, and that every Ritualistic Church has among its congre- gation many of that class which would five-and-twenty years a i have crowded to Young Men's Christian Associations, the Evan- gelical party cannot be said to have ceased to exist. It lias, on the contrary, all the elements of vitality — deep religious fervor, as influ- ential religious organization, a great deal of valuable ecclesiastical patronage exercised through the Simeon Trustees, leaders of recog- nized ability. Yet of late years the Low Churchmeu have lost much of their unction, and much of their exclusiveness. Their influei remains, but it is exercised often quite as much outside as wit! the limits of their own sectarian pale. The great work with which the names of the Evangelical leaders will ever be identified was the revival of personal religion; the task which the High Church party 462 ENGLAND. helped to accomplish was the introduction of new principles of order and reverence into the services of the Church. There are many points on which clergymen, calling and considering themselves Evan- gelical, are absolutely one with clergymen of the Broad Church school — such, for instance, as the right of the laity to a voice in the performance of services, and even the regulation and interpretation of dogmas; the necessity of preserving within certain limits the his- torical method; other cognate matters. On the other hand, it is natural there should be many evangelical clergymen who, especially as they rise in their profession, are disposed to magnif} r their apostle- ship. Hence, in Evangelicalism at the present day there is a tend- ency, first, on the part of some, to gravitate towards Broad Church- ism; secondly, on the pai-t of others to gravitate to what survives of the old Constitutional High Church party. First among the parochial clergy rank rectors, who alone are strictly entitled to the designation of parson, " the most legal, the most beneficial, and most honorable title," according to Blackstone, " that a parish priest can enjoy, because' such an one as he only is said vicem serj, personam ecclesice gerere." The chief distinction be- tween a rector and a vicar is that the former receives all the tithes, I ' great and small, but the latter usually the small tithes only. It was in the thirteenth century that vicars came into existence, in conse- quence of the appropriation of tithes to spiritual corporations, whence at the period of the Reformation they passed, under grants by the Crown, into lay hands. To the great tithes there attaches the obligation of keeping the chancel in repair. Originally, the small tithes were all the tithes, except those of corn, and sometimes of hay. Prior to 1835, no farmer could remove his corn from a field until it had remained there for three days, in order to give time to the rector's agents to take a tenth stalk, unless some special agreement between parishioner and rector had been entered into; and of course, in many cases these agreements were made. Nat- urally under this system there were many inconveniences and many disputes, which urgently called for reform. In 1835 Lord John Russell passed an Act commuting the average value of the tithes received during the previous seven years into a corresponding an- nual payment, subject to variations according to the average prices of corn. The freehold of the church, churchyard, and glebe vests in the parson during his life. Perpetual curates were one of the products of the Restoration, when the Sovereign sent a circular to the bishops and chapters of the different dioceses, pointing out the inadequacy of the provision RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. for the cure of souls. This deficiency was supplied by tb tu- tion of perpetual curates, whose stipends were derived from an annual payment which the dignitaries charged on the rectorial estates, in the possession of the fee-simple of which the perpetual curate- had, of course, no part. In the last fifteen years the v< name has well nigh disappeared, and those who were perpetual / curates are by Act of Parliament constituted vicars. II is, how- ever, to the poverty of this order that the Church of England is indebted for the institution of one of its funds — that known as / Queen Anne's Bounty. At the beginning of the eighteenth c n- tury, the stipends of the perpetual curates were so miserably low as to be a scandal to the Establishment. Queen Anne, conse- quently, was induced to suggest to Parliament the appropriation of certain sums, which would in ordinary circumstances have gone to the Crown, to the augmentation of the perpetual curates' sti- pends. This process has continued uninterruptedly to the presenl "time, and the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty are frequently lending sums of money, to be returned by installments, to assist clergymen to build and improve parsonage houses. About the same time that the Act was passed for the commutation of tithes, the Ecclesiastical Commission was appointed, which, amongst other things, has been the means of very generally increasing the i ; of Church livings, in cases where they fell below that sum, to £300 a year. The archdeacons of a diocese are appointed by the bishop, and ' exercise within their archdeaconries a jurisdiction immediately sub- ordinate to him. They wear shovel hats, similar to those used by the episcopate, but without strings. Etiquette prescribes that the archidiaconal frock-coat should not be so short as a prelate's, and that the apron should only be worn in the evening and on si occasions. Like the bishop, the archdeacon has powers distinctly specified bylaw. Chief amongst these are the prerogative, in vi - tue of which he can by summoning the clergy create a court On the occasion of his periodical visitation, the archdeacon is attended by a legal official who stands to him in \\w same relation thai chancellor does to the bishop. The archdeacon — and if the dioc is extensive there will be more than one incumbent of the office — is above all things the business man of the diocese. As the bishop deals primarily and directly with the clergy, so is (he archdea< specially brought into contact with the churchwardens. The ch a which he delivers to the clergy is quite as much intended t r custodians of the fabric of the church in every parish, 4Gi ENGLAND. spiritual officer, the rector, vicar, or curate. Generally, the arch- deacon, avoids touching in these charges, in any very pronounced manner, on questions of doctrine and dogma. The organization of a parish, and the conduct of services are both subjects specially proper to the archidiaconal addresses. When he is inspecting the external and the internal condition of the ecclesiastical building, he has as his companions the two church- wardens, of whom one is the special representative of the congrega- tion just as the other is of the clergyman. To these he points out any defects or imperfections in the edifice, suggests a remedy, and is empowered to give a written order demanding that this sugges- tion shall be carried into effect. If this mandate is neglected, he can report the matter to the bishop, but he has himself no power to compel the action which he recommends. The service to the church which a discreetly vigilant and energetic churchwarden may render is great. The race of sleepy and obstinate clergymen and church- wardens is not extinct, and the archdeacon, having a right to inspect the church at all periods, may, by courteously but firmly impress- ing upon the minds of those responsible for its material order, the necessity of improvement and care, prevent many abuses and scan- dals. Moreover, both on the occasions of his regular visitations, and at other times in a less formal manner, the archdeacon dis- charges distinctly educational duties; he makes it his business to explain to all with whom he is brought into contact, what are the ecclesiastical requirements of the law of the State, and how these are affected by successive acts of legislation. Nor do the functions of the archdeacon end here. Not only is he, as he is often called, "the eye of the bishop," superintending as the episcopal representative indeed, but, at the same time, as an independent authority, whose reports will not necessarily come be- fore the bishop, the state of the ecclesiastical edifices, and pro- nouncing to the bishop on the fitness of churches for consecration, but he represents the preliminary tribunal which candidates for orders must pass. His sanction also is necessary to give legal va- lidity to the nomination of those churchwardens with whom, as we have seen, he is mainly brought into contact. At the same time, though, theoretically, it is for the archdeacon to decide the eligi- bility of any intending clergyman for the Anglican priesthood, this duty is, as a matter of fact, invariably delegated to the bishop's examining chaplain. As regards' the churchwardens, the archdea- con formally admits these to then offices and they are regularly sworn in before him. RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. 465 The cathedral is the central or mother church of the dioa and is administered by a dean and chapter of canons residentiary, whose number is usually four. The dean, who enjoys the title of "very reverend,*' and ranks next to the bishop, is appointed bv the Crown, except indeed in the dioceses of Wales, where their appoint- ment rests with the bishop. The canons, whose stalls are confern .1 upon them in theory — and in the present day it must be owned the theory is usually carried out — in recognition of distinguished ser- vices or acquirements, usually take it in turn to reside, the period of residence being commonly three months. They are appointed in some cases by the Crown, in others by the bishop, and their incomes vary from £500 to £1,000 a year. The stipend of a dean is seldom less than £1,000 or more than £2,000 a year. While the bishop has direct control over the clergy of his diocese, he has no authority over the dean and chapter of his cathedral, except as visitor under then- statutes. There is indeed a special throne always reserved for the bishop in the cathedral, and to this he, of course, has access; but he cannot occupy the pvdpit except by invitation from the dean and chapter. Generally, the relations existing between the bishop and the dean, to compare them to secular officers, are not unlike those of the admiral and the captain in the navy; just as the cap- tain is absolutely supreme in his own ship, and the admiral is only intrusted with general responsibility for the movements of the squadron, so the bishop is without the power of dictating to the dean in the management of his cathedral. The rural dean has not, as the name might be thought to imply, any thing in common with the dean of a cathedral. His office and his rights are of courtesy, rather than of law, and he is invested with neither more nor less power than the bishop may choose to give him. He convenes meetings of his clerical brethren for any dioce- san work, but his summons carries no kind of compulsion with it. The rural dean will also, probably, occasionally report, though not according to any official form, to his bishop, generally through the archdeacon. While deans and archdeacons are, like the occupants of the episcopal bench, ex officio members of Convocation, rural deans have no such distinction. Their jurisdiction is purely local, each archdeaconry being divided into a certain number of rural deaneries, while of rural deaneries themselves there are altogether in England and Wales about six hundred. For a brief account of the procedure in matters of ecclesiastical litigation the reader may be referred to the chapter on tin English Law Courts. It remains to say a few words on the subject of the 30 466 ENGLAND. appointment of the different dignitaries of the English Church to then* ecclesiastical offices, and on the vexed topic of patronage. An archbishop or bishop is nominally elected in most cases by the dean and chapter of the diocese in virtue of a license from the Crown, always accompanied by a royal letter missive, which contains the name of the person whom the Sovereign desires to have elected, and to which obedience is due under the penalties of a praemunire. Secondly, as regards the question of patronage. The right of appointing the rector or vicar of a parish rests with the possessor of the advowson, who is termed the patron of the living. The clerk in holy orders who is presented by the patron to a benefice has to obtain from the bishop of the diocese a formal institution, which the bishop is bound to grant, unless the nominee labors under any legal disqualification for the pastoral office. Advowsons are recognized by the law as property, and may be sold like any other property. The nest presentation to livings may also be sold, provided the benefice be not vacant at the time, and that no condition as to res- ignation be a term in the contract. A Commission on Church Pat- ronage, however, is sitting as these sheets are passing through the press, and it has been conjectured that it will recommend amongst other things the abolition of the sale of next presentations. The two most numerous, influential, and generally important of Nonconformist denominations at the present day in England are undoubtedly the Independents and the TVesleyans, or, as they are frequently called, the Congregationahsts and the Methodists. The Independents have many points in common with a third very con- siderable sect, scarcely inferior to either, both as regards their re- ligious creed and organization — the Baptists. The Presbyterians, an exceedingly powerful body in England as well as in Scotland, on the other hand, possess more points in common with the followers of Wesley. There still exists at the jnTsent day an historical insti- tution of Nonconformity known as the Three Denominations. These form a board whose origin is of some antiquity. The Independents, Baptists, and Presb3 T terians sympathized in the revolution which placed "William III. upon the throne of England, and took an active part in that movement which led to the accession of the House of Hanover. In recognition of their* services in connection with these two events, they were accorded the privileges common to bodies incorporated by Royal Charter, and were permitted access to the Sovereign, upon the same conditions and occasions, as other cor- porate institutions. Till within the last quarter of a century, there were no sectarian jealousies between the three, and the/ members of RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. 467 each wove ('(intent to meei and act together. Then came a char in the Presbyterian community, most of them embracing the prin- ciples of Socinianism. The consequence was thai the Independ- ents and the Baptists objected officially to appear in company with Unitarians. Afterwards these last enlisted the sen ices of Lord John Russell on their behalf, and received through liim a renewal of the privilege they had before enjoyed as members of the Three Denom- inations in the matter of approaching the Sovereign The Independents are particularly strong in the great towns of England, and are as a body characterized perhaps by the display of more political activity than is usually the case with the Wes- leyans or Baptists. Thus it is probable that the Disestablishment agitation has been promoted mainly among the Independent body — a proceeding with which many prominent dissenting clergymen decline to identify themselves. Mr. Dale of Birmingham and Mr. Rogers of Clapham may be regarded as amongst the chiefs of the anti-State Church movement. These gentlemen undoubtedly have great influence over the younger ministers and members of their denomination, and a new impetus is given by them to the pro- gramme of the Liberation Society. There are, of course, perhaps possibly in increasing number, strong supporters of Disestablish- ment both among the Wesleyans and the Baptists, but neither body is associated with political purposes of this kind to the same degree as the Independents. This is not the only feature which distin- guishes the Independents. The fundamental principle of their re- ligious creed — a principle which has given the name to the denomi- nation — is that each congregation is complete in itself, is an entity to be controlled entirely by its own members, and is not to look for any discipline or government from outside. In this respect the Independents and Baptists resemble each other. There is, thus, infinitely less of organization possible among them than among the Wesleyans, the center of whose system — whence come the orders that regulate all the parts — is the annually-held Conference. The differences of the two bodies will, perhaps, best be understood, if we give a brief account of the successive stages through which a candidate for the ministry, in each sect respectively, has to pa A young man, we will suppose, born in the Independent body, or entering it in early life, feels that he has a special adaptability for the ministry: what, in the natural course of things, are the st. pa that he would take completely to qualify himself for the office? He would, probably, in the first instance, place himself in communica- tion with the secretary of one of the colleges at which Independ- 468 ENGLAND. ent ministers are educated; but he would uot be received at this institution before he had satisfactorily answered questions put to him by its authorities, and had been personally examined by the members of the college council. Having satisfactorily submitted to this ordeal, he would be received on probation for a term of three months, after which he would be admitted as a regular stu- dent of a curriculum that would extend over four or five years. Oi these the two first would, in some cases, be devoted to supplement- ing the defects of a somewhat imperfect education, and would be chiefly occupied with general studies, such as classics or mathe- matics. His earliest purely ministerial training would consist of a course of sermon writing, the discourses thus composed being read before a class, and criticised by a teacher of homiletics. The last three years would be given to the study of theological dogmas, and of the state of religious opinion generally, both in past and present times. Then his ministerial career would actively begin. Having gone through his college course, and satisfied his instructors, he would be considered eligible to accept as a probationer any oppor- tunity of clerical ministrations which might present itself. Should the congregation like him, he will receive an offer of a permanent engagement. He is, in fact, chosen to the pulpit by the plebiscite taken among his flock. No more purely democratic system in an ecclesiastical polity, can be imagined. Now that he has secured the favor of a congregation, there wiU follow his formal ordination, a ceremony which may be profoundly impressive, or entirely the reverse, according to the power and eloquence of the ministers en- gaged in its celebration. The flock of the future pastor is assem- bled together, and one minister specially chosen for the occasion gives a statement of the general ecclesiastical principles of the body. Then the candidate for orders is expected, in reply to certain ques- tions, to give a full and clear account, first, of the reasons which make him wish to enter the ministry; secondly, of his preference for the Independent form of Protestant Nonconformity. The actual rite of ordination is of extreme simplicity. One of the officiating ministers offers a prayer, during which he and his colleagues place their hands on the head of the candidate. This process is techni- cally known as the laying on of hands by the presbytery, and is maintained by some clergymen of the Church of England, notably by Dean Stanley, to be the true mode of performing the function. In some cases this part of the ceremony is waived. A charge deliv- ered to the new minister follows, in which his duties are pointed out and the solemn responsibility under which he lies for their RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. »469 proper discharge impressed upon him. In a second address the members of Lis flock are reminded thai thej have duties, neithei less definite nor sacred. Very much the same ceremony is gone through in the case of Baptist and Presbyterian ministers, and it' the officiating ministers, on the occasion, are nun of considerable gii'ts, the effect produced is very striking. Once the minister has been ordained and appointed to liis con- gregation, it is solely and exclusively with his congregation t li.it he is concerned. "Where harmony exists between a minister and Lis church the moral influence he has over them is very great. He will rise or fall, succeed or fail, in proportion as he does or does not happen to satisfy his people. It is thus apparent that the whole success of the Independent system is contingent on a good under- standing between pastor and nock, and it works well or ill, accord- ing as the two parties to the contract display both temper and judgment. It does not, however, follow that an Independent con- gregation will always be able to dismiss its pastor at will. In the case of some chapels there are trust-deeds which specially secure this power of dismissal to the congregation, in others there may be legal difficulties in the way of ejection. The tendency of things amongst the Independent body seems to be in the direction of more concentrated action. There are several eminent Independents who advocate closer bonds of connection between the churches of the denomination, and though this claim is steadily resisted by many stanch members of the society, who believe that without the abso- lute autonomy of each congregation the Independent system would come to nothing, there is a gradually increasing number of those who hold that more general organization is wanted, and who advo- cate particularly a general sustentation fund to be controlled by a presiding representative bod}'. As it is, the Independents have many county associations, from which the Congregational Union. which is the combined society of these associations, is chosen. This Union holds two great meetings every year, one in London, the other in some provincial city of prime importance. Under the ex- isting regime the Congregational Union is a purely consultative ami deliberative body. It carries with it no legislative power, and it is. therefore, quite as impotent to change the practice of Congregation- alism, except by purely moral influences, as Convocation is to revo- lutionize the laws of the Church. There is some disposition, how- ever, to bestow more power upon the Congregational Onion, and its exercise may come a8 the results of its agency in connection with the management of the new sustentation fund. 470 ENGLAND. Nor is it to be supposed that the Independents, or, for the mat- ter of that, the members of any other Nonconformist sect, are en- tirely undistracted by internal differences and controversies, though they differ from those which agitate the Church of England. Thus, it is a moot point what is the exact position of deacons in an Inde- pendent congregation. As matters are, generally, they have no strictly spiritual duties to discharge, their great business is to at- tend to the pecuniary affairs of a congregation and to the care of the poor. There are, too, slight differences in the forms of worship, and in the mode of admitting communicants. The circumstance that there is in the nature of things a stronger bond between the Independent pastor and his flock than between the English clergy- man and his congregation may perhaps tend to minimize such con- troversies; probably, for instance, there would never be witnessed the spectacle of an Independent minister who deliberately opposed himself to the ascertained wishes and convictions of his conereea- tion. At the same time there are divergences of view as to the limit within which the decorative element is permissible ; but these diver- gences do not involve the same differences of fundamental principle as differences of ritual do in the Church of England, because all In- dependents repudiate the idea of sacerdotalism. When we come to the Wesleyans we have to deal with a Non- conformist body which differs in numerous important matters from the Independents. The great feature of the system is a central or- ganization invested with a power, not indeed absolutely supreme, but final on appeal; in other words, supreme just as a board of trus- tees is supreme for the specific provisions of its trust. The name given to this central body is the Conference, whose powers are ex- ercised in (1) jurisdiction over its own members, (2) appointment of ministers, (3) occupancy of chapels by ministers in connection with them, (4) the preservation of sound doctrine. Here it is not merely the tradition of Wesley which discovers itself, but the letter of Wes- ley's injunctions which is followed. That gifted man who, to his spiritual eminence, added a decided assumption of autocratic power, confided plenary authority over the sect which he had founded in these duties just named, to one hundred ministers. These one hun- dred form the Conference in law, but the whole body of ministers, or as many of them as are gathered in the annual session, are the Conference in fact — the legal Conference never disannulling then* acts, and only confirming them to render them legal. Thus far of purely ecclesiastical matters. In matters economical, financial, and generally administrative, a representative number of ministers and AELIGIOCS ENGLAND. 171 an equal number of laymen constitute the Conference. Hence, the five-score are ;i sort of upper House, for the ratification of decisions arrived at in common sessions, with a large number of their breth- ren. It is an error to suppose, as is sometimes Btated, thai the Con- ference initiates policy. It rarely initiates any thing. Und< r the general laws by which the whole Conference is governed, th< r< first, the circuit, or separate pastorate, in which the chief courl is the quarterly meeting, composed of the pastors and a large number, from twenty to sixty, according to the size and inlluence of the cir- cuit, of lay members. This court manages all circuit hinds, paya the minister's stipend, and provides generally for the carrying on of efficient and orderly service within the circuit bounds. Secondly, there is the district meeting, or synod, which is composed of the ministers within a given geographical radius, fur purposes connected with ecclesiastical and pastoral administration, and of two la\ repre- sentatives from each circuit, when financial and economical ques- tions are under consideration. Lastly, there is the Conference, whose constitution has been already described. The Conference - as a Conference — has no funds, nor control of funds. All the pew- rents are under the direction of the trustees of the various chapels, and are by them appropriated — sometimes by grant to the circuit funds, from which the ministers receive their stipends, though not always, and occasionally in other ways. In reference to c na- tional funds — i. e., funds raised for foreign missions, home missions, schools, Arc, &c, — these are disbursed under the direction of man- aging committees. Clergymen composing the Conference are el. cted by the clergy of the entire body, who, in the lirsf instance make their power felt in the district, and after the district in the synod which comprehends a group of districts; but no final action in any grave measure, whatever the congregation it affects, can be taken without the approval of the Conference. The second great feature in the organization of Wesleyanism is the itinerant system, in virtue of which no minister is permitted to stay more than three years in the same neighborhood. There are both obvious advantages and disadvantages hound up with this sys- tem. "While the limitations imposed by the laws of the society on the possible tenure by the clergyman of a district certainh prevent any congregation from what has been called "immersion in the stagnant pool of a single mind," there is the obvious disadvai that the minister d>es not form many pastoral attachment I >ugh the fact that every congregation is encouraged t<> issue imitations to ministers is a guarantee of the interest which congregations are 472 ENGLAND. likely to take in their jmrely spiritual affairs, the relation thus de- veloped between teacher and taught necessarily lack certain ele- ments of intimacy, whose absence is recognized by some "Wesleyans themselves as an inherent defect in the system. The unit of government amongst the Wesleyans is the circuit, as represented on the occasion of its quarterly meetings, every circuit consisting of a certain number of congregations grouped together, both on geographical consideration and also according to number. No candidate can even so far take active steps to enter the Wesley an ministry as to go to one of the colleges of the body without having been duly recommended by the quarterly meeting of that circuit within which his own congregation comes. At this meeting not only are the local ministers convened, but representatives of the laity, as well as lay-helpers and class-leaders, who are ex officio members of the periodically-held assembly. Again, before a young man can even arrive at the stage of candidature, he must have had some practice as a local preacher, and the common voice of his neighborhood must have decided that he possesses certain indis- putable rhetorical gifts. Here we may see what we have seen already in the case of the Independents, the recognition of the principle that the qualifications of a minister must either be de- cided directly by his flock, or indirectly by their immediate repre- sentatives; we may also notice that this arrangement does furnish, what the Church of England does not, some guarantee that the future minister has, in a measure, the gift of speech. The candidate for the Wesleyan ministry has no sooner satisfied the requirements of the quarterly meeting of the circuit than he comes before a judicial tribunal composed of representatives of the aggregate of several circuits, in other words the district meeting. Before these judges he has again to preach and to answer a variety of questions. If he satisfies the conditions of this test he is sent before the Conference, whether that august body may happen to be holding its sitting in London or in a provincial town. Shoidd the verdict of the Conference be favorable, the candidate will proceed in due time to the College of the community at Didsbury, or Head- ingley, or Richmond. At one of these institutions, at which his first three months are probationary, he will probably spend three years, and he will leave them only after he has been pronounced, as the result of a searching examination, to be a fit and proper person for the ministry. Nor is the probationary period of his career yet at an end. Every man remains in the ministry for four years on trial, the thud year of college residence which has been already completed RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. 17:5 counting as one year, while the ordination ceremony, which is prac- tically the same as in the case of the Independents, performed before that period is not considered complete. It is not to be supposed that either among the Independents or the Wesleyans this some- what elaborate process is always exactly followed. There is nothing to prevent any member of an Independent community who can a congregation to listen to him or her, to stand as a minister, while amongst the "Wesleyans the deficiency of college accommodation fre- quently compels the Conference to accept as qualified candidates for orders those who have not gone through the whole of the prescribed routine. It thus follows that the future clergy of both orders have scarcely ever lived purely student lives. They have almost always learnt the mysteries of some handicraft, and are, in the majority of instances, cap>able of supporting themselves independently of their spiritual profession. Amongst a fewWesleyan societies there exists a pecuniary fund for common purposes; all the pew rents and volun- tary subscriptions within the limits of any circuit are paid into tho hands of a trustee steward, who accounts to the trustees for their disbursement. In addition to this, there is a district fund which contributes to the support of circuits in neighborhoods that are not able to support ministers of their own. The missionary organization of the Church of Rome, which is the only organization of that church existing in the British Empire, is to be carefully distinguished from that known in countries where the whole of the decrees of the Council of Trent are in force. This — the missionary system — is dependent directly on the sacred con- gregation of Propaganda, presided over by a Cardinal Prefect, to which all matters in partibus infiddium are in the last instance re- ferred, and which may be described as a board of control, with jurisdiction over the missionary domains of the Catholic Church. Previous to 1850, the Papal authority was exercised through vicars apostolic. That year witnessed the establishment of a regu- lar hierarchy in England, and hence the ill-starred Ecclesiastical Titles' Act. At the present moment England is divided into thir- teen dioceses, one of which — -that of Westminster is the arch diocese, while the others are suffragan districts. Every bishop has his own chapter of canons, who are his privy councilors, and pos- sesses the right to convoke his own synod. This canonical body is presided over in England by a provost, and its two chid' members I are the Canon Theologic and the Canon Penitentiary. These can- ons constitute a corporate! body, electing a certain proportion of their own members, while some are the nominees of the bishop, 474 ENGLAND. and others of the Pope, according to the month in which, by the death of a canon, a vacancy occurs. They are also liable to be con- sisted by the bishop, who, though in some cases bound to seek, does not necessarily follow their advice. Moreover, when a va- cancy in a bishopric occurs, the canons name three persons as suitable candidates, the final selection being usually made at Rome. If any of the inferior clergy appeal against the order of their bishop, it is to Rome that that appeal goes. Monsignori are persons be- longing to the Papal Court, the more important class of them being the Pope's domestic prelates. Over and above this regular organization of the Roman Catholic Church in non-Catholic countries, there are the religious orders, such as Dominicans, Franciscans, Benedictines, Carmelites, Cister- cians, and Jesuits. Each of these is in the possession of special and accumulated privileges. Directly subjected to generals or other heads at Rome, they are all of them to a great extent free from the internal ecclesiastical government of the countries in which they may be placed. Each of these orders has a provincial and local superior, who is invested with ample powers. The Ora- torians are not so much an ecclesiastical order as a congregation of secular priests — every priest, it will be understood, being a secular one, if he does not belong to some order — who have organized themselves into a religious community. As regards the numbers and the influence of the Roman Cath- olic Church in England, it will be found that so far as the former is concerned, its figures have remained almost the same for manv years. Numerically, Roman Catholics have not increased in propor- tion to the population, to which it stands now in the relation of one tenth. But while the Church of Rome in England has only managed just to hold its own, it has not retrograded in power. Probably it has as little now of influence as ever over the English middle classes, but has been recruited in a marked degree from the higher classes of the population; at the same time, too, its or- ganization has improved. It has more schools and better schools, but in the direction of education much has yet to be done, and the stanchest Roman Catholics will be the first to admit that, always excepting the primary schools, the machinery of Roman Catholic education is at the present moment sadly deficient. The attempted establishment and collapse of a "Catholic University" College in Kensington furnished a test of the reality of the demand for a higher education amongst the Catholic youth of England. As the future of the secondary and higher education of Roman Catholics RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. 17". in England is full of great possibilities, so its present is felt 1" be far from satisfactory. The Jews are a body of far too great importance in England elsewhere, to render it possible to dispense with some notice of their religious organization in this chapter. The Hebrew race, which, in the Russian Empire and in Poland, numbers live millions, in the Austrian Empire from 120,000 to 180,000, in New York alone more than 100,000, has in the British Empire from 80,000 to 90,000, of whom upwards of G5,000 are within the metropolitan radius of Lon- don. On the influence that this extraordinary people exercises, in England as elsewhere, and of which its numerical strength is only a faint indication, it is not necessary to dwell. The quest ions here to consider are the religious organization of the Jews in the United Kingdom, and closely allied with this, as is natural under a theo- cratic system, their social condition and general characteristics. The same line of cleavage that traverses most other religious societies at the present day is discernible among the members of the Jewish persuasion. On the one hand, there are the representa- tives of orthodoxy, who profoundly venerate dogmatic tradition and prescription, and who solemnly observe with exact fidelity the eccle- siastical ritual. On the other hand, there is the party of those who claim a wide latitude in the interpretation of the Mosaic law. and who hold that many usages, enjoined by the rabbinical doctors of their church, have been rendered obsolete bv the altered condition of the times. This feud between authority and private judgment has divided the Jews in England into two different groups of con- gregations. The Rabbinical writings, with the doctrinal overgrowth that has been accumulated upon them, a consequence of the labors of successive generations of expositors, are to the Hebrew Church what the Fathers are to the Christian. The laws of Moses hav< been elaborated in this manner into a complex system of ceremonial and faith, too exacting in its demands for many who are profoundly convinced of the truth of the central articles of Judaism. In this way the Commentary, or to speak of it by its Hebrew name. "The Gemara," has outgrown the text or "Mishna," which two, taken to- gether, constitute the "Talmud." The library of Rabbinical inter- pretation has acquired in some quarters a sanctity equal or superior to the Five Books of Moses, and the point at issue between the two | sects, at the present day is. what measure of obedience is due to the Rabbinical writings. These internal differences in England date • from the year 1841, up to which time the English synagogue was an exact copy of that of the Middle Ages. Attempts, indeed, had 476 ENGLAND. periodically been made to modify the ritual in a manner suitable to the requirements of the age ; but these efforts failed, and it was only when a Reformed English Synagogue was opened in Burton Street that any thing was actually done. This movement resulted in an open schism, which was not unattended by much bitterness; the decree of excommunication was passed upon the new congregation and its minister, still the heretical leaven spread, and the smaller synagogue was soon exchanged for a larger one. "Though we are," writes Professor Marks, who was at the head of the movement, " still divided on questions purely and wholly ritual, we are nevertheless drawn closely together by a common belief and by mutual sympa- thies; and for all communal purposes we act as one inseparable brotherhood." It was anticipated by some that the ultimate residt of this split in the Jewish community, would be the secession of the reformers to the Christian Church. Nothing of the sort has fol- lowed, and Judaism has generally revived since the congregation of British Jews was organized. The subdivision of the services which were, and among the ultra-Rabbinical Jews still are, intolerably long, attracts a larger number of worshippers, and the women's galleries, rarely attended in former days, except in high festivals, are now well filled on every Sabbath. Though the ritual practice of the Jews has always differed at successive epochs, their religious belief is identical in all essential respects with that which has universally prevailed. The Jews, in England as elsewhere, assign the first place in the scale of Biblical sanctity to the Books of Moses, the second to the Prophetical "Writ- ings, the last to the other scriptural works — the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, and historical records — all of which are generally de- scribed as " Hagiography." These last are not held to be inspired in the same sense as the laws of Moses and the messages and pre- dictions of the prophets, which, according to orthodox Judaism, are full of the spirit of verbal inspiration. Mendelssohn remarked that in the whole Mosaic law there was not a single precept saying " Thou shalt believe this or that," or " Thou shalt not believe it," and gave it, as his opinion, that Judaism was a system without an idea of articles or oaths of religion. Generally the Jews in England, at the present day, are characterized by that spirit of toleration which the remark of Mendelssohn would lead us to expect. As they agree mutually to differ amongst themselves without any reciprocal invo- cation of the penalties of Divine vengeance, so they hold that salva- tion belongs to all those outside their own pale who keep the moral law of Moses; in other words, who conform to those ethical sane- HE LIS IOCS ENGLAND. \ i i tions which arc recognized as binding by the whole human r . For themselves, they consider it incumbent to observe as much of the ceremonial pari of the ritual code of the Pentateuch as La pra< cable out of Palest inc. There is, moreover, a strong feeling amen them that their marriages should be confined to members of their own race and creed, but the national and the religious sentiment - have each of them an independent existence of their own, and they admit that every human being, of every race or creed, who is mor- ally just, stands in the same relation as themselves, here and h< after, to the Universal Father of man. Even at the lime when the storm of persecution raged most fiercely against them the doctrine was taught that the pious of all nations would enjoy everlasting be- atitude in the world to come. It would be scarcely rash to say that a considerable number of English Jews are simple theists, who, over and above the faith of Theism, believe that the accident of their race places them under an obligation to observe certain rites. They do not hold that tl. rites are compulsory upon those who are not descendants of Abra- ham, and for this reason amongst others, the most ferveni of Jewish religionists are not proselytizers. Cases in which applications are made to join the Jewish Church are more frequent than might be thought, though probably in few of these can the motive be attrib- uted to disinterested religious conviction. The Rabbi who is im- portuned to receive Christian converts to the Synagogue protests in the first instance against the step, and says, in so many words. you believe in and worship the one and only God, refrain in thought and in deed from idolatry, and keep the moral law, which consists in loving your fellow-creature as yourself, we are taught to believe that you, as a non-Israelite, will be regarded as one with the most pious Jew by Him that readeth all hearts." If after this the ap- plicant persists in the request, and solemnly declares that it is not prompted by any carnal desire or prospect of worldly gain, bu the result of mature and sincere conviction, the Rabbi appoints a / term for the religious instruction of the neophyte, and at its expira- ' tion reluctantly receives him into the Jewish community. It may safely be said that the doctrine of the restoration, I ingathering, that is, of the Jews of all nations to Palestine, has no practical reality with them. A spiritual influence over the thoughts of the pious Hebrew it may, perhaps, exercise; but even in this it suggests rather the last act in a grand ami mysterious drama, an act which will be witnessed only when the present univi rse is on tlu.' eve of dissolution. So far as his actual social and political relations 478 ENGLAND. are concerned, the restoration is to the Jew very much what the millennium is to the Christian. Both beliefs, it is to be noticed, had their origin in much the same circumstances of persecution and oppression. As the majority of Christians suffered the cherished doctrine of the millennium to recede into the background when they I found themselves in security and power, so most modern Jews, as they rose in the scale of citizenship and prosperity, withdrew their eyes from the belief once firmly held, that their entire race would meet together on the soil of Palestine. As the Jews are thus prac- tically absorbed in the general mass of the English population, or of the population of any other country where they ma}' chance to be, so have the tribal differences amongst the Jews themselves dis- appeared. Indeed, the only tribe practically known among the English Jews is that of Judah, which, however, includes some of the tribes of Benjamin and Levi. Wherever the name Cohen is found, one may be certain that one has lighted upon a descendant of Aaron. The distinctly religious organization of the Jews for the purposes of public worship may be said to proceed upon much the same lines as that of the Independents. In some cases, indeed, the congre- gations group themselves into a confederation, and recognize, as extending over the whole number, the authority of the Rabbi. Al- though the Rabbi has no power of enforcing his authority, the con- gregations placing themselves under his guidance leave to him and his ecclesiastical coadjutors all matters relating to the ritual. This, at least, is the rule. But there are occasions when the wardens and council of a synagogue undertake to introduce changes of a minor character without consulting the Rabbi, and without holding them- selves obliged to do so. What portions of the service are to be read, and what chanted, are left to the discretion of the minister in con- sultation with the wardens. The West London Synagogue of Brit- ish Jews is the only metropolitan synagogue where there is an organ. In others choirs are formed, but they are not accompanied by instru- mental music. A specially ordained priesthood is what Judaism can hardly be said to have. " Whatever may be urged to the contrary," declares Professor Marks, after having cited a number of historical passages bearing upon the point by those who promote Ecclesiasticism, and to raise above its proper level the seat of priestly authority, the his- torical fact remains that, from the middle of the eleventh century, all power of authorizing teachers in Israel, by superincumbence of hands, became extinct, and since that time the only recognized KELIGIOCS ENGLAND. IT 1 .) authority for electing and instituting ministers has redded is the congregations themselvea There is. however, a special course oi education prescribed for the ministers of the Jewish religion, though it is very far from being uniformly followed. !n the West London Synagogue of British Jews, over which Professor Marks presides, a special fund has been established for training candidates for the ] ministry, after they have taken their Bachelor of Arts degree as it is considered exceedingly desirable they should do, at the University of London — at the theological seminary at Breslau But, for the most part, the Jewish clergy come from the Jewish College, which has contributed many distinguished graduates to the Academy in Gower Street. Education has advanced with rapid strides among the Jewish community in the last few years, and it may be said with some confidence that there is no child of either sex anion,"- English Jews, of the age of nine or ten, who cannot both read and write. . The Jews' Free School in Spitalfields provides for the instruction of more than two thousand pupils, half, at least, of whom are of foreign parentage, and there are many other institutions both in London and elsewhere of almost equal excellence. Nor are the provisions that exist for the bodily welfare of the poorer members of the com- munity less effective. There are few instances in which the relief \of Jew paupers is left to the ratepayers, and there is amongst the Jews a Board of Guardians chosen exclusively from the members of their own community, who attend to all cases of distress and admin- ister the funds which are generously contributed. "Want and men- dicity still prevail, but the latter is almost entirely confined to the foreign Jews, who find their most profitable asylum in England. A great deal of the Jewish pauperism in this country comes to as from Russia, and is the result of a system under which conscription is universal, and no one not professing the creed of Christianity can rise above the ranks. The society which exists in England for the Conversion of Jews to Christianity acts, in not a few cases, as an inducement to professional pauperism; nor is there anymore com- mon threat with which a Jew beggar supplements his prayer for alms when made to one of the wealthy members of his community, than that, if relief is denied, he will go over to the conversion Soci- ety. Many of the abuses consecpient upon the lavishness of Jewish charity have been effectually prevented by the establishment oi the Jewish Board of Guardians. It has been already said, and it may be cited as a proof of the religious activity and earnestness of the age, that the spirit of or- ganization is visible within the pale of every creed < >n all sides 480 ENGLAND. there is huriying to and fro, much parade of the machinery of faith, much insistence upon its routine business, and its spectacular effects. But the cpiestion arises, How far all this can rightly be interpreted as a healthy sign ? May not the very littleness of the controversies anionq- the members of the Anglican communion, noticed at the beginning of this chapter, imply a diminution of the vital spirit? The superficial energy is there, but where, it may be asked, are the deep belief and the inspiring convictions which animated the older controversialists '? It is unfortunately not to be doubted that excess- ive organization is an omen of decay as well as a sign of growth. The excessive organization of Imperial Rome coincided with the lamentable atrophy of the old lioinan spirit. Again, it may be doubted how far the point to which toleration has been carried is at all a proof of that spread of conviction which is likely to result in the diffusion of the distinctively religious sentiment. Toleration may be quite as much a mode of the consciousness of their position, forced in upon the members of any communion or sect by the ex- ternal forces of literature and science, and by the attitude of the State, as a frame of mind generated by a belief so profound in the truth of their own doctrines that they can regard with complacent indifference the religions movements of others. It is not easy to see how toleration can be innate in any Church party, or how any individual can be tolerant throughout, who is possessed by a sense of the paramount importance of particular dogmatic tenets. What are to be the future relations of the different sects in England, Prot- estant or Catholic, and what the future of religion itself, is a tempt- ing, but a perilous, theme of speculation. At present we can only see tendencies, and these tendencies are not in the direction of dog- matic unity. On all sides there is a disposition for the teachers and preachers of different churches to combine together for the purpose of advancing the social and moral good of the community at large; to recognize that element of regard for the progress and ameliora- tion of humanity which belongs to all creeds alike, and which may, perhaps, be spoken of as the human aspect of religion. Thus we find clergvmen of the Church of England, of the Church of Rome, of the various Dissenting bodies, taking then* place on public plat- forms by the side not only of devout or philanthropic peers, but also of well-meaning men of the world, who make no special profes- sion of any spiritual faith, with the common object of stamping out the national curse of intemperance. The London City Mission and Hospital Sunday are further instances of the unanimity which is possible among the champions of rival creeds when the object RELIGIOUS ENGLAND. 481 aimed at is the alleviation of human misery, want, and BufFerincr. The institution of School Boards has supplied another and similar opportunity for obliterating denominational distinctions, while the movement now taking- place throughout the country, and which has as its purpose the diffusion of art education, also teaches the relig- ious instructors of the masses, irrespective of their faith or Beet, I" act together with men and women who are, perhaps, attached to no sect at all. The Positivist, who holds that the only creed possible for hu- I manity is that in which humanity is the first article, ma\ perhaps deduce from these facts signs of the ultimate triumph of his faith. And it may be urged that there is a sense in which Positivism as a religious gospel, may not be without its charm to a busy and pre- occupied generation; it is conceivable that there are minds to whom it may be an attraction to be told that the sole motive of worthy actions is their inherent worthiness, and that the results of such actions will make themselves felt and will be their own reward, transmitted through endless ages of posterity. Miss Martineau has told us, in her autobiography, that she never felt more completely happy than when she had renounced all belief in a future life and the last traces of a lingering attachment to any theological dogmas. To do good and to cultivate morality because it is a law of enlight- ened self-interest, and because it will be of advantage 1<> others now and hereafter, is a faith whose large definiteness of outline 1 1 have a strong attraction to a certain order of characters. Here there is, at least, none of the doubt and perplexity which a\ shadow a religion whose sanctions .are found in an appeal to the immortality of the soul, and the distribution of rewards and pun- ishments in another world. What has yet to be proved is whether a belief circumscribed by these narrow limits, and divested of ;dl supernatural elements, can have any practical force with the g] majority of mankind. If history has any lesson for us, it would surely seem that religion, having survived the calumnies and mis- representations of sacerdotal bigotry, will survive also the new scientific attacks. The great question to be asked and answered is this : Can you bring up children so as to make them truthful, moral, law-abiding, good subjects of a state, and good members of a family, without teaching them thai there is a God who jud mankind? Here one is irresistibly reminded of the remark of the great French Revolutionist, that if "there were no God, it would be necessary to create one." Of course the answer made t<> thi observations, and which is made with much eloquence and earnest- 482 ENGLAND. ness by Mr. John Morley and others, is that the experiment has not yet been fairly tried. That is undoubtedly true. But the question which these gentlemen have never yet fairly met is, whether in the history of humanity there is any thing to justify the belief that a religion of humanity, which ignores all religious sanctions, is prac- ticable for the bulk of human beings, is a categorical imperative without the association of supernatural hopes and fears, likely to accomplish for mankind what even the Positivists say is necessary. Is it merely a fanciful superstition to detect the true account of the growth of human society in these stanzas? — "And quickened by the Almighty's breath, And chastened by His rod, And taught by angel-visitings, At length he sought his God; "And learned to call upon His name, And in His faith create A household and a fatherland, A city and a state." CHAPTER XXVII. MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. The Psychological School the Main School of Philosophy in England— Ita Relations to the "Scotch Common Sense School," to "French Eclecticism," and to the System of M. Comte and Positivism — Positivism in England — The Course of Development in the English School — John Stuart Mill, the Logician — Utilitarianism — The Modem Scientific Ethics — Herbert Spem r — The Doctrine of Evolution — Alexander Bain, the Psychologist — George Henry Lewes, the Physiologist — Intolerance of Metaphysics and Theol- ogy — The Influence of Science and the Popular Consciousness— Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall — The Influence of German Thought — The Hegelians — Reason and Faith, their Possible Reconciliation. " nr^HE scepter of Psychology has decidedly returned to England." 1 Such are the words in which Mr. John Stuart Mill sums up the i course of recent speculation in this country. Some critics might be ' disposed to detect some arrogance on the part of the English phi- losopher towards the psychological studies of German}-, of Kant in the last century, of Herbart, Wundt, Fechner, and Lotze in more I recent times. But the sentence quoted above brings into promi- nence the main fact, which is incontestable: that the best spirit of English thought in this century lias, under the leadership of Dames lihe Herbert Spencer, Bain, and Mill himself, centered round the problems of mental Philosophy. Some activity has indeed been displayed in the deeper and more far-reaching inquiries, which go by the name of metaphysics; but this has been chiefly in the n them may be perused in that characteristically English " History of Phi- ' losophy " by Mr. George Henry Lewes. "We noticed another influence which the rising school of English psychologists had in a measure to discard. By their very n they held on to psycholog3 r as their sheet-anchor. Bnt psycho! itself was threatened from a new quarter by a French thin] diametrically opposed to Victor Cousin and his fellows ML. Au- I guste Comte. Comte is the author of that system of strictly prac- tical philosophy and vaguely theoretical religion which is termed Positivism, and Positivism, at all events in the mouth of its earliesi expounder, abjures Psychology. Psychology, says Comte. is an impossible science, because it attempts to study the faculties by the lmht of those faculties themselves. "In order to observe yon must effect a pause; if you effect the pause there is nothing left to observe." In other words, mind cannot study itself, be< that study is only possible by mind's activity, and the activity neutralizes the results of the study. The intellect cannot observe the workings of intellect, because here observed and observer are the same. Nor, again, can even the intellect observe the passions, becan - ; on disturbs the observing faculties. And so. instead of pyscholo Comte introduces what he calls " Physiological Phrenology,"! the study of the mind from without, the study of the cerebreu I the cerebellum, and nerve-centers, and wh r, and the rest of the nomenclature of a genuine physii That this Positivist attack on psychology had a deep influence i on subsequent English thought is dear to all students of Bain, Lewes, Carpenter, and Maudsley; but at the outset it is equally d that some determined stand had to be made by those who W< 486 ENGLAND. professedly advocates of psychological analysis. John Stuart Mill has a severe criticism of this phase of Positivism in his book " Auguste Comte and Positivism," as well as in his "Logic." Her- bert Spencer has issued a pamphlet, entitled " Reasons for Dissent- ing from the Philosophy of M. Comte," in which he asserts that the analysis of oiu* ideas is an integral portion of philosophy. The general line which such criticisms of Comte took is, of course, the obvious fact that even granting that we do not know much of " states of consciousness," we know incomparably more of them than we do of their physical counterparts, and that in the last resort we know no fact at all, except in relation to oirr own states of consciousness. But Positivism includes many more essential features than this attack on psychology, which has in fact been greatly modified and almost expunged by modern Positivists. Positivism is at once a system of thought and a system of life. As a system of thought, it proceeds on the fundamental principle that all researches beyond phenomena shoidd be suppressed. First causes and final causes must be discarded; with the beginning and end of things we have nothing to do, our only concern being with what lies between these two extremes. Thus all forms of theology, all forms of metaphysics, are finally banished. As a system of life, it includes a religious cult — the worship of Humanity — and a more or less definite system of Socialism. In France M. Littre is the great modern expounder of Positivism, but of Positivism as a philosophy, not as a religion; in England, also, we have a small but devoted band of religious Positivists, of which Dr. Congreve, Mr. Brydges, and Mr. Frederick Harrison are distinguished members. The religious Positivists name their children after mediaeval saints, by way of keeping up the cath- olic feeling of Humanity. They have their own names for the months of the year, and they have their special services in a Positiv- ist chapel in London, in which many curious sightseers serve to swell the ranks of the worshippers of Humanity. The best and the most permanent element of Positivism was the enunciation of a great historic law of progress and evolution of thought, which in Comte's technical phraseology was called "La loi des trois etats," but in its general tendency has become merged in the modern scientific doctrine of development. It is this which has, consciously or unconsciously, influenced many English philos- ophers, who disavow all leanings to Positivism. It is this, possibly, which, combined with the attack on metaphysics, has made Mr. Lewes so strong an advocate of the Positive system. "I adhered," he says, " to the Positive philosophy in 1845, and I adhere to it still MODERX PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 1-7 (in 1870)." And he would fain have us all read the " Philosophic Positive." "Study the ' Philosophic Positive' I'm- yourself (he t apostrophizes his reader), study it patiently, give it the time and thought you would not grudge to a new science or a new Language, and then, whether you accept or reject the system, von will find your mental horizon irrevocably enlarged." "But six stout volumes!" exclaims the hesitating aspirant. "Well, yes, six volumes requir- ing to he meditated as well as read. I admit that they l give pan in this husy, hustling life of ours; hut if you relied how willingly six separate volumes of philosophy would he read in the course of the year, the undertaking seems less formidable." "No one," lie concludes, "who considers the immense importance of a doctrine which will give unity to his life would hesitate to pay a higher pr than that of a year's study." Meanwhile, to a less aspiring and more hesitating student, it may be mentioned that in Mss Martineau's excellent "Abridgment of Comte " he can read in the compass of ttwo small volumes the more salient doctrines of Positivism. The importance of the socialistic analysis of that philosophy may be gathered from the fact, that in it will be found the key to Mill's , Sociology as sketched in the sixth book of his " Logic," as well as the source and fountain-head of much recent sociological specul - tion. But in mentioning Mr. Lewes, we are somewhat anticipating the course of development in the prominent English school, His place comes, chronologically, with Mr. Alexander Bain, Mr. Darwin, ) and others; and to the rise and development of that system of psy- chological analysis we must now proceed. How far not only moral and constitutional peculiarities, but modes and forms of thought can be transmitted from father to son, is one of the much-debated questions of heredity. But that the two Mills — father and son — exhibit a striking instance of the ex- tent of such hereditary transmission is indisputable. The mind of I John Stuart Mill was run in the mold of James Mill, and the crea- tions of that mind were but more or less varied repetitions of the thoughts of the bold and original historian of British India. The proofs are to be found not only in the general position of philosophic radicalism which is common to both, but in the edition which the son published of his father's "Analysis of the Human Mind," and in the explicit admissions which are contained in that book — of such pecuhar sadness to many minds — the "Autobiography of J. 8. Mill" This book has thrown much light on the character of his philosophy. It has explained how it was that his psychology was so entirely de- rived from that of James Mill, and was the result of so little U 488 ENGLAND. pendent study on his own part; it has explained why Mill never seems to have systematically studied Continental philosophy, espe- cially German speculation; it gives the reason for his being so wholly occupied with the middle levels of thought, to the exclusion of all inquiries as to ultimate ideas, and the beginning ' and end of things. For we now know that his education left hardly any room for his character and disposition to display any preferences, and that he was trained strictly on the hues of Benthamism in morals, and a modernized version of Hobbes in mental philosophy. A stern, rigid, autocratic father like James Mill, with clearly denned views, ren- dered all the more positive and dogmatic by opposition and unpop- ularity, was not likely to allow his son's intellect to expand in any other directions than such as accorded with his own predilections. There is little which may be called strictly original in Mill's phil- osophical scheme, except, possibly, in some of his logical specula- tions. To him must be attributed a theory of reasoning, which if not wholly new, yet exhibits with clearness and precision the func- tion of the major premise in a syllogism, and affirms that our course of reasoning is not, as is usually supposed, from the general law to the particular case, but, without exception, from particular case to adjacent particular cases, — the Major Premise being but a memo- randum, a compendious statement of the result of our experience hitherto. If to this we add that he is the author of certain experi- mental methods or canons of induction (which have been severely criticised, among others by Dr. Whewell) — that he advocates the existence of " Eeal Kinds " in nature apart from classifications due to our own convenience — that he has illustrated with great ampli- tude the plurality of causes and intermixture of effects which are found in nature's working, we shall have exhausted his chief contri- butions to logical science. The most interesting part of his " Logic " is the sixth book in the second volume, in which Mill, starting from psychology, and what he terms "Ethology" (i. e., the conditions which regulate the varieties of human character), proceeds to trace the future science of Sociology. It is in this department of his work that he approximates most nearly to the work of Comte and Posi- tivism, just as it was especially his sociological structure which formed the most valuable and lasting influence of M. Comte on his successors. In the fundamental doctrines of his philosophy, as exhibited, for instance, in his bitter attack on Sir William Hamilton, Mill appears as a modern version of Hume. He is like the elder philosopher in his empirical and sensationalist stand-point, believing that the whole MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. body of human knowledge may be traced back to sensations, to im- mediate contact with the world outside us, entirely excluding a priori mental action. He is like him, again, in his attack on so-called nec- essary and universal truth, resolving, for instance, all mathematical axioms into the mere result of a number of experiences of points, straight linos, and angles. Above all, he is like him in his analysis of external matter, which he concludes to be nothing but the "per- manent possibility of sensation," and, with some limitations, extends the same analysis also to the case of mind. But in Ins more purely psychological aspect, Mill's merit lies in the clear stress which he has laid on the great principle enunciated by Hartley of "the asso- ciation of ideas." Resemblance and contiguity in our ideas cause them to be so indissolubly welded together, that we find it impos- sible to call up one without thereby summoning the others in its train. It is thus that we associate together, for instance, our notion of "straight lines," and "impossibility to include a space," and end by imagining— so indissoluble is the connection thus formed — that we have this union of the two ideas as an intuitive perception of our minds, independent of all experience. Tt is thus, too, that associa- tion of antecedent and consequent in the natural world leads to the idea that there is in what we term "the cause" some productive force, some creative energy, to Avhich the effect is due; and again, in less theoretic spheres, it is thus that the notions of money and hap- piness are so blended together, that the miser will make the amass- ing of money his end, finding happiness in such a confusion of ends f and means. In fact, "the association of ideas" is a sort of "mental chemistry," as Mill caUs it, which explains many of the most deeply- rooted convictions of our nature; and in j:>sychological science wo are told that it plays much the same part as the law of gravitation does in physics. More important, however, in its influence on contemporary and popular thought than his more purely philosophic speculations was that doctrine of utilitarianism in morals, of which, under the influ- / ence of his father and Bentham, Mill was so energetic an advocate. Indeed, the belief that the good is only the generally useful is, in one shape or another, common to the whole of the so-called English psychological school, to Herbert Spencer and to Bain just as much as to Mill himself. In still later times Mr. H. Sidgwick, of ram- bridge, has published a work on "The Methods of Ethics," in which he appears as the defer ler of the utilitarian theory: and it ma\ he said that, for the greater part of the thinking world, as well as for a large section of the unthinking, utilitarianism forms the popular -k i 490 ENGLAND. philosophy of the day. It has been found to accord marvellously well with the practical temper of the English mind, and receives more than an incidental illustration in the favorite English study of political economy. There are many points of view from which utilitarianism appears to give a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena. When we ap- proach human action from the political side, the utilitarian view is perhaps the only practicable one. The happiness of the people is the only possible aim for the political philosopher; indeed, it has been often urged, sometimes as praise, sometimes as blame, that the principle of " the greatest happiness of the greatest number " has more a political than a moral character. Helvetius says "La science de la morale n'est autre chose que la science de la legisla- tion." And for this, there is this sufficient reason that utilitarian- ism studies only the consequences of action (i. e., action viewed from the outside, as it affects other people), which is a truly political and social view. The question, however, remains, whether if personal ethics is to mean anything, it shoidd not mean "action viewed from within," in connection, that is, with the principle and motive which animates it. Or again, in cases of casuistry, or instances where apparent duties clash, it may be asked what better test can be found than experience of the consequences of actions? When a patriot has to decide between his duty to the Government under which he lives and his duty to his own views and aspirations for his country, is not "utility," or the greatest happiness of the greatest number, the best solvent of his doubts'? On the other hand, though an appeal to utility can best settle collisions of duties, it is clear enough that there are virtues, the sacred and authorit^ive character of which is taken awav by the explanation afforded by utilitarianism. Justice is very clumsily explained (notwithstanding Mill's discussion in his "Utilitarianism"); Chastity, Veracity, Honesty, are more pow- erful before the analysis into utility is applied to them than after it. A man will not consent to be killed rather than tell a lie, because on the whole, the practice of telling truth is useful to humanity, nor yet will a Light Brigade charge Russian guns because military dis- cipline is good for the world. The fact is that, despite the extensive popidarity of utilitarianism among English modern philosophers, it runs counter to that popular consciousness, to which it is sometimes given to break through the cobwebs of metaphysical ingenuity. Nothing is more clear to un- sophisticated minds than the distinction between what is expedient and what is right, however often they may happen to coincide. We MODERN PHILOSOnilCAr. TIIO I'M do not venerate the man who, when called to some ad of heroism, calculates whether on the whole his ad will be useful to him to the world, or not It is more natural to call Belf aa< rifice nol le, than !<> call it useful; and no martyr nol even a scientific martyr would ever go to the stake, it' he stopped to reckon up the kx nefits t ' as againsl the personal pain of a death by burnu Whether utilitarianism, however, is satisfactory or not, it is al least an attempt to explain moral phenomena as forming an inde- pendent science of their own. The analysis .given oi i Bnc< b] Mill, although it denies its primary and original charai I de- rives it from certain sentiments and feelings, which are apparently disinterested. But the latest tendency of philosophy in England is to make morality a sort -of appanage of physical constitution, and t<> define conscience as a "function of organization" The character- istic of Bain and Lewes as psychologists is (as we shall see) to I thought as a function of mailer, and from this it is bul a Bt< p to the position that all moral feeling and sentiment may be equallj plained by physical considerations. The step has been boldly I by some physiologists and medical theorists, amon I hers by Dr. Maudsley. In a lecture on Conscience published in his work "Body and Mind," Dr. Maudsley says, "There is the strongest desire evinced, and the most strenuous efforts are made in many quarters to exempt from physical researches the highest functions of mind, and particularly the so-called moral sense and the will. The moral sense is, indeed, the stronghold of those who have made sb itegical movements of retreat from other defensive positions which they have taken up. Are we then, as physiologists, t<> allow an exemption from physical research to any function of mind, however exalted? or shall we maintain through good and through evil report that all its functions from the lowest to the highest are equally functions of organization? A vital question for us as medical physi which we must sooner or later face boldly and answer distinctly." To which we may add, that it is also a vital question for moral phi- losophers which they must face boldly and answer distinctly, if i is to be any longer an independent of ethics. Dr. Maudsley proceeds to ask if there is "the same i .1 con- nection between moral sense and brain which there is between thought and brain, or between any of our special and its cial ganglionic center in the brain?" To which he returns an em- phatic affirmative, with the assertion thai thej do not admit od other scientific interpretation. "One thing is certain, thai moral philosophy cannot penetrate the hidden springs of ■ I ( 492 ENGLAND. pulse; they lie deeper than it can reach, for they lie in the physical constitution of the individual, and, going still farther back, perhaps in his organic antecedents. Because the fathers have eaten sour grapes, therefore it often is that the children's teeth are set on edge. Assuredly of some criminals, as of some insane persons, it may be truly said that they are born not made ; they go criminal, as the insane go mad, because they cannot help it; a stronger power than they can counteract has given the bias of their being." A striking illustration is adduced to bring this home to the reader. " While the Reign of Terror was going on during the first French Revolution, an innkeeper profited by the critical situation in which many nobles of his commune found themselves, to decoy them into his house, where he was believed to have robbed and murdered thorn. His daughter, having quarrelled with him, denounced him to the authorities, who put him on his trial, but he escaped convic- tion from lack of proof. She committed suicide subsequently. One of her brothers had nearly murdered her on one occasion with a knife, and another brother hanged himself. Her sister was epilep- tic, imbecile, and paroxysmally violent. Her daughter, in whom the degenerate line approached extinction, became completely de- ranged, and was sent to an asvlum. Here then is the sort of pedigree which we really want if we are to judge of the worth of a family — the hereditary line of its vices, virtues, and diseases." First Generation. Acute intelligence, with ) Absence or destruction of murder and robbery. j moral sense. Second Generation. Suicide. Homicidal violence Epilepsy, Imbecility. and suicide. and mania. Third Generation. Mania. Such is the latest result of the application of the great modern doctrine of " Evolution " to the phenomena of moral life. The first systematic adoption of evolution, as the keystone of philosophy, was made by Herbert Spencer. Of the three contem- poraries, Herbert Spencer, Alexander Bain, and George Henry Lewes, who have propagated so widely the scientific and philo- sophic impulse communicated by Mill, it is undoubtedly the first who completely merits the name of a systematic thinker. In March, 1860, a catholic scheme was propounded, almost Titanic in its pro- portions, of works to be issued in periodical parts by Herbert Spen- cer. The series was to begin with " Fust Principles," with its two divisions of " the Unknowable " and " the Knowable," to proceed to " The Principles of Biology " in two volumes, " The Principles of MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 493 Psychology" also in two volumes, "The Principles of Sociology" in three volumes, and to end with the two volumes of "The" PrincipL of Morality," ami of this enormous programme the greater portion is completed. Little wonder is it that Mill and Lewes sh.mld be equally emphatic in their admiration. In comparing him wit Comte, 3Iill says. --Mr. Spencer is one of the small number of per- sons who by the solidity and encyclopedical character oi their km \vl- , edge and their power of co-ordination and concatenation, may claim to be the peers of M. Comt< ntitled to a vo of him." "It is que ble," says the author of the "History of Philosophy," " whether any thinker of finer c I in our country, although the future alone can determine the position he is to assume iu history. . . . He al< British thinkers has organized a system of philosophy." The reason is that Serb Spencer's philosophy is dominated by one vasl conception, which serves as a focus in which are gathered and concent] all the rays of thought iu its different departments. It is saturated wi one thought of pre-eminent importance — the great conception of "Evolution," of "Development." As Professor Huxley has said, "The only complete and methodical exposition known to me of the theory of evolution is to be found in Herbert Spencer's m of Philosophy,' a work that should be carefully studied by tho who desire to become acquainted with the tendencies of scientific thought." "What is this law of evolution? We must first attempt I some scientific expression or definition of it before proceeding to observe its exemplifications in the different spheres of being and thought. It has one fundamental principle from which i Vi • . i . is deduced — the persistence of force. Just for the reason thai energy is always active in nature, that force never fails or di do things hi nature change, adopt new forms, new developments, new transformations. If the law is to be expressed in a formula, it will run thus: "Progress consists in the passage from a homog< ae- ous to a heterogeneous structure." The law of all progress is one and the same, the evolution of the simple into the complex by suc- cessive differentiations. If we ask why progress should run alwi in this direction, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, the reason is twofold. In the first place, if a body is in a homogeneous condition, it is unstable; "homogeneity is a condition of unstal equihbrium;" or in more simple language, a Btate of uniformity is one which cannot be maintained. A familiar illustration is furnish. I by the scales, "If they 1 .lately made and not clogg< lirt 494 ENGLAND. or rust, it is impossible to keep a pair of scales perfectly balanced; eventually one scale will descend and tlie other ascend, they will assume a heterogeneous relation." Or again, "Take a piece of red- hot matter, and however evenly heated it may at first be, it will quickly cease to be so, the exterior cooling faster than the interior will become different in temperature from it, and the lapse into heterogeneity of temperature so obvious in this extreme case takes place more or less in aU cases."* The second reason for this direc- tion of progress is that every active force produces more than one change, every cause produces more than one effect. The multipli- city of effects resulting from a single cause naturally converts homo- geneity into heterogeneity. If a body is shattered by violent collision, "besides the change of the homogeneous mass into a heterogene- ous group of scattered fragments, there is a change of the homo- geneous momentum into a group of momenta, heterogeneous in both amounts and directions." "Of the sun's rays, issuing from him on every side, some few strike the moon, these being reflected at all angles from the moon's surface, some few of them strike the earth. By a like process the few which reach the earth are again diffused through surrounding space; and on each occasion, such portions of the rays as are absorbed instead of reflected, undergo refractions that equally destroy their parallelism." For these two reasons — that homogeneity is a condition of unstable equilibrium, and that every active force produces several changes — the law of evolution may be defined as a process during which " an indefinite incoherent homogeneity is transformed into a definite coherent heterogeneity." Herbert Spencer illustrates this law with a wonderful wealth of illustration in all kinds of different spheres — in the sphere of the world's growth, the growth of individual organisms, the growth of the social organism, and the genesis of science; of these we may select the first and the third as adequate examples of Spencer's method. In the beginning geologists tell us that our globe was a mass of matter in a state of fusion, and was therefore of homogeneous struct- ure and of tolerably homogeneous temperature. Then came the successive changes into heterogeneity; into mountains, continents, seas, igneous rocks, sedimentary strata, metallic veins. Or, again, look at the case of organisms on the face of the globe. Fishes are the most homogeneous in their structure, and are one of the earliest * Herbert Spencer, "First Principles," p. 402. The interested reader should study the whole of the chaps, sii.-xviii. of Part n., exhibited in more popular foiia in "Essays," London, 1801. ( MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 196 productions on the globe; reptiles come later and are more hetei geneous; mammals and birds, which are produced later still, are still more heterogeneous; man is the most heterogeneous of all. Even if we limit ourselves to the case of man, the law holds good. The multiplication of races, and the splitting up of races among them- selves, have made the species much more heterogeneous. "The Papuan has very small legs, resembling in this the quadrumanous kind, while in the case of the European, whose legs are longer and more massive, there is more heterogeneity between the upper and lower limbs." Another example of this progress in heterogeneity is furnished by the subdivisions even of the Saxon race, which lias within a few generations developed into the Anglo-American varied and the Anglo-Australian variety. Perhaps, however, a clearer ex- ample of the operation of the law can be found in the develop- ment of the social organism. The society of savages is an aggre- gate of individuals, who all hunt, fish, go to war, and work, or in other words, it is homogeneous; every individual having the same functions. Then comes a differentiation between the governing and the governed; while in the governing power are still united religious and executive functions. Other differentiations lead to our present condition of heterogeneity, Church gradually dividing itself from State, and the actual political organization consisting of numerous subdivisions in justice and finance, in executive and deliberative powers. In Herbert Spencer's " Principles of Psychology " the same law is applied to our mental states, and we are proved to have become in mmd what we are by successive developments from early organic states. A striking result of the introduction of this conception of evolution into psychology is shown in Herbert Spencer's attitude towards the so-called "Forms" of mind. There are certain forms, of which " Time " and " Space " are most frequently quoted, which have been the sources of much mental confusion to philosophers, for they seem to be so entirely innate, conceptions of such immedi- ate validity, as to preclude all possibility of resolution; and hence by Kant they have been boldly termed "Forms of Sense," or, in other words, a priori conditions of sensation and perception. On the other hand, they can be resolved, and are resolved by philoso- phers like Hume and Mill, into ideas, "put together <>uf of success- ive single sensations." Now this old difficulty as to whether " Time " and "Space" are a i>ri<<,-i or a posteriori, is solved according to Her- bert Spencer by the hypothesis that they are in reality a priori to the individual, but a xioderiori to the race; in other words, men be- 496 ENGLAND. gin now in their perceptions with ideas of space and time ready formed; but these have in reality been bequeathed to them — be- queathed by a long course of experiences in their ancestors. And so Herbert Spencer claims to have reconciled Locke and Kant: "in psychology, the arrested growth recommences now that the disci- ples of Kant and 'those of Locke have both then views recognized in the theory that organized experiences produce forms of thought." Nothing, in fact, is sacred from the penetrative analysis of this phi- losopher; no thought, no feeling, no sentiment, not even that senti- ment which, under the name of Love, has formed the staple com- modity of poets and novelists. This is how "victorious analysis" disposes of love. " The passion which unites the sexes is habitually spoken of as though it were a simple feeling; whereas it is the most compound, and therefore the most powerful of all the feelings. Added to the purely physical elements of it, are first to be noticed those high- ly complex impressions produced by personal beauty; around which are aggregated a variety of pleasurable ideas, not in themselves ama- tory, but which have an organized relation to the amatory feeling. With this there is united the complex sentiment which we term affec- tion — a sentiment which, as it can exist between those of the same sex, must be regarded as an independent sentiment, but one which is here greatly exalted. Then there is the sentiment of admiration, respect, or reverence; in itself one of considerable power, and which in this relation becomes in a high degree active. There comes next the feeling called love of approbation. To be preferred above all the world, and that by one admired be} r ond all others, is to have the love of approbation gratified in a degree passing every previous experience; especially as there is added that indirect grat- ification of it, which results from the preference being witnessed by unconcerned persons. Further, the allied emotion of self-esteem comes into play. To have succeeded in gaining such attachment from, and sway over, another, is a proof of power which cannot fail agreeably to excite the amour prqpre. Yet again the proprietary feeling has its share in the general activity; there is the pleasure of possession — the two belong to each other. Once more, the relation allows of an extended liberty of action. Finally, there is the exal- tation of the sympathies. Thus, around the physical feeling form- ing the nucleus of the whole are gathered the feelings produced by personal beauty, that constituting simple attachment, those of rever- ence, of love of approbation, of self-esteem, of property, of love of freedom, of sympathy. These, all greatly exalted, and severally tending to reflect their excitements on one another, unite to form MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 1 ■ i T the mental state we call 'love,' and as each of them is i >mpre- bensive of multitudinous states of consciou wo may sa this passion fuses into one immense aggregate most of the el( m< nt- ary excitations of which we are capable; and that hence results its irresistible power." And now what has Herbert Spencer to say of those deeper prob- lems which lie at the root of philosophy and science, of the relations of all the forces and powers of nature to the First Cause — of the re- ' lations of science and religion ? One of the most interest i Qg portions of "First Principles" treats expressly of these problems. Herberl Spencer asserts that he has found a reconciliation between religion and science. The reconciliation is, possibly, not one which either of the two contending parties would accept; and more Btrangely still, it is a solution. framed on the lines of Sir W. Hamilton and Dr. Man- sel — the one a Scotch metaphysician, the other a " Bampton lecturer " on divinity. Both religion and science must allow, according to Spencer, that ultimately they rest on "the Unknowable." The the- ologians cannot define their God, cannot possibly explain how an infinite and an absolute can yet be a Person; the scientific men cannot define the ultimate grounds on which rest their "Forces," and "Energies," and "Laws." In every direction, if*we pursue the inquiry long enough, we come to an inner secret, to a substratum of "the Unknowable." "By continually seeking to know, and being continually thrown back with a deepened conviction of the impossi- bility of knowing, we may keep alive the consciousness that it is alike our highest wisdom and our highest duty to regard that through which all things exist as the Unknowable." As "Amurath an Amurath succeeds," so follow psychologists and physiologists in the steps of Herbert Spencer. Among these, two have raised themselves into the front rank — Alexander Bain and ; George Henry Lewes; but their merits are of a very different order. By far the acuter mind of the two, both in speculative insight a:: 1 the special talents of the psychologist, was possessed by Mr. Lewes. "Without him, it would be true to say that a marked step of p; would be wanting in philosophy. But such praise could hardly be accorded to Mr. Bain. His strength lies rather in expression, in illustration of details, in general breadth of descriptive power, rather than in those gifts of vivid insight, or ample generalization, or pr nant suggestion, which form the character of an original philosopher. Perhaps such a man is needed after a great systematic, ByntL thinker like Herbert Spencer, to pick up, as it were, the fragments that remain, to bring out points in clearer light which might other- 32 498 ENGLAND. wise be neglected, to serve up the intellectual banquet anew in fresh forms for the jaded appetite. Necessary, however, though such a man may be in a series or succession of philosophic thinkers, } r et from a popular point of view — from the view of large or wide-spread influence on the body of the cultured world— we shall hardly be wrong in j)assing over without much comment the name of Mr. Bain in such a general review of thought as we propose to ourselves. One reason, amongst many others, which might be adduced of the comparative unimportance of this philosopher is to be found in this: that there is in his work, as his French critic, M. Ribot, observes, " a too frequent absence of the idea of progress, and a consequent neglect of the dynamic study of phenomena." The best that can be said for him will be found in the estimate of J. S. Mill, in an essay published in the " Dissertations and Discus- sions." "He has worthily inscribed his name beside those of the successive builders of an edifice, to which Hartley, Brown, and James Mill have contributed their share of toil." But in that temple of fame we presume that niches are found not only for the master- builders, the great spiritual architects, but also for those who have humbler tasks, the careful and conscientious workmen in other peo- ple's designs. By far a truer estimate, probably, is that given by Herbert Spencer in one of his "Essays." "The work of Mr. Alex- ander Bain is not in itself a system of mental philosophy, properly so called, but a classified collection of materials for that system, pre- sented with that method and insight which scientific discipline gen- erates, and accompanied with occasional passages of an analytical character. Were we to say that the researches of the naturalist who collects and dissects and describes species, bear the same relation to the researches of the comparative anatomist, tracing out the laws of organization, which Mr. Bain's labors bear to the labors of the abstract psychologist, we should be going somewhat too far, for Mr Bain's work is not wholly descriptive. Still, however, such an ana 1 - ogy conveys the best general conception of what he has done, and serves most clearly to indicate its needfulness." The chief points of interest in Mr. Bain's philosophy may be briefly summed. In the first place, we notice the same stress on the physiological antecedents of Psychology which is to be found in Herbert Spencer. In the first of his two larger books, " The Senses and the Intellect," Mr. Bain begins with a description of the brain, the cerebral nerves, the cerebellum, and the spinal cord. The nerv- ous system is for him the " fons et origo " of psychological study, for the nervous system is the very condition of psychological life. In a MODERX PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 400 •word, the life of the mind is bui u special vari< fry, ■.< peculiar mani- festation, of general physical life. In the second place, we have in the same work an. elaborate study of the association of ideas, illus- trated with that fullness of descriptive power which is the best and the chief characteristic of Mr. Bain. Lastly, in the companion work, entitled "The Emotions and the "Will.'" we have mi exhaustive enu- meration (yet hardly a classification) of the feelings and emotions, studied in their double aspect, as parts at once of psychology and physiology. Somewhat curiously, English philosophers have, as a rule, been deficient in any study of the emotions. They have not in this respect assimilated one of the truest elements of Comte's pro- gramme (which distinctly included "the affective phenomena"), and the result has been a certain unreality and lack of practical influence in their mental theories. Yet, though Mr. Bain does his best in this instance to fill the breach, his descriptive power too often runs away with him; according to the judgment of Herbert Spencer, in Mr. Bain's work description fills too large a share, and analysis too small a one. It is only a strict analysis which can precede a real classification. Very striking, suggestive, and original are the contributions made by Mr. George Henry Lewes to the history of modern thought. Metaphysics Mr. Lewes will have none of, and his at- I tack on them in his later books is only an echo of the attack made in the Prolegomena to the earliest edition of his "History of Phi- losophy.". If we wish to see Mr. Lewes at his best we should pe- ruse that characteristic Introduction. There will be found the salient features of his style — its liveliness, its freedom from all pedantry, its critical acumen, its popular sallies, its excessive dog- matism. The metaphysician and the man of science are like two travelers who come into a country where they meet for the first time with a clock. One finds in the new phenomenon an exhibi- tion of a vital principle: "the ticking resembles the regular sound-; of breathing; the beating of the pendulum is like the beating of I heart; the slow movements of the hands, are they not movements of feelers in search of food? the striking of the hours, are they nol eri< a of pain or expressions of anger?" The other traveler is aware ..I the necessity of verifying hypotheses, and proceeds according to a dif- ferent method. He tab s away the lace of die clock, but finds noth- ing changed, but no sooner has he stopped the pendulum than he finds that every thing has stopped with it. Prom these and other experiments, he discovers trulj thai the clock is a mechanism. Such, thinks Mr. Lewes, is the diffi rence between the two cla . minds, 500 ENGLAND. one of which is doomed to sterility, the other ordained to an ever-in- creasing- triumph. Or again, " the metaphysician is a merchant, who speculates boldly, but without that convertible, capital which can enable him to meet his engagements. The man of science is also a venturesome merchant, but one fully alive to the necessity of solid capital, which can, on emergency, be produced to meet his bills; he knows the risks he runs whenever that amount of capital is exceeded; he knows that bankruptcy awaits him, if capital be not forthcoming." A third illustration is drawn from the phenomena of spirit-rap- ping. With such variety of agreeable matter does the brilliant his- torian of philosophy beguile the ennui of the student, and attempt to disguise the difficulties which surround that unique phenomenon " Consciousness." There is, perhaps, only one thing which moves Mr. Lewes' scorn as much as metaphysics, and that is dogmatic theology. " The expansion of knowledge is loosening the very earth clutched by the roots of creeds and churches," he says with almost cruel energy. The history of philosophy is for him the narrative of the emancipation of philosophy from theology. In time, he hopes, we shall be in pos- session of " a method which will make religion also the expression of experience, and thus dissipate the clouds of mystery and incredibil- ity which have so long concealed the clear heavens." Whether the Positivist " Religion of Humanity " be " the expression of experience " is best known to the hierophants initiated in those mystic rites : but that this is not what religion means to the ordinary consciousness is obvious. Possibly, here we have one result of that definition of philosophy which makes it equivalent to analytic science. In his special lines, Mr. Lewes' criticism is always pertinent, his judgment clear, and his conclusion expressed with unmistakable emphasis. As an historian of philosophy he has his favorites, and he lets his readers know clearly who they are. Any genuine analytical power, however imperfect in exercise, he always admires; which explains, perhaps, why he is so singularly indulgent to Bishop Berkeley, and why he is filled with such true respect for the critical work of Kant. But meaningless dialectic he abhors and despises: and next to his scathing criticism of the French eclectics, we may put his merciless and (if the truth may be said) somewhat inadequate treatment of Hegel. As a psychologist, he has developed, in independent lines, the system of Herbert Spencer, and has completely severed himself from all affinity with the simple sensationalism of Condillac. In company with Mr. Lewes, but not, perhaps, equally deserving of the name of philosophers, come a host of writers, mainly scien- MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 501 title, amongst wliom we may specif} the names of Din-win, Carpenter, / Maudsley, MoreU, Sully, and as pure savants, TyndaU and Huxley. Of these, probably, Darwin has had most influe ice in fashioning, or at least instigating, popular modes of thought and expression. "The Origin of Species," "The Descent of Alan," "The Expression of the Emotions," have probably been more widely read than usu- ally falls to the lot of scientific books. P ir bo long as savants lal in the Bpecial departments of science, public opinion is excessively tolerant, for the simple reason that its incuriousness is only equ illed by its ignorance; but as soon as the held of minute inquiry is ( behind, and some wide generalization is attempted, some startling law exhibited, which touches the general thoughts and feelin ' the common mass, then at once public opinion gets aroused and angry, and ignorance degenerates into something very akin to blind bigotry. This is a mere matter of history and does not affect either way the truth or the untruth of the opinions that have aroused the storm. As long as Darwin studied the phenomena of the world of pigeons, or threw new light on the question of instinct, he was left alone in his study to pursue his scientific experiments; but when a result of these experiments, there came forth the great law of the evolution of the human race from lower organizations by mean the "Struggle for Existence" and the "Survival of the Pi mankind, perhaps naturally, resented a theory which established their kinship with a lower creation. The same was the ease in a lesser degree with Professor TyndaU He might pursue his science / and his pleasure in the Alps as long as he liked, but when be pro- pounded a theory about the origin of things in a Belfast address, the popular consciousness felt itself injured in its belief in the Book of Genesis. For there are two subjects with which ordinary human nature will not permit any liberties to be taken — its origin and its decease; it pursues with relentless hatred materialists and Positiv- ists, professors of evolution, and deni srs of the soul's immortality; and in quite recent days Pn '.'• ssor Hackel of Jena, has stirred up this opposition anew. In the wild but virtuous indignation of " the organs of public opinion," some ignorance may possibly I id of what "a scientific hypothesis" really means, some convenient getfulness that the methods of inquiry which make them so an are precisely those which bave taugbl as the facts of astronomy, won for us the material comforts of our civilization. But the I torian cannot overlook the fact that these struggles to and fro, fch< heart-burnings, these contentions b ifcween the Church and the lab- oratory, religion and science, are but so many indications of the 502 ENGLAND. profound unrest of modern thought, varying and antagonistic ele- ments, which prove, as clearly as they can, the transitional charac- ter of our age. The lines of the reconstruction can hardly yet be guessed — whether the issue is to be an armed neutrality between religion and science, and a clear division of territory between them, or the triumph of science and experience, or, as some think not improbable, the renascence of religion in the form of a philosophy. Whichever it be, one thing is clear, that these scientific conceptions of evolution, of development, of analysis, of biology, have gained and are gaining an increasing hold on the modern world. We find them in our newspapers, in our magazines, in our poetry, in our novels; analysis, triumphant and victorious, is seen on every page of Browning's verse, in every paragraph of George Eliot's latest novels. A hero is not drawn in some flash of constructive genius, as he would be in a great creative age like that of Shakespeare, but built up, piece by piece by single traits and characteristics, amidst a mass of reflections, after the manner of a critical, analytic, transi- tional age like that which is the jjarent of Daniel Derondas. The very word " evolution " has lost its scientific meaning, and we now talk of the evolution of a plot in a three-volume novel. Whether the future be with the Darwins or Huxleys we know not, but it is abundantly clear that the present is on their side. To deplore the fact is as useless as to ignore it; it is to condemn ourselves to hope- less sterility. " Toute cause qui hait son temps se suicide." More interesting and more profitable it is to attempt to see how the fu- ture, with its wondrous power of reconciling contraries, will as- similate scientific conclusions with that vast body of pre-existent popular thought, which science may be said as yet to have scarcely leavened. One element in such a reconciliation must undoubtedly be fur- nished by the influence on England of German thought. This influence we have reserved to the last, because its reality and per- manence have often been unjustly questioned, and because no can- did historian can help allowing the fact that it is in itself alien to the English temper and English modes of thought. Somewhat fitful, in fact, and spasmodic has been in England the German invasion of ideas. In quite recent times we may discriminate be- tween two periods of this influence — the first of which may be said to have already passed away, and the second to be but just begin- ning. English reliance on science and experience has, of course, continuously allied itself with the empirical philosophers of Ger- many, but the deeper thoughts and the metaphysical sj'sterns of MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 509 the one country have had io wait upon the appearances of somewhat rare spirits iu the other, before they could become known and, for the time at Least, naturalized. One such rare spirit was found in Samuel Taylor Coleridge, horn in 1772. In L798 lie went for some time t<> Germany to study the philosophy of Kant. In L817 and lti'IS he poured forth upon the English public his earnest p against the philosophy which was popular anion-- them, in his • ographia Literaria " and his "Aids to Reflection." In one as] possibly, he might be called reactionary, for he was lull of tin tn of Elizabeth and James, and the greatest period of English I tera- ture; but in another aspect he was the prophet, seeing from a moun- tain the land which the common herd had not the wit to see, ever warning men against the philosophical writers of his time, t striving to awaken some feeling for, and belief in, the systems of Jacobi, and Schelling, and Fichte, always insisting on a distinction I which was strange to the English intelligence — that between reason and understanding — for reason to Coleridge was the organ of the higher truths, understanding a faculty on a lower scale, a faculty of comprehension, but not, like the other, a faculty of creative thought. The impulse was widely extended by a literary feeling. The litera- ture of Germany — Goethe, and Lessing, and Schiller — was popular- ized for the first time in England by the labors of Edward Bulwer / Lytton, Thomas de Quincey, and above all, Thomas Carl vie. The last is a unique figure in the literary world, passionate, masterful, bizarre, penetrated through and through with German thought, an idealist, a poet of the highest type, a great creative genius, a "laudator temporis acti," a modern Heraclitus, dxorei v6s, aivixrySj 6xA.oA.6i8o/3os. To him and to Coleridge more than to any other writers, we owe whatever German elements are to be found in our ordinary thoughts. To him was due that naturalization of Kant, which was brought about by Hamilton, Mansel, and perhaps Whe- i well. But already his influence is waning, and he is no longer to the younger generation of the present day what he was to contem- poraries of De Quincey. The latest phase of German influence is literally a resurrection of metaphysics under the influence of Hegel. Some such reaction was historically necessary alter the exclusive reign of science, and ardent spirits are possibly inclined somewhat to anticipate it- t Yet that after a due submission to autocratic "experience," ami an obedient relegation of metaphysics to the limbo of morbid idiosyn- crasies, some such resurgence of invincible thought— so little lim- ited as it is within the bounds of "experience" (as tin English 504 ENGLAND. school understands the term) — was to be looked for even in En- gland, is apparent to any student of the history of philosophy, with its ceaseless action and reaction, strophe and antistrophe. No better definition of such a movement can be found than in Kant's definition of what metaphysic is, "jenseit der Erfahrung liegende Erkenntniss," a cognition which lies on the far side of experience. And so it comes that we now have a small body of Hegelian writers — men who translate Hegel, who think like Hegel, who are touched, some perhaps almost unconsciously, by Hegelian dialectic. Chief amongst them is Dr. Hutchinson Stirling, who has published " The Secret of Hegel " and in his edition of Sckwegler's " History of Philosophy " has warmly replied to Mr. Lewes' attack on Hegel. In Oxford, which has never been quite weaned of its metaphysical tendencies, a similar spirit appears in Mr. Wallace's edition of " The Logic of Kegel," and Professor Green's " Introduction to the Works of Hume." To these might be added Professor Caird's " Kant," a criticism of the philosopher of Konigsberg which is wholly Hegelian. Of the same spirit with this reaction is the curious, though evan- escent, influence in England of Schopenhauer's "Philosophy of Pessimism," a spirit which was rampant in Byron and Byronic young men, but is intensely alien in reality to English thought. Pessimism is, of course, the privilege of youth in most countries; but that such influence could make any way at all in our uncon- genial atmosphere is in itself a proof of the reality of modern Ger- man tendencies in this island. What the exact importance or influence of this revival of Ger- man methods in philosophy may be it is as yet probably too soon to estimate. The prima facie objection that it is alien to our national modes of thought may be held to be of some weight; but it must be remembered that the highest English thought has often been touched by foreign influences, whether it be the Hebraic " passion for righteousness" which animates English religion, or the keen air of foreign travel which blows through every page of Elizabethan literature. The chief interest, however, to any dispassionate ob- server of English contemj>orary thought, who yet is wearied with the struggle of priest and savant, is to gauge the value of a new intel- lectual " dej^arture " in its bearings on the debatable country between Faith and Beason. By some men the new Hegelian metaphysic, in its apotheosis of Beason, may be hailed as providing the only substitute which a cultured and enlightened age can accept for the superannuated phases of " Faith," while others who refuse to recog- nize in such new garb the long-loved features of the religion which MODERN rillLOSOnilCAL THOUGHT. , \ '■ has been consecrated to them in lisping utterances learnt at a mother's knee, may hold at arms' length the doubtful advanta of novel, though generous allies. But doubt of this kind as to the exact value of a new form of philosophy can only be solved by time, and to time we must look to decide whether the leaves of I hr tr which are for the healing of the nations, and which have been gathered only in the garden of Gethsemane, can be ever found in the garden of the Academe. CHAPTER XXVIII. MODERN CULTURE AND LITERATURE. General Definition and View of Modem Culture — Ascendency in it of the Ro- mantic Spirit — First Element in Culture: the Artistic — Art an Equalizing as well as Humanizing Agency — Advance of Domestic Decorative Art since 1851 — Influence of Mr. Ruskin: of Art Exhibitions — Improved Taste visible in Furniture and Embroidery — In Feminine Dress — In Home Decorations ■ — General Characteristics of Modern English Painting — How far does Mod- ern Art reflect the Spirit of the Age? — Explanation of the Popiilarity of Pre- Raphaelite Pictures, and Specimens of these — Whistler, Moore, Burne Jones — The Giorgionesque — Influence of Turner — Stimulus given to Artistic Im- pulse by other Art Critics than Ruskin: Hamerton, Colvin, Carr, Wedrnore, Augustus Hare — Development of Art in Great Towns — Music an Element in Modern Culture — Are we a Musical Nation ? — Music as reflecting Spirit of the Age — Second Element in Modern Culture: the Scientific— Progress and Organization of Science in England — Popular and Famous Teachers of Sci- ence — Huxley, Tyndall, Lister, Sir Wyville Thompson — Charm of Science to Imagination — Influence of Science (1) upon Literature, (2) upon Relig- ion — Relation of Science and Religion — Pessimism — The Pope of the Fu- ture — Other Elements in Modern Culture: Religion, Travel, Literature- - General Tendencies of the Literature of the Time — Reaction against purely Literary Spirit— Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. Pater, Mr. J. A. Symonds— Po- etry — Modern Poetical Schools — Mr. Tennyson, Mr. Browning, Mr. Swin- burne, Mr. Morris, Mr. Alfred Austin — Novels — Novel-reading Classes- Novelists: Mr. A. Trollope, Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. E. Yates, Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mrs. Oliphant, Mrs. Linton, &c, &c. — Influence of George Eliot- Miss Broughton, Miss Braddon, Mr. L. Oliphant, <£c. — Other Departments of Prose Literature — The New School of Historians — Mr. Freeman, Mr. Green, Mr. Froude — French Influences in Contemporary Literature — Mr. Frederic Harrison and Mr. John Morley — Serial Literature. WE have in this chapter to consider one of the most represent- ative and complex products of nineteenth-century England. When we speak of culture we mean the fusion of the higher influ- ences of the age, artistic, scientific, religious, and literary. Glimpses of some asjDects of the many-sided development may be caught in the streets of London and in other of our great cities, in drawing- rooms, in picture-galleries, in the periodicals of the day, wherever men and women meet together for the purpose of social conversa- tion and pleasure. We recognize the indications of its presence in MODERN CULTURE AND LITERATURE. 507 mam* ways and by many outward notes. Sometimes these are t<> be discovered in old china, in quaint furniture] in antique vrelv< i hang- ings, in curiously shaped cabinets; sometimes in a rather mystical, and, to uninstructed hearers, unintelligible dialect; Bometimes in a literary style remarkable for softness rather than vigor. As it has been said that everyone is a born follower either o£ Aristotle or Plato, so every age maybe described as being mainly classical or romantic in its tendencies. Romanticism is certainly in the ascendant during the last quarter of the nineteenth century , both in poetry and in household paraphernalia. It is the ago of man- sions built, as to their exterior, in the style of Queen Anne, but nothing more ahen to the spirit of the literature of that epoch than their interior could well be found. The genius of the romantic eminently suits a tune at which the beauty of color is worshipped as superior to the beauty of form. This preference it is which is the distinguishing characteristic of the romantic school, whether in art or literature. What the particular poets of the period — Mr. Swin- burne, Mr. Morris, Mr. Posetti — are in literature, Mr. Whistler and Mr. Albert Moore are in art. Theirs are the poems, and theirs the pictures, in which it is natural that a cultured public, fascinated by peacock rooms, should delight. There is a sex hi taste even as there is in flowers: and the sex which for the most part prevails just now not more in art than in literature and religion is feminine. As are the rooms we live in, so are the libraries which they contain. What Mr. Swinburne is among poets, Mr. Black, Mr. Blackmore, Miss Thackeray (Mrs. Ritchie) are among novelists — skilled, each of them in the grouping of rich and varied tints, sometimes dazzling, often lulling the senses and causing them to sink into a slun quisitely sweet, but troubling themselves comparatively little, if at all, to attain to severity of outline or classical symmetry of proportions. Art in the present decade is not only a great humanizing, but a great equalizing, power. The interchange of esthetic sympathies, the compelling power of the brush and the studio — were we speak- ing now of matters theatrical, it might be added, oJ <; — have become the instruments of a new kind of class fusion. jxrofessional house decorator is no longer a mere trad i or tradesman's employe. He is an artist, and he is entitled to red the treatment of a gentleman. But on a larger sea!" than t ; in matters more important, art is a great leveler. It much, is doing much now, to give to the dairj lif of m England, a grace and finish, the absence of which was Long and bit- terly deplored by esthetic reformers. It is unlocking the door to a 508 ENGLAND. multitude of educating perceptions which have been systematically closed. It is imbuing with a sense of refinement — aristocratic in the best meaning of the word — the middle-class households of the land. Contrast the domestic interiors drawn in Punch by John Leech, about and before the time of the Hyde Park Exhibition of 1851, with those sketched by Mr. Du Maurier, and then judge of the interval which has been traversed. Fireplaces ornamented with Dutch tiles, carved oak chimney-pieces, costly wall-papers, dadoes, and all the other most perfect appliances and apparatus in which the artistic soul delights, may not be within the reach of every one. But little objects conceived in the true artistic spirit, and eloquent of the distinguishing tone of modern culture, which give a pretty air of finish of the right kind even to an apartment crowded by sins against the true esthetic canons, may be bought wonderfully cheap. It is something, surely, that the Philistine Brit- ish public, against whom Mr. Matthew Arnold has inveighed so often and so bitterly, has learned the use of the tints of pale olive, faint blue, dull yellow in its wall-papers, and sees, in the rich effect when a glass with scarlet chrysanthemums is placed against that back- ground, what its true meaning is. How full of rest those dreamy curves and subdued tints are is best known to invalids, condemned formerly to gaze from a bed of sickness on brilliant green wreaths or combinations of roses tied in impossible knots, and depicted in impossible hues. The names of two individuals and of two institutions are prom- inently connected with this awakening on the part of the English public at large to the new artistic life — the late Prince Consort and Mr. Euskin on the one hand; the Exhibition of 1851 and South Kensington on the other. Few men in the history of a nation have ever lent so powerful an influence to its scientific, artistic — some will add political — development as the husband of Queen Victoria. His taste and example gave an immense stimulus to the popularity of music. His encouragement was a signal advantage to British painting and sculpture and science. The world's fair in Hyde Park, when the present century had arrived at middle age, was not only the first of a series of international exhibitions, but did for art with the English public what Socrates did for philosophy when he brought it down from the gods to men — taught the English people that the goddess might be domiciled in a middle-class En- glish home as well as in a Venetian palace. Had it not been for Prince Albert, this event, which marks an era in the history of the humanities in tins country, might never have taken place. The MODERN CULTURE AND LITERATURE. I work which the Exhibition began South Kensington has contin L To say that South Kensington might have held up a higher standard and abetter model of artistic imitation to ihe Km lis! i public tb it lias done is not to destroy its claim to grateful influence has been in the direction of sweetness and light. It has inspired the mothers and daughters of England witi which, if they have about them nothing that is heroic, have about them also nothing- that is not refining. It is the School of Art Needlewoi b South Kensington which, aided by that loving study of nature for which the present generation is indebted to Mr. Buskin, iven us, instead of the tasteless antimacassars of old, chair-covers em- broidered with such wreaths of jessamine, honeysuckle, or Vir- ginia creeper, as we may see trailed along a garden wall or bower. Screens and chairs embroidered with delicate white acacia or labur- num, with pink and white hawthorn and myrtle; or else tapestried with larger designs of birds, and even with effects of trees and water; curtains covered with pomegranate or orange, fruits, and flowers; d'oyleys worked with field flowers: all these unquestion- ably indicate a great advance on the style in which our drawing- rooms were ornamented at the time of the Exhil iti m of 1851. In other words, we have, thanks to Mr. Ituskin, learned to replace I conventional by the results of that reverent study of nature which the author of "Modern Painters" has done more than any man living to promote. He it is who has taught those whose lot is <-:>st in these latter days not only to love nature, but to discover a world of subtle and infinite beauty in her simplest, lowlie : in the very mosses which grow at our feet, and which, as he exquisil reminds us, cover with their soft tapestry the last couch of earthly rest. ""When all other service," he writes in "Modern Pah "is vain from plant and tree, the soft mosses and gray lichens I up their watch by the headstone. The woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses, have done their part for a time, but these do service forever. Trees for the builder's yard, flowers for the brid chamber, corn for the granary, moss for the grave." I Those who have heard Mr. Ruskin in his Oxford lectures dwell with delight on the exquisite beauty of the strawberry-plant, li flower, fruit, and stem, can never see it without remembering the glowing words thai taught them how much perfection of outline and coloring they had too often suffered to pass under their e; unheeded. So, too, has he pointed out to us the mystic beauty of the olive-tree, with its dim foliage, delicate blossoms, and dark IV — which even the great southern masters of painting overlo 510 ENGLAND. possibly, because it was so near them — and of countless other things in earth and air and water. The faculty of seeing more than meets the careless eye, and the cultivation of the faculty, have had other valuable effects than those which are purely artistic. By degrees our middle class are becom- ing gradually disabused of the vulgar idea that a large outlay is required for the tasteful arrangement of our rooms. The fact is recognized that the true artist can work, and work well, with the very simplest materials. And these influences are already becom- ing visible in the dress of women. What is chiefly conspicuous in modern feminine fashions is the latitude of personal choice, the op- portunity of individualism in costume which they allow, and above all things, the revolt against the Parisian dressmaker. There is certainly much less of rigid conformity to a single type than dur- ing the reign of crinoline, or during the interval which immediately followed, when ladies emulated in the limpness of their robes the appearance of one who might have just been immersed in a duck- pond. Nor does this hold true of dress only. Half a decade or a decade since the feminine hair was dressed after one uniform pat- tern quite irrespective of the contour and requirements of head and face. Of course, a prevailing mode there still is — or, more correctly, two or three prevailing modes. But within certain and tolerably elastic limits there is a very considerable width of choice allowed. In other words, ladies are rightly claiming and discreetly exercising more of an intelligent and personal initiative than they have ever before done. The fact is gradually being recognized that dress really stands in the same relation to the physical form as language does to thought, and that as for each variety of the latter there is the expression which is most appropriate, so in the case of the former there must be a reasonable artistic relation between the garment worn and the person wearing it. Thus it is that art has descended from the cold heights on which she once dwelt apart, and has thrown the grace of her presence over the familiar objects of every-day life. It is a further eminently satisfactory quality in the feminine costume of to-day that improvements in taste and economy to a great extent go together. Comparatively few ladies can afford such a dress as was exhibited at the School of Art in 187C, and afterwards sent to the Philadelphia Exhibition; but many, hap- pily, can now work, and even design, borders of fruit and flowers, which give grace and character to the simplest costume, or paint sprigs of blossoms or clusters of flowers on the surface of silk and muslin skirts. f MODERN CULTURE AXD LITERATURE. .".11 Even the domestic recreations of English homes in the presen! day illustrate the beneficent and humanizing power of the artistic spirit. Painting on china is a graceful art. which is now qoI a little practiced, and which has received special encouragement from the Princess Imperial of Germany. Blue and white chi] les, dainty watteau groups on china plates or terra-cotta may 1»' exe- cuted by every one who has artistic taste and leisure to cultivate it. It is a common and a welcome sight to see the young ladi< English family employed in decorating the earthenware cups and jugs manufactured and used hy the peasants at Dinan — which may be bought for a few sous, and which take oil-paint perfectly- -with a little design of poppies or daisies that converts the jar or cup at once into an elegant article. Here one may surely trace, in how- ever imperfect a manner, a humble realization of the fancy illus- trated by Mr. Longfellow in "Keramos" — the graceful volume of verse in which he sings so well the art that was a passion with Ber- nard Palissy, the Huguenot potter. When we approach the subject of modern English art, as em- bodied in the creations of the contemporary painter, we are in the presence of a difficult and delicate theme, which cannot here be dwelt upon with any pretence to completeness. It is cl ' against the latter-day school of English painters that their art and imagination are divorced from the stirring events of the time; that the atmosphere, social, political, scientific, abounds in id< which might well stimulate them to heroic efforts; that they lack the courage to grasp or the fancy to illustrate these; that if they exercise their fancy upon circumstances of English life they por- tray nothing nobler than a scene in a parlor or on a lawn, on the downs at Epsom, or at the railway station of Charing Cross; that the only type of the knight of chivalry whom they can see in con- temporary society is the well-dressed young guardsman; and that their loftiest visions of womanly nobility and beauty are to be dis- covered in the persons of a bevy of pretty young ladies stand before a picture or engaged in a game of lawn tennis. In a word, our painters, when they do not devote themselves to th< Q of history, allegory, and legend, have, according to this view, lost the secret of the "grand style." Hence, it is alleged, the real traditions and the true and best idiosyncrasies of English art arc not to be found in the painters of the period. They do noi id!. , I English character as Hogarth, Wilkie, Turner, and Gainsborough did. En- glish character is full of enterprise and daring, ; s consumed by a restless thirst for action, is always eager for veritably imperial uu- 512 ENGLAND. dertakings. Where, it is asked despairingly, can we look for any evidence of this in contemporary English art ? And yet we are re- minded, in the words of Sir Joshua Reynolds, " the ideal perfection and beauty are not to be sought in the heavens, but upon the earth. They are about us and upon every side of us." The whole of this question was ably discussed, though exclusively from one stand- point, by a writer in the Quarterly Review for February, 1879. " To represent action," said the writer, "in some form or another, is the aim of every great painter. In landscape, for example : how full of action is the painting of Turner, who may be truly said to have in- vented the great style in this branch of the art. The different lights and the far distances of his pictures blend in extraordinary sympathy with the human associations of the scene. His 'Rise,' and ' Decline of Carthage,' and his ' Fighting Temeraire,' though the representation of human life in these is entirely subordinate, have all the feeling of a great tragic poet. They seize the unseen worth or character of the subject." Now it is just this " action " , which is complained of as being conspicuously absent from the most noticeable of modern pictures. Thus, Mr. Brett's " Cornish Lions " is a beautiful presentation of a dazzling blue sea, illumi- nated by a sunshine so brilliant as to make each cranny and inden- tation in the cliff visible. But the general effect of the picture ap- pears to this critic "to be that of suspended life." The same tost is applied to Mr. Hcrkomer, whose picture of "Evening in the Workhouse," with its predominant tone of somber, hopeless peace, is contrasted with Wilkie's " Blind Fiddler " and " Blind Man's Buff"; to Mr. Long, who, it is admitted, has a keen dramatic sense, but who, in his Egyptian picture " The Making of the Gods," per- sists in employing it in realizing the idea of an obsolete superstition ; to Mr. Marks, who, it is deplored, gives up to dumb animals that faculty of active and energizing creation which was surely meant for humankind. To sum up : the three chief faults of our modern pictorial art, in the opinion of a writer whose competence and rep- resentative position entitle his views to consideration, are these — . first, the want of lifelike vigor and action; secondly, the alienation of artistic fancy from the stirring events of the time ; and thirdly, if contemporary history is resorted to, the selection of unworthy and commonplace scenes and incidents. There is, of course, a pro- test against the feeble realism in the modes of thought prevalent among a certain section of society, and these modes of thought are bodied forth on some of the canvases of the period. Thus, the critic writes : — MODERN CULTUR1 "Those who last summer visited thi a region from which t t and the I Iff , been offended in the Academy with the Bomewhat lavish imital of ] might lure Bolace . i ith pure abstraction; if, in Burlington House, they had b si me diflL atmosphere of modern society, hero at least they might retire into might listen to the pastoral pipe of thi I . roam rocks and mountains that appeared to Lave Btrayed out of the picturi - of Benozzo Gozzoli, or ransack their memories before the faces of knights and angels whose acquaintance they i'ancii '• had made lon| • canvas of Giorgione or Sandro Botticelli. Sun ly hi re, it" anywhei found that artistic generalization, that imag i Sir J bua B ynolds declared to he the characteristic of thi rep: Lve painters of the Grosvenor Gallery had a of action than the painters of I demy : for if the latter restricted themsi I >> s to imitation, at least they imitated actual life, but the former merely imit certain peculiarities in the style of the old masters. Mr. Burne Jones is the chief master of this school. His picture entitled 'Laus Veni ris' i a number of ladies sitting in the foreground, gorgeously attired, and in the background some knights in white armor looking in at a window as they rode by. The women in the chief group were doing nothing. They had even stopped singing the praises of Venus, which, it appears, was their sole resource for passing the time. They had all one type of face, one morbid kind of com- plexion, one monotonous expression, which culminated in the figure of the Queen, who, with her Beat thrust back from the rest, her crown on her km and her feet far extended in front of her, seemed to have resigned herself to the dominion of ennui. A similar somnolent languor pervaded Mr. Job 'Chant d'Amonr'; indeed, so potent was its influence, that a Cupid, who had been apparently borrowed from Botticelli for the purpose of blowing the bi !- lows of an organ — which for some reason the female musician has chosen to play on the top of a wall — had actually fallen asleep at his work. In like manner the abstractions of 'Day and Night' and the 'Four Season i' indie | i not the action of light and darkness, nor the variety of generation and pro- duction, but the perpetual presence in the painter's mind of thoughts on revo- lution and decay." "What is there to he said on Hie other side of th ri question, not so much as regards the technical merii of modi ich is not now the quality in di on the subjed of tli-- r lation existing between the time and the works of ] I art which it produces? Before we pass to this that while there is much that may yearly disappoint :m Sandro Botticelli that we must go if wo would find the original sources of these inspirations. Andrea Mantegna, more grand and processional in his outlines and groupings, is yet sufficiently pre-Raphaelite to please the school; Giorgione also, in spite of his later birth — the young Venetian whose pictures, lighted from within as it wore, by a golden glow — have fed the fancy of the neo-esthetic sect. The influ- ence of the " Giorgione scpie " may be traced, to give an* illustration, in Mr. Albert Moore's " Sapphires"- — a woman's figure robed in loose draperies, her head crowned with a luminous turban. The splendid glow of blue and orange in her robes and jewels is gemlike, trans- parent, and radiant with splendor. It is easier for the uninitiated spectator to appreciate the beauty of pictures such as these than of \ the presentations of those pallid red-haired figures, worn and wast< d, those lank forms and clinging draperies, which are much affected by this school. Perhaps a picture of Tissot — "Autumn'' — exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878, may help the critic in some degree towards an understanding of the charm which may be found in these unlovely forms and ghastly visages. The charm of this work does not he entirely in Tissot's masterly foreshorten ilia's and per- spectives. There is something more that appeals especially to the present generation. The pale, wistful young face, turned sadly back to us for a moment, wdiile the figure, in heavy mourning robes, re- treats swiftly along under the chestnut-tree, ami the autumn wind sweeps down its large, yellow, fanlike leaves and scatt< r thickly along her path, brings a message full of meaning to the heart of many a spectator in these days of sadness, weariness, unsatisfied yearning — a spirit which is expressed in that eager outlook into futurity called by the Germans "Sehnsueht." Nor may it only bo that this kind of art, while certainly not representing Engli !■ char- acter, may be said to reflect .1 certain morbid and i | of English thought. It may also be regarded as a reaction t'r<>m tho r 16 ENGLAND. realism which pervades so much of the art that is purely popular. From these pictures, which merely give us the outside aspect of things, it may conceivably be a relief to some persons to turn to those into which the curious imagination may read any meaning that it chooses. To Turner, it has been said, nothing was common and unclean; and a Mason can invest with grace and beauty such a sub- ject as "The Clothes Line." These are the cases of an exceptional power; and it is perhaps because so many of our cleverest painters fail to clothe the landscape and the objects which they depict with the hues of their imagination that there is a certain public which can enjoy the fantasies of pre-Raphaelitism. There are other features yet to be noticed in the artistic aspect of modern popular culture. Mr. Ruskin has been the leader of the school of esthetic prophets; his influence has germinated to such an extent that a considerable proportion of the literature of the day is purely artistic. First, there are the many periodicals devoted to art— such as "L'Art," the "Portfolio," and "The Magazine of Art," — with their careful and conscientious, if somewhat artificially sub- tle, criticisms, and then- beautifully executed engravings; then there are the different series, issued in shilling numbers, with a view of bringfine home the rudiments of true art to English middle-class households; lastly, there is the crowd of writers upon art subjects who have efficiently continued the work that Mr. Ruskin began. Mr. P. Gr. Hamerton is at once an accomplished man of letters and an authority upon all subjects connected with the studio. The beauty of his style causes his works to be eminently pleasant and popular reading, while the thorough knowledge of his subject with which he writes insensibly develops in the reader an artistic feeling and insight. Distinguished in this school of writing, of which Mr. Hamerton must be regarded as the chief, are Mr. W. H. Pater, who may almost claim to be the parent of the idea of the " Giorgion- esque " in modern literature and art, Mr. J. A. Symonds, Professor Sidney Cohan, Mr. J. Comyns Carr, and Mr. F. Wedmore. Their books would be in demand independently of their subject, and they play the part of genuine teachers to the ordinary circulating library public, because there is nothing pedagogic, and much of natural and poetic beauty, in their manner. It is also to be noticed that the most popular literature of travel is that which is specially i adapted to the taste of the artistic traveler. Such manuals as those written by Mr. Augustus Hare not only contain a great deal of well-compiled miscellaneous information, and abound in extracts from volumes like Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Transformation" and MODERN CULTURE AND LITERATU& .-,17 Mr. Story's "Roba di Roma," but display consummate Insight into the foibles, vanities, and humors of the age for which thej are \. ten. They are precisely level with the standard of modern popul ir culture, are written mainly from the art point of view, and are really guide-books to artistic culture. While a taste for and sympathy with arts, which, if they son times assume a fantastic and artificial shape, uniformly < humanizing influence, have been spreading throughout the com- munity, the State has recognized the duty of encouraging and sun- porting art. Within the last half century there has been witnee d the foundation of a National Gallery, the embellishment of I Houses of Parliament with an interesting series of historical fres- coes, the formation at South Kensington of valuable collect inns, only of modern pictures, but of objects of decorative and of indus- trial art, and of a department of State charged with the duty of . superintending the teaching of art throughout the whole country by means of Schools of Design.* Nor has provincial England falh n short of the active enthusiasm which, in the capital, has been dis- played by the State. Government grants for art purposes are made to Edinburgh and Dublin; the large manufacturing towns receive nothing from the State, although private effort in them accomplifi much. It would certainly seem desirable that some of the art; treasures of the British Museum should be occasionally I provincial galleries. Meanwhile, in Birmingham, Sheffield, Man- chester, Newcastle, and elsewhere, the penny rate levied for free libraries, museums, and art galleries, liberally supplemented as I has been by private donations, has accomplished much, and has provided an elaborate and most effective machinery tor educating the popular eye and taste. As yet, this artistic teaching has not I done much for the improvement of the architectural aspect of our great commercial and industrial centers. Yet even here signs arc not wanting that we have taken a new and nobler point of depart- ure. There are structures in Liverpool which im im- perial aspect, worthy of the great place it occupies in our national system; again, Manchester, notwithstanding its unlovely streets, i boast warehouses of truhj palatial appearance, and is adorned by a pile of buildings, erected for municipal pur] by the Oorpoi tion, which is at once a superb specimen of the genuinely English I othic and a n< ample to the rest of the United Kingd< The study of architecture itself, and above all, the architecture of * In 1878 there -were consHrr'tlily more than half a million persons n instruction in these establishments. 518 ENGLAND. the Gothic school, have exercised an important influence on modern culture; signs have been -witnessed of the revival of reality in oppo- sition to sham, and it is much that oak and granite should be super- seding spurious stone and stucco. Among the individual influences to which the cultivation of artistic tastes may be ascribed, prominence has been already given I to the name of the Prince Consort. "While he did much to stimu- late art, as well as science, it is probably in the domain of music that his example has been most powerfully felt and directly fol- lowed. Art, music, and the drama, each of them represent forces equally active amongst the English middle and upper classes. The reproach that the English are a race which has no music in its soul has only to be applied to our existing social state to be falsified by peals of harmony in every direction. Music, we are told from pul- pits and platforms, in essays and in sermons, has had an influence not less refining than that of art upon the popular taste, and the head master of Uppingham School, one of the most successful school-masters of the day, considers music essential to the education of youth. We have a Royal Academy and a National Training , School for Music, of which the former receives an annual grant of £500 from Parliament. Music is also being taught in the element- ary schools of the United Kingdom; and experience has shown that part-singing very often brings much innocent pleasure to the ■ poorer classes, who are, probably, worse off than any people in the world for innocent amusements. If it cannot be said that in England modern musical taste has resulted in the production of any composers of the first order, it has certainly given us a number of most sympathetic and intelligent audiences. Go to any great concert in any large town — notably to ; ' the Monday Popular Concerts held in London — and the chances are that a considerable minority of listeners will be found with a score- booh in then- hands. Even as regards composers our merits are at least respectable. Sterndale Bennett, the chief disciple of Men- delssfion, G. A. Macfarren, Arthur Sullivan, and Henry Smart con- stitute" at least a remarkable group, and it is to be noticed that they have each of them belonged to the Academy, either as students or professors, or successively as both. Music is essentially the most cosmopolitan of all the arts and sciences; and nothing can be more to be desired for English music than that traveling scholarships should be instituted in the national musical colleges, the successful candidates for which should thus have the opportunity of studying the philosophy of sound in every part of the world. A popular MODERN- CULTURE AND LITERATURE. 519 | artist of the day, Mr. Du Maurier, has given us three pregnant illus- trations of the music of the past, the present, and the future. The iirst represents a lady,, a graceful little figure in Watteau costume, performing on the piano a melody of Mozart's. She is surrounded by a group of intelligent and appreciative hearers. Old and you — from the delighted grandfather to the little girl who stand i hv I 1 and quiet at her mother's side — are listening, as though the dr< of the gentle, pure-hearted composer were undersl I, and their elevating influences confessed in various measures by all presi Beneath we have the "Music of the Present." A young lady is per- forming with much execution some brilliant "Morceau" by a modern master, while groups of ladies and gentlemen stand or si! aboul I piano, conversing among themselves, with polite indifference to the melody. Then we have the "Music of the Future "■ —portentous and terrific. A band of frantic wild-haired musicians are executing some piece of astounding loudness, while the auditors rash aw distractedly covering their ears. There is a story in the "Percy Anecdotes" which teUs us that an organ sent by the Emperor of the East, Constantine Cupronymus, to King Pepin of France, a. d. 757, so strongly affected a lady who heard it for the first time that she became delirious for the rest of her days. Possibly, this i (rent may be considered as prefiguring the character of the musicians of the future. It may be doubted whether the artist does not, in the first of these tableaux, exaggerate the musical attainments of our ances- tresses: although a lady once performed in the hearing. of Dr. John- son a sonata, the extreme difficulty of which was proudly pointed out by her mother, only to provoke the characteristic, " Madam, I wish it had been impossible!" It was the very rare exception a hundred years ago to find any body who could execute more than the simplest tunes on the spinet or harpsichord. When we look at the more tumultuous pictures in the set above mentioned, we may perhaps recognize the reflection of the troubles and perplexities of modern life in the music of the period. It is probably only when they are regarded from this point of view that the extraordinarily intricate compositions of the Abbe Liszt or the prodigious tone-pictures of Wagner become intelligible. Bere, too, may be discovered a reason why the palm of musical supremacy is | generally accorded to the school of Germany. The sofl ami almost languid sentimentalism of Italian, the airy and sparkling brilliance of French compos* rs, are not the echoes of those manifold Bounds which constitute the gamut of human nature in the same way as the music of Germany. There may be an infinity of charm in Italian 520 ENGLAND. sweetness and in French variations, but for those harmonies which are the symbols in sound of the greatest joys, deepest sorrows, highest hopes, most painful conflicts of human nature, we must, probably, go to Teutonic minstrels. If proof of this is wanted, it is to be found in Wagner's opera of Tannhauser, and in Schumann; at the same time, the influences both of Schubert and Chopin haye had a profound effect in molding the musical taste of the day. We pass on to another, and as, perhaps, some will think it should be rated, the first element in the popular culture of the day. The machinery for the teaching of science is eyen more highly organized than that for the teaching of art; nor does science lack the popu- larity and fashionable prestige which art conspicuously commands. There are classes for scientific instruction in all our great schools, and, independently of our great schools, in all our great towns. The universities award then highest distinctions to successful can- didates in the examinations of which natural science forms the subject; and the foremost writers upon scientific matters are cer- tainly the most popular among the authors of the day, and for the same reason that holds good of the artistic writers — viz., because then literary style is alike pleasing and perspicuous. The influ- ence of the British Association for the encouragement of science increases every year, and acts as a kind of missionary in our great provincial towns. Naturalists and field-clubs are popular in coun- try districts; and scientific institutes, with valuable scientific libraries attached, abound in our great centers of manufacturing industry. In a very great degree the extent to which physical science is now cultivated must be attributed to the individual influence of two distinguished men. Mr. Huxley and Mr. Tyndall would be eminent as writers, even if they were not masters of scientific expo- sition. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that what Mr. Glad- stone has done for finance Mr. Huxley has done for the facts of physical science. Upon medical training as well as upon general education and culture his influence has been equally manifest. The training of our future doctors and surgeons should, according to Mr. Huxley, be a department of the general education of the coun- try, and should merely be a more minute and perfect elaboration of that scientific discipline which should be imparted in all national schools. Chemistry, botany, and physics woidd thus be subjects as universally recognized in our educational establishments as classics or mathematics. Those students who elected to follow a medical career would pass from the general schools to some one or other of the two or three great medical institutions with which Mr. Huxley MODERN CULTURE AXD LITERATURE. 521 would replace the multitude of smaller ones that at present exist One may discover in the scieutilie writings of this distingui hi I teacher qualities analogous to those which are the chief not i of Mr. Buskin as a writer on art As Mr. Elusion admires so deeply the exquisite beauty of the works of Nature in the veg) table world, so does Mr. Huxley explain, in language equally appreciate happily chosen, and enforce by arguments strikingh jtive and cogent, the marvellous thriit and wise torn which characterizes all creation. There can be no better example of his power of inter- esting the popular attention on scientific matters than his essays and addresses, avowedly having for their subjects yeast, the forma- tion of coal, the physical basis of life. !u each of these we have not merely the investigator and the philosopher, but the man of general culture, the scholar, and, as his essays on Berk< Ley an I Descartes show, the interested metaphysician. Take his illustration of the nature of protoplasm as a singularly happy piece of popi exposition. He draws here a clever analogy bet we in it and Balzac's story of the "Peau de Chagrin." "The hero," he continues, "be- comes possessed of a magical wild ass's skin, which yields him the means of gratifying all his wishes. But the surface repr nts the duration of the proprietor's life, and for every desire sati ified the skin shrinks in proportion to the intensity of fruition, until at life, or the last handbreadth of the peau de chagrin, di s with the gratification of a last wish." According to Huxley, this was I foreshadowing of a physiological truth: "at any rate, the matt lire is a veritable peau de chagrin, and for every vital act it is some- what the smaller. All work implies waste, or the work of life re- sults, directly or indirectly, in the waste of protoplasm.'' ■ >il v for mankind, he continues to explain, the waste continually going en can be repaired by eating beef and mutton. " Mutton itself was once the living protoplasm, more or less modified, of another ani- mal — sheep. . . A singular inward laboratory which I pos« win dissolve a certain portion of the modified protoplasm; Na- tion so formed will pass into my veins, and the subtle influences to which it will then be subjected will convert t i protopla into living protoplasm, or transubstantiate the sheep into man." The sheep, in turn, has received its protoplasm from the \ table world, and thus the matter of life and thought is built up from the foundation to the summit of the common mat universe. In a degree perhaps even greater than Mr. Huxley Cyndall is the interpreter or popularizer of science. " Sound," " Light," " I 522 ENGLAND. diation," are the titles of books on subjects which, a few years ago. were strictly confined to scientific circles. Professor Tyndall has brought these topics, and an enormous amount of matter necessary for then illustration, from the laboratory, as the fore-court of the Temple of Philosophy, to the lecture-hall of the Royal Institution. Like Mr. Huxley, Mr. Tyndall's work has been directed to the an- nihilation of two great popular delusions — the first, the idea that either men or women will not be practically the happier and the better for the acquisition of scientific knowledge; the second, that education is really finished when school is left behind, and is not rather a process to be coutinued throughout life. Here, then, we may discover one of the surest antidotes to that mischievous ten- dency which some critics have discovered in modern scientific teaching. If it can be said that physical science has given man an exaggerated notion of his power over nature, it has also, as taught by its highest authorities, shown him how infinite is his ignorance, and implanted in the popular mind a desire to gain a greater insight into the operations of nature. Nor is it only on intellectual grounds that the public is indebted to the services which scientific teaching has accomplished. Physical research has a further popular attraction; first, because it is per- ceived that some comprehension of it is necessary for healthy living; secondly, because it is daily more and more recognized how truly philanthropic are its services. Probably, no man now living has had the honor of saving more human lives than Mr. Lister, Clinical Professor at King's College, London. His antiseptic treatment — the result of much patient inquiry and complicated research — -has only slowly won recognition in London, though it has long since been adopted in America, and alleviated the agonies of countless victims in the course of recent European wars. On the death of Sir "William Ferguson, the Clinical Chair of Surgery at King's College was offered to Mr. Lister, who, feeling that here a signal oppor- tunity had presented itself for the fulfillment of his beneficent mis- sion, gave up a lucrative practice and a distinguished position at Edinburgh. In coming to London Mr. Lister may be said to have been invading the enemy's country. He had not been in the capital a year before he may also be said to have conquered it, by the com- bination of high personal qualities with eminent scientific attain- ments and success. Again, science occupies a conspicuous place among the forces which contribute to the sum of modern culture, not onlv because it deals with demonstrable verities, but because it opens a vista full MODERN CULTURE AND LITERATURE. of dazzling' fascinations to the imagination. In this department . science the names of Sir Wyville Thompson and Dr. Carpenter are entitled to prominent mention. The Challt cpedition was ganized by the Government, in deference to the repeated and em- phatic representations of Dr. Carpenter, for the purpose of Eathoming the mysteries of the waters beneath the earth. Thai the snbjed <»t' deep-sea exploration should have a vivid attraction for the popular mind is natural in itself, and is signally illustrated by the eagei □ with which the public have nocked to hear lectures and to read books on the subject. We begin to be aware that we are end a upon the triumph predicted by Bacon for man over nature. We had already measured the earth, gauged the depth of its crust, as- certained the date of its genesis; we had weigh< d the sun, and con- structed maps of the planets. It remained to sound the lowest depths of ocean, and to provide the materials for a picture of I economy of its abysses. Here we have found Nature in the very midst of that work which she has been carrying on for countless ages, as busy now as when first she undertook the development of the planet we inhabit out of mist, haze, and floating nebulae. Mr. Huxley and Mr. Tyndall have both of them a distinguisl opponent in Mr. St. George Mivart, who, though a firm champion of Roman Catholicism, would admit some of tl linal principles of Mr. Kuxlev and Mr. Tvndall. Thus he would not deny that general appearance of the world justifies the conclusion that all species have been introduced by a process of evolution. He would, however, deny that evolution and the mere operation of secondary laws are enough to explain those phenomena an 1 those at! which are most especially distinctive of man. Granted, he mi| possibly allow, that you can account for the formation of the body in the same way as you may account for tin of the bodies of other animals, how, he would ask, are you to account the growth of that intelligence which specially differentiates man from other animals, or for that sense of justice which, in however rudimentary a form, is implanted in the rudesi and most sa\ nations. Apropos of this latter point, Mr. Mivart cites the u of a ferocious and uncivilized Australian tribe, one of whose punish- ments is the thrusting of a spear into the thigh. It', for certain offenses, he says, the weapon is embedd I too <'. eply in the hiu flesh, the victim of the 1 protests. What, he asks, is thi not a sense of justice, showinj in how< ver primitive a form? When Messrs. Huxley and Tvndall explain human intelligei those sentiments which we recognize as moral by the simp] I \ 524 ENGLAND. nient that they have been evolved by the ordinary operation of sec- ondary laws, actively in progress, through innumerable successions of generations, Mr. Mivart would observe that the generations of the lower creatures have been infinitely more numerous, not only as regards the rapidity of then* sequence, but in view of the period from which they date, than the generations of men. If, therefore, the mere lapse of time has not given to animals and insects, emi- nently endowed with a sort of intelligence, precisely that variety of intelligence which is to be found in man, how is the phenomenon to be accounted for save by the hypothesis of the intervention of some superior power — in other words, of the Divine action. Mr. Alfred Wallace, himself a follower of Mr. Darwin, and a believer in evolu- tion, admits the existence of this difficulty, and seems disposed to explain it by the assumed operation of spirits. It was inevitable that the extraordinary advance and develop- ment of scientific culture should influence both the literature and religion of the day. Physiology and psychology — the latter being, for the most part, resolved into the former — control or powerfully tincture the imagination of at least one of the leading spirits of our modern literature. Scientific terminology is introduced to indicate the facts, feelings, and phenomena with which the novelist and the poet deal. There are many phrases in the later works of George Eliot which are absolutely unintelligible to the reader who has not been also in some degree a student of physical or mental science. It is, indeed, no new thing that the scientific conceptions of the period should be mirrored forth in contemporary literature. Homer, Dante, and Milton all adopt and illustrate the current cosmogonies of their era. In the " Iliad " and the " Odyssey " there is the same scheme of the universe shadowed forth as in the primitive charts of the geographer. The "Divine Comedy" has well been described by a critic of our day — Mr. Edward Dowden — as a harmony of phi- losophy, physics, and poetry; while in "Paradise Lost" the astro- nomical theories were not more fancifully unsound than they were elaborately consistent. Nor in the present age is the motto of all our poets "art for art's sake." The doctrine of human progress penetrates the verse of Mr. Tennyson, and what has been called the "cosmical feeling for nature" — the consciousness that in the infinite complexity of the world there is still unity — is not more visible in Mr. Carlyle than in the Laureate. "When Teufelsdrockh exclaims, "Force, force, everywhere force; we ourselves a mysteri- ous force in the center of these ! " he hints at the same truth as is embodied in the lines entitled " The Higher Pantheism." MODERN CULTURE AND LITERATURE. "Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the orannii Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower — but if I could understand "What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is." But this is only a less characteristic illustration of the influence of science upon literature. Literature has not merely be< □ influenced by science, but invaded by it; and when a critic, able, learned, and •' in this case profoundly sympathetic — Mr. I\. H. Hutton — can only explain in such a passage as I he following the i m, it is clear that we are rapidly replacing the old school of literary by a new school of scientific critics: — "If I may venture to interpret so great a writer's thought, I Bhotdd ray that •The Spanish Gypsy' is written to illustrate, not merely douBly and trebly, but from four or five distinct points of view, how the inheritance of nit" streams of impulse and tradition stored up in what we call r tragic veto upon any attempt of spontaneous individual lition to ignore or defy their control, and to emancipate itself from the tyranny of th< ir disputable and apparently cruel rule. You can see the i;> I nc i of tl Darwinian doctrines, so far as they are applicable at all to moral cl and causes, in almost every page of the poem. How the th n-' the '\-iy. is to be noticed thai the manner in which science is o' •••.M with by theology, ami theology by sci. ■m-r, is no Longer vehal i' once \ Science was used by Paley to overcome tl e r ' difficuH suggested by reason; reason is now used to show that religion • "Essays" by It. II. Hutton, pp. 348, 3i'J. 526 ENGLAND. capable of scientific treatment. Nor does the professional teacher of religion altogether deny this; for the most part he admits the probable truth of many scientific hypotheses. If he is a Roman Catholic or High Anglican, he meets the declaration of the irrecon- cilable feud between the discoveries of geology and the letter of the first chapter of Genesis with the admission that it may be as the geologists assert, and that the Church has not spoken authoritatively on the subject. If he takes his stand upon the basis of a liberal latitudinarianism, he is not concerned to deny the Darwinian theory of evolution. Religion, he holds, begins where science ends. There is a term which science is impotent to pass. Behind the law of na- ture must be the Lawgiver; beyond the phenomena must be their great First Cause. Nor is the attitude assumed by science towards theology hostile, in the sense in which many of Faraday's contemporaries, most unlike Faraday himself, were the enemies of revelation. Modern science speaks with condescension of " our noble Bible," and affably pre- pares the " Prayer Gauge " as the best solution of a vague question. A similar rationalism, though manifested in a somewhat unattract- ive way, is perceptible in the philosophical analysis of human senti- ments given by Professor Bain, who considers the affection of a I mother for her child — which Victor Hugo, in the happy phrase of genius, has spoken of as "divinely animal" — as "purely animal." The late Charles Kingsley, commenting upon the opinion of Profes- sor Bain not long before his death, said: "The end of such a phi- losophy must be very near." It has been finely shown by one of the most distinguished of contemporary theologians that the great crowning fact of Christian history is " not the solution, but the illu- mination of the mvsteries of life." This is an hvpothesis at least as legitimate in its way as many of the hypotheses of science. The truths of science are eternal; scarcely so the ascendency over the individual of a science which is apt entirely to ignore the imagina- tive element in man. Physicism, in its present shape, can scarcely hope to supplant religion; and if it be said that science is really more of a creed at the present day than theology, it is possible that the world ma}' swing back from that state which marks nothing more than the temporary supremacy of Pessimism. Pessimism, as the correlative of Optimism, has always existed, and it now sounds ■ audibly, in a pathetic minor, through much of our literature, phi- losophy, and art. If it really be the case that natural science has at the present day taken in many the place of faith, the question is not so much, Will the new reign of reason be permanent ? as, For what MODERN CULTURE AXD LITERATURE. 527 limited period will it List? Whoever f e of the future may be, will his garb be that of the physical inquirer? It inag hi that the next era of philosophical investigation will l>e one in which moral laws take the place of physical laws as the obj< earch. The physical order of the universe we have now almost ascertain is there a moral law which will submit to the same process of analy- aml mquiry? At the same time, the prospect of such an ini tigation involves the assumption of a reaction against • which may be thought to be extremely improl The importance i E evolution, in its bearing upon morals, is thai it really tends to d< - prive ethics of its position us an independent science, making it a mere appendage of physics, and causing it to stand in the same re- lation to physics as does political economy to the larger Bcience of sociology. This analysis of the social and intellectual conglomeration sp< : of as modern culture, is necessarily most imperfect. That the chief elements in modern culture are the artistic and scientific can scarce- ly be doubted. But when once these are subj< ct to fresh influent or are combined in changed proportions, the result is what is prac- tically a novel substance. The new facilities of Continental tra I have coincided with the interest which art preachers have arot in Continental picture-galleries, and the mind thus passes, by a nat- ural transition, from the contemplation of objects to the events which cluster round them. Art is the high priestess who takes the average Englishman or Englishwoman to the threshold of history, and the culture with which history, as it is now studied, enriches the human intelligence, is being more largely and vividly fell every day. * Freeman, Secley. and Green — the only the nanus of a few of those writers who have taught the general public to r< gard hist not as the bare narrative of occurrences, or as a confused collection of dates and names, but as the continuous illustration of the prac- tical working of moral and political laws. The difference bet* such historians as these and those of an earlier age c fact that at the present day sociology is recognized sine science. There is now seen to be a unity in the chronicles of all countries and all ages. The annals of classical Greece and Rome arc only a «nt of the universal annals of mankind, of which I history of Franc or ' nul. Ital y, is the w quel The study of history is recogniz i at involving whatevi r is chai of the exercise of the human intellect, or commemorative of i and triumphs. Nor is the history of a nation only to be found in its written records. It is recognized as embodied in its art tr 528 ENGLAND. ures and stored in its antiquarian remains. In this way art culture becomes a portion of, and subsidiary to, historical culture. The same process has been applied to religion, -which has afforded ground for the exercise of the combined functions of art, history, and science. It is not only by the services of an esthetic ritualism that the imaginative faculty is gratified; free scope is given to it in many of the literary products of ecclesiastical rationalism — the most de- cided adversary of ritualism. Such works as " Ecce Homo " and " Philoehristus " are steeped in a sympathetically glowing imagina- tion on every page. To the picturesque description designed with an eye to artistic effect must be added the critical study of the Bible: this criticising self being but a manifestation of the general spirit of the time. Only a school of commentators, steeped to their finger- tips in nineteenth-century culture, would venture to lay such exclu- sive stress upon the moral side of Christ's life and teaching, and' would abandon not only the miracles, but entire episodes in the sacred narrative of the New Testament. Only apt followers of such a master as Mr. Matthew Arnold, the great professor of nineteenth- century culture, would consider themselves competent to decide what passages are genuine, what are the immoral perversions of ignorant disciples, and what is the point at which it becomes de- sirable or necessary to turn from the Calvinism of St. Paul to the milder Christianity of an earlier age. It would be equally difficult to overestimate Mr. Matthew Arnold's influence either upon the re- ligious or esthetic thought of the day, and with these must be classed Mr. Max Muller's " Science of Religion," and other religious writings. As for the net result of both, is it not to evaporate relig- ion itself into mere morality on the one hand, or into history on the other? n. Displays of literary activity abounding on every side and in every department of knowledge, it may be considered a paradox to say that this is not a literary age. The remark, however, is strictly true. Never was there more writing; never did the literary spirit occupy a more subordinate place. Literature is didactic, theological, esthetic, scientific, any thing but purely literary. To read for reading's sake is unintelligible to the mass of the educated public. There is much to be said in favor of the various contemporary manuals and biog- raphies, of famous authors, ancient and modern, English and for- eign, with specimens of their writings and analyses of then more important works. But they furnish a striking commentary on the MODERN CULTURE AND LITERATI' RE. 529 truth of the proposition advanced. Twenty pages of tl I or the historian studied in the i \ might give the student a bet- ter insight into the spirit of an author, whether in prose or \' than two hundred pages of brightly written summary. Bui the facts arc what is wanted. We, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, have in some things a passion for compl I \ and d tinctness. We like outlines sharp and clear. We prefers decoc- tion of a deathless hard in a pocket volume to periodical dipp into works that occupy half a dozen shelves id our libraries. Of the prevailing tendency on the part of literature to m< i itself in something which is not literature (here could be no better illustration than the distinguished man of whom in thf former sec- tion of this, as well as in a preceding chapter, mention has more than once been made. Mr. Matthew Arnold is master of a Btyle "t I supreme delicacy and subtlety, has enlarged the conceptions i as illustrated the true uses of literary criticism; a writer whos i gen- ius is, if ever any genius was. literarj above all things. But although both his religious and his political position are exclusively denned by his literary spirit, he breaks into the fields of politics and religion, In other words, though his tests and standards are nothing but literary, he insists on applying them to matters which are not liter- ary. Possessing a critical sense of exquisite fineness he v< ctures to test by its application the limits of the inspiration of Scripture, and to decide by its voice what elements of a national Church organiza- tion are to be assimilated by modern culture and what refused. While Mr. Arnold may be spoken of as the founder of the school i of esthetic literature, his followers have contributed to it much which is distinctively their own. Literary finish Beldom reaches a finer point than in the writings of Mr. W. H. Pater and Mr. J. A. S\ mot Both may have some artificialities as well as rare excellencies style, but both have written books of solid learning and research, Mr. Symonds 5 "History of the Renaissance" is the product of Btudy and scholarship. Mr. Pater's essays on the same subject have a value which all impartial critics admit In each case, however, it is rather art than literature which gains. Mr. Shairp, Pr ■ of \ Poetry at Oxford, is a critic of a very different order. Be, at least, has nothing in common with the Bchool of artistic hedonism. But he is as little content as they are with being a critic of literature, pure and Be discovers in all that he analyzes elem< ate ■which do not meet the common eye. ( )ne poet is \\ it 1 1 liim the or of an ethical system; another, of a complex scheme of the in J < rpre- tation of nature. 34 ! 530 ENGLAND. The same truth holds almost equally good in the case of the poetry of the day. Frequently, indeed, its inspiration is derived from distinctly literary sources: from Homer, as in the case of so much which Mr. Tennyson has written; from the Greek tragic poets, or the French and Italian of the sixteenth century, as in the case of Mr. Swinburne. But there is a disposition to regard the poetry which has not a mission of its own as of small account. It is not enough that a writer should be a poet, pure and simple. There is no writer living who stands in quite the same relation to his age as Byron. The poet of the period is either the musical oracle of pagan- ism and the Revolution; or he attempts to escape into the life of an old world, throwing only a few accidental side-lights on that of the modern; or he takes a speculative interest in what men think and feel, and do and believe ; or he is a philosopher in verse, a patholo- gist in meter, like Mr. Browning. Has poetry a message for a hard- toiling, anxious generation ? What is that message ? Is it to be announced in language inspired b}^ the past, or the present? Is there any gospel which the race of bards may proclaim to mankind '? These are not questions which have as yet been answered, or on which, if the effort to answer them has been made, any unanimity can be said to exist. The whole poetic atmosphere seems to echo with the din of controversy, sometimes loud and sometimes faint. But noise is always there; the issue always undecided. Our mod- ern bards are divided into factions, and each fresh product of their muses might be described as a pamphlet in verse. An outburst of magnificently melodious defiance, proclaiming that men and gods are equally naught, elicits its response in the ajDotheosis of the shadowy and intangible, and a writer like Mr. Philip Bourke Marston pours forth a protest against Mr. Swinburne. Mr. Browning, who has written some of the finest and most stir- ring lyrics in the century, seems to have decided that poetry should be the instrument for the dissection and analysis of the complex phenomena of life. No modern writer has a stronger grasp of the great problems of modern existence, or is less readily intelligible to the masses. Mr. Tennyson induces reverie; Mr. Browning stimu- lates study; the one charms; the other stretches on the rack. The poetry of the former is as a melodiously whispering zephyr; the poetry of the latter as a searching blast from the north-east. The poems of Mr. Matthew Arnold occupy a distinct place of their own. They are the distilled and luminous essence of metrical thought, exquisite in idea, and masterpieces of expression. There remains a host of writers of whom many have attained a high standard of MODERN CULTURE AND LITERATURE. excellence. We have had few more melodious singers than the late Mortimer Collins, a kind of Rochester born oui of his due time. If inusic allied to power is wanted, il will be found in the compositio of Robert Buchanan. The historical dramas of the lady who wril under the name of Ross Neil have not only melody, bul grace a power, while Aubrey de Vere shows in the same class of compo tions the same qualities. Mr. Alfred Austin is a poet of a different order. Beginning a satirist, and producing in "The Season" a composition which has the true classical ring, he has gradually abandoned that department of literature, and has written a series of works, the most important of which have been collected in one volume, under the title of the " Human Tragedy." Much that is memorable in the hi ttory of con- temporary Europe, in its state of feeling, and in the ideas and con- troversies of the age, civil and religious, is reviewed in its i and so, while the poem is thus eminently I caL it contains a message as well, whose first key-note is struck in the opening canto. "Yet not of Love alone, its advent blind, Swift raptures and slow penalties, I sing. I must be lifted on a fiercer wind, And from the lyre a louder anthem wring; Still as Religion, Country, or Mankind Bids my weak head sound more sonorous string. Ah, fatal four! which by the dark decree Of Heaven evolve the Human Tragedy ! " In the first canto, or, as Mr. Austin prefers t<> call it. act, is traced the development of love. In the second, the contest betwe< Q love and religion. In the thud, the conception of country is added, and the combined operation of each passion is illustrated in the events of Italian history during the late autumn of 1867. In the fourth act a new element in the complication is added by the pearance of "mankind" upon the stage, and the conflict is explained in these stanzas: — "See then, my child, the tragedy, and What feedB it. Love, Religion, Country, all That deepest, dearest, most enduring be, That i: - noble, and that holds as thrall, Once g beasts were no more gross than we — 'Tis these for which the victims fastest (all; Man's self, in days that are as days that v. Suppliant alike and execution.! ! 532 ENGLAND. "Now once again this tragedy, this jar Of conscience against conscience, hath, rueseenis, In Paris struck the flinty flame of war; Likely, they slay for straws, they die for dreams, But things that seem must still be things that are, To half-experienced man, who perforce deems He doth not dream, but know not, nor can know, Till death brings sleep or waking, is it so." Such is the Human Tragedy according to Mr. Austin, its factors being love, religion, country, and mankind. The opposing forces between whom the struggle is are innate in humanity; how are they to he reconciled? The answer is, by the agency of love; and so the first line of Mr. Austin's poem, " Oh, Love, undying Love, eternal star," is also the last. Of all the works that are read widely, the most widely read are novels. They form nearly the sole literary nourishment of a large class of the population. They have much of the influence which in other countries belongs to the stage. They regulate the views of life of hundreds and thousands of women, especially in the lower middle section of society, old and young. The mothers and daugh- ters of the English aristocracy out of the London season may read as many novels as the daughter or wife of the small tradesman. But in the latter cas,e there is none of the opportunity possible in the former of correcting the mawkish and mistaken impressions of existence conveyed by the class of writings which these young women devour. They are as much possessed with the ideas introduced to their minds as a child in a nursery is by the images and incidents of a fairy tale. They grow to believe that life around them is full of those glittering possibilities which may elevate them to the same social levels as romance heroines. For them the dramatis persons of their favorite author have their antitypes and originals in the world of flesh and blood. Cophetua may descend to them in robe and crown at any moment. They go to the dress-circle at the play with the word "kismet" trembling on their lips, and they are anx- iously expecting to see their "fate" at a half-crown concert. But while many novels are merely foolish stories, introducing the reader to a world which is not that of real life, and void of any attempt to grapple with life's serious problems, there is a steady increase in the number of those which have a sensible and whole- some relation to actual existence, and which have both an his- torical and educational value. Mr. Anthony Trollope's fictions are photographs of nineteenth-century life in pen and ink. They have for contemporary readers just the same kind of interest as the do- MODERX CULTUR* mestic comedies of the late Mr. Robertson, or those collections of cartes de visite which used to be round in draw ims more fre- quently than now. They do aoi represenl •! force in hi. ture — though Mr. Trollope may have man} imitators hi G I Eliot, but they give hundreds and thousands of men and won of all ages and of all ranks, exactly what (hey want lighl reading, that requires no special thought, that is at on | are recreation, and that presents to them, as if reflected in a mirror, I society amidst which they live. Mr. Edmund Y.n h be is no longer an active novelist, recognizes more of the Beanrj life than Mr. Trollope, and introduces us into an atmosphere laden with different issues and associations, but his men and worn living - realities, not abstractions. The incid and thi ides are taken from life; the dialogue is that which may l>e heard every day; the moral, if moral is to be extra, ted from his writin a may not be welcome, hut the data on which it is based are those col- lected from experience by a singularly acute mind equipped v a large store of imagination, fancy, and humor. Mr. Charles R may probably be spoken of with correctness as ti I living master of English realistic romance. Some there may be who will contend that the honors of this distinction should be divided be- tween him and Mr. WilMe Collins. As creators and developei a plot, both may advance the same claim to consummate mastery. But there is this difference between the two: Mr. Will llins always introduces an element which, it' it is a nat- ural, is suggestive of the supernatural — of coincid and weird that the enumeration of them gives us a sentimi ui of uncanniness — "The air is full of omens. Bearce had I set My foot outside tl i I met A dog. He barked; mil well tliat bark I kn< I met anotlier, and, lo ! be barked too." The idea contained in these lines is one of which it is imp not to be reminded by Mr. Wilki< ('ollins' writings, and there is nothing of the Bame sort to be found in those of Mr. i;. ; . \|--. Reade's novels are, in Fact,] ■• all things with a purp and what »nal incident thi y may ! int much to point the a ■ee or four other D chiefly strive to do for the day that which Dick ray did. Colonel Lockhart, Mr. .! " a, Mr. i. Mr. 534 ENGLAND. George Meredith, master of a terse and pregnant style, Mr. Justin McCarthy, Mr. Besant, and Mr. Rice — each of them writes not only with skill and humor, but with much knowledge of the world in which they live. They all of them paint contemporary men and women, and all have then - value for the historians of the future. There is the same desire to treat with fidelity and with fullness the questions of the day, to illustrate the characters and the com- plications which the events of the time are calculated to develop, in Mrs. Oliphant, in Mrs. Lynn Linton, Mrs. Cashel Hoey, Mrs. Alex- ander, Mrs. Edwards, and many others. Cleverness and ingenuity are the characteristics of the works of all these writers, though the three first named are those who recognize more fully the gravity of the daily issues of our life, the perpetual conflict of duties, the deeper motives of ordinary action, the ulterior tendencies of much that is petty and trivial, the irony which besets existence. In two of these authors, Mrs. Linton and Mrs. Hoey, it is impossible not to recognize the influence of the most powerful of modern novel- ists. Both of them resemble George Eliot in their habit of weigh- ing the relative morality of motives and acts, of showing how terri- bly complicated is the chemistry of life, and in their appreciation of the perpetually conflicting issues. As regards style and manner, treatment and phraseology, George Eliot has had an incomparably wider influence than any author living. This is partly, of course, because of the contagious power which genius ever carries with it, but partly also because she represents in her own writings so many of the tendencies of the times; because she is, as so many of our poets are, almost morbidly introspective, analytical Rightly under- stood, George Eliot's novels are a complete system of moral philos- ophy. The position taken by the author is that life is a tremendous series of human consequences; that the results of acts committed lightly or thoughtlessly are infinitely far-reaching, involving the happiness not only of the agents themselves, but of countless others; and that each individual is thus under an appalling responsibility both to his fellows who are alive and to the posterity as yet un- born. This great writer, taking a view which is peculiarly her own of the relations of human life, not unnaturally expresses that view in strange and unfamiliar language. But in the terms thus em- ployed there is no real pedantry. George Eliot writes as the high priestess of a special school of philosophical thought, and it is nec- ( isary, to convey her precise shades of meaning, that she should adopt words of technical sound. Of novelists such as "Ouida," Miss Braddon, and Miss Rhoda MODERN CULTURE AND LITERATURE. Broughton, there is El to bi of these began with placing in the Betting of a femh the materials of pictures drawn bj George Lawrence and ' Melville. She has since then come powerfully under th< thai pagan estheticism which has an important element in modi rn culture, and to this she has added that experience sign coun- tries and extended travel which is seen in manj other of the nov< 1- ists of the period. Miss Braddon's popularity with the mid cl not seem to wane: She is an excellent writer of cl idiomatic English, and she has of recent rears shown that she can produce an interesting story without having recourse to the sensa- tional machinery which was supposed to be essential t<> her suci 3S Rhoda Broughton is the leading rein- ss mtative of the Bchool of literary piquancy. She has brought freshness and ingenuity into the well-worn ways of domestic fiction. She has followers and imi- tators, but she has few, it' any, rivals. Miss Broughton may cot be a force of the highest kind, but a force, for all that, in modern lit- erature she distinctly is. What has been witnessed in other walks of literature may also be seen in the fictions of the day. There have recently been pro- duced several novels in which musical culture is the prominent ele- \ ment of interest, the chapters being headed with bars of nmsie. Here, too, there may probably be traced the influence of Ge >rge Eliot, whose genius in her earliest novels was as distinctly towards music as latterly it has been towards the philosophy of positivism. With her, in this matter, should be a bed the name of ( I Macdonald, whose novel, "Robert Falconer." was largely dev< subtle m,- of those the best and most popular of our time, which may be re- garded as protests against the restless, feverish, perplex* 1 and mquiring spirit which animates much of the modern fiction. The V pleasant sketchy romances of Mr. Hamilton Aide*, .Mr. Waif Mr. Julian Sturgis, and others, afford not only a relief, but a remon- l strance to that delirious unrest of which Kingsley's " Y< !-t " maj be taken as a type. Ascending higher in the scale of lit. rarj • • lence, we have, as distinguished ornaments of what may 1" I 536 ENGLAND. the idyllic school, amongst ladies, Miss Thackeray the authoress of "Vera," and others; amongst gentlemen Mr. Hardy, Mr. Black- more, and Mr. Black. A variation of the same impulse which causes Mr. Morris to invite his readers to accompany him in his quest after an earthly paradise, induces these authors to dwell with lingering love and profuse labor upon those aspects of life which are in danger of being forgotten in this sophisticated, urban, and smoke-begrimed epoch. They speak to us out of the fullness of their hearts, and Mr. Blackmore shows us his dramatis persome amid the cherry orchards of Kent or on the open downs of Sussex, as Mr. Black takes lis to the Hebrides or the Land's End — from an instinctive affection for those regions and a happy consciousness that their abilities will find here the most congenial scope. The tendency of some of the writers of this school is perhaps towards a rather too nebulous picturesqueness. Colors are blended hazily together. The clear hard outline is lost. The senses begin to grow drowsy under the influence of excessive sweetness, and the effect is that of literary lotus-eating. Mr. Blackmore's fiction, in addition to its artistic elegance and beauty, is always thrilling, is generally found- ed on fact, is written in a nervous, vigorous style, is marked by a vivid fancy and a strong sense of humor. Mr. Black's novels are in- variably graceful, and abound in charming description of sea and shore, rocky coast, green islands. Mr. Hardy, equally original as a writer and thinker, displays the same disposition as Mr. Black to repeat himself, and is apt to carry the idiosyncrasies of his style to the point of mannerism. As a sketcher of certain aspects of En- glish rural life, and, above all, of English peasants, he is in his way unique. Like Mr. Black, Mr. Blackmore, and Miss Thackeray, Mr. Hardy is fond of heightening the effect of his idyllic and pastoral . scenes by investing them with a certain mysticism, and the accents ■of irresistible doom, more or less disguised, seem audible in the : murmur of every passing breeze. It is to be expected that an age of which the literary taste is pre-eminently for the literature of positive information and instruct- ive fact should be favorable to the production of volumes of travel and biography. These, indeed, issue from the press in an incessant stream. Their subject-matter is found in all lands and in all pe- riods. Every country in which the English language is spoken, or in which it is deemed desirable by an ardent patriotism that the English flag should float, finds its immediate and assiduous chron- icler, and in the footsteps of the imperial pioneer there inevitably follows the literary memorialist. Our Australasian colonies, every 1 { MODERN CULTURE AXD LITERATURE. part of our Indian dependency, every asped of Indian life South Africa, Central Asia, have all of them yielded m iteri lis for a library of their own. The biographer lias nol lagged behind ] popular book of the time, lesa than ten years ago, was Mr. I! "Memorials of a Quiet Life." In his work on Macaulay, Mr. C 0. Trevelyan not only showed that he had powers which, if appl I exclusively to letters, would win for him a conspicuous place am nineteenth-century writers, but achieved a popular success nol un- worthy of the triumph which waited on Hi,- historical achie^ □ of his illustrious uncle; while in his "Life of L " A .ir. Sims produced as enduring a monument as may be witnessed in (ho - Voltaire " or " Diderot " of Mr. John Morley. The literature of modern theology and history is even more prolific. Of the former we have spoken elsewhere, yei th sre rem tin one or two names which should not be omitted, and on which further stress should be laid. One of the greatest masters of En- glish style, as he indisputably is also of English dialectic, whom the age has produced is in the first place a theological writer. John Henrv Newman is a master of the English language in the same sense that a perfect musician may be called the master of liis in- strument. There is no note in its varied scale which lie cannot produce from it. He has conveyed, perhaps, a fuller id its capabilities than any writer in our tongue, has shown more com- pletely how it may lie made to yield alternate sounds of i and pathos, of invective and persuasion, of irony and earnestness. The religious sentiment is illustrated in all its manifold in the "University Sermons"; the clearest rati fcive ;• ' h ws itself in the "Grammar of Assent"; as an historian, he has given us one of the best pictures of Ancient Athens ever drawn; as a p in addition to the "Dream of Gerouiius," such lyrics as " Lead, kindly Light." The popularity of Canon Farrar, the author"!' "Life of Christ" and the "Life of St. Paul," grows daily, and the circle of the humanizing influence of these works, ami many ot works of the same order, perpetually spreads. Dean Stan] whether divine or hi :. pr< tch< readers as Carlyle. Thau the name of i ! e accomplisl • 1 Dean of Westminst r there could be no b< tter com link between tl \ ology and Froude, Kin-lake. Lecky, I* these in their different departments ■■>■■ i ch of : who would be ornaments t<> the hi I literature of any con- tury. Elaborate studies of special periods, comprehensive sur- veys, pictures which bring the ] ar and 538 ENGLAND. to us as the present — those are, the fruits of our contemporary historians. Quite recently there has been published a history by Mr. AVyon of the reign of Queen Anne, which is not without much original information and genuine research; while Mr. Spencer "Walpole has already produced two volumes of a "History of England,"' dating from the end of the Peninsular vVar, that is at once trustworthy, comprehensive, full of social and political interest, and written in a style which suggests much study of Macau] ay. and which is at once scholar-like and popular. Mr. Green, who, in the series of primers which he has followed Mr. Freeman in editing, has contributed to the formation of intelligent views on the entire course of history, takes a wider sweep in his short and in his longer "History of the English People," and has collected and arranged an immense mass of miscellaneous facts, with great regard to dramatic grouping. To these works must be added Mr. Justin McCarthy's " History of our own Times," a narrative of the chief events of the Victorian era, written not onlv with finished literary skill, but with great political knowledge and insight. But the most important historical works of \ the present day are not perhaps the popular. Every age produces its own type of historian. First comes the chronicler of events, who narrates without connecting incidents, and who does not attempt to discover the thread of continuitv that runs throughout the course of human affairs. He is followed by the more thoughtful researcher, who goes beneath the surface and discovers the sequence of princi- ples involved in successive episodes; thus the philosophy of history is made possible, and, as time passes by, it is necessary that his- tory should be rewritten repeatedly. The accumulating experi- ences of humanity throw new light not only oh the prospect, but on the retrospect. These experiences are often of a special kind, and they are not to be found unless they are diligently sought for. Thev are contained not onlv in great national events, revolutions, and wars, but in archives and records, parliamentary proclamations, decrees, and registers, household accounts and family records. Much of the activity of the present day has been exclusively devoted to un- earthing these buried sources of knowledge. The Public Record Office has been publishing for years past a series of most valuable papers which render it necessary to modify many of the views which were once held on such matters as the growth of the English Con- stitution. To Professor Stubbs belongs pre-eminently the honor not only of having in many case3 edited these and collected them, but in having illustrated their full significance, and in having shown MODERN CULTURE AND UT what reconstruction in our scheme of the earlj history oi they necessitate. If the influence of German thought may be » en in much of the theological -writing of the day, it is equally possible to discern the influence of French thought in much of thai writing which, w as it traits of politics and philosophy as affording a practical gu for life, may be considered almost i\ •Unions. Whili phen and Mr. Froude illustrate the potency of the docti i Carlyle, whose "Hero Worship" has I I rgely nourished on German materials, Mr. John Morley and Mr. Frederic Harrison are equally noticeable as being exponents of the culture which is I essentially French. The sympathy of each is undisguisedly with the men either antecedent to or immediately contemp >rarj with the French Revolution. Mr. John Morley's \, rks on Voltaire, Rousseau, above all, his sympathy with Diderol and t] ' och Encyclopedists, strike the key-note of his practical philosophy. The view which both he and, in liis "Order and Progress," Mr. Frederic Harrison take of human society, is exactly thai which would have commended itself to these master spiril . ' 'I ■ pro- mise" is the book which might almosl be cited as a co .urn of Mr. Morley's philosophy of ht'e. It' society is not bo much . growth, whose foundations are rooted in the sentiments, the preju- dices, and even the superstitions of past ages, but something thai can be eminently and quickly modified from time to time ing its features with tolerable rapidity at the bidding and by I of eminent individuals, it follows that twvy man who 1 strongly in the falsity of Id notions, or in the truth o m w, is bound to lose no opportunity ■■ rgetioalrj i ' from the bulk of surrounding opinion. Mr. Mori ot, ind< ignore the historical argument against Bud< I ap- pears to think that it is overrate d, and that timidity and exaggerate the difficulties of the process which b ■ advocal are two other points to be noticed in the political phi] Ich Mr. Morley enforces, with the eloquence of a literary master, and the fervor of a political apostle. In the first place, he does Dot tinctly tell us w; mpromise becomes criminal Et is ] ble, he says, when the most sacred I are involi Surely, this i - auction of compromise, and the great m< of Mr. Morley's b i >k is thai a man with strong • to express those conviction.-, only when, in 1 ion, a com season for then exp \ • Morlej d< not attempt to fix the degree of belief or p< rsuasion at which u 1. 540 ENGLAND. must have arrived, before lie commences to place limitations upon the habit of compromise; nor perhaps does he give sufficient prac- tical weight to the results of the destructive process, which the con- duct he commends would have upon old and complex society. The standard of practical life which Mr. Morley sets before himself and others is of an exceedingly lofty character, but though love of truth and a fearless pursuit of truth are enough to insure its realization in certain exceptional instances, it may very well be that they have not this coercive power with the mass of men, and that men are so constituted, are so much the creatures of fear and hope, that what Mx. Morley himself is persuaded are lies and delusions, are abso- lutely necessary for them. The same considerations which would be suggested by a minute examination of the works of George Eliot are also those which pre- sent themselves when the tenor of Mr. Morley's counsels is closely scanned. Nothing in theory may sound more plausible than the postponement of self and of family to the idea of mankind, but in practice can it carry with it any guarantee of efficiency? To the bulk of men and women can the welfare and progress of society ever be any thing more than ideas? Will it, as the education of the human race advances, be possible for them to deduce their notions of moral duty from a just estimate of the relations of the individual and of the family to society ? Is there any thing in the past history of the human race to make us think that weak mortals can arrive at a knowledge of their duty to each other unless the elements of that knowledge are culled from a superhuman source? Ideas of duty, it may be urged, have their origin in something else than in the daily intercourse of man, and devotion to society is as inade- quate to explain them or to prompt them as utilitarianism is to explain the higher virtues of humanity — heroism, self-sacrifice, mar- tyrdom. When the ends which Mr. Morley and George Eliot ad- mire are advocated, is it not possible that those who advocate them may be under influences which they ignore ? This higher and dis- interested morality would surely never have existed without the educating agency of Christianity; and as for what future genera- tions may do without Christianity, is it impossible to form any opinion? Will the social morality of compromise or of George Eliot be an end in itself, requiring none of the motives or sanc- tions implied by Christianity ? But the popular and essentially humanizing literature of the day is not to be found in books alone. There is the vast multitude of magazines, serials, and newspajiers to be taken into account. Of MODERN CULTURE AXD LITERATURE. . . , I newspapers, we shall have something to say in a future cl Every household, high or humble, has its own monthly or weekly miscellany of instructive and amusing literature. 1 I these encoure desultory reading, it is certain that without them there are hundr< and thousands of English men and women who would read \> little, if at all. In the same way the serial issues of great woi ka many, and exceedingly effective in introducing these works bo the public. There are many persons in every class of life who will readily pay a small sum for each number of a large work issued in parts, and who refuse to pay a greater sum for such a work as a substantive whole. CHAPTER XXIX. POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. Change and Multiplied Variety of Popular Amusements — The Traveling Show- man and Photographer — The Development of the Excursion System — Scene on the Norfolk Coast — Amusements in the Manufacturing Districts and the Black Country — Music-halls — Museums — Art Exhibitions — Working Lien's Clubs— The Institution and its Working described — How to stamp out Drunkenness — The Stage — Change in its Position— The Play-going Public — Change in Social Position of Actors — The Stage the Mirror of Con- temporary Manners — Reasons of its alleged Decadence — Its Realism and Lack of Poetry — Dangers of this Realism — What a Dramatic Censor may prevent — Uses of a Dramatic Censor — Relations of English and French Public to their respective Stages — The English Drama and the Divorce Court — French Plays in England. IT would be impossible to form a better idea of the advance made by Englishmen of all classes, whether in town or country, in the art of " popular amusement " than from a comparison of the adver- tisements relating to sports, pastimes, and recreation in a newspaper of to-day with those which made their appearance less than half a century since. One would look in vain now for the announcements of pugilistic encounters arranged between bruisers of established and growing reputation, cock-fights, dog-fights, and performances of terrier dogs, backed for large sums to kill several scores of rats within a limited space and time. One would have looked in vain then for the accounts of cricket-matches, and of the scores made by their players, in different parts of England, which now occupy entire pages of the sporting journals; for the notices to excursionists that are a regular feature in every newspaper during the summer season; for the miscellaneous programmes of picture exhibitions, lectures, theaters, music-halls, entertainments of all kinds, places of amuse- ment of every variety, which have become an essential part of the machinery of our social life. Within the last five-and-twenty years cricket clubs and football clubs have been formed in all the towns POPULAR AMI -SE.VEXTS. and most of the villages in England The rifle volunteer movement has presented another opportunity <>t' healthy oui door exerc athletic sports have been added to our muscular By stem; aces and villa ens are the recognized pla; of the people. What were formerly wastes have been co I into pub- lic gardens. ] arc people's pleasure-grounds in I < I End of Lon. lou. and scarcely a year passes without an addition b< made to the people's parks, which have been given bj the bou of great landlords to the industrial cities of the oorth. As it has been with open-air pastimes, so has n I., . q with in rs. ;, C an excursion train is due at the adjoining station. Presently rou are conscious of the murmur of strange arrivals and the bustling note of preparation. You look around and find that upwards of a hundred men have Buddenly invaded the place, are Betting up booths, furnishing them with eatables and drinkables, are establish- ing Aunt Sailics. ami providing the machinery of other delectable pastimes. In less than fifteen minutes the deserted beach has been transformed, and what was absolute solitude now presents the ap- pearance of a tair which wants nothing to complete it excepl the advent of its patrons. Here these patrons are, or pivsenth will he. Puff-puff is the warning sound of the steam-engine in the distance, and the wreaths of smoke which for a minute darken the heavei and then are swept away by the wind, are significant of the cloud of humanity that in a few seconds will settle down upon the shore. Out they troop from the carriages which have just drawn up at the platform — men, women, boys, and children, a good thousand strong. It is likely enough that there are other contingents yet to arrive. The excursionist is a gregarious animal, and the bigger the crowd in which he takes his pleasure the more lie enjovs it. It is by no means an uncommon thing to witness the sea-coast, on which an hour since not more human beings were visible than could be counted on the fingers of one hand, covered by three thousand human beings, restlessly moving to and fro like the microscopic army <>t' an ant-hill. Fun and frolic reign all day until the mo- ment for departure on the return journey arrives. Then may be observed the reverse of the phenomenon of the morning. Ani- mation is gone almost as quickly as it came. The trains give a few premonitory rumblings and disappear. The last notes of the excur- sionists 1 songs die away on the wind; the echoes are undisturbed by peals of laughter; and the hucksters who have waited on the great army of pleasure-seekers pack up their belongings, fold up their tents like the Arabs, steal away as silently and swiftly as they alighted, and leave the philosopher to reflect in sudden solitude upon the moral of the day's experience. On the northwest coasi of the United Kingdom the develop- ment of the excursion system is even more conspicuous than on the east. The manufacturers of the north and the great retailers, who, for the most part, are north-countrymen, cannot be accused of neg- lecting the social relaxations of those whom they employ. Lytham, Fleetwood, and New Brighton are only a few of the marine r< of myriads of the op ratives let loose from the great ton ns of north- ern industry; and if the goal of these is in t d>- 35 546 ENGLAND. lie-house bar rather than the shore of the sea, it is permissible to hope that tobacco smoke and beer do not entirely neutralize the beneficent agencies of oxygen and ozone. Generally it may be said that the laboring classes in the north of England are better off as regards amusements than in the south. Many great works or factories have attached to them not only reading-rooms, but bil- liard-rooms and bowling-alleys. When these opportunities are not provided by the employer, they are sometimes secured by the men, who club together, and, applying the principle of co-operation, wisely supersede the attractions of the public-house. Other and more active recreations than these are forthcoming: cricket, wres- tling, and every variety of athletic sport enjoy an increasing popu- larity throughout the whole of the north of England. In the Pottery Districts, and in the vicinity of Manchester, rabbit-cours- ing, with a peculiar breed of little greyhound, is much in vogue. With the shoemakers of Northamptonshire— and, indeed, amongst shoemakers of all parts of England — foot-racing is a favorite pas- time. The artisans of Birmingham and Coventry rejoice in bicy- cles. Among the rural and urban toilers of Yorkshire knurr and spell — a species of trap, bat, and ball — still flourishes. In some counties (eminently in Nottinghamshire) wherever there is a fair expanse of level and unoccupied grass land, the wickets are sure to be pitched, and boys and men practice with bat and ball — some of them destined to blossom into professional players — after the day's work is over. In rural districts there are hundreds of cottagers, now that cottage gardening has* received systematic encouragement in spe- cial shows for cottage competitors, and that prizes are specially reserved for these at more general horticultural exhibitions, whose spare hours are entirely given to gardening. If one comes to London, it is not necessai*y to mention Epping Forest as the Arcadia of the artisan of the East End; Ramsgate and Margate as the marine paradises of the multitude ; or Battersea Park as the great Sunday lounge of various social subdivisions of the commu- nity, from the head clerk down to the junior porter. Naturally in such a climate as ours, the working classes will always find the larger part of their amusement within four walls. Thirty years ago, with the sole exception of the theater, the only available resort for the masses was the public-house. We are as completely out- living that state of things as we have outlived the period when " Cross's Menagerie " was one of the great attractions of the Strand, and the skeleton of the whale was the only lion in Trafalgar Square. ."17 If there cannot yet be said to have been establi hed an absolute identify between instruction and amusement, the Bte] made in the direction of reform are immen M Bpread an atmos of pure refinein int, and are not without their mischievous influences upon the moral currency, but they are n< the less, if properly conducted, antic]..; pular cura drunkenness. They exist in every large town in England, and I composition of their audiences presents Borne features which are • entirely unsatisfactory. It ; s claimed on behalf of the Frenchr that while there may be no one who is at 1 ■ little, there is no one who loves that home so nmch. He takes, we are told, the in- fluence of the domestic hearth with him wl ibroad. The society, in fact, in which he chiefly moves is an extension of home; and if lie is happy, and is really equally at home anywhi it is because he is not unaca mpanied by his wife and children. A very casual study of the company that tills B lusic halls, whether in London or el . will convince one thai at least a portion of it consists of genuinely family parties— husbands and wives, fathers, mother;, and one or two of their children. The attempt which is now being mad.. i>> establish coffee-house music- halls will certainly prove a strong and wholesome antidote to the public-house and the gin-shop. There are other not less popular recreations of the masses which stand on a much higher level The stati tics and I published in the newspapers from week to week Bhow how large is tic in- ure of popularity which institutions like the South Kensington Museum, the National Gallery, and other- V wider rienee than London, unhappily, affords of the w Thing of t' library system is necessary to convey a just idea of the unmet boon which free Libraries constitute to the working cla I. inside the doors of these establishments in Mai r or Birmii ham during the dinner-hour, and note the attention and I em at with which the artisans ■■<;■■ reading, not n< but the c of English Literature and the manuals of modern science. Add to the free libraries the working-men's clubs, and i fair id< i maybe formed of the character and ext t of the human- izing machinery thai is already at work amongst the masses throu out the length and breadth of the Land. The working-man's club is an institution not only from a po- litical point of view 1 • but in i itly beneficent. It i-. t.><>. an institution which is repre of a rowing • There ' working 548 ENGLAND. men in London, and they are to be found in every considerable town in England. In some cases tliere is no mention of political principles of any kind in the club rules. In others, the political cause with which the society is identified is Conservative or Liberal; the programme in a majority of instances being of a decidedly Liberal and even democratic complexion. Yet how groundless are any apprehensions as to the constitutional peril latent in these pro- fessions may be judged from a glimpse at the interior life of the club, and a comparison between its ostensible objects and its prac- i ical functions. The institution which we will now visit, and which may be taken as typical of many others, has been in existence about half a dozen years. It has nearly six hundred members, aU of whom, without exception, are bona fide working men — some small masters, some highly- skilled mechanics making £3 or £4 a week, others whose weekly wage is from 25s. to 30s. The admission to the club is by ballot among members of the committee, and any conduct which is offensive, or which threatens the harmony of the institution, is punished as severely and after the same fashion — by expulsion — as "conduct unworthy of a gentleman" would be in one of the co- operative palaces of Pall Mall or St. James's Street, The subscrip- tion is about 15s. a year, and it has lately been decided that visitors' refreshments must be paid for by the friends who introduce them — a rule which adds to the radical difference between these establish- ments and the public-house. This is the chief room of the building: a spacious hall for debate, with a stage at one end for occasional dramatic entertainments. . Immediately adjoining it is a smaller chamber furnished with a refreshment buffet, from which all visitors are rigorously excluded. If our visit happens to be during the hours of daylight the place will be deserted but for the presence of a few stray members, clad in their working dress, who have lounged in during the dinner-hour to read the papers. In the billiard-room, the bagatelle-room, the chess-room, the refreshment-room, the reading-room, there may also be found one or two mechanics who are taking a holiday, or who are perhaps out of work. The reading-room is seldom absolutely empty. Like the other apartments, it opens out of the central hall, is well supplied with the chief newspapers of the day, with various organs of different trades and industries, not only English, but American, and in a few cases German and French, and has in addition a fair library. The works of John Stuart Mill are there, \ while those of Thomas Carlyle for the most part are not. The writings of another obscure heresiarch of a former generation, of POPULAR AMD VS. a name of similar sound lmf differed orthography, Carlial f prominently visible on the shelves. There, too, ore the books wh authors are Herbert Spencer, Thomas Hare, Lecky, and Buckle; while there is a multitude of publications whose lilies haveastrai sound to English ears, bul which have won greal popularity Transatlantic continent. The room is furth< roi I with p traits of certain more advanced members of the House of I • distinguished patrons of the Republican cause on the I ami notably a picture of George Washington and his family, wh has been sent as a present to the club from a group of Bympatb working men on the other side of the Atlantic. As the day draws to its close the club begins gradually to fill. Here are the representatives of all (he industries which have tl head-quarters in great cities. They come in their workaday >\r^ yet not without having paid some special preliminary attention to their personal appearance. They have been home, have gone through a simple toilet, have had their tea, and a rasher of ba with it. have probably smoked the pipe of domestii . and have not forgotten to say good-night to the little ones in bed. T want change of scene and conversation, and they gel it at club. They read, smoke, and chat by turns. There is sure t i some discussion in the great hall on some topic of the day. member reads a short paper, let it be supposed, on the ] protection, or the justice of reciprocity, to native trade, or representation of the interests of labor in Parliament. A d ibate follows, and much of the speaking which maybe heard is surpris- ingly good. Sometimes there are visitors. An American or Ger- man operative narrates his experiences to hi nests, or a nan who takes an interest in workin \ men audi their doings addresses them on the subject of his travels in foreign puts, or acquau them with his views on matters nearer home. On Sunday aighi a . kind of grand field-day of the club is held. There is i i lec- ture; the topics suggested are infinitely various, conveying m valuable instruction. The theme ' - n is seldom suited to the sanctity of the day; the moral pointed would no! always commend itself to the political quietist Be thai as it may, it is certainly b ter that these men should be in their clubs than at the public- houses or the gin-shops. If drunkenness is ever stamped oxA En among the English working classes it will be largely due to I agency of such institutions as these. It is nol Utopian to beli< that clubs may, in course of time, and as educatii do for laboring men what they have already done for the upp 550 ENGLAND. and render open intoxication a barbarous anachronism. As they have created among the upper classes a public opinion which is un- favorable to excess, so wherever they exist among the lower classes we find them doing, or tending to do, the same good work. It is beginning to be recognized that the man who is drunk is, for the time being, not only a brute, but a nuisance. Whatever may be the condition or the prospects of the drama in England, there can be no doubt as to its claim to be considered a popular institution, or as to the fact that for an increasingly large number of persons the stage supplies the chief, if not the only, cul- ture which they know. The theater has become in London not merely an occasional amusement, but a regular pursuit. Among classes socially quite distinct and different the chief idea of an evening's amusement is an evening at the play. One finds it at the East End, where the same persons repair nightly to witness over and over again the same performance. The same phenomenon meets one at the West, where the theater is not only a place in which to sit still and laugh or wonder, according as the spirit of comedy or tragic awe is in the ascendant, but a lounge where cigarettes may be smoked, friends met and chatted with, and the news of the even- ing obtained. This is an importation of Continental usages into En- gland within the last decade. Evenings at home are enjoyable and admirable in their way, but how many tens of thousands are there in London and other large cities who have evenings to spare but no home in particular at which to spend them, not to mention the daily influx of casual visitors from the country, or of sojourners en route for India or the colonies, or of Americans of passage to and from the Continent ? There is, further, a large percentage of young men sufficiently well-to-do, who, if they have their offices in the day, and their chambers and clubs at night, are not overburdened with social engagements, and may, perhaps, prefer the independence of the play-house to the hospitable constraints of a decorous dinner-table. W r ith these the theater is not the least important business of their lives. There is not a new piece which is produced that they miss. They are seldom absent on first nights. They know the critics by sight. They belong probably to some one or other of the minor literary or dramatic clubs. They skim the newspapers of the morn- ing and evening, but serious study is not to their taste, and the theater is. There is little or nothing in common between the modern play- goer and the ancient enthusiast in the classic days of the Patent Houses. The cheap enjoyment of that period he would vote vulgar. POP I Z A R AMI SIM i:\ts. :, 5 1 Ho has no idea of waiting a couple of hours outside the pil door, and then fervently congratulating himself if he has secured a well in front of the stage. When the play is over, it is not with stout and oysters that he will refresh his inner man, On (lie con- trary, he has conformed to the modern type of exquisite. Il< mak< a a point of appearing in full evening dress. Hi' never touches sup- per: it hurts his digestion. He is afraid of stout: it is the declared enemy of his liver. The place which the theater fills in the mind society at large is equally remarkable. Together with old china ..ml new pictures, it divides polite conversation in drawing-rooms and at dinner-tables. It is considered quite as necessary to go to see the / last new play as the last new opera Even society's conception of the calling and personality of the actor has undergone a complete change. Directly or indirectly, clubs have done a great deal to bridge over the gulf that once existed between classes. If they have not promoted what is called good fellowship, they have at least done the important service of bringing representative a of dif- ferent orders of men into close and friendly intercourse. The actor is above all others a clubable man. The hours which he is com- pelled to keep make club life particularly convenient to him; and when he is at his club he finds himself in a circle which includes men with whom thirty years ago it is not very likely that he would have been on speaking terms. The comparatively intimate relation- ship which has been established between society and the stage has had its influence on both parties to the arrangement. The influ- ence of the stage upon society does not end here. Private theat- ricals may satisfy a trivial ambition: there are eager natures which require something more stirring; for these are the excitements the public audience. Thus do we hear of amateur pantomimes and matinees at fashionable play-houses hi the Strand. That the stage is not at the present time a vehicle for the inculca- tion of the higher morality, and that, as matters are. it is not likely . to be, must be confessed. The relaxation of public manners which has been in process in this country during several years is reflected by the footlights, and in the pieces which attain popularity behind them. Paris has been, and remains, the capital of dramatic art or invention, as well as the resort of all the idlers and demireps of Europe. Of late years, the facilities of locomotion and the whims of fashion have cemented the COnn< ction between London mid Paris, and the influences exercised upon our social system by the Second . Empire are still rampant. It i^ not only our plays, hut in some cases our domestic ethics, which are taken from the 1'n nch of the 552 ENGLAND. Boulevards; and if the spirit of the age tolerates the lowest standard of Parisian morality, it is not surprising that the plays, which are the presentations of this morality, should be popular in English theaters. Something like an analogy, too, may he traced between a London and a Paris audience. French domestic life is not represented in the crowds that fill the smaller theaters of the French capital; English domestic life is represented almost as httle in some of the theaters of London. Prominent among the patrons of the London stage are un- critical visitors from the provinces and the not too refined members of our new plutocracy. There are other reasons which can scarcely make us expect to find any very elevated exemplar of morals or manners on the London stage. We dine later and we work harder than ever, and the state of body and mind which these habits super- induce is scarcely favorable to the highest sort of intellectual appre- ciation. Again, free trade in theaters — an absurd confusion of in- dustry and art — has dispersed the few good actors that we had, has destroyed a school of acting, and has made room on the stage for some of the crapulous buffooneries of the music-hall. Indeed, while the music-hall is a grade above the gin-shop, it is the curse of the stage. It vitiates and debases managers, actors, audiences alike. As a consequence, it is but too likely that were the Act of Parliament for regulating theaters repealed the result would be, not the conver- sion of music-halls into theaters, but of theaters into music-haUs. There are, perhaps, now more tolerably good actors on the English boards than at any other period; on the other hand, there are very few actors who can be called great, and the tolerably good actors , are quite incapable of representing the heroic or poetic draina. Their elocutionary powers are defective, and they are not happy even in then* attempted recitals of blank verse. As for a subsidized national theater, it must be pronounced an impossibility in England; nor should it be forgotten that the Comedie Franchise is not merely a subsidized theater, but also an incorporated and endowed collegi- ate institution, having in some sort its exhibitioners, its fellowships, its statutes, privileges, and pensions. "La foule," says Jules Claretie, "est ainsi faite qu'elle s'en va payer — et parfois tres cher — pour admirer dans un theatre ce qu'elle peut librement, et a bon marche contempler dans la rue.'' The most striking feature of our modern drama is its abject re- alism. This is not a credulous, a poetic, a chivalrous, or enthusi- astic age. As is the age so is the theater-going public, and so is the theater itself. We do not want impossible feats of ennobled heroism. We want to see life as it is — life sometimes as it exists POrULAR . I ML 'SEMENTS. in St. Giles's, at others us it exists in Mayfair or Si Jami We demand that actors and actresses ahall give as the besi imita- tions they can of the ladies and gentlemen who me t daily in Hyde Park; who talk, laugh, and flirt together; who ud un- make marriages; who go to Eurlingham; who dine al the Orl< Ciub. We pretend no high motive in all this, and aim al do p tic-alar moral. We simply wish to be amused, and we wish also to witness what we call a mise-ensc&ne so perfect thai we may enjoy me faint illusion into the bargain, ajs the coats and dresses of the ladies and gentlemen en the stage are made by the same tai; and milliners who make the coats and dresses of the ladi ss and gen- men in society, so do we expect thai the furniture shall he an likeness of that seen in the drawing-rooms of t id. If old English decorations and Queen Anne architecture are the vogue in real life, we must have them on the stage. There must be left nothing to the imagination, and unless the eye and ear can immediately see it all, it is not supposed to be there. The m familiar the scene the better. There is nothing which brings down the house like a view of Waterloo Bridge, especially if a hane cab happens to be going over it; or the counterfeit pi Hyde Park Corner by lamplight, especially if Piccadilly ha})] be enlivened by the gay and festive presence of some von. men who have taken too much wine, whose opera hats are crusl I in. whose white ties are all awry, and who are going home with I milk. Arcadia may be all very well; but the most beautiful glim] of Arcadian forests and streams which scenic artist ever gave would not provoke a tenth part of the applause that a clever portrayal of Richmond Hill, with the "Star and Garter" in the immedj foreground, and Eel Pie Island in the middle distance, n r tails to elicit. A view of the Bay of Naples, with Herculaneum and Pompeii visible, would be all very well; but what is it to Brighton, with the green-and-gold ironwork of the Grand Hotel? These tastes are not peculiar to the play-going public or exclu- sively gratified on the stage. Tin. -in.' thing may be witnessed in much of our pictorial ail and in most of our popular QOvela Wh.it the late Mr. Thomas Robertson, the author of Society, Cade, and ' the rest of what are known as the "Prince of Wales' dramas," was to the modern drama. Mi-. Anthony Trollope is to cont try \ romance. The novelist must follow the example of the playwi and give us life as it is. On the sta.u'e the hero ;l ,|. in the novel the young lady asks her lover for consideration in • department of int Uectual industry or activity 554 ENGLAND. is not to fly too high for the public. The dramatist may write his dramas with a quill which comes from the wing of the angel Ga- briel, but if he writes above the heads of his patrons, woe be to him. The romantic and historic drama has given place to the " cup and saucer " domestic drama, and there is no reason to suppose that public taste and morals are much the worse or better for the change. But what is a harmless realism among the higher classes may con- ceivably become a very dangerous realism if gratified in the case of the lower. It is a simple historical fact, that a few years ago a London manager * was actually contemplating the production of the Ober Ammergau Passion Play upon the stage of his theater, and had he not received timehy warning from the responsible authority the experiment would certainly have been made. Again, early in the month of December, 1875, it was announced on a series of yellow and black posters, fixed upon every available vacant space in the town of Sunderland, that a startling drama of real life was to be j)roduced, founded on certain incidents in the life of Henry Wain- wright, who was then lying in the condemned ceU under sentence of death for the murder of his paramour! The first act was to have Broxbourne Gardens as its venue, and in the course of it the audience were to be made acquainted with " the first meeting be- tween Wainwright and his victim; the arts employed by men about town ; the friendly warning disregarded." Amongst the scenes which followed were "high jinks in the Whitechapel Counting House," a "life of wild dissipation," the "murder," and much else. If this hideous farrago of criminal tableaux, rendered ar- ticulate with criminal speeches and vicious sentiments, had been actually given to the public, who can doubt that it would have exercised a directly debasing and pernicious influence ? The pub- lic know what is permitted, but not what is prevented. Such experiences as these show that the Licenser of Plays has other duties to perform than the interdiction of clumsy adaptations of unwholesome French dramas, or obscene French farces. There is but one commandment in the Decalogue that is a source of un- failing capital to the Parisian playwright. The same sin, implied or expressed, perpetrated already, or with events apparently leading * There is, of course, no reference here to the advertised Tableaux at the "Westminster Aquarium in 1878. The interposition of authority was not called for in this instance; the Ober Ammergau peasants never having accepted any engagement in England, and the representation of the Tableaux not having been announced to take place at the Eoyal Aquarium Theater — the only part of the building under the Lord Chamberlain's jurisdiction. rOTULAR AMUSEMENTS. 555 up to its perpetration, is ever there. His ingenuity is devoted to varying the conditions of the offense, inventing nevi combinations of offenders, placing them in novel situations, and illustrating the Nemesis which, sooner or later, overtakes the guilt} in «li\. i shapes. Sometimes the action of the avenging deitj assumes the form of laughter-moving satire, sometimes of overwhelming tragedy. There are farcical comedies in which* the unholy conspirator against the peace of households is depleted as merely ridiculous, the dupe of his own villainy, a knave, and, as events turn out, a fool into the bargain. There are, on the other hand, comedies, such as the Sup- plice dime Femme which are traversed by a vein of very tragic pur- pose, and which display the consequence of matrimonial perfidy in the agonizing aspects of lifelong and irreparable remorse. Now these dramas stand in a relation to French audiences and to French society radically different from that wlhch it is possible they should occupy towards English audiences and English society. With scarcely an exception, even our best actors and actresses lad finesse and the lightness of touch which are the attributes, in a special degree, of their French brethren and sisters. T!u . a without that eminently Parisian art of swiftly and gracefully glid- ing over delicate and dangerous ground. Though the situations in a play should be subordinate to the moral, the moral is still one thing and the situations another. The real and unavoidable danger when English actors are intrusted with the performance of a play whose spirit, conception, and situation are thoroughly French, is that they should exaggerate the situations at the expense of i moral — should bring the former into disproportionate prominen and should dwarf and obscure the latter. The final moral, tV a French point of view, may 'be unexceptionable, but the situa- tions are worse than hazardous, and, acted as such dramas I likely to be acted in England, the temptation to an English audi- ence to fasten on the situations and forget the moral would irresistible. There are other reasons which cause dramas thai are perfectly possible and not glaringly improper in France to be wholly una- daptable to English audiences. If the sanctity of the marri is not always respected in England, the general t. rms on which the sexes are associated with each other before and after marriage are entirely different on the two sides of the Channel. In Prance flirta- tion is supposed to be the common successor <4 marriag< ; in "fin- gland it is at least considered theoretically more desirable thai should precede the ceremony. A very considerable proportion 556 ENGLAND. the English novels read by young ladies who are not yet brides — which are mainly the products of feminine hands, and abound in warmly-colored love passages — would be considered quite as inap- propriate or improper for a French maiden as the polissonneries of the French stage are for an English maiden. The cavalier servente, the wife's lover, may have an existence in England, but he has not a definite status as in France, and the adaptations of French plays in which he figures to the English stage are not faithful or accept- able pictures of English society. Finally, it is to be borne in mind that the institution of a Divorce Court in the one country, and the absence of such an institution in the other, will cause the public of each to regard the presentation in a dramatic shape of conjugal treason and traitors with very different sentiments. The published records of the court over which Sir James Hannen presides acquaint Englishmen and Englishwomen with the misery that follows sys- tematic breaches of what is not in this country a sacrament, but a civil contract, in all its vulgar and prosaic hideousness. Faithless- ness in husbands and wives is not in England, as in France, merely a moral sin to be satirized bv turning the laugh against the be- trayer: it is a legal offense, and it admits of a legal remedy. It is surely as sorry to jest with the iniquity which may be punished with a heavy pecuniary mulct, and a. scandalous publicity, in a division of a High Court of Justice, as with the fate that overtakes an ap- prentice who dips his hand into his master's till, or the scamp who terminates his career by forging a friend's name. If the general English public were able to protect itself in these matters, or if English theatrical managers could be trusted never to take advantage of its defenselessness and folly, then Parliament might be petitioned to repeal forthwith the Act under which the Licenser of Plays holds his office. But few, if any, managers suf- ficiently bear in mind that many pieces which have succeeded in Paris have not been exclusively, or even mainly, patronized by the French middle class, but by the floating population' of pleasure- seeking foreigners, of whom Paris is always full. Again, theaters are labelled and classified in Paris to a degree in which they are not, and cannot be, in London. If one goes to the Palais Koyal, to the Bouffes, the Yarietes, one knows in each case precisely what to expect. In London, on the other hand, the audiences in aU our theaters are mixed; and the most respectable mother and father of a family are apt to assume that there is no temple of , the drama to which they may not safely resort with children and friends. Fur- ther, it has been in past times the policy of French Governments POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 557 to render the theater a place of distraction from politics for the French people, and so long as the end was gained the means em- ployed were not too minutely inquired into. The specious argu- ment which is sometimes employed, thai if a censors! the stage is desirable a censorship of the press also would at l< justified, admits of an easy and conclusive answer. The raison d'i of a censorship of the stage in countries where the pr< is and all other forms of literary publication arc absolutely fr< e to be found in the essential difference between what is read and \ repre- sented. The Police News and other journals of thai d iption . not edifying- sheets. But it is possible that then 1 peru al does no permanent injury to some, at least, of their patrons. Imagine, however, the dramatic representation of the scenes ami incidents portrayed in an illustrated print of the character of the Police News. The peculiar influence of dramatic representations d< pends upon the contagious sympathy of a crowd. The effect produced upon an individual has to be enlarged and intensified indefinitely before any idea can be arrived at as to the nature of the total imp] ession upon the aggregate multitude. The wild plaudits of the collective oc- cupants of the pit and gallery come to the ears of each one present with a force that is exactly proportioned to the numerical total of the audience and to the complete volume of irresponsible voices. The jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household for the time being, as Licenser of the metropolitan theaters, and of all new stage-plays intended for representation at any theater in Great Britain, is a curious and interesting survival. It is sometimes loosely described as an anomaly; but it is an anom- aly only in the sense in which the growth and permanence of our whole constitutional sysj- m is an anomaly. Such anomalies pre- serve us from the logic and the falsehood of extren opposite but equally op] nvssive inquisitions 01' a jealous 1 am and of a jealous democracy. In France the dramatic 1 'up was never so severe as when the censorship was formally abolish* d — thai is, during the Keign of Terror under the Fia iiblia countries where no formal censorship exists, the u arbitrary (and not always incorruptible) pi by no means an enviable alternative. ! I land the unscrupulous managers who would prefer absolute license, tempered by occasional police-ra are probably those who would d< >ir e to introduce into their th the entertainments and the manners of music-halls and casino and who, therefore, naturally gravitate 1 land Yard. It 1 558 ENGLAND. be doubted whether, as the basis of government becomes more and more democratic, the supervision of public entertainments will not become more rather than less exacting and severe. Some reason for this assumption may be found in the historical antecedents of the Lord Chamberlain's authority over theaters. It is altogether a mistake to suppose that the Act of George II., intro- duced and passed by the Ministry of Sir Robert "Walpole, establish- ing a censorship of dramatic representations and placing it under the Lord Chamberlain, was the beginning of that great officer of State's theatrical jurisdiction. The truth is, that before the great Puritan Revolution, which closed all theaters and swept many of the poor players into the armies of the king, the two or three dra- matic companies that existed were under the express protection of the sovereign. In those days stage-players were looked upon as " rogues and vagabonds," and they were glad enough to escape the ignominy of outcasts by being nominated and appointed " His Maj- esty's Servants," and provided with royal liveries. The functions subsequently intrusted to the Lord Chamberlain were in those days performed by the Master of the Revels, who was the examiner of all theatrical entertainments. After the Restoration the surviving players of the Puritan period, and their successors, were glad enough to take refuge once more under the patronage of the Court, and to be numbered again among "His Majesty's Servants." The Act of •George II. (repealed by the Act 6 and 7 Victoria) was nothing more than a legislative enactment and sanction of that authority which had previously belonged to the royal prerogative. It was certainly no disgrace to the players to be treated as one of the liberal pro- fessions, and to be placed like the Church, the Bar, and the naval and military services, under the control of a great officer of State. But with that happy adaptation of old prerogative to modern liberty which characterizes so many " anomalous " English institutions, the supervision of the Lord Chamberlain over theaters or dramatic rep- resentations is really exercised by a deputy, who by his condition and experience as a man of the world and by his sympathies as a man of liberal education, of art, of " letters," is likely to exercise the delicate and difficult discretion of a censor (who it must be re- membered is a responsible administrator of an Act of Parliament) at once with a due sense of the close relation of public manners to public morals, and of the influence of dramatic representations on public manners, and with a sensitive regard for the just rights and liberties of dramatic literature and dramatic art. In point of fact, neither dramatic literature nor dramatic art has ever had cause to POri 'LA R AMI r SEMENTS. complain of an authority which lias been fell as a oensorship only by those lawless managers who would turn theaters into houa ill fame. Oddly enough, the most severe of censors even to ab- surdity — was himself a dramatic author, and not a Bqueamish one, George Colman. There is no denying thai the stage in tins coun- try, quite apart from foreign influences, has never quite recov I from the fanatical hostility of Puritanism and from the Libertinism of the Restoration, which was a reaction from Puritanical e It is the business of our dramatic "censor" in these days to guard it alike from mere fanaticism and from its own besetting sins in an opposite direction. And on the whole, it may be said that this in- vidious responsibility is satisfactorily fulfilled. The abolition of a dramatic censorship thus gently and gener- ously exercised would almost certainly open the door on the stage to the offensive personalities and the scarcely veiled sedition which, as matters are, can not be kept out of a good many of the popular periodicals of the day. As a consequence, the theaters might be expected to become the scenes of riot and disturbance. D< tives in disguise would be quartered about, the stage would fall into disrepute, and English liberty would be in real danger of serious abridgment. If it is said that the English public is at bottom re- spectable, and in the long run may be trusted to make its 1 bility prevail, the answer is that the dramatic censor helps these respectable persons, in the first instance, towards a result thai I might only achieve with difficulty after some delay, and after : good taste and moral sense had sustained a considerable out, Such an officer is not likely, in point of ethical severity, to lie much superior to the general standard of his time. A Puritanic censor of plays woidd only be possible when Puritanism was the r< i nized ruling influence of the day. If the English public is — as it undoubtedly is — for the most part highly respectable, the stage censor reflects their respectability and the good sense which that respectability generates; and in doing this, he may do also not a little to help the decent many to resist the d< spotism whict indecent few might not be sorry to establish. With regard to some J comedies which have been nounced as objectionable, it may be argued that it is a mistake, even on high moral grounds, to fake such performances to,, ously. After all, a theater is not a church or a chapel. As long as there is genuine drollery and genuine laughter tin re is not i, harm done. Nothing is so dull as indecency, nothing the attrac- tions of which are so soon exhausted. But the dialogue of a | 560 ENGLAND. may be harmless, and yet on the stage it may be rendered vicious by the by-play, business, and " gag " of vicious actors. Ever since dramatic art has existed, the comedy of manners and of character has abounded in intrigue, as tragedy has mainly resorted to the collisions between passion and duty. For dramatic purposes the Decalogue has always been more honored in the breach than the observance. Indeed, if the Decalogue were alwaj's universally observed, the occupation of both stage and pulpit would be gone. The Church, fortified by tremendous sanctions, rebukes vice, and scares it away by the terrors of the wrath to come. The play catches the conscience of an audience by tragic terror- and pity, or chas- tises vice by ridicule. An audience of men and women of the world may be laughed out of their vices at the theater; they can not be preached out of them. As regards the production of French plays upon the English stage, it is a delusion to suppose that more than a very limited num- ber of play-goers in London know enough of the French language genuinely to enjoy them. The boxes and stalls are filled by an exceedingly select public, while the pit and gallery are sparsely occupied by hairdressers and cooks. The occupants of the former part of the house are either attracted by a genuine admiration for French histrionic art, or by the instinct of a prevailing desire to be a stranger to nothing that is Parisian and French. The performers are French, the language employed is French; and if the Examiner of Plays licenses in the original language a farce or a drama which he might be slow to sanction in English adaptation, he has right and reason on his side. To borrow an expression from the domain of international law, the stage censor will scarcely err if he gives French plays performed in London a kind of extra-territorial privi- lege — if, in fact, he treats the stage on which they are presented as for the time being a part of France projected by accident into En- gland. At the close of these observations on the contemporary English stage, there may be briefly noticed a question often heard among play-goers — Is a revival of Shakespearian dramas in England more probable than a revival of the classic drama in France? With less hesitation than reluctance we must candidly confess our belief that it is not. All those existing conditions of the stage and of society to which reference has been made in this chapter point to one conclusion, which a flash of fashionable enthusiasm for a single actor of originality and distinction, whose principal and most popular successes have been won in modern realistic drama and in modern comedy, confirms rather than contradicts. The more i P01 Y 7. A R AMI -SEMEXTS. Shakespeare's plays are read, the lea . perhaps, will they be ,, ranted An audience sufficiently cultivated to enjoj the plays as literature, to taste the quality of the poet's 1 ,",,1 / the subtlety of his thought, will be proportionately 1. «ed to tolerate the personation of all but one or two , i u the piece by actors such as Hamlet describes iu his advice to the players. CHAPTER XXX. PROFESSIONAL ENGLAND. General View of English Professions — Civil Engineering — The Bar: Qualifica- tions for Success — Money Prizes of Bar — Tendencies of the Time reflected in English Professional Life — New Professions called into Existence — How Science, Commerce, Art, Literature, have each enlarged the Area of English Professional Life — Schoolmastering as a Profession — Opportu- nities of Scientific Teaching — Manual v. Intellectual Occupation — The Medical Profession — The Country Doctor — General Practitioners and Pure Physicians — Income of London Medical Men — Devotion of Medical Men to Scientific Study — Progress of Medicine in England — Politics as a Pro- fession — Necessity of Money — The Diplomatic Profession — The Foreign Office — The Army — Its Popularity: Growth of the Professional Soldier — ■ Effect of Abolishing Purchase — Mess Expenses. IT is witli English professions in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as it is with the various other aspects of our national life which have been passed successively in review. One is con- fronted on the one hand by the manifest increase of all that is comprised under the head of organization, and on the other by those signs of flux and movement which indicate that the future and final development of professional England is as yet undecided. To the former of these categories may be referred the machinery of preliminary tests and qualifying examinations; to the latter, the in- distinctness of the demarkating line between pursuits and trades on the one hand, and what are sj>ecifically styled professions on the other. In all the occupations of modern life there is an increasing demand for stringent guarantees of efficiency. Physicians and sur- geons, barristers and solicitors, soldiers and sailors, are each of them j called upon to furnish strong prima facie proof of fitness for their career before they are able even in name to embark upon it. If to these we add clergymen, we shall have enumerated the chief tradi- tional 'departments of English professional life. Yet what nearly innumerable and often anonymous varieties of honorable and prof- itable occupations will there not be left behind ? Though in this chapter it will be necessary to dwell almost exclusively upon the FK01. ENGLAND, conventional professional divisions, it would be an unpardonable omission to ignore the fact thai the limit separating the mechanioal industry Erom the profession seems verj often purelj arbitrary. At the head of all the new professions must be placed thai / the civil engineer. The calling is pre-eminently thai created bj mosl distinctively characteristic achievements and aspiratii the age, while it opens up a vista of rich rewards to those who follov with the success which Bpecial aptitude and industry command. There is also reason to believe thai the profession of the civil engineer is one which appeals with peculiar torn' to the ima nation and ambition of the youth of the day. It is the pioneei progress and civilizati >n, moral and material all the world ovei gratifies that adventurous instinct which is the heritage of the En- glish race. The civil engineer who spans rocky defiles, pier< mountains, unites continents, ami by d< 3ij oing new Bchemes of rail- way and telegraphic extension annihilates space and tune, is the modern representative of the navigator of the Elizabethan era the Hawkinses. Raleighs, Drakes, and Davises, who sailed ■• remote seas in quest of new lands and fresh enemies to subjugate. The head master ^i a Large public school recently observed to I present writer that three out of every four of his pupils would polled, declare for engineering. In other directions, too. the ad- vance of science has greatly enlarged the horizon of English pi-' sional life. Scientific farming is surely entitled to rank as a pro! sion. And how is one correctly to speak of the whole rao scientific specialists if not as members of a profession? Experts in naval architecture, chemists, geologists, and oth< rs, have all in real- ! ity as definite a profession as the medical man. the lawyer, or the divine. Every department of skilled industry, mechanical or intel- lectual, has annexed to if, so to speak, a considerable specialist business of its own. The development of commerce has been the opportunity for creating a hosl of occupations, some of which have been glanced at in preceding chapters. Art has proved -car. less productive in its way than science and commerce. Ther< not only more work fox painters of creative genius than ever, bu1 for a class of artists who nev< bed before decorators and signers of all kin. Is and in all materials In literature the aame movement has, or will have Boon, be< d experienced, and journalism has certainly acquired a true professional status. But though the exigencies of lern life, co-operating with the principle <>f the subdivision of labor, have multiplied prof< -ion- In England, they have not multiplied them in such number a, to i 554 ENGLAND. vide sufficient occupation for the sons of English parents. The op- portunities of an empire established in each of the four quarters of the globe are found too few, or not remunerative enough, for Brit- ish lads who have to make their own way in life, and who have small capital on which to commence. Success in the learned professions is denied to mediocrities. The navy requires strong interest, and the army a competence. If the developments of British commerce have created a host of new and lucrative callings, there are more candidates already than work can be found for, while the peculiar aptitudes which the occupation demands are not always forthcoming. The Bar means starvation arid idleness to the majority of those who are " called." The Civil Service is underpaid, and the meanest posi- tion in it is only to be won after success in an examination sufficient- ly difficult to act as a formidable barrier. The Church offers small inducement for the ambitious aspirant, and the profession of the schoolmaster is already overstocked. These are the complaints which one hears, and is likely for some while to come to hear, on every side. The professions which nat- urally suggest themselves to the two thousand young men who annually take their degrees at Oxford and Cambridge, a majority of whom are dependent for their livelihood on their own exertions, are the Bar, the Church, education, or, possibly, civil engineering. If high academic honors have been taken by the newly-fledged grad- uate, his path is tolerably clear. He will, in all probability, win a fellowship, which if not tenable for life, will support him for a cer- tain number of years while he is making a start. He may either attempt to live on the stipend attached to this distinction, or he may, residing in the university, supplement his income with work done in his college as fellow and tutor, or take private pupils, or he may accept a position as schoolmaster; or he may go to London, install himself in chambers, and woo success at the Bar. If he elects the last he will not necessarily find his scholastic honors of any direct assistance to him. Clients will not come, nor will solicitors trust him, more readily because he is a double first, an Ireland Scholar, a Senior Classic, or a Chancellor's Medallist. The chances are, it will be a more appreciable advantage to him to have distin- guished himself in the cricket field, on the river, or in the racket- court. For one attorney who recognizes that he is a fellow of his college, and the most accomplished scholar of his year, half a dozen will hasten to identify him with the famous stroke in the university eight, or the irresistible bowler who took all the wickets of the rival academic team at Lord's. PROFESSIONAL D. Success at the Bar depends on a combination of cironmstani and on a variety of gifts, physical quite as much us mental A good presence, an agreeable manner, are as valuable as the powerful, bui slowly moving intellect In common law, plausibility, aplomb, and ignorance of what timidity or nervousness mean arc indispensable. In addition to this, there should be, if possible, seme connection with a few influential solicitors, or the opportunity of establish^ such, and then if most of these conditions arc forthcoming, there ■will be the certainty of a moderate success The personnel of En- glish lawyers is gradually experiencing a change. The examinatii that now precede the call to the Bar insure n> >t only some degree of general culture, hut a fair amount of legal knowledge. Hence no lawyer who is a barrister can he as in (he old days, when noth- ing beyond attendance at the chambers <>!' a pleader or counsel was required — entirely ignorant of law. The university graduate is ab- solved from the necessity of submitting himself to those merely edu- cational tests, which are imposed in the case of other candidal many of whom are the sons or brothers of solicitors, while some have been solicitors themselves. Even the university graduate who has taken high honors occasionally recognizes the expediency of acquiring some purely technical education by apprenticing him» If to a firm of solicitors before he addresses himself to the business of the barrister. Hence the Bar is much less of a professional lounge than formerly. There are fewer idlers within the precincts of the Inns of Court, and most of the young gentlemen who keep thi ix terms intend to work, and to win every prize which the profession affords. The Law List for 1S70 shows that there are or there were 5,000 barristers; and a writer in a magazine,* placing in juxtaposition with these figures several other facts and statistics, draws some in- teresting conclusions. Estimating the total of fees paid in the High Court of Justice and the different Courts of Quarter Sessions for the year 1878 at £338,200, and dividing this sum by the number of bar- risters whose names are in the Law List, the maguzinist arrive | an average income for each of £68. Adding to this sum the t. • - paid in County Courts for Indian, colonial, and Scotch appeals, and by law students to tutors, the the total of revenue to average £100 a head. Hut. he • : . expenditure on the necessities of life or of the ; cannol be !■ than £187 a year. Hen-, he is 1, fl with a d N m the * The QenUeman'a ■ i i e Bar a ' . 1879. 51)6 ENGLAND. money prizes of the profession — the Lord Chancellorship, the other law officers of the Crown, the judges, &c. — are fixed in round num- bers at £500,000, which yields another £100 a year to each of the five thousand candidates. This is an interesting and ingenious speculation, but not one of much practical value. It does, however, circumstantially suggest the undoubted fact that the prizes of the Bar are not many in number. It is unnecessary to say that, such as they are, they are distributed among comparatively few compet- itors. Here, as elsewhere, honors and the rewards of business have a tendency to concentrate themselves in the hands of a small minor- ity. One success brings another, and the prosperous barrister has no sooner enough to do than he has too much. Generally it may be said that if a young man makes up his mind to succeed at the Bar, he must see his way to being something of a specialist. Let him master some particular department or branch of law, be known as an expert in a certain sort of cases, and he will have an infinitely better chance than if he takes his stand simply upon the basis of general utility. In a measure this remark is equally true of all professions at the present time. Let us take the case of the university graduate, in fair, but not in the highest honors, who is thrown upon the world, with a few college debts, and fewer pounds in his pocket. Unless he goes into the Church, or wins a berth in the Civil Service, or finds some chance opening, such as a secretaryship, a private tutor- ship, or makes his mark on the press, there is but one thing he can do if he is to be a self-supporting institution; he must adopt the pro- fession of schoolmaster. Of the young men who have gone through an academic course, without discredit but without luster, the great majority become curates, or schoolmasters, or emigrants. The mere university degree, even when accompanied by moderate honors, is becoming a drug in the market. As regards emigration, experience seems to show that a young man who makes his home in one of the great British colonies, may do fairly well upon either of two assump- tions — that he has a certain amount of capital, between £500 and £1,000, to start him, that he is willing to hum his hand to any thing, and that one hour he can teach boys ciphering, and writing, and Latin grammar, and the next be making himself generally useful. If he elects to be a schoolmaster in England, he may indeed ulti- mately attain wealth, but that will not be as schoolmaster, but as keeper of a school boarding-house. Even the pedagogic career no Linger presents all its former opportunities. Of course the impetus given in the last few years to education has resulted in a greater PROFESSION. I !. ENGL . \ND. demand for schoolmasters. Bui th< q while there is a] ili, in ever, the material wanted is no! always thai which I I and Cambridge supply, The demand for the instruments of scienti instruction is increasingly greater than thai for the instruments of literary instruction If the problem of providing employmenl for a portion even of the vasl multitude which now seeks it. too often in vain, is to be ily solved, the duty, of sacrificing personal taste and prej- udice to proved necessity cannot be too peremptorily enforced. I?i many quarters it is already recognized. Amongst the eligible cupations for younger sous of great noblemen are now recog- ed not only commissions in the army and navy, Government ap- pointments, stipendiary magistracies and the like, bul positions in mercantile and trading houses, sheep fanning, ordinary Canning, plantations in the colonies, India, and America. When dukes are willing to apprentice the cadets Of their houses to merchants and to stock-brokers, an example has been set which it is well should be extensively followed. The crowds of young men who now sigh for gentlemanlike employment, and despair querulously because it is not forthcoming, will have to reconcile themselves to a perceptible descent in the social scale. The gospel of leveling up has been proclaimed up to the point at which a reaction against its pivc< pts is unavoidable. It has done good in its way, and lias disseminated broadcast the leaven of a healthy and stimulating ambition. I long we are destined to witness a new social movement It will be felt that the practical knowledge of some specific trade is a better preventive against want, poverty, and failure, than a vague knowl- edge of clerkly requirements and a general adaptability for clerkly duties. Lads who now seek to live at the desk may succeed in securing for themselves the means of living at the bench and in the engine-room; and signs arc now visible thai in a few years hence no social stigma will be considi red to read upon those who have boldly accepted the change. Yet even then it is not possible to forecast the future without some apprehensions. The depr< sion in trade is naturally making its influence felt with sini iroe in the domains of industry. Parents who would have been, in nor- mal seasons, only too grateful for such a chance, hesitate to send their sons into the offices of Manchester or Liverpool merchants be- cause the conditions of business are bad, and the prosped - of future success are not encouraging. In the case of the medicd profession, there m i\ be Been evid< of the same desire to guarantee the efficiency 568 ENGLAND. at the bar and in other callings. But the number of those doctors i who make really large incomes is comparatively small. We hear of the successes, but we do not hear of the failures; and not merely in the provinces, but in London there are a great number of practi- tioners who can scarcely contrive to support themselves and families. The life of the country doctor is exceedingly trying to the system even of a strong man; he is liable to be up at aU hours of the night, performs long journeys in the most inclement weather, receives poor fees, and these not always paid with regularity or certainty. The general practitioner, whether in London or elsewhere, is the lineal successor of the apothecary, who in former days was resorted to in the case of minor ailments, and who prescribed and sent out medi- cines. This practitioner can sue for his fees in a court of law. On the other hand, the fellows and members of the Royal College of Physicians are prohibited by the by-laws of the college, confirmed by recent Act of Parliament, from recovering fees by legal process. They are thus placed upon the same footing as barristers, who nmst receive their honorarium when the professional service is rendered, or run the risk of losing it altogether. This is the most important distinction between the general practitioner, who very often is a Doctor of Medicine of a Scotch or Irish university, and the pure \ physician or F.R.C.P. The last honor is reserved for those who, after having shown themselves conspicuous in the science or prac- tice of medicine as members of the College of Physicians, are after four years membership nominated by the council, and subsequently balloted for by the fellows of the college generally. The average medical man in London can make an income of £1,000 to £2,000 a I year; the more distinguished, from £5,000 to £12,000. Incomes above this are very rare, for the simple reason that there is literally not the time in which to do the extra work. As in Germany, so in England, the fees charged for surgical operations are small in com- parison with those current in America and Paris. Of the generous and disinterested attention of many doctors to their patients at large the public knows something, but is, perhaps, less acquainted with their devotion to science. A curious instance of this may be men- tioned which occurred not long ago in London. There arrived one day in the English capital from France a medical man who had been dedicating his energies exclusively to the study of physiology. Sud- denly he attracted notice, and was astonished to find patients flock- ing to consult him on nerve diseases; very shortly he was in pos- session of a practice of more than £5,000 a year. He told his professional friends he should completely surrender it as soon as MOFESSh IV. 1 1. t:.\\ ,7 . / ,\7). he could secure an annuity of £300 a year. It was noi beli< that ho would persevere in his resolyej he did persevere, howevi and when he had realized his modest ambition went bo JLmerica to pursue his old studies, and devoted hims One of tlic most important and remarkable advances in mod surgical practice is the revolution thai has been effected by the in- : troduction of the antiseptic method of treating wounds, in the medical profession, as in others, th re is always a Btrong cc. tive vein, and there are many surgeons who insist that this p] has not been the exclusive cause of the results attributed to it. But the fact that the antiseptic method gains ground daily in all coun- tries, bein ■•rally adopted in England, universally in Scotland, ahnost universally in Germany, to a large extent in America, and gradually in France, is a sufficient testimony to its intrinsic merits. Nor is it only danger to the patient which is diminished by this method. The doctor himself is secured against many perils to which he was previously exposed. The perils under which the medical man pursues his tasks are infinitely greater than are gen- erally imagined. Many young doctors are stricken down on the threshold of life in the fever-wards of hospitals. The late Dr. Charles Murchison was repeatedly at death's door before he could pursue his fever studies without imminent risk of being infected by the disease. He lost two children from the effects of a malady which he had twice brought home. A distinguished Scotch physician, Sir Robert Christison of Edinburgh, approaching, in 1879, his ninetieth year, suffers from recurrent attacks of fever, cone qn nl on his ■ posure to morbid iniluences in the exercise of his professional duties. "Whether under fire on the battle-field, assisting the wounded, or in the not less deadly arena of disease, statistics show with what ti lel- ity the lives of medical men are spent in the service of mankind. According to the returns of the Registrar-General the mortality of medical officers is nearly twenty per cent, higher than that of combatant officers of the same age. Politics, diplomacy, and. to a certain extent, the army, are on , mental professions; not money-making, but money-spendis Successful politicians in England are seldom needy men. Neither Lord Beaconsfield nor Mr. Gladstone have risen From poverty or obscurity, or started in life absolutely devoid of the advanta enjoyed by the rivals and contemporaries whom they 1 ! or distanced. The constituencies in 1874 elected as their repi sentatives the rich) in the world, and the II Commons gave its confidence to a Cabinet of eminently rich men. 570 ENGLAND. Even in the two Ministerial whips it had country gentlemen of large landed estate and big rental. The instances in this century of a member of the House of Commons rising to position and influ- ence who did not belong to one of the two aristocracies — the aris- tocracy of birth or wealth — or who did not contract an alliance with one of these so closely that he became identified with it, are rare 1 exceptions. There are, certainly, members of the House of Com- mons who have no regular income of their own, no estate, no re- munerative profession. But they make something out of director- ships, and they occasionally pick up a windfall in the City. These have seldom any very lofty ambitions. They do not mistake them- selves for heaven-born statesmen, and they are quite satisfied if they have enough to pay for their subscription to the best club in London, and the other necessities or luxuries of life. There is also in the House of Commons a large allowance of professional men who would be described as working for their daily bread. But what does this really mean ? The professional men alluded to are either lawyers of large practice or persons engaged in commerce. In the former case they are for the most part in the position of being able to say adieu to their clients to-morrow without any fear of starvation; in the latter, their business manages itself — they have deputies and agents in whom they can thoroughly trust. If any supervision is needed it is of the least possible kind, and then' share of work is confined to pocketing a due proportion of profits. Bar- / risters go into the House for a definite reason. A Parliamentary seat, if they can get it, is a distinct advertisement. Even then it is a costly mode of appeal to litigants and attorneys. A country gentleman with an estate of £5,000 a year, a family, and a town house, who goes into the House of Commons determined to make jDolitics a study, finds it not too easy to keep out of debt. A bar- rister whose fees do not amount to more than £3,000 per annum will probably find, if he only thinks about augmenting his business, that he is without any adequate return for' his expenditure of time and money. A parliamentary career is and will remain open to talent; but only on condition that talent has the bahast of wealth. Hard as this may seem, in individual cases there is a sound reason for it, and it works well and fairly in the long run. When the late Duke of Marlborough — then Marquis of Blandford — brought for- ward his Reform Bill, as a sort of ballon d'essai, he proposed that members of Parliament should be paid, and the proposal was rightly characterized as democratic in its tendencies. So long as poverty continues to be a political disqualification, there will be PROFESSIONAL ENGLAND. 671 generally insured integrity and independence. If the House Commons was a place for making money rather than spending it, it would at once be degraded in the national opinion. Thus it ia that though, of those who succeed in the Bouse of CommonB, Borne have more money and Borne less, the assistance of monej has been indispensable, and lias been forthcoming to almost all. Passing from politics to diplomacy we conic to whal is virtually another unpaid profession. No sensible man would think of Bend- I ing his son into it unless he was prepared to allow him al the verj least four or five hundred a year, an allowance not to be withdrawn or reduced when he was promoted to the position of third secret with a salary of £150, hut to continue throughout bis career, and to be secured to him after his parents' death. Such a profession, though diplomatists may be the pets of society, can never he a really popular one. With certain qualifications the same remarks are true of the Foreign Office. The principle of competition does indeed to a limited extent exist at the Foreign Office — ten candi- dates being usually nominated to one vacancy. The severity of the examinations depends not so much on the number as on the ac- quirements of those who compete in it. Tims in the competition for the Indian Civil Service, it is an exception if there are m than ninety lads whose ability and knowledge are entitled to con- sideration. The vacancies are from thirty-live to forty; and it fol- lows that the chances are less than three to one against each of those who are really in the running. Now in the 1 Office competitions there are no men of straw. Not only lias the patron- age list by no means invariably been adhered to, but 3pecial invita- tions have been sent to certain famous heads of houses at Oxford and Cambridge to BUggest promising candidates. Nor is ■ t i see how this state of things is to be remedied. Make the i lamina- tions for the Diplomatic Service competitive, and it is cert some at least of those personally and socially qualified in a 1 / degree will be excluded. For instance, young men who have bei ti educated in the traditions and atmosphere of diplomacy from fancy, the sons, it may be, of ambassadors or charges d'affaires, who have friendships and connections in every European capital, to whom it is a second nature socially to conciliate and correctly to in- terpret public feeling and political intention, would often be hope- lessly defeated in a general competitive examination. Again, - ) posing the Foreign Office were to open u^ doors to all comers, means might, conceivably, be taken to withdraw with one hand what was given with the other. If the Foreign Office w. i- to p] I 572 ENGLAND. itself under the new regulations known as Scheme I., the open com- petition for it would take place at the same time and place, and in the same subjects as that for other high-class offices. But it would be perfectly practicable for the authorities of the Foreign Office to make their selection, not from any of the new-comers and success- ful candidates, but from young men already in the Civil Service of pleasing manners, good connections, and independent means. In a word, open competition at the Foreign Office might come to signify in practice the adoption of that mode of nomination by transfer which has created dissatisfaction at the Treasury. There remains the army. That the profession of arms is, during the last quarter of a century in England, extremely popular with all classes, high and low, cannot be doubted any more than that the tone and qualifications of officers of all branches of the service have signally improved. The army, at the present day, is at once aristo- cratic and national; it enjoys the favor of society, and the sons of the people gain Her Majesty's commission, and serve with credit and success. On the one hand, the complaint is made, with what- ever degree of truth, by university authorities, that young men of birth and position do not go to Oxford and Cambridge in the same numbers as formerly; on the other hand, since the abolition of pur- chase, there have been certainly signs of the growth of a class which was formerly strange among us, namely, that of the professional soldier. Thus if there are more young men who adopt the army as a kind of social training-school, and a substitute for academic life, there are more also who enter it with a determination, like that which has been already noted among barristers, to make out of it the business of their lives. Nor is there any thing to warrant the belief that the officers of the English army are likely to be less effi- cient soldiers in the future than in the past. The competition for commissions in the line is tolerably keen, but the examination is simple. There is not the slightest appearance of any deterioration in the physique or muscular accomplishments of candidates since competition has been established. On the contrary, they are gen- erally spoken of as being smarter than ever, knowing better what their duties are, and better able to perform them. If they are bet- ter scholars they are also better soldiers. So far as the aristocracy is concerned it is intelligible that fewer of their sons should 2:0 annuallv to the university. The taste for culture among the upper classes of English society is not on the in- crease. In the old days the bench of bishops was largely reinforced from the sons of the great families. This natural process of ascent PROFESSIOXAL ENGLAND. from the purple to the prelacy has ceased to be the order of the day. The Church of E n g land is looked upon as an institution thai holds its existence upou a precarious tenure. There is nothin prevent young men in any rank of life from going to the univ< i first, and into the army afterward. A certain number of commis- sions are annually given to selected candidates from Oxford and Cambridge. These nominations, however, are not to the army direct, but only to Sandhurst; and the young officer who prefaces a military career with an academic training considers that he . three or four years in the competition for a colonelcy. The army, like emigration, or indeed like many departments of commercial life, is practically closed against lads who have not the command of a certain amount of capital. In England the subaltern in a marching regiment caimot possibly live on his pay; in India he may not only be independent of the support of his friends. hut may lay by money. When not on foreign service, the pay of the sub- lieutenant is £100 7s. 6d. per annum, of the lieutenant £118 12a lid. or £136 17s. 6d., according to the length of his service; and of < -at- tain £211 7s. lid.; from which must be deducted twenty days' pay for band and mess — for though the former claim is not now com- pulsory, it is generally admitted. To this must be added th< of entertainments of one kind and another; and whilst a French subaltern, having no mess to pay, probably gets his meals at a r< s- taurant for £3 or £4 a month, an English officer of the same grade will find his necessary exj>enses nearly four times that Bum. No account of the existing opportunities of professional England would be complete without some brief survey of the career of let- ters. Yet though literature must be regarded not merely as an art, but as a profession, or a trade, and while there are a greater num- ber of persons in England now making a comfortable living by their pen than was ever previously known, there is less of what can prop- erly be called a distinctly professional literary class. Most moder- ately well-educated people nowadays are actual or potential authors. They have dabbled in literature for purposes of pleasure or profit, they have published a book, or they have written magazine or news- paper articles. It is the enormous development of periodical liter- ature of one sort or another which is the great feature of the til The contributors to these publications are drawn from e\ei\ olasfl of English society, and there are comparatively few persons realiz- ing any thing like a comfortable income from their pen who are in- dependent of the periodical press in some shape <>r other. A ; may achieve a considerable reputation, and yet make nothing DJ 574 ENGLAND. writings; a novelist may be steadily patronized by the circulating libraries, and yet secure only the most moderate pecuniary returns. Even an historian or a philosopher may have in^ressed the stamp ■ of his intellect upon the age, and yet be unable to live on what his work brings in. Only those who have risen to the highest position in the various departments of independent authorship, as philoso- phers, historians, novelists, or poets, can command large prices. Undisputed eminence may realize a handsome fortune; respectable mediocrity can barely keep the wolf from the door. 'Without the assistance of journalism, no writer not of established / reputation can make what even to a modest ambition would seem a comfortable fortune; but journalism is a calling in which a fair measure of success may be insured by most who are not egregiously unfitted for the career. Yet even journalism, however handsome the incomes made by the successful in it may appear, cannot be pronounced otherwise than poorly remunerated, if compared with certain other professions, such as the law or medicine. There are very few cases known or possible, in which a newspaper writer, not being the editor of a journal, can hope to realize more than £1,500, or at the most £2,000 a year; probably not half the sum that either a barrister or doctor, occupying an analogous level of professional distinction, earns. And though it may be said that the journalist who secures this position is not doomed to wait like the one for briefs, or like the other for patients, for an indefinite period, it must be remembered that the necessary expenses of his life are not incon- siderable. He has, indeed, no great establishment to keep up; but he probably finds it necessary to live in a convenient, which is usu- ally a costly quarter of the town, and in such matters as locomotion his disbursements are often exceptionally heavy. The hours, too, and the conditions under which his work has to be done, are not such as to suit all persons. If he writes leading articles, he will have to hold himself at the disposition of his editor, and will very often have to turn night into day. In this matter different arrange- ments are made in different newspaper offices; in some, no regular engagement is given to the writer of the leading articles unless he comes to the office between ten and eleven every night; in all, the development of telegraphic communication renders it necessary for the professional journalist to hold himself in readiness to write at a moment's notice, and at any hour. Most daily newspapers are now supplied with special wires: in the case of the metropolitan press, between London and some one or more of the Continental capitals; in the case of the provincial rROFESSIOA'A I. ENGL. I. YD. press, between the town of issue and the capital. y . ,v- ity and enterprise, as in London so in the provinces, have been exhibited on a very surprising scale. In mosl great towns in En- gland there are journals published every morning, equal in m respects to those which appear in London. There is variety of news, that news is well arranged, and the comm ints on it have ofl the merit of comparative brevity. The views taken 1>\ the are, moreover, sometimes more independent of official and pari mentary influence. In his "Order and Progress," Mr. Frederic Harrison says: "The enormous preponderance in the State with which the House of Commons has gradually invested itself lias over- shadowed journalism, and has converted journalism into something which is called a fourth estate, but is really an appendage to the Commons." At the same tome, it is beginning to be recognized as a fact that mechanical adherence to a political party does n 't in- crease the power of a newspaper, and that genuinely independent journalism is one of the great products of the time. There is more of originality, freshness, ability, vigor, and variety displayed in the newspaper press of England than in that of an;, oth- er country in the world. It is customary to contrast the position of journalism in England with its position in France, not a little to the advantage of the latter, and there may be some truth in the conclu- sion. That it is much easier to gain a political position by writing f< >r the French press than by writing for the English, is chiefly due to the circumstance that in France newspaper articles are signed, and in England they are not. But the signed system is really impossible in England, and may some day become impossible in France. I every newspaper in England, there are, probably, four in Prance — exclusive organs of the countless cliques held together by the per- sonal influence of a few individuals, of which the French political system is composed. Thus the French newspapers are sectarian rather than national. Neither in Paris nor in the provinces is any such phenomenon to be observed as a greai journal which 3p the people as a whole. "While parties are as infinitely divided and subdivided as is the ease in France, a journal which would really be a symbol of national unity is impossible. Thus we have ;t hosl of petty prints, insignificant in their influence and in their contents, consisting of short occasional notes, novels, a brief narrative of con- temporary events, and articles penned by the acknowli dged lite] leader of a political coterie. English journalism represents inter- ests; French journalism represents opinions. That which has been chiefly instrumental in making journal 576 ENGLAND. a not unprofitable profession for so many hundreds and thousands of Englishmen is the development, the energy, and the enterprise of the penny press. Few people have any adequate idea of the magnitude of the interests which this press represents. Let us take the case of one of the leading penny papers of the metropolis. Here is a journal whose average total expenditure is from £200,000 to £270,000 a year and whose annual jn-ofit is from £55,000 to £60,000. If these figures are respectively divided by 313 — the number of work- ing da}'s in a year — we shall have the daily expenditure and profit of a London paper, sold for the twelfth part of a shilling. It will thus be found that the expenses per diem of such a paper amount, rough- ly speaking, to £860, and that the daily profit is close upon £200 ■ — in other words, the total daily receipts are as nearly as possible £1,000, and the total yearly receipts £313,000. This, of course, in- cludes every item on which, in a daily newspaper office, it may be necessary to expend money — printing machinery, telegraphic wires, telegrams, and the pay of editors, sub-editors, writers, reporters, and others. These establishments do not only exist in London, but in most large towns of the country; and though the scale on which they are carried on in the provinces is less considerable than in Lon- don, the number of persons for whom employment is afforded is very large. The writing of leading articles is only one branch of the pro- fession of journalism. Within the office of a daily newspaper is a staff of managers, clerks, cashiers, in addition to those persons con- cerned in the actual production of it. Outside, there is a regiment of reporters, some in the Houses of Parliament, some in the law courts, perpetually busy, and earning for the most part sufficient to support themselves and their families. In near and remote quar- ters of the world are special correspondents — themselves represent- ing a numerous and important branch and interest of journalism — transmitting graphic word-pictures by telegraph or mail of battles, sieges, celebrations, jubilees: now of a wedding, and now of a fu- neral; to-day of a death in Central Africa, to-morrow of a sudden disaster that has fallen upon an entire neighborhood in Central Europe. Peculiar qualifications are indispensable in the case of the special correspondent. He must not merely have the pen of a ready, a vigorous, and an effective writer, but must possess a robust constitution capable of bearing extremes of climate and tempera- ture; must be able to write under any circumstances, and to con- trive by some means or other to post himself wherever any thing of importance is taking place; and, moreover, be as impervious to moral or social rebuff as to physical fatigue. PROFESSIONAL I . />. .-,77 Notwithstanding the development of new types of journalism : of weekly newspapers embellished with everj Kind of illustration (some of them employing special artists as the dailj journal - taploya its apecial correspondents), devoted to every kind of topic or inti est — literature, art, the stage, science, trade (for nowadays d trades have their special representatives in the weekbj press), amuse- ment, sport, "society" — notwithstanding these novel additions to the long list of the newspaper press and their periodical multipli- cations, for one success is sure to provoke a host of imitators, no1 necessarily always failures — it may possibly be thai in England the newspaper of the future has yet to come into being. There arc some persons who think that under the present system we are over- ridden with leading articles, and that a journal which should revi it to its original function of supplying in the first instance news, ami of commenting upon this news in the briefest and pithicsl way, would command a large success. It does not follow that if this prospect were fulfilled the influence of the English newspaper press would be materially lessened. As it is, the press has. probably, more power in the discussion of social than of political questions; but in either its power does not arise exclusively from its comments. The business of newspapers is not so much to create or withstand popular cries, as to help to regulate them, and to supply the public with materials for estimating their value. Foreign correspondents, reporters of every kind, have almost as much opportunity of instruct- ing the public mind by the news they give, and the way in which they give it, as leader-writers themselves. If there be any defect in English journalism at the present time, it is that it gives us too r much of opinion, and too little of news; and that in giving us news, it does not always exercise sufficient discrimination as to what does and what does not come within this category. There is not likely to be any change in the methods by which alone success in newspaper proprietorship is possible. While we may anticipate that news- papers will give us more and more intelligence and less and less criticism, and while it may be reasonable to anticipate for them an immensely increased circulation, the cost of production will still be so enormous that the proprietors can only hope substantially to recoup themselves by advertisements. It is, and it will probably continue to be, the literal fact that the multiplication of the copies sold is only useful as an agency for increasing the number of ad tisements; and that except when pa] >er is unusually cheap, the actual profit realized on each impression sold is infinitesimal There is a large and important section of professional England 37 578 ENGLAND. which lies far outside the four seas. Official England and com- mercial England exist in the foreign dej)endencies of Great Britain as well as in Great Britain herself, and the fortunes spent in the mother country have often been made in the tropics or at the anti- podes. Firmly wedded though England has been to a policy of non- intervention in Eiu'opean affairs, she has never remained long with- out an opportunity of showing in different parts of her colonial empire that there still breathes within her the spirit that has made her the mistress of a continent. Her colonial empire has not only supplied Englishmen with an opening for their industry and peace- ful enterprise, but has also exercised them in the profession of arms. Not merely in the eighteenth century, but in the nineteenth century too, have India and our colonies provided much the same stimulus for English imagination and for English enterprise, as did the wars of Raleigh and Blake against the Spanish in the Elizabethan epoch. India, however, while it has been undoubtedly the nurse of the mil- itary sentiment amongst Englishmen, has been much besides. It has not only provided a military career for hundreds and thousands of Englishmen, but it has brought with it a great amount of purely civilian occupation — that of the engineer, the merchant, the tea planter, as well as of the civil administrator. The competition Wallah is now rather more than a quarter of a century old, and under the system, the government of India has been placed in the hands of the great multitude of the English middle classes — with many advantages to the latter, and not a few to India itself. Com- petition has unquestionably raised the average official standard. Work in all its branches, and more especially in the lower, is bet- ter done than formerly. The past generation of Anglo-Indian civ- ilians would, it may be assumed, have been infinitely less successful than the present, in making abstracts of evidence, in drawing up decisions, and in writing reports. And while some scholars, and several more or less distinguished Uterateurs, have been the result of the competition Wallahs, the class has not proved deficient in . men of action, or men of great business-like aptitudes. There is thus a distinct improvement in the general administration of the affairs of the empire, in the administration of justice, in the arrange- ment of municipal matters; there is also less of malingering, of idle- ness, of jobbery and of favoritism. These great virtues are not without their corresponding defects. No administrator of the highest distinction has yet appeared amongst the new Indian civilians; nor can it be said that, as a body, these have displayed the loyalty to the Government, which was charac- riiOFES: VGLAND. 579 teristic of the period when the distribution of official honors mainly a matter of family arrangement There were In tho innumerable abuses; but above and redeeming all, th< idea that the general interests of the Government were the int. ■ of each individual serving under it. If extra duties had at any time to be discharged, they were discharged without grumbling, because the officials felt that all exertion promoted the welfare of the firm. The competition "Wallahs," on the contrary, are not in ever} alive to the same kind of corporate interest. They have gone to India to make as much money out of the country as possible, and to leave it as quickly; to realize an earbj annuity and return home. They are in the position of men who have contracted with their em- ployers to do a certain amount of work and no more, and who i: exceptionally heavy demand be made upon them, resent it as an imposition. The feeling is that the Government has fix< terms and must be kept to them. Nor can the more general relations between England and India be looked on as entirely satisfactory under the new system. There is less of sympathy and acquaintance with 4he natives than formerly. The "Wallahs are better linguists than their predecessors, bu< they see very little of the native gentlemen of the country. This, of course, may be in a great degree due to the relations which have been developed between natives and Europeans as a consequence of the Mutiny; and it maybe readily admitted that sometimes the old civilians were too friendly with the natives — borrowing their horses and carriages, and making them buy often useless articles when leaving the country on furlough or for good. Still it cannot be desirable that the natives should say, as they are ■ .v to say, "We cannot have a chat with your officers, or ask ad\ Again, whereas in the old times possibly halt' the officials wer< atives or friends of the directors, and were in constant | communication with the representatives of the Home Government, there is to-day little or no connection or common interesl bet the Wallahs and the department of the Secretary of £ Whitehall CHAPTER XXXI. IMPERIAL ENGLAND AND CONCLUSION. Increasing need of Emigration — Extent and Character of the British Empire — ■ Past and probable Future Increase of our Colonial Population — Relations of Colonies to Mother Country: (1) Financial, (2) Commercial — Loyalty of Colonies to Mother Country — Imperial Federation — Forces of Repulsion and Cohesion at Work in the Relations between England and her Colo- nial Dependencies — Common Features of the Colonies — Points on which the Condition of the Colonies may be considered prophetic of the Con- dition of Things yet to be realized in England — General Nature of En- gland's Responsibilities — Imperial Duties of the Statesmanship of the Fu- ture — What will that Future be? — Conclusion. w E have seen that among the chief wants of domestic England VV is that of careers and professions for her sons. The esti- mated total population of the United Kingdom was in 1876 close upon thirty-four millions. It is increasing at something like two millions every ten years, and the rate will yet be accelerated. By the close of the century the inhabitants of these islands can scarcely number less than forty-five million souls. How within the four seas are employment and the means of subsistence to be found for so vast a multitude ? Here, then, the opportunities of colonization suggest themselves; and it is natural to turn from the smaller Brit- ain, which is at home, to the greater Britain, which is beyond the seas. Nearly a quarter of a million of Queen Victoria's subjects left the shores of then country in 1877 for foreign lands, including the United States of America. A larger number could well have been spared. It is sometimes said that the chances which await the emi- grant in the colonies are not better than the chances he leaves be- hind him in the country of his birth. This is partly because many of those who yearly set sail for our foreign dependencies are men who have failed in England, and partly because the conditions of colonial life and the qualifications requisite for colonial success are imperfectly understood. Two things seem certain: one, that the IMPERIAL ENGLAND AND CONCLUSION. intending colonist, who has not capital must be prepari d bo perform any work, however irksome or Lowly, which is forthcoming; the ond, that emigration should take place at a much earlier age th i now usual. A national system of education is giving us annually, and in an increasing degree, a number of fairly intelligent 1 girls, for all of whom there cannot be sufficiently remunerative occupation here. In these may be recognized the material 1'^r col- onists, who would not only win prosperity and comforl for them- selves, hut who would be a great acquisition to the dependenc which they migrated. Emigration societies already exist in gland. It might surely be possible to extend the operations of these in such a way as to draft off a certain annual percenta the surplus population before they could learn the evil wa\ - idleness. The px-ecise extent and population of the foreign dominion- England cannot, perhaps, be estimated with absolute certainty. The Colonial Office in London has to deal with several diffi kinds of communities. There are the military outposts, such as Gibraltar and Malta; next there are those — like the West I Islands, Ceylon, Natal, the Transvaal, the Mauritius, and oth< which are known as Crown colonies, where also the executiv still with the Crown; thii'dly, there are the self-governing col — the Australian group, the Canadian domain, New Zealand, and Cape Colony. Another principle of division might be adopted that of colonies winch are and colonies which are not ada] I permanent inhabitation by Europeans. Excluding all that come under the latter category, and amongst them the British Empire in India, there remains a total area of four millions of square mil'-.-. eminently suited, so far as climate is concerned, to be the abiding home of men and women of the British race. If there be added to this the dependencies that have been purposely omitted, thoe British India and the other tropical settlements, another four mil- lions of square miles will have to be taken into consid (ration i : other words, of the entire surface of the globe, eighl millions i t square miles, or rather more than one eighth, is British territory, whilst of the true home of all white races — the temperate regions of the earth— eighty per cent, belongs to Great Britain and the United States of America, of which the former possesses forty-four per cent., or nearly one half of the whole. Physical conditions render it necessary for the European emigrant seeking a home himself and Iris children to go where the English langu spo- ken and where English institutions prevail. If he studi char- 582 ENGLAND. acter of the men and women around him, lie will find that it can only be understood by a knowledge of English history — that it has, in fact, been formed by the character of Englishmen in past ages; and if he should go to Africa, or to the great islands of the West, or to America north of the St. Lawrence, he will yet find himself a subject of the English Queen. The population of these colonies has increased in the last twenty-one years eighty-eight per cent., at which rate they should have at the end of the century a population of fifteen millions. It will be well, next, to inquire what are the financial relations of the mother country to the colonies. So long as the colonies were treated as places of exile for criminals, it was right that En- gland should contribute not only to their military defense but to their civil government. As a matter of fact, the expenditure which the colonies now entail upon the mother country is less than two millions a year. It is said that her colonial empire imposes upon Great Britain a further cost in the necessity of maintaining a much larger fieet than she would otherwise require. But the obvious an- swer to this is, that under any circumstances a fleet scarcely smaller than that which is now supported would be necessary for the pro- tection of British commerce. In order to reduce the fleet, the com- merce of the country as well as its colonies must be sacrificed; a result for which those who are willing to part with the colonies are not jnepared. Besides, an essential gain to England from her colo- nies is found in the commercial relations which exist between the two. The expression, " Trade follows the flag," is simply a way of saying that the lines of commerce coincide with the limits of empire. In proportion as British commerce with the United States decreases, and the United States supplant England in her own domestic mar- kets, the greater the necessity to cement the commercial union be- tween Great Britain and her colonies. Notwithstanding the pro- tectionist legislation which exists in many colonies, they still take more English goods than any other country or people. Whilst in 1874 our nearest neighbors bought less than 17s. a head of British commodities, our fellow-countrymen at the Antipodes purchased an average of £10 worth. Our imports from and our exports to the colonies are" respectively about 11 per cent, and 121 p er cent, of the imports and exports from and to all other countries. Even thus, it may be said, the relations between the colonies and the mother country are not satisfactory, and until an imperial tariff has been established, by which an approach to free trade is insured throughout the whole of the British Empire, the colonies IMPERIAL ENGLAND AND CONCH have the power to place the mother country under a positive disad- vantage. The prospects of the ultimate accomplishmenl <>i' such a measure depend upon the general political relations which events may develop between the mother countrj and the colonies. Thai the lust few years have witnessed the assertion of the imperial senti- ment in England, not as a mere effervescence, hut as an abiding phase of national conviction, there may, or may uot, b< n to believe. When, in 1878, there seemed a prospeel of a hostile col- lision between Eussia and England, the oiler was made r< p< atedly by the colonial subjects of the English Crown in Canada and at the Antipodes to dispatch battalions of volunteers This is a circum- stance which, with many others, is suggestive of the -conviction that. the great colonies of England have no wish to sever the link that binds them to the mother country, even though the connec- tion imposes on them the perils and burden of responsibility, it is the almost unanimous opinion of competent observers, who have by extensive travel made themselves acquainted with colonial feel- ing, that her dependencies would scorn to stand aloof from a war undertaken in defense of those principles which lie at the founda- tion of English greatness, or in redemption of those engagements which Great Britain has in time past undertaken. There i-. of course, another side to this question. It may be urged that the colonies will not permanently consent to be liable for the results of a policy which they have had no part in shaping; and certainly if this policy were to be systematically turbulent, aggressive, and costly, that is a reluctance which woidd be very emphatically dis- played. The practical question thus arises. How will it be possible to give the colonies the influence they may claim in molding imp - rial policy ? For the direct dependence of the colonies on the mother coun- try, it is suggested that there may be gradually substituted a feder- ation of all English-speaking countries: each self-governin the management of its local affairs; each bound to assist the other in time of imperial emergency; and each represent* d at some given imperial center, which might be, as now, London. Bui in addition to the practical difficulties in the way of this proposal and the con- fusion in the working of the representative principle thai it would involve, there is the fact that at the present momenl the colonies are directly or indirectly represented in the House of Commons by men who have passed their lives there. This does not the circumstance that there is much in the position of the colonies which may lead to future conflict. Though the self-governed 584 ENGLAND. pendencies make their own laws, the Crown has a veto which i exercised through the Colonial Minister of the day. There are other difficulties that the existing relations may develop. It has been said, though, as a matter of fact, experience is seldom likely to prove such to be the case, that the English system of party gov- ernment, and the chance which there always exists of the colonial policy of one Grovernment being reversed by that of its successor, may keep the colonists in a state of unrest that will become intoler- able. There is the further consideration that the political party which, for the time being, is the depositary of power in England, may be opposed to that which is in the ascendant in the colonies, and that thus want of political sympathies may pave the way to the disintegration of the empire. But if these are the apparent agencies of repulsion, what are the forces of cohesion actually at work ? No more powerful influence has exerted itself in the latter half of this century than that of nationality. Italy has become united, the German Empire estab- lished, whilst the American Union has been cemented by a war which cost half a million of men and a thousand millions of money. The same influence can scarcely fail to make itself felt among the English-speaking races throughout the world. These have not only a common language, but a common history. The union may neces- sitate, as for the matter of that all political union does, much of mutual concession and compromise. There is also an attraction for the multitude in these dependencies in their association with so ancient a sovereignty as that of England. But if the connection between the mother country and the colonies is to be sentimental mainly, it is clear that the mother country herself must omit nothing that can promote and strengthen this sentiment in an appropriate way. The colonists must not be treated like poor relations. Hence Mr. J. A. Froude suggests that, in addition to the single colonial decoration — that of St. Michael and St. George — which now exists, distinguished colonists should occasionally be elevated to the peer- age, or should be made members of the Privy Council;* that a cer- tain number of vacancies in the various departments of the Civil Service at home and abroad should be allotted to colonists; that Oxford and Cambridge should be encouraged to unite with the colonies in founding scholarships and fellowships bearing colonial * While these pages are passing through the press the Court Circular of Aug. 15 contains the following announcement: — "Sir John Macdonald, K.C.B., Prime Minister of Canada, was introduced at the Council and sworn in a mem- ber of the Privy Council." IMPERIAL ENGLAND A. YD CONCLUSION, names, the candidates for which should be educated in col schools; and finally, thai there should be instituted in the Bi army and navy special opportunities for the display of colonial patri- otism — that there should be Australian and Canadian regiments just as there are now Highland and Irish regiments. Considerations affecting the nature of the tie which may in I future bind them together are not the only ones suggested 1»\ the present relations of the colonies to the mother country; and in the extent and condition of the foreign dependencies of Great Brit- ain, other lessons than those of the greatness of England maj !■■• found. As the opinion of foreign nations is said to enable our to anticipate the verdict of posterity, so is it possible that in the state of the English colonies to-day the tendencies at work within the limits of the United Kingdom, and the direction in which British polity is drifting, may be recognized more clearly than if th< tion were exclusively confined to England. Such conditions as life in a new country presents — the building up of new institutions, the release from old prejudices, the possession of larger individual power, the absence of pauperism, the avenues opened to personal ambition, the enjoyment of greater plenty, though associated with more adventurous life — must tell on the character of a people. < >u the other hand, the circumstances of dealing with native races, the admixture of a foreign stock (such as the French in Canada, the Dutch in South Africa), the mode in which society has constru itself (for example, the existence in some possessions of a convid element, the hasty attraction of population by gold or diamond mines, or its leisurely consolidation under less alluring temptations), and a great variety of other circumstances, emphasize local ] liarities in the separate communities. Thus the several white popu- lations of the colonies and dependencies of the emp, growing up with many common and many widely divergent char. The common features are for the most part of an elevating na- ture. Of these the consciousness of taking part in the formation of a new community, the sense of individual power, the open air life, the vast areas open to occupation, and the enjoyment of plenty may be named, whilst above all are the prospects of advancement to wealth and influence. Indeed, the last pr,smts a prima facie reason for anticipating in a colonial community an improvemenl of the stock whence it sprung. The colonists represent th< who have had the energy and courage to try to amend their positi they are, in other words, what a Darwinian would describe as the survival of the fittest. Thus whilst the people of i c Great 586 ENGLAND. Britain are building up for themselves an important position in re- lation to their fellow-countrymen at home, there may be discerned amongst them the nascent qualities of independence, self-reliance, ambition, generosity, and loyalty, somewhat tempered by conceit and by intolerance of the weaknesses of others. An ordinary Englishman arrives in a colony with an idea that his colonial fellow-subjects have much to learn, and that he will in- struct them. But the first few weeks in his new home are a suc- cession of disillusions. Colonists have their own ways of doing things, and they believe in those ways. After a time the would-be teacher also grows to believe in them. In the course of years he returns to the mother country. He comes back with something of the same contempt for the people at home as he originally carried out with him for the colonists. He expects to find things very much as he left them. Of course he is again undeceived. There has been no lack of progress, and, as he discovers, there is no want of capacity. Yet he is not unable, in spite of his protracted absence from the old country, to hold his own with his countrymen, while on the whole he finds that his own capacity has been improved by his colonial experiences. The successes of returned colonists are neither few nor inconsiderable. To understand colonial institutions it is necessary to understand the colonists; for the virtues and faults of the latter are reflected in the former. Although these communities are small and young, they have intricate, complicated, and imperfectly developed organ- isms, some of which may be glanced at with a considerable amount of profit. The constitutional colonies are new departures, the par- ent state occupying a midway position between them and the Crown dependencies. The last are the most antiquated; they strangely contrast not only with their mother but with their younger sisters. Democracy has a certain force in Great Britain, a larger force in the constitutional colonies, and little or no force in the Crown dependencies. And whilst colonial institutions do not appear to be approximating in character to those of the mother country, it is far from certain that those of the mother country are not tending in the direction of the young colonies. The same causes lead to the production of like effects. The democratic influences at work in Great Britain are calculated to effect results, such as more powerful waves of democracy have ac- complished in her foreign dependencies. It is rather hastily as- sumed that the difficulty, which is characteristic of colonial politics, of maintaining exclusively two strongly marked parties and prevent- IMPERIAL ENGLAND AND CONCH them Erom splitting up into main sections, is :l , want of age and tradition. Whoever analyzes what Lb . i the mother country may at least suspect that there is a tend< also to destroy the distinctiveness of two political organizations, I to replace them with many Bchools of thought s* pan b .1 rather 1>\ present interests than by broad and fundamental diffi r< q« j. In the colonies, except during periods of peculiar political ezcdtemi at, it is regarded as somewhat humiliating it' a candidate Bhould do more than promise support to a leader so long as he app] i Ins conduct. To undertake to support him because lie ha.U the party, and to express -willingness to sink individual views to maintain p interests, would not be the way for a politician in thai part of the world to recommend himself to his constituents. A colonial si man is more blunt than diplomatic. True, he has to face many combinations, and he is constantly called upon to reconcile them by the exercise of more or less tact. But indefinite promises and vague postponements will not meet the difficulties with which he has to contend; he must show his hand, and say what he mean as those with whom he deals are not more r< .tical i : ances have a robustness which at times degenera. I freedom of language, apt to surprise public m< n who make it a rule carefully to weigh then- words. "With this freedom are associated a certain force and fluency from which it may be predicted thai lonial politicians will develop into vigorous, capable statesmt n. reliant, if somewhat wanting in refinement. The Government of a colony is very near to the people Depu- tations are a recognized and frequent means of enforcing the pop- ular will. These will not confide their grievances to subordinate servants of the Government. In the same way. parliai u atary rep- resentatives have to submit to the teachings of their constitu who in turn are disposed to be faithful to their choi ber is reasonably assiduous, and does not fall a victim to mi burn- ing local question concerning which he has shown b hearted, he may look upon his seat as a tolerably a series of years. Colonial constituencies generally appr >ve Balarii d members. They take the plain view thai they have no righi t pect services without paying for them, and probably tb a lit- tle impressed with the idea that payment gives them the rigl free criticism. In those colonies where payment of members does not yet prevail there is a strong inclination to adopt th< The legislature is in almost every case compo ed of two b< a ■ ! the upper house is not as a rule the popular <>:. 588 ENGLAND. wrongly, it is suspected that the members of this branch of the leg- islature favor the possession of large estates, and make it their busi- ness to protect the interests of the landowners. Still, with excep- tions, the two houses pull well together. A great deal depends on the tact and ability of the governor, who is nominated by the Sov- ereign. An able governor keeps well in the background, and, avoiding all suspicion of interference, quietly exercises a salutary influence. Greatly to the credit of the colonies, they attach the highest importance to education. Their public educational systems are of rare excellence, and they grudge no expense in maintaining them. The universal feeling is that no child should grow up uned- ucated, whilst, for the most part, a purely secular system is in favor. The colonies maintain at great expense charitable institutions, with- out, however, admitting any special legislation for paupers. They deal with pauperism as though its nature was accidental, and the result of exceptional misfortune. It is no part of their belief that one section of the people has the right to look for constant support from another. In the absence of intricate vested interests, colonial legislation is more prompt and thorough than in the home country. At times there is a danger of the over-hasty enactment of new laws. Especial importance is attached to local government; many systems prevail, and the details are widely various. But every colony aims at perfecting its own system, accommodating it to its own peculiari- ties. Local government is designed on very broad foundations. Cities, towns, boroughs, road districts, hundreds, shires, and coun- ties are variously included. The object is that the thinly and the thickly populated portions of the country should alike depend for local improvements on the exertions of the people most concerned, supplemented by such assistance as Parliament is willing to give from the general revenue. The excellence of their local institutions develops in the people a capacity for office that infinitely aids the larger object of colonial self-government. The local politician wins his way, by well-tried service, to the most important positions in the central government. The ordinary institutions of government are closely modeled after those of the mother country. Sometimes the models are improved upon. The colonists do rapidly what they de- sire; the Queen's Government, equally wishful, has to defer until various interests can be sufficiently conciliated. The colonists are vigorous; if they think that legislation is required, they make short work of opposing forces, effecting in a session as much as would take ten years' discussion in the English Parliament. Society in the colonies is as largely divided as in older communi- IMPERIAL LAND AND CONCLUSL ties. There are sections and circles and cliques, each to itself a host. Patrician blood and old family associations n •..■,■)• I a certain extent, but they do not lead Bociety. Wealth, especially the wealth represented by landed possessions, gives to its own< r, as a rule, the highest consideration, unless associated with want of education or want of character. To have risen by personal industry and perseverance is no bar to the attainmenl of the highest social position. Whatever tendency there may be to I i formation of an aristocracy lies in the direction of a landed aris- tocracy. Professional men and merchants, however, are held in high esteem. There is something allied to contempt felt for those who pose ing a certain amount of education and without a special occupation, are only lit for clerks or apj^ointments in the Government service. Persons of this kind swarm in the colonies. They learn to envy the men who have to depend only on their physical strength. For in countries where labor is scarcely less valuable than capital, manual exertion commands, as might be expected, more respect than it do in crowded communities. That the laborer to-day should be his own master to-morrow, and a few years later a rich man, excites no surprise, for instances of the kind are plentiful. Politicians and jniblic men do not necessarily hold high social positions. It can hardly even be said that the pursuit of politics is a good road to social eminence. But exceptions must be made of the really suc- cessful public men who show marked ability and high character. Freedom and liberty inspire new ideas, and create a thirst for in- formation. The press is held in great respect, and colonial jour- nalism is distinguished by much ability. Art, the drama, and music are well encouraged. The best paid "stars" in the mother country find it profitable to make a colonial tour. Colonists, on the who] are a pleasure-loving people. Manly sports are enthusiastically pur- sued. Cricket, football, rowing, boating, hunting, and horse-racing are as much venerated in the distant colonies as in the mot coun- try; and occasionally colonial competitors show they are able to take their own part when set to compete with the champions "1" a popu- lation one hundred-fold greater than them own. The colonists are law-abiding and law-loving people. Life and property are duly venerated. Occasionally there are exceptions in^some inland vil- lage in which the convict taint has outlived the eradicating influ- ences of education; but the rest of the community are unsparing in their enmity to lawlessness. Whenever excesses become marked, they are hunted down. The ringleaders are punished with extr< me 590 ENGLAND. severity, whilst those who secretly sympathize with the guilty learn at least the discretion of expediency. It is seldom one hears now of the bushranging (as highway robbery is called) which was once not uncommon. There is a strong disposition to support the inde- pendence of the law courts. Colonial judges are generally pos- sessed of high attainments and great learning. The decisions of colonial courts are rarely upset on appeal to the Privy Council; the minor courts are well sustained. In some respects a longing eye may be cast to colonial example. In many colonies there are public £>rosecutors, whose duty it is to redeem criminal prosecutions from the suspicion of being used for the exercise of private vengeance or the extortion of civil claims, as is too frequently the case when the criminal law is put into force by private individuals. The colonists, too, do not as a rule favor unpaid justices of the peace. Even in thinly populated districts they are disposed to employ capable sti- pendiary magistrates. "For my part," said Burke, in his speech on American taxation, " I look upon the imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which the colonists ought to enjoy under those rights, to be just the most reconcilable things in the world. The Parliament of Great Britain is at the head of her extensive empire in two capacities: one as the local legislature of this island, providing for all things at home immediately, and by no other instrument than the executive power; the other, and I think her nobler capacity, is what I may call her imperial character, in which, as from the throne of heaven, she superintends all the several inferior legislatures, and guides and controls them all, without annihilating any." There can be little doubt that it is upon the degree of fidelity with which the mother country fulfills these duties towards her dependencies that her tenure of them rests. The empire of Great Britain is«one which, having its beginnings in the fact of military superiority, finds the elements of its growth and strength in the idea of moral service to mankind, and in recognizing, while performing this service, that it is no part of English duty to pose as a militant evangelist before the world, or to embrace every opportunity for a crusade of arms, wherever there may arise the semblance of a religious or imperial sanction. The problem which confronts England at the present time is to ad- minister her empire on principles that are in consonance, not only with the national instincts of Englishmen, but with the changed political habits of the race. It is at least certain that no analogy can be drawn between the empire of England and any other em- pire that ever existed. All other empires have been based upon a IMPERIAL ENGLAND AND CONCH despotism; the empire of England alone is based upon 6 | liberty. It may be that the events of the next few years will d die imperial future of this country. The relations thai Great Britain and her colonial dependencies may be Btren I or weakened, may ho made closer or more distant, but can scarcely remain permanently what they now are. As it is ,-,t present coj tuted, the British Empire is in a state of potential elisor Hon, and the chief link which hinds its different parts together timent of patriotism that is common to all Englishmen I- with her feudatory princes and semi-independent governments, real- izes the idea of empire more than any other of the foreign p sions of the Crown, hut the connection between England and [ndia is unique. For the rest, the British Empire in its political and mil- itary aspects is as full of anomalies and contradictions as the British Constitution. The absence of immediate connection between the capital of the empire and the colony, or the personal views of a colonial governor, may jriunge the mother country at any moment into a colonial war, for which it is unprepared, and of which the Home Government disapproves. The exigencies of British Empire in Europe entail a war in Asia, and Parliament is unable d< finitely to lis: the burden of payment on any one quarter. It is consid that British interests in Europe arc jeopa and t! of introducing the foreign troops of the Crown to an island in the Mediterranean is canvassed in a debate that raises tin c< in- stitutional issues. A dead-lock ensues in the political lii Australasian colony, and after months of negotiation with the < ol- onial Office in London nothing is settled. In commercial and finan- cial affairs the same chaotic conditions exist. England is a nation of free traders. Yet as a man's worst enemies are those of his own household, so those most bitterly opposed to free trade are English subjects. The British Empire is held together by no imperial tariff, whilst the British dependencies impose protective duties on British exports, so heavy as sometimes to be almost prohibitive Such is the actual state of things, and such are the tendencies which this state of things discloses. Sooner or later it is inevitable that these tendencies should assert themselves in a definite b) On the one hand, there is the strong, if Bometimes latent, for resented by community of race, language, and for the mosi pari oi religion; on the other, there are divergencies ami distraction almost every department of the imperial system: which of these two sets of powers is ultimately to accompli. ;h itself? [1 thai 592 ENGLAND. events outside the limits of the British Empire are destined to be instrumental in answering this question. It is the age of big bat- talions and colossal armaments, and the arbiter of Europe is he who is the master of many legions. Moral force rests upon a basis of military power, and no diplomacy is successful unless it is prepared, in the last resort, to use the strong arm. Free trade and inter- national exhibitions have not brought the millennium appreciably nearer to mankind. The militaiw spirit was never stronger in En- gland than to-day; the question, What must England do to retain her traditional place in the nations of the world? never more anxiously discussed. She may be warned against pursuing that inrjerial policy which would introduce India and the colonies as elements into her international relations in Europe, and which would teach her to use these dependencies as recruiting grounds for her imperial army. But if something of the sort be not done En- gland may at any moment find herself in the position of an island pitted against a continent. There is a point beyond which reliance cannot be placed on the resources of the smaller England at home for men and arms; and may it not be necessary to go further than this, if Englishmen would show themselves able to hold their own against the great military empires of Europe? Organization for such an end as this, and on an imperial scale, would mean a mode of imperial federation; and if the same spirit animates the English race in all parts of the world as has animated it in other ages, it is conceivable that England's place in the European system and the exigencies of the position, may force her to the choice between im- perial federation and subsidence into a third-rate power. There is much in the temper which has of recent years been dis- played both in England and in her colonies to justify the belief that such an era as this may not be so very remote. The problem will certainly have to be discussed and settled. If no Royal Commission is heard of, specially appointed to investigate the existing relations between those various parts of the British Empire with which on principles and by processes widely different, England has extended her area and influence, the hour must yet come when those relations wrll be considered and revised. The tune and its necessities may be trusted to bring the statesmanship which they require. Events make the man, and it will be for the statesman of the future to assist in the development or destruction of the imperial idea. Some notion has been given of the extent and capacity of England's empire; what will England do with it ? Will the English democracy, whose sovereignty is becoming in the last resort paramount, decide that it IMPERIAL ENGLAND AND • dy a splendid incumbrance, or recognize thai witi gland berself would lose her historic characti r? Da thai d< i about to show that, no more than others, it can I from the reproach of fickleness? or, proving itseli traditional constancy and firmness chari tic oi the i ill it give assurance that though supreme power may have found depositary, the manner in which that power is <.••.< iv. changed? INDEX o>*i— Abolition of purchase: arguments for and against, 442; inevitable hardships of, 412; its general re- sults, 444, 445. Absenteeism: of the squire, 9; of the rector, 16, 17; its evils in rural administration, 47. Accidents on railways, 258. Action, a necessity of social dis- tinction, 318. Actor, The, and acting. (See The Stage. ) Administration of vast estates, 28- 42; of smaller estates generally, 41, 42; advantages of the control of a superior agent, 42; adminis- tration of commercial business, 130-140. (For Administration of Government offices, Trade, &c, see under different beads. ) Admiralty, The: constitution of the Board, 437, 438; its unique inde- pendence, 438; the Controller and his duties, 437, 438. Adulteration of manufactured goods, its enormous harm, 128; its aban- donment a national necessity, 129. Agent, The. (See The Lank Agent. | Agricultural area of England, 192; how held, 192. Agricultural capabilities of Great Britain, Mr. Caird on, 191, 192. Agricultural laborer: the suspicious nature of, 13, 14; the modern cot- tage, 174; the allotment, 174; hours of labor, 174; diet, 174, 177, 178. His career: as a boy, 175, 176, his knowledge of nature, 175, bird- scaring abolished, 176, influence of the School Boards, 175; man — arduous duties of the shep- herd, carter, milkman, 176, the day-laborer, 17C ITS, aday'swoTk, 177, 178, pay in harvest-tune, 178, his recreations, L79. Squal poachers, and idlers, 179, 180; ill influence of the beerhon his dress, 180; advantages of the co-operative store, 180, L81; ei of newspaper reading, 182; re- forms still necessary overcrowd- ing, sanitary evils, 188 : in- fluence of drink, a stri] example, 1S8; the si itute Eai evils, 189, happily dj i women as field laborers, 190, 191, Bishop Fraser's e: L90, satisfactory exam] . North- umberland, 190, 191; hiring by families, curious insl agricultural wages, 194 !' cial instances of, "ii a throughout Bd gland, L95, value of milk diet in V berland 195 ( / condition of, L96, cheap necessaries, 196, ink- enness, 196; intelligence Northumberland pea t, I'.'T; beneticial < of 1834, 197, 198; Union, l'.ts, I'.i'.t; his tolei the farmer, 199; prosp the peasant and i Hi cl i of education, 199, 20 of co-op at A m, 236, 287. Agricultural anions: objections t". 20; ill-ad"? ised am ion by them throu jh BJ Mitchell, 20; their action defed . L98, L99. Agricultural wa Aldermen: their .1 . 64; pro- vincial aldermen, 70. 596 INDEX. Allotment, The, 174; Dr. Fraser on, 187 ; a garden preferable, 187. Amsterdam, once the international clearing - house, as London now is, 114. Amusements, Popular: change of, in recent years, 512; decease of the showman, 543; influenc* 1 of railway communication, 544, the excursion train, a scene on the Norfolk coast, 544. 545; greater opportunities of recreation in the northern counties, 545, 54(j; Lon- don recreations, 546, 547; the music-ball, its influences for good and evil, 547; higher amusements, the museum, the library, 547; the working-man's club, its constitu- tion and aims, 547, 548, its aspect described, 548, 549, expected ben- eficial result, 549; the drama, 550, the theater and its supporters, "old and new," 550, 551, general features and aims of the modern stage, 551-555. Analysis, Triumph of, in the pres- ent age, 502. Arbitration: beneficial result of, 167, 168; special instances in the Cleveland district, 285; Mr. Mun- della's early advocacy of, 167; the masons' strike of 1S77, 168. Archdeacon, The, and his functions, 463, 464. Architecture of the day, 517, 518. Archives, Variety and extent of, in a vast estate, 39, 40. Area of England, Agricultural, 192; how held, 192. Aristocracy, The: "change" its habit, 302, 303; a squire of the old school and of the new, 303- 305; recent rush of, into com- merce, 311, 312, value of primo- geniture, 312; our nobility are not "noblesse," 312, exclusive- ness of the "noblesse," in Aus- tria, Princess Esterhazy an in- stance, 312, 313, contrasted with English society, 313, 314; asso- ciation of diverse ranks in English society, 314, its necessary outcome, reserve, 313; precedence in En- gland, with instances, 314-316; stimulated to action by the Re- form Bill, 318; their avocations, 318, 319, power in politics in past times and present influence, 326- 328; influence of rank, 328; lev- eling up of the middle classes, 328; large share in present Minis- try, 328, 329; decrease of num- ber in the House of Commons, 381; elements of its perpetuation, 406; its influence and authority in the Parliament, 407, 408; its inclination to the Church of Rome, 474. Army, The: exceptional social rank of the officer, 324; numerous ap- peals to the War Minister, 368; army administration, the War Office, 439; difficulties presented, 439, 440; recent reforms, concen- tration, 440, its advantages, 441; supremacy of the Secretary for War, 441; functions of the Com- mander-in-Chief, 441; abolition of purchase, arguments for and against, 442, 443, necessary hard- ships, 442, absolute result, class as good, acquirements greater, 444; introduction of short ser- vice, 444, 445, disadvantages of, 445; recruiting, its procedure and safeguards, 446, 447; education of the soldier, 446, 447; effects of discipline, 447; advantages of the service, 447; merits and defects of rank and file, 448; insufficiency of the forces for imperial duties, 448; the militia, its importance and growing estimation of, 448, 449; volunteers, their origin, 449, 450, aeal, 449, and importance 450; the reserves, 450; the staff, 450; military strength, 450, 451; equipments, 451; its aspects as a profession, 572, 573; the officer of to-day a professed soldier, and ad- vantages, 572; pay and expendi- ture, 573. Army and Navy Co-operative So- ciety, The: its aspect and opera- tions, 222, 223 ; compared with the Rochdale store, 222, 225, 226; its progress, 232; its manufacto- ries and benefits accruing there- from, 233. INDEX. Arnold, Mr. Matthew: his theology, 459; his influence on religious and esthetic thought, 528; his writings, 629. Artisan, The: the policy of the mem- ber of Parliament towards deiined, 74; predominance of working men iu large towns, 84, 85; advanced propaganda, the Eleusis Club, 142, 143; types of , 143, 144; abundance of the better class, 144; his virtues and vices, 144; his instinct con- servatism, 144; his view of state emoluments, 144, 145; compared with the French and American workman, 145, 14G; his relation to the State contrasted with that of these, 145, 146; his moderation, 164; trades unions and their in- fluence, 166-169; beneficial results of arbitration, 167-169; the ma- sons' strike of 1877, 168; political bias of, 169; as members of Parlia- ment, 169, 170; the London and provincial artisan contrasted, sec- ularism of the former, 170, his habits and recreations, 169, 170, his difficulties in co-operation, 171, points of difference and causes thereof, 171, Sunday dinner, 172. Arts and Artists. (See Cultuee, Painting, and Music.) '•Assington experiment, The": suc- cess of, in agriculture, 236, 237. Attorney, The: social status of, 322, 323. Austin, Mr. Alfred, as a poet, 531, 532; " The Human Tragedy/' 531, 53 2. Author, The: exceptional social sta- tus of, and its reasons, 322, 324. (See also Liteeatuee.) Eagehot, Me. "Waltee: on the new and old constitution, 342; on the relations of Queen and Cabinet, and the Cabinet and people, 35i, on the vast prerogatives of the Queen, 352, 353; his contrasts of republic and monarchy, 354. Bailiff, The. (See Tee Land Agent. ) Baiu, Mr. Alexander: his contri- butions to philosophy, 497-499; his method, 497, 499; John Stuart Mill on his method, 498. Bank of England [\ exceptional functions, LIB; lation to other ba ..ill. Banking-house, A: i of bui b mo- tions "f the partnei . L35, LS '. the managing partn< r, I I »; th< •. cial pari heads of depai I 136, L87; a bankin. and a bank • treated, L37; fund the for- mer, L37; estimate ol capital em- ployed, 138; necessity to \\ the of politics, !:'■'.». Banks and ag. (See Pa \Si i \n England and Baj Baptists, The. (See .v - Bar, Tin : exceptional social rank of the barrister, and ri i r it, 3^-324; Queen's counsel, "silk" and "stuff," 419; value of uni- versity "honoi pects and Lnc i of Hie profes- sion, 565, 566. Barrister. The. (S Bab.) Bath, iis beaul '■ L02, BeacoiiStield, Lord, his reception by the mas sribed, 341. Bedford, Duke of: feudal customs at Woburn Abbey, 29. Benefit Society, The village, 1 ' Betting, Evils of, in Sheffield, 83, 84. Bicycle, The: its advi . - J; at Bushey Park, 268. Biography and travel, 536, 637; Mr. Treveh ! . Mr. Suns' "Life of Lessing," ! 537. Birmingham: primitive o 97; contrasted with 98;uui\> . ality of il pri I ■ social reorganization and by its ladies, 98. Bishop, The: his relation to thi thedral, !•■ •: I ion, 466. Black, Mr., as a Doveli Black Country, The : i Btil] extant in. 159, Blackmore, Mr.. Block Bystem on railw : il ; working explain* Board of Guardians. (I ^kd- ians.) Board Schools. (See 'I'm: Scno<>n BOAED. ) 598 LVD EX. Board of Trade, The, and its duties, ! 362. Borough magistrates. (See Magis- trates. ) Br addon, Miss, as a novelist, 535. Bradford. (See Yorkshire.) Brick-yards: necessity for legislation in, 152; evidence of Mr. George Smith, 152. Bright, Mr. John, as an orator, 395. Bristol, 101. Broad Church, The. (See The Chtjhch of England.) Brougham, Lord: his early advocacy of national education, 276; char- acteristic contemporary opposition to it, 276. Broughton, Khoda, as a novelist, 535. Browning, Mr., as a poet, 530. Bureaux de Bienfaisance, their op- erations, 214. Burglar, Operations of a practiced, 242. Burial Boards, 56. Burne Jones, Mr., as an artist, 513, 514. Buxton : restrictions in building im- posed by the Duke of Devonshire, 39; as a watering-place, its special attractions, 109. Cabinet Council, The : a meeting of, 364, 365; its procedure in legisla- tion described, 365. Cabs. London, 265. Cahill, Dr., testimony to the field employment of women, 190, 191. Caird, Mr., on the agricultural capa- bilities of England, 191, 192. Canal Population, Need of legisla- tion for, 152. Canterbury, 102. Capital, estimate of amount used in large businesses, 137, 138. Carlton Club, The, 334. Car] vie, Thomas: his bias for Ger- man philosophy, 503; as a writer, 503; influence of his writings in the present day, 539. Casual ward, The, its inmates and operations, 201. Cathedral and chapter, The: the dean and his office, 465; the canons, 465; relation of the bishop to, 465. Cathedral city, The: its aspect, 99; the close and its denizens, 100, 101, its social life, "Mrs. Prou- die," 101. Caucus, The: its introduction into England, 343; its aims, uses, and evils, 343-347; Mr. Chamberlain upon it, 343; "the six hundred," 313; its aspect in the United States, 344. Challenaer Expedition, Besidts of the, 523. Chamberlain, Mr. Joseph: on the Caucus, 343; on the perfection of the polity of the United States, 344. Chambers of commerce, 73; influ- ence wielded by members of Par- liament over their action, 73. Charity: treatment of charitable ap- plications bv great landowners, 27. Cheltenham, 102, 103. Chemistiy as a profession, 563. Children: State protection of, 146; birth in workhouse no disadvan- tage to the lowest classes, 202; career of the youthful criminal, 241 ; the clever boy, accidental nature of his education under old system, 272, 273, advantages now offered, 273; effect of changed so- cial life on parents and children, 305, 306; predilection for the sea and advantages offered by a naval career, 432. Church of England (see also The Rector): influence in parish af- fairs, 9; results of the agitation of Dissent, 20-22; allowably pref- erable in rural districts, 21, its influence in, 23; responsibility of its defense lies with the clergy, 21; necessity of tolerance and common sense, 18, example of effect of tol- erance, 24; procedure in ecclesi- astical courts, 426-429; its numer- ous sects analogous in this respect to the Komish faith and Noncon- formity, 454; statistics of services in London, 455, other signs of external activity, 455; her spirit- ual life, 456; inspiration and other questions of the day and issues in- volved, 456. The Broad Church: Dean Stanley on the progress of INDEX. theology, 457, on science and re- ligion, 458; theology and religion, 458; science and religion, difficul- ties of reconcilement, 458; Mr. Jowctt's theology, 458; Mr, M. Arnold's theology, 459. The High Church: 459, 460; Canon Liddon, 4G1; common, aspect of ritualism, 459; some of its peculiarities, 460; its occasional disregard of culture, 4(50; its attractions, 461. The Low Church: tendency and vitality of Evangelicalism, 461, 462. Tithes, 462; Queen Anne's bounty, 463; the archdeacon and his functions, 463, 464; the churchwarden, 464; the cathedral and chapter, the dean and his office, 465, the can- ons, 465, relation of the bishop to, 465, election of a bishop, 466; the rural dean and his office, 465; patronage, sale of advowsons and next presentations, 466. Church of Rome, The: a mission- ary organization directed by the congregation of the Propaganda, 473; establishment of the English hierarchy, 473: organization and rank of the clergy, 473; its pres- ent influence not advancing ex- cept amongst the aristocracy, 474; failure to establish the Catholic University, 474. Churchwarden, The, 464. City Corporation, The, 75. City guilds: their estates and their management, 41. Civil engineering: its attractions, 563; youthful predilection for, 563. Civil Service Co-operative Society: its origin, progress, and organiza- tion, 232. Civil Service Supply Association : the difficulties of membership, 225; its origin and progress, 229, 230; organization, 230, 231; asso- ciated tradesmen, 231; extent of its operations, 231; treatment of profits, 231. Clergy, The: exceptional social sta- tus of, and its cause, 322-324. (See also The Rector and The Church of England). Cleveland, Duke of: organization of his estates at Darlington, 34, 35; at Baby Castle, ' sription of the pr »perty, 84, 8 i and beneficial change to p 35; work.!.- 86; metho I of Beouring roj mines, o7. Clifton, 103. Club, The: olub life in Manch and Liverpool, 93, 94 ; olub in Loudon, its political influence, 331; its conditions and exp ase, 332; advantages of membership, 332; types of habitues, 3 diverse customs prevalent, 333; po- litical clubs, :'>.•;:>, 334; the Carlton and Reform, 334. unwise ac of, 333; the working-man's club — its constitution, anus, and oc- cupations, ol7 ">19, its literal 548, its aspect described, 648, expected beneficial result of, 549. Coleridge, the introducer of Ger philosophy, 503, 504. Collins, Mr. Wilkie, as a novelist, 533. Colonial Office, The: its administra- tion described, the Regis! ry * Office, 356; duties of the . manent, and I tentary der-Secretaries, 357. 358, co-ordi- nate power of the tw< i work of the Colonial Minister, 358, 359. Colonies and the colonists: pros] for the university graduate in, 566; necessity to foster emigrati* in, I prospects of the colonies, 581; r - quirements of the emigrant, 582; Crown dependencies and governing colonies, 5N1 : i British possessions in temp regions, 581; financial the State and colonies, 582; extent of trade with, 582; patriotism of, 5S3; th< bed fed the State and thi Burke thereon, 590; I hesion, ten- sion of privileges b turea tutions, their Qi nSC; supremacy of d( I 586; political government, position and policy ol I or, 588; Bocial I 600 INDEX. to consideration in, 589; respect for law, 589; colonial judges, 590; supremacy of physical power in, 589; the future of England in re- lation to, 591, 592. Commander - in - Chief. ( See The Army.) Commercial administration : central- ization of authority in, 130; typ- ical illustrations of — the cotton mill: process of manufacture, 130, 131, purchase of raw cotton, 139, 132, sale of cloth, 131, organiza- tion of the factory, 131, of the warehouse, 131, the managing partner, his functions and con- trol, 132. An iron works: its as- pect, 132, oi'ganization in the works, 133, at the mines, 133, "the puddler," 131, sale of the iron, 134, the managing partner, his functions and control, 134, 135. A banking-house: its aspect, 135, process of business in, 135, func- tions of the partners, 135, 13G, the managing partner, 135, the financial partner, 135, its organi- zation, heads of departments, 136, 137. A banking-house and a bank contrasted, 137, functions of the former, 137 ; amount of capital en- gaged in large businesses, 138 ; custom of delegated authority to one partner, 138, 139 ; needful watchfulness of the course of pol- itics, 139; advantages of rich con- cerns, 139; the gradual process of their construction, 140. Commercial England (see also Fi- nancial England and Commercial Administration) : London the cen- ter of commerce, 110; causes of depression and inflation of trade, 110, 111; cosmopolitan and gradual development of trade, 112; rami- fications of, 110-112; commerce the first essential of prosperity, 120, 121; our advantages in enter- prise and skilled labor, 120, 121, in accumulated capital, 121, 122, in free imports, 122; benefits ac- cruing from manufacturing, 121; the textile trade, 121; inseparable connection with banking, 122; past prosperity and present depression, 123, 124, overtrading, 124, excess of imports — its caxises, 124, 125, its lesson, 125, 126, the new theory of, 124, necessity of some stay in, 126, increase of luxury, 126, new fields of enterprise, 127, effects of the public-house, 128, reasons for hopefulness, 128; values, not vol- ume, of trade decreased, 128; prob- able competition from the United States, 128, from India, 128; evils of adulteration, 128, its abandonment a necessity, 129; capital engaged in, 137, 138; necessary watchful- ness of politics, 139; railway ex- penditure and income, 258; recent influx of the aristocracy, 311, 312; its prospects and lessened attrac- tions as a career, 567; extent of trade with the colonies, 582. Commercial Towns. (See Towns of Business. ) Commissioner, The. (See The Land Agent. ) Common sense: necessity of, in re- ligious matters, 18; the Scotch philosophical school of, 484. Commoner, The: social advantages possessed by, 317; exceptional so- cial rank sometimes achieved, 317. Competition in trade, Prospects of, 128; from the United States, 128; from India, 128. Competitive examination, 286, 287; the " crammer," 287; inducements held out to university graduates, 287. Compstall (Cheshire), a model man- ufacturing village, 87. Compulsory education, how en- forced, 274; early objections to, 275; its strangeness to the English- man, 275; practical beneficial re- sults of, 275. Comte, Auguste: his Positivist doc- trines and their influence on En- glish philosophy, 485 ; G. H. Lewes's tribute to, 487. Congregationaiists, or Independ- ents. (See Nonconformity.) Conservative Club, The: unwise po- litical action of, 333. Conservatives, The: conservatism of the working man, 144; treatment of the rank and file by the lead- IXDF.X. ers, 334; their organization, 345; prevalence of, in the Upper ii 407. Constitutional monarchy (see also The Ceown), its real position de- fined, 347; the guarantees of its stability, 348, 349, 352. Controller of the Navy, The, his special duties, 437, 438. vict. The. (See Peison and Prisoners. ) Co-operation: the village co-opera- tive store; its introduction and advantages, 181, an example, 181, beneficial sale of beer by, 181; its incitement to thrift, 220; Roch- dale and London: the Rochdale Pioneers, 222, 224, 225, the Army and Navy Stores, 222, 223, Lon- don and Rochdale stores con- trasted, 225, 226; Civil Service Supply Association: difficulties of membership, 225, its origin, prog- ress, and organization, 229-232, its associated tradesmen, 231, ex- tent of its operations, 231, its profits, 231 ; the Co-operative Wholesale Society, 229; the Civil Service Co-operative Society, 232; the Army and Navy Co-operative Society : its progress, manufac- tures, and operations, 232, 233; spuriousness of many associations, 225; advantages of- co-operation to the higher classes, 226, to the working classes, 225, 226, 234, 235; Mr. Jacob Holyoake thereon, 234; effect of enthusiasm on co-opera- tion, 227; Owen's failure and rea- sons, 227; its claim to higher aims, 228; its educational value, 235; its prospects, 235, 236; general bene- fits of the movement, 237; the "Assington" agricultural co-op- eration, and its success, 236, 237. Co - operative Wholesale Society, Operations of the, 229. Corporate bodies, Advantages of tenancy under, 194. Cottage, The: the modern cottage, 174; overcrowding, need of in- crease in number, 183; small re- turns on capital, 186. Cotton-mill, The : description of, 87-89; a day's toil at, 88, 89; pro- pin of oloth, i:ii. L82; o the factory, L81, L82; in the wi house, 131, i ■ partner, his fanotdona and i fcrol, L32; estimate of capital ■ ployed, 137, L88. Country hoi e modern, 805; constituents of Bocial life in, 331; disappearance of "the wit," 331. Country town, The. I'm: Town. ) County Court, The, 424 L26; facili- ti< s offered to 124; a rep- resentative case, "servant r>. em- ployer," 423-426; its aspect and procedure, 121. !:.">; ivpi.-al ei in, 425, 126; appeals from, L2 County suffrage, Possible r< 408. Court, The. (See The Cbown.) "Crammer," The, 287. Crime: difficulties in estimating its origin and extent, 238, 239; im- provement in legislation, 239; evils of transportation, 240; prevention and its difficulties, 240, •_". 1 : bene- fits of reformatories and industrial schools, 241; career of the youth- ful criminal, 241; of theadult, 242; the burglar, 241, 242; recoil and their frequent immunity, l l\l\ criminals from the middle phi and causes of crime, 211, 245; brutal crimes, 245; the pi crime: their career (meed. 5 247; its similarity, 246; operations of the police, '217 250, defects and merits of, 247, the detect 248-250, improvement in, prosecution of a prisoner the process, 251; effects of the Pri Act of 1877, 251, 252, treatment of the ordinary prisoner and of the convict. 252 254; dischai prisoners and the Aid E 255; decrease of, through educa- tion BtatL tie . 281, ^ heft from the person." pro lure in, 412-416; Dr. Maudaley on evolu- tion of crime. 491, Criticism. (See Cl i i> i;i: and 1 EBATUKB.) 602 INDEX. Crown, The : disposition of the masses to accept political situa- tion, 338, 339 ; enthusiasm for royalty, 339, 340; docility of the modern "firebrand," 340; ovations to ministers, 340, 341; the great leaders described, 341; Mr. Bage- hot on the new and old constitu- tion, 342; Lord Derby on the re- lation of the Government to the masses, "employers and em- ployed," 347; supremacy of the democratic polity, 347; constitu- tional monarchy, its real aspect defined, 347; checks on democracy, 348; guarantees of the stabilitv of the Constitution, 348, 349, 352; Mr. Bagehot on the relations of So-vereign to Cabinet, and of Par- liament to the masses, 351, 352; the presidential system a tempo- rary despotism, 351; approxima- tion of classes in Government, and influences at work, 352; the Queen's prerogative, its vastness, but limited use, 352, 353; Mr. Bagehot thereon, 352, 353; ser- vices of a Sovereign, 353, and of a court, 353; monarchy and re- public contrasted by Mr. Bagehot, 354; a Privy Council meeting de- scribed, 363, the Premier and the Sovereign, 363, 364, method of communication from ministers to the Queen described, 364, 365; probable results of county suf- frage, 408, 409, possible difficul- ties in strife between classes, 409; possible national calamities, 409, 410; secure tenure of the Crown, 409, 410; patriotism of the colonies, 583; the suggested federation of the colonies, 583; the different power of democracy in the col- onies, at home, and in the Crown dependencies, 5S6; the present and future of Eu gland, 590-593, specially in relation to the col- onies, 591, 592. Crown dependencies, 581; absence of democratic feehng in, 586. Culture (see also Paxstt:lxg, Music, Literateee, and Science), estheti- cism in modern houses, 506-508; a eex in taste, feminity of the period in decorations and literature, 507; debt of art to Prince Consort, 508, to Buskin, 509; School of Art, South Kensington, 509; es- theticism in female dress and rec- reations, 510, 511; art criticism: Mr. Buskin, Mr. Hamerton, Mr. Pater, Mr. Augustus Hare, 516; art patronage, 517; the State and art, 517, schools of design, 517; rapid spread of musical culture, 518; influence of Matthew Ar- nold and Max Muller on es- thetic thought, 528; summary of the results of culture, 527, 528. Dairy farms, Increase in number of, 193. Darwin: philosophy of, 501, 502; "Origin of Species," 501; his theory of evolution and its wide influence, 502. Democracy: its part in the structure of society, 310; a democratic pol- ity now established, 347; checks upon democracy, 348; its force, •first, in the colonies, secondly, at home, thirdly, in the Crown de- pendencies, 586; what use will it make of its power ? 592, 593. Depression and inflation in trade, causes of, 111, 123, 124, 127-129. Derby, Lord, on the Ministry and the masses, "employer and em- ployed," 347, 348. Design, schools of, 517. Devonshire, Duke of : works at Chatsworth, 38; customs on the Devonshire estates, 38, 39; farms let on annual agreement and re- valuation, 38, comparative fixiry of tenure, 38, organization of, 39; restrictions on building at Bux- ton and Eastbourne, 39. Diet of the rural laborer, 174-177; the milk diet in Northumberland, 195. Diplomacy: as a profession, 571; necessity of wealth and position to its followers, 571; its peculiari- ties, 571; diplomatic establish- ment (See Foreign Office.) Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, Beneficial operations of, 255. Dissent. (See NoNCONFOFviiiTT. ) INI Diversity of the working classes, a 1 guarantee of order, 142, 143. Doc- tor, The. (See The Medioai Profession. ) Dod on precedence, 314. Domesticity: effects of changed so- oial life on, 305, 300; fashionable parents and children, 305, 300; present feminine independence, 307. Drama, The. (See The Stage.) Du Manrier, Mr., as an artist, 519; " the music of the future," 519. Durham, 101. RT1 Ir- an Englishman's Earnestness of pursuits, 319. Eastbourne: the Duke of Devon- shire's properties there, 32; his restrictions on building, 39. Ecclesiastical Commissioners, The: are the largest landowners, 40; management of their estates, 41. Ecclesiastical courts, The procedure in, 426-429. Economy of force, a feature of the present age, 5, 6. Education (See also School Boards, Universities, and Schools): the village school and its advantages, 173; prospective effect on the peasant, 199, 200; benefits derived from co-operation, 235; the clever boy: accidental method of his ad- vancement under the old system, 272, 273, his patrons, 273, advan- tages now offered, 273, 274, the School Board and its procedure, 273-284, compulsory education, 274, 275; State and voluntary aid Tinder the old regime, 275, 270; Education Acts of 1870 and 1870, 275, operations of the former, 277, 278; Lord Brougham's advo- cacy of national education and characteristic contemporary op- position, 276; progress of State control, 276, 277; secular and re- ligious teaching, 277, this qi tion debated, 297; aims of the Education Department, 278; gen- erally unsatisfactory results of learning by rote, 279-281; the working man's ignorance of the economy of life, 281; decrease of crime resulting from > ,! si i own by -j>,|. present v. nditui 284; grammar school . . ndi . and p •' : 286; comp I the "crammer, 1 menl - ; tto oni\ nates, 287; receni by the aniversitiei < i Lations, professorial oh unattached studi conferences of schoolrc the College of Preceptoi types of inefficient mi 290, 291 ; n. r; ■ aity for bi i schools, 289; inefficiency school education, 289; direct indirect in i of school, great value of the latter. 291; n - sponsibility of j late: I • preference for plaj . 292; • i iniza- tion of the public school . 292, 294; in< visi- bility of the mod the higher tea* I doubtful result, 2! ization the key of the pn tern, 296; unive: 207; when denominational einh>v. education of the soli i Educational Act. The: co the Corporations A.ct, 62; in- timate con i with legislation, L53 L55; satisfac result of, b"i!: refor is m 154, abuse of, wh» ing and agricull xa its relation to I ' i 1 oper Education Office, The: in i to the rector, L3; aim oi partment in respeci liool Boards, 277. : Edwards, Rev. W. W M on Parliament in relation to I 2 !, 2 forms, 219. Effi iiencr and profession! "Elberfield - xperiment, Tl ■ of, 142, 143. cm INDEX. Eiiot, George : her works an instance of the invasion of science into lit- erature, 525; her novels, 534; her doctrine of ' ' the religion of hu- manity," 510; parallel teaching of John Morley, 540. Embankments, The Thames, 77. Emigration. (See The Colonies.) Employer and employed: modera- tion of the latter 164; example, the cotton famine, 164; instances in contrast, the Nottingham frame- breakers, 165; rarity of violence in our time, 166. Endowed Schools Act, The, 285. Engineer, The mining, 161. Equity and law defined, 418, 419; their amalgamation through re- cent reforms, 418. Established Church. (See Chuech oe England.) Estates, Landed. (See Landlobd.) Estheticism. (See Cultuee.) Evangelicalism. (See The Chuech of England.) Evolution. (See Philosophy.) Excellence of some kind, a necessity through life, 319. Exeter, 102; its special attractions to residents, 102. Factoby legislation: state protection of women and children, 146; ex- cessive interference a blunder, 147; its progress traced, 147-153; bene- fit of limited hours, 149; summary of Factory Acts, 149, 150 {foot- note); connection with the Ediica- tion Act, 153-155; beneficial re- sults of, 158, 159; Mr. Redgrave thereon, 158, 159. Factory operative, The: predomi- nance of, in Lancashire towns, 85; his intelligence, his singular indulgences, 86; his recreations — curious examples, 86; early mar- riages and their effect, 85; his day's work described, 87-89; ex- traordinary independence of, 94; progress of factory legislation 147- 152; its bene fieial results, 150, 158, 159; his physical deterioration and its causes, 8G, 159, 160. 1 ing and the prefect, 293, 294. Families hired as field laborers, cu- rious customs, 189, 190. Farmer, The: different types of, 22; a modern farmer's family, 23; his relation to the Board of Guard- ians, 45, 46; doubtful results of peasant proprietorship, 187; ef- fects of Acts of husbandry and rotation of crops, 191; advani of the large farmer, 191; Mr. Caird on the agri cultural capabilities of England, 191, 192; disappearance of the yeomen, 192; increased number of dairy-farms and mar- ket-gardens, 193; speculative rem- edies, redistribution of land, 194; tenancy under corporate bodies, 194; tolerance of the laborer to the farmer, 199. Female independence : is the result of our changed social life, 307; its effect in the present day, 308, 309; possible ultimate benefit of, 309. Feudal customs at Woburn Abbey 29; rarity of, to-day, 29. Financial England : conventional mystery of money market and credit, 110; London the center, 110 ; impossibility to trace fi- nance from general to particular, 111; causes of depression and in- flation, 111 ; cosmopolitan and gradual development of, 112; its wide ramifications, 111, 112. The Bank of England: its primary functions, 113 ; its exceptional functions, 113, 114; its relation to other banks, 114. London, the international clearing-hor.se, 111, has replaced Amsterdam in this function, 114; reasons of its growth, 115. The Stock Exchange, its op- erations, 115, its aspect, 116, in- vestment business, 116, gambling or specitlative business, 116, 117, issue of a foreign loan, 117-119, deceptions practiced towards the public, 118, 119; inseparable con- nection between banking and com- merce, 122, 123; the financial part- ner in a banking-house, 136; a banking-house and a bank con- trasted, 137; functions of the for- mer, 138. IND:. X. Fine arts, Cultivation of, in towns of business, 81. (See also Culture.) Flats, Life in: Victoria Street, W< st- minster, 299; its advantages, 300. Forces, strength of the army, 262, 263. Foreign loans: process of issue, 117- 121; deceptions practiced on the public, 1.18, 119. Foreign Office, The: its administra- tion, 380, 301; secrecy necessary 360; the departments, 300; or- ganization of the Treaty Depart- ment, 361; the Diplomatic Estab- lishment and its privileges, the St. James's Club, 360; numerous trou- blesome applications to, 370, 371. France: the French artisan in his relation to the State, 145; com- pared with that of the English, 146, 147 ; effect of intercourse with, on our social life, '299; the imprint of French habits, 299; eases in which overdone, 301; its effect on the stage, 301, 302; on the relations of the sexes, 302; on marriage, 305-307; its influence on literature, 539; on the writings of Mr. Frederic Harrison and Mr. John Morley, 539; influence of the French school on our stage, 551; French domestic morality unsuit- able to English actors and au- diences, 554-556; French plays in London commonly have limited audiences, 580; French and En- glish newspapers and journalism contrasted, 575. Eraser, Dr. (Bishop of Manchester) : on defects in the Sanitary Act, 184; on overcrowding and propaga- tion of disease, 185; on allotments, 187; on employment of women in agriculture, 190. Free discussion, Beneficial results of, 142. Free trade: benefits of free imports, 122, excess of, its causes, 124, 125, its lesson, 125, 126, the new I ry, 124, values, not volume, of trade decreased, 128. Freeman, Mr., as an historian, 538. Friendly societies: the village I fit society, 14; Government actua- rial tables, 215; necessity of the co- operation of employ* r and difficulties, 216 to the state, 21 ,: \- ment, 217; gestion for State conti 219; penny banks. 219 221 / Frugi turer, 82. Future o .id. The, di 591 59 to the colonies and (• ain, 591, 51 2. Garden, A. preferable to the allot- ment, 187. Germany: influence of German thought on the philo ophy of to-day, 502 504, Lntrod CoL lyle, 503; influent i of B< pel, 5 growing influi Liszt, Wagner, 519. Girls, The higher teachi its doubtful results, 2! Gladstone, Righl Eon. tion to, by the n 341; on the duty of the Pri . to his colli . 364. Government, Imperial. (See Ti:i: State. ) Gramma r schools, the advant offered by, in certain Great landowners. (See LAND- LORDS. ) Great officers of State, their tit! precedent y, 3 Greater England.) Guardians, Board, of, !!: claim c ididi ratepayers, 44 ; its dut '• I influence of the recfc >r am er, Jo. 46; desirable 48: ■• in a I ::': composil ; <>n <uke of Northumberland's commission- er, 33, 34; bailiwicks and on the property, 33, 34; advan- tages of the control of a superior agent, 42. Landed estates (S< e L •••• •• Landlord, The: CO] mate of the OCOUpati ,:t landowner, 27; the actual creditable fulfill- ment of bis duties, 26; bis respon- sibilities, 26, 27; daily routine life of, 27, 28; his fcrei I I of char- itable • uization and admini 28-42; completem onte 608 INDEX. and checks upon them, 28, 29; feudal customs rarely seen, 28, 29; feudal customs at Woburn Abbey, 29; the Duke of Westminster's es- tate (Eaton), organization of, 29, 30, security of tenure of the work- men employed, 30; Duke of Nor- thumberland's estate (Alnwick Castle), organization of, 30, 31, Tynemouth excavations, 31, Tyne- mouth, 31, 32, the ducal interests represented on the commission, 31, vast properties of the Nor- thumberland estate, 32, 33, the farms upon it, 32, 33, duties of the chief commissioner, 33, 34, bailiwicks and agents, 33, 34; the Duke of Cleveland's estates (see Cleveland, Duke of); Duke of Devonshire's estates (see Devon- shire, Duke of); archives, their variety and extent, 39, 40; gen- eral condition of leases, 40; lands of Crown and Ecclesiastical Com- missioners (the largest landown- ers), 40, 41, the system of their management, 41; lands of the City guilds, their management, 41; smaller estates, their general management, 41, 42; advantages of the control of a superior agent, 42; influence of great landlords, ubiquitous, 31, 32; the close and open village, 185 [footnote); in- creased sense of resjjonsibility, 186; effect of abolition of old Poor Law, 186; small returns of cottage property, 186; Acts of Husbandry, 191; gradual passing of estates from poor men, 186; agricultural area of England, how held, 192; political influence, 326. Land question, The: doubtful result of peasant proprietorship, 187; different habits of French and En- glish peasants, 187; agricultural area of England, 192, how held, 192; small squires and yeomen disappearing, 192; limited State interference, the Inclosure Com- missioners, 193; speculative rem- edy, redistribution of land, 194. Law and equity defined, 418, their amalgamation under recent re- form, 418. Law courts, The: the police court and its procedure, 411, 412, na- ture of cases brought before it, 412, 413, a representative case, "theft from the person," 412, 413; Quarter Sessions, aspect of, 414, 415, its grand jury and pro- cedure, 414, cases brought before it, 414, 415, questions of law, 416; Court for Crown Cases Reserved, its procedure and disabilities, 416; advantages of a final court of ap- peal, 416; ordinary litigation and its difficulties, a representative case, "a repairing lease, "416—123, the preliminaries, 417, pleadings, 417, interrogatories, 418, trial at Westminster, 419-421; appeal to Divisional Court, 421, appeal to the House of Lords and final judgment, 422, 423; law and equi- ty, definition of, 418, beneficial amalgamation of, by recent re- forms, 418; Judges' Chambers, 418; Queen's counsel, "silk "and "stuff, " 419 ; typical cases at West- minster Hall, 419; the Divisional Court, 421; dress of the judges, 421, 422; the House of Lords and life peers, 422, 423; national aver- sion to law, 423, 424; the County Court, 424-426, facilities offered to suitors, 424, a representative case, servant and employer, 423- 426; County Court procedure, 425, its aspect, 425, typical cases, 425, 426, appeal from, 426; ecclesiasti- cal courts and their procedure, 426-429; Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, its aspect and constitution, 428, typical cases, 428, 429; transitional state of the law courts, 429, 430; their advance with the times, 430; suggested modifications, 430; colonial judges, 590. Leamington, 102, 103. Leases, General conditions of, on large estates, 40. Leeds. (See Yorkshire.) Legislation, Modern: effects of, 3; state protection of women and children, 146; excessive interfer- ence a blunder, 147; progress of recent factory legislation traced, INDEX. I I 147-153; reforms still needful, 150- 152, 155-157; summary of factory legislation, 149, 150 [footnote), re- sults of it, 149, 150, L58, 169; Leg- islation in shops, 153; r< the Education Act, 153-155; the truck system not yet abolished, 155, 150; necessity of elasticity in application, 157; mining legisla- tion, 160; legislation for friendly societies. 217; improvement in criminal legislation, 239; benefi- cial effect of the Prison Act, 251, 252; railway enactments, 260,261: the Railway Commissioners, 2ld. 262; method of procedure in leg- islation on the part of the Cabinet, 364, 365. Lewes, G. H. : his Positivism, trib- ute to Comte, 487; his philosophy, 499-501; "History of Philoso- phy." 499; contempt for meta- physics, 499, 500; excellence of his style and method, 500. Liberals, The: the treatment of the rank and file by the leaders, 334. Licenser of Plays, The: his functions described, 55G-560; defense of his office, 557-500. Life in the nineteenth century. (See The Present Age.) Lister, Mr., his recent and rapidly growing influence in physiology, 522; advocacy of "antiseptic treat- ment," 522. 569. Literature : exceptional social sta- tus of the author and its cause, 322-324: openings offered to poli- ticians, 372, 373; the review the platform of the individual, 373; Carlyle as a writer, 503; invasion of, by psychology, 524. by physi- ology, instanced in the writings of George Eliot, 524, 525; popu- larity of manuals, 528, 529 ; Mr. Arnold's writings, 529; modern ex- tension of literary criticism. 529; Mr. Pater, Mr. Symonds, and Professor Shairp as critics, 529. Modern poetry and poets: Brown- ing, 530, Swinburne, 530, Tenny- son, 530. 531, Alfred Austin, " The Human Tragedy," 531, 532, Mor- timer Collins, 531. Novel readers, 532 ; novels and novelists, good 39 and bad m Edmund i Charles Read, Oliphant, Mrs. Lynn I Cashel Hoey, Mss Braddon, I George MacdonaJ I idyllic p.." Blackmore, Mr. B el and biography : "Life "Life of L ological literature:wi il John He. man, of 1 >■ . Stanley, Canon Farrar, ."'--7. Bi torj historians, 537, ord Office and aervi< Pro- fessor Stubbs, 588 : Carlyle. 539, of fl"- I v 1, I; writings of Mi-. John Morley, 539, 510; popularity of 1 1 1 • - mi zinc and serial, 540, 54 1 : literature considered as a | in, 673, 571; universality of writing in tin- present day. 57o; estimaied gains of the poet, no\' ian, and philosopher, 57:;. .",7 i ; (he journalist, his duties, and income, 57 1 : the daily pre fluence, economy, and Features, 7,71 .".77; the weekly prei s, 577 istics ami prospi eta of modern journa 77. ation: its dillicn.lt;> i epre- sentative " the r lease," 416, A'll : popul sion to law, 423, 424. Little, Mr. H. J., on the rural la- borer, 177, 178, 185, L86; a agri- cultural wa l a the intel- ligence of the Nbrthumbei peasant, L97 ; on the pi of the held laborer, L99, ! Littr', .M.. as a Positn Liverpool : a capital ot yet center of culture, 81 : culti- vation of the fine ai I con- w.th Manchi 92-94; diverse popula 90; the nautical and ment, 89; immigration from I land, 89, 90, unskilled laborin, its popular reereati G10 INDEX. * politan character of, 91 ; advan- tages accruing from intercourse ■with foreign countries, 91 ; its society and recreations: Welling- ton rooms, Aintree and Altcar, 92; its clubs, 93, 91; stringent police rule, 91; the American "bar,' ; its introduction and evils, 95; excel- lence of educational institutions, the press, and theaters, 95; the river and docks, 95. 1 cans to municipalities, how raised, and securities against excess, 65, 66; the Public Works Loan Com- missioners, 66. (See also Fobetgn Loans. ) Local Acts of Parliament : large number of, 61; their scope and prospective increase, 62. Local Board, The : a connecting link between rural and municipal administration, 59; its duties, 59. Local Government Board: its con- trolling power, 65; its method of action, 65, 66. London: comparative impotence of the London ratepayer, 74, 75 ; scheme for a metropolitan mu- nicipality, 75, its present constit- uents and costliness of the system, 75, 76, operations of the vestries described, 76, beneficial action of the Board of Works, 76, difficul- ties of establishing a municipality and suggested alternative, 76, 77, success of the School Board, 76; London improvements, the em- bankments, 77, old and new Ken- sington, 77, 78, the parks, 78, ne- cessity of tree protection, 78; the toiling population only partly visi- ble, 84. 85; the center of commerce and finance, 110, the international clearing-house in succession to Amsterdam, 114; peculiarities of the London artisan. 170, 172; ve- hicles in, 265; the season, 304, 305; popular amusements in, 546, 547. Lord Chamberlain, The, as Licenser of Plays, his functions described, and defense of his office, 556-560. Lord Chancellor : appointments to the magistracy, 52, 53; his posi- tion in the House of Lords, 401. Lord Lieutenant : his influence in rural administration, 46; evils c . absenteeism, 47; appointment of magistrates, 52, 53. Love, Herbert Spencer's analysis of the passion of, 496. Low Church, The. (See The Cexrch OF EXGLANIX ) Lynn Linton, Mrs. , as a novelist, 534. McCarthy, Mr. Justin, as a novelist, 534; as a historian, 538. Macdonald, Dr. George, as a novel- ist, 535. Magistracy, The : high estimation of the office of Justice of the Peace, 52, curious advertisement, 52 ; method of appointment by Lord Lieutenant and Lord Chan- cellor, 52, 53; influence of politi- cal and religious bias, 53 ; the village reeve and port reeve, 55; popular election and gradual des- uetude of it, 55, 56; objections to the unpaid magistracy, 57, 58; dif- ficulties of decision in trivial cases, 58; the legal qualifications in an- cient times, 57; provincial alder- men not magistrates, 70; qualifi- cations and disqualifications of borough magistrates, 70, chiefly elected for political reasons, 71, evils of the process, 71, 72, pro- tests of certain towns against, 72. Manchester: first to use Corporation Act, 61; improvement in the last sixty years, 80, 81; a capital of commerce but center of culture, 81; cultivation of the fine arts in. 81; the plutocrat not supreme, 81; visible predominance of the toil- ing population, 84, 85; "the fac- tory hand," prevalence of, 85, his habits, 85, 86 ; Manchester and Liverpool contrasted, 85-87, 92-94, permanence of families in, and reasons, 90 ; Manchester toilets and entertainments, 92, recrea- tions, balls and concerts, 91-93; revolution in the hours of busi- ness, 93, early dinners, 93 ; its clubs, 93, 94; affected patois of the millowner, 94; excellence of educational institutions, 95, of the press, 95, of the theaters, 95; con- trasted with Birininghani, 98. INDEX. Manufacturing. (See Commercial England. ) Marines, The: their duties, 434, 435; essentially a corps d'dlite, 435. Market-gardens, increase in number , f, 193. Marriage and married life. Efl French habits on, 802. 305 3 17. Marfcine*u, Miss, on Positivism, 481. Masses, The. (See The People.) Match trade, the, Need of legislation for, 151. Maudsley, Dr., on mental phenom- ena, 491, 492; on the evolution of crime. 491. Mayoralty, The: functions, honor- able position, and unceasing du- ties of a Mayor, G9, 70; idem of the Lord Mayor of London, G9, 70. Medical profession, The (See also Physiology): social status of the doctor, 324; considered as a pro- fession, its prospects, 5G8, esti- mated gains of, 508, its perils, 569, instances of sacrifice, 568, 569; the antiseptic treatment, 569. Melbourne, Lord: characteristic op- position to national education, 276. Members of Parliament (See also House of Commons) : their influ- ence in chambers of commerce and trade councils, 72, 73; their policy towards industrial electors defined, 74: working men in Par- liament, 170; large number of public-school men, 295; decline in demand for the career and rea- sons. 372-374; increased social distinction not absolute, 374; value and attractions of a seat, 374, interesting nature of the oc- cupation, 374, severity of the labors, 375, 376; duties to con- stituencies, 375. 376; greater free- dom of representatives of ■■ constituencies, 370; age of mem- bers, 381; oratory in the Ho 333, 384, 393-395; advantag. unpaid membership, 570, 571; politics as a profession, 570. IVierchant, The: the merchant prince of to-day and yesterday, 311, so- cial status of, 8 with that of II. •ned attractions and i of :: tnercantil also I .t.\M> COMW '. \mi!'- Mersey: the river Me] doe.. -. 95. bordinatod t.. ■ losopuy, 483; < ;. EL Lew< Methodists, or w. Nonoooto! . The. f£ L Metropo ara "i 7 '. crime and 241. J Middl( itions, 2 Che: i : Milk die; i lie cow to the Northumb Mill, John Stuart: philosophy - L 1 .)! ; his special traini I; on u'.in 490, l91;onMr. Bahi'smeth Mills'; for, L57, Mining engineer, The, 160. Mining populate irreguli ah ience of th I, 84; Yoi k- . shire miners a fine rac ■'.slation, L60 r. lt'.O; va miner, 161 ; social I; '. L< better aspect of, L62, 163; of tl of the miner " be\i Mivart, : I si' ion bo Huxley and 'i Moderation of (he working cla in i imi tuble, ll Morley, dr. John, on P 482; influence of French thou on his writings, 639; 539, 540; "< ompromi preacher \. ith ■ the Midler. Ma -,. his influt ligious thi Mundella, Mr., of arbi c 612 INDEX. Municipal Corporation Act, The, 61; first adopted in Manchester, 61. Municipal government: the Local Board a connecting link between town and country, 59, its duties 59; imperceptible growth of vil- lage into town, 59, country towns and country villages contrasted, 60, 61; desire for independence, 61; the Municipal Corporation Act of 1835, 61, 62, first applied in Manchester, 61; vast number of local Acts of Parliament, 61, their scope and prospective in- crease, 62; influence of School Boards, 02, increased zeal of the citizen, 62; the Town Council, its constitution and duties, 62, 63, the administration described — the municipal offices, 63, 61, the com- mittees, 64, the aldermen, 61; contact of imperial and local government, 64, power and action of the Local Government Board, 65; municipal loans, how raised, 65, 66, the Public Works Loan Commissioners, 66, provision against any excess, 66; aspect of a Town Council, 66, 67, its training, good and bad, 68, 69, functions, position, and unceas- ing duties of the mayor, 69, 70, idem of the Lord Mayor of Lon- don, 69; influence of politics in municipal affairs, 72; comparative impotence of the London rate- payer, 74, 75; scheme for a metro- politan municipality, 75, its pres- ent constituents — the City Cor- poration, the Westminster au- thorities, the vestries, the Board of Works, 75, costliness of the system, 75, 76, difficulties of es- tablishing a municipality, 76, and suggested alternative, 77; opera- tions of the vestries described, 76; beneficial action of the Board of Works, 76, recent metropolitan improvements, 77, 78. Music: encouraged by the Prince Consort, 518; its widely increas- ing influence 518; modern En- glish composers, 518; growing influence of Germany — Liszt, Wagner, 519, Wagner's Tannliau* ser, 520; Du Maimer on the "-mu- sic of the future," 519. Music-hall, The: its good and evil influences, 547; probable good re- sults of the coffee music-halls, 547; its influence on the stage, 552. Navv, The : social status of officers, 323, 324; national importance of, 431, 432; nautical aptitude of the nation our chief security, 432, predilection of youth for the sea, 432; advantages of a naval career, 432; the life of the blue-jacket — training as a boy, 432, 433, as an A. B., 431, as a non-commissioned officer, 434; the marines — their duties, 434, 435, essentially a corps d' elite, 435; other classes con- stituting the personnel of a man- o'-war, 435; the life of the officer — as a cadet, 435, 436, as an officer, 436; commissioned rank, 436; of- ficers of other branches, 436; as- pect of a man-o'-war, 436, 437; administration — the Admiralty, 437, 438, constitution of the Board. 437, its unique independ- ence, 438, the Controller and his duties, 437, 438; our naval force, 438 {footnote). Newcastle-on-Tyne, 95, 96; its fac- tories and antiquities, 96; altered course of the river, 96, 97. Newman, John Henry, his theologi- cal writings, 537. Newspapers. (See The Pkess.) "Noblesse," The: our aristocracy not "noblesse," 312; extreme es- clusiveness of, in Austria, 312, 313; Princess Esterhazy an instance, 313; comparison of the system with association of diverse ranks in our society, 313, 314. Nonconformity: its admission of the importance of the rector and his work, 15-19; its objections to him and the Established Church, 19, 20; results of the agitation of Dissent, 20-22; Dissent in rural districts, and in towns, its influ- ence in the latter, 23; debt due to it by religion, 24; its attitude to the Church, and resulting respon- silulity of the olergy, 21; preva- lence in Yorkshire households, 80; the sects of,' 466; position of Unitarians, 467; Independents (or Cbngregationalists), their actn ity for disestablishment, 4(>7, the ijih- eration Society, 467, autonomy of Congregations, 407. training for the ministry, 4G7, 468, ceremony of ordination, 4(58, 469, relation of the pastor to his flock, 469, the Congregational Union, 469; the Baptists, 466, autonomy of their congregations, 467; the Presbyteri- ans, 466 ; the Wesleyans (or Meth- odists) — constitution and powers of the Conference, 470, 471, the itinerant system, 471, training for the ministry ana preliminaries of candidature, 471-473. Norfolk, Duke of, and his kinsmen: an instance of precedence, 316. Northumberland, Dake of: organi- zation of his estates (Alnwick Castle), 30, 31; excavations, etc., at Tynemouth, 31, 32, ducal in- terests represented on the com- mission, 31; vast properties of the duke, 32, 33; the farms upon his estate, 32, 33; duties of the chief commissioner, 33, bailiwicks and agents, 33, 34. Northumberland peasant : women beneficially employed in field la- bor, 190 el spq.; value of milk diet to, 195 (footnote); intelligence of, 197. Novels and novelists: novel rea< 532; good and bad novels, 532, 533; Mr. Trollope as a nov 532, 533; Mr. Edmund Yates, 533; Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. W ( Jollins, 533. Lady novelists : Mrs. Oliphant, Mrs. Lynn Linton, Mrs. Cashel Hoey, 534; " Onida," 534; Miss Braddon, Miss Broughton, 535; George Eliot's nov sis, 534. George Macdon aid's novels, 535; the idyllic novel — Mr. Black, Mr. Hardy, Mr. Blackmore, 536; mod- ern demand for "realism," 536; ga'ins of novelists, 574. Odd Fellows, Manchester Unity of, 219. Official England : ext ri Governn* ,1 1 onial Office, Its admini scribed, : individual \> rh of the < Minister, 3 Iminisb Indian Council, 859; the P Office, iis b recy, 360, its departments, 361, privileges of the 1 department, 361; the Board of Trade and Its dutie Treasury. 361; the Privy Council, 361 36 • .. a mee , remier I the So dul Premierto ins coll< • ministerial communicai Lo Sovereign ting of a Cabinel Council, 365, pro- lure in legislation described, 365; arduous duties <>( a minister of S ' . 1 15 ">7! ; the rou- tine, 365, 866; qui i ro some applications to, 367, Secretary for War | see in Oliphant, Mrs., as a novelj Organization: the feature of the present age, 6; the key to f!n> present system of education, . in . l, of what is it . 480. (For Orj m ol I ernment and Trade, ■'. un- der tli " Ouida" as a UOVelist, ■ Out-door relief: whal of, 201, 202: consider! 214; its c\ ilsj 206; i - posed, 207, 20£ on hon- est labor — in stre 9 ; Mr. 1 on dispauperization, 209 Jll : ed wives and negl< tances, 211, 212; d< 213; co of it, 214; Mr - difficulties of its abolition, the Elb< rfi< Id 1 cp< m ■ 21 1. ■ on ; t. thereby, I Ovei »f the poi c, 56. Over-trading, 124, 614 INDEX. Oxford: new Oxford, 99, 100; effect of railway communication, 99, 100; married fellows, 100. Painting: social status of the artist and reasons, 322; pottery painting by ladies, 511; modern painting, 511-515; loss of the "grand style," 511, 512; realism of modern ar- tists, 511, 512; "action" in Turn- er's paintings and its absence to-day, 512; the morbid school, 512-515, Mr. Burne Jones, 513, 514. Mr. Whistler, 514, its sources of inspiration, 515, Tissot's "Au- tumn," 515; excellence of the water-color school, 514; critics — Mr. Buskin, Mr. Hamerton, Mr. Pater, 516. Palgrave, Mr., "The House of Com- mons," 374, 3S7, 389. Palmerston, Lady, and the salon, 335, 336; her exceptional power, 336; remarkable instance of it, "the expelled minister," 336; her careful management, 336. Parents and children, Effects of changed social life upon, 305. Parish, The (see also The Village) : influence of Church of England in, 9, 10; the parson's difficulties in, ll, 12; disestablishment of its officials (Mr. C. S. Bead thereon), 43 ; gradual loss of individual power of the parish, 45. Parks, The London, necessity for tree protection, 78. Parliament. (See The House of I Commons and The House or Lords. ) Parliamentary representatives. (See Members op Parliament. ) Parsloe, Mr. Joseph, "Our Bailway System," 357. Parson, The, a proper title, 462. (See The Bectoe. ) Pater, Mr. W. H. , as an art critic, 516, 529; his style, 529. Pauperism : the workhouse, 201; out- door relief, 201, 202; the casual ward, 201, 202; the career of the pauper, 203 7:'>. Police, The: stringent rule a! I pool, '.•!; operations oi 247 250; objections to. -JI7: their undoubted efficacy, 247; the de- tective, operat ions of fche I depart- ment of Criminal Invest -ion described, 248 250, ad> possessed by the foreign di 248, improvement in our own since the Kurr-Benson disclosures, duties and services of the police- man, " a tribunal of the first in- stance," 411, 412: a police court and its aspect. 412, 413; typical cases. 412. 413, procedure in a case of "theft from the person," 412, 413. Politics: influence of. in magisterial appointments. .7;. especially in appointment of borough in: trate, and evils of the process, 71. 72; operation of, in municipal af- s, 72; influence of mi mix i Parliament in local bodies, 73, 74, their policy towards industrial electors denned, 74: the course of. carefully watch d by m< tenants, 131); political bias of the ortisa "a big England, hut primarily trade," 169; working men in 1 ; menl L70; 1 brown open to the middle • ' by the Reform i I 318; influence of the great families in, 326 328; efli ling up of the middle cl ponderance of aristocratic u ence in the present M i 329; statesmanship [uir< d from scholarship, : in. :;:;i); political element in I country hoi I 881 i club i and their influence, 881 ; on' tions of political ol 616 INDEX. servative and Liberal clubs con- trasted — the Carlton, the Reform, 333, 334; treatment of rank and file by Conservative leaders, 334; by Liberal leaders, 334. The sa- lon: reasons for its declining in- fluence, 334, 335 ; exceptional power of Lady Palmerston, 335, 336, remarkable instance of it — "the expelled minister," 33G, its present scope, 337; political din- ners, 338; process of parliament- ary reform, 342; the Caucus — its aim, uses, and evils, 343-347, su- premacy of democratic polity, 347 ; statesmanship — its changed na- ture, and its necessities, 349, 350; considered as a profession, the necessity for wealth, 570 ; the value of an unpaid legislature, 570, 571; democracy in the colonies and at home, 586. Polity and laws, prevalent ignorance of, 6, 7. Poor Law, The : overseers and guard- ians, 56; beneficial action of, 197, 198; necessity of it, 205; ili result of the Scotch Poor Law, 212, 213; evil tendencies of its operations, 213; its defenders — the Spectator, 213; its counterpart in continent- al countries, 215. Poor rates, their incidence on wages and on land, 209-211; ill effect of reliance on "the rates," 210. Positivism : its effects and doctrine, 481, 482; Miss Martineau upon it, 481; Mr. John Morley, 482; diffi- culties not met, 482; influence of the doctrines of Comte, 485; trib- ute to Comte from G. H. Lewes, ' 487; its attack on psychology, 486; its system — "humanity," 486; its greatest element — "evolution of thought," 486; Positivism of M. Littre, 486; religious Positivists — Mr. Frederic Harrison, 486. Post-office Savings Banks, Deficien- cies of, 218. Posting, as it is, 267. Pottery trade, The: need of legisla- tion for, 150. Precedence in England, 314-316; l)od on precedence, 314; rank of great officers of state, hereditary and otherwise, 315; instances of the difficulties of, in English so- ciety, 316, the Duke of "Norfolk and his kinsfolk, 316. Prefect, The, and fagging at public schools, 293, 294. Premier, The: the Premier and the Sovereign, 363, 364; his duty to his colleagues, 363, 364; Mr. Glad- stone upon his duties, 363, 364; numerous and troublesome appli- cations to, 369. Prerogatives of the Queen, their vast extent, 352, 353; and limited exer- cise, 353. < Presbyterians, The. (See Nokcon- FOBMTTY. ) Present age, The: characteristics of life in the nineteenth century, 1-3, 4-6, its difficulties, 3-6, issues presented thereby, 2, 3; is essen- tially transitional, 6; and an epoch of organization and economy of force, 6. Press, The : excellence of, in provin- cial towns, 95; the rural laborer and his newspaper, 182; the jour- nalist, his occupation and income, 574; the daily press— its influence, 574, 575, Mr. Frederic Harrison thereon, 575, its features, 575; comparison of the French and English newspaper, 575; economy and staff of a large "daily," 576; the special correspondent, 576; the weekly press, 577; features and prospects of modern journalism, 576, 577. Pretvman, Mr., on dispauperization, 209-211. Primogeniture: its value, 312; prob- able exclusive and disastrous re- sult of the substitution of the French law, 312. Prince Consort, The, debt of art to, 508, of music, 518. Princes of crime, similarity of ca- reer of, 246; their careers traced, 246, 247. Prisons and prisoners: contraction of Quarter Sessions power through transfer of, 55, result of the trans- fer not decided, 65; procedure in prosecution of a criminal, 251; beneficial effect of the Prison Act INDEX. of 1877, 251, 252; treatment of the prisoners — of the ordinary prison- er, 252, 253, of the convict, penal servitude, 2.13, 254; earnings of prisoners. 254; discharged prison- ers, 254, 255. beneficial operations of the Prisoners' Aid Society, 255. Privy Council, The: its office, 361, 362; its duties, 362, 363; a com 3(33; the Premier and the Sover- eign, 363, 364; its aspect and con- stitution as a court of appeal. typical cases brought before it, 428, 429. Professional England: status of (he » professions, actual and popular estimate, 320-325; merchant and stock-broker compared, 320, 321; status of the painter, actor, doc- tor, attorney, 322, 323, of the au- thor, barrister, 322, 323, excep- tional rank of soldier, clergyman, author, barrister, 322-324, reason ; thereof, 323, 324, state recognition of these pretensions, 324, 325, transitional state of the profes- sions and effacemeut of old lines of demarkation, 562; efficiency, a •sent essential, 562 ; insufficiency of openings in, 564; the civil en- gineer — attractions of, and predi- lection for the career, 563; the chemist, 563; decreasing attrac- tions of commercial life, 567; the university degree — advantages of "honors," 564, its value at the Bar, 564, little value of an ordi- nary degree — the graduate's ca- reer as a. colonist, as a schoolmas- ter, 566, 567; the profession of teaching, 566; the medical career — its prospects, income, and perils, 567-569; politics as a profession, 570; diplomacy as a profession. 571, the army as a profession, 572, 573; literature as a profession — its gains and prospects, 573, 574, journalism and its duties, 574; the professional career in India, 578, 579, the competition Wallah, 578, - 579; professional incomes — the barrister, 565, the doctor, 568, the soldier, 573, poets and authors, 573, 574, the journalist, 574. ecution of a criminal, pr .-, .i„ r ,. in. -J.". i. Prospects of England 691 to the colonies and I 691, 592. Prosperity, Comma sential of national, Provinces Che. Psycl l; attacked b ^ I ■ nert Si.. p i of Psychology," alysis of the ps its invasion of literati] Public-house, The: its rel depressed trade, 128; the the village beer-hi Public Record Office, rec vices to literature of Pi Stubbs in. Public Schools, The: i the Public Scl in- crease in 286; progress made by, 286: neglect of par n1 ed preference of play t.. Btndy, 292; their interior economy, 294; the prefect and \. 294; product of fchi 294, increase I ■nu- bility of the modern Bchool 294; the public schools in Parlia- ment, 295; nee a I of social iiiliin nee in. Public Works Loan ( Jon The. 66. Puddler, Independence of the, Pullman car. The, •-!">'.». Pupil teachers, 284 ; a I of ary schools, 28 1 . - Quaktek Sessions, Court of also Magh 51, 52; a a ing described, 53, 6 ' ' I ' duties, 53, 6 '. 55, 1 1 i. U5; im- portance Of itS Hie in times ie by, 54; decline in U en1 day. 54. * One,-;,. The. (See Thi i ■ 419. R \i;,\vavs: general exc »11< q< f their nam third 618 INDEX. motion," 256, 257; railway mile- age, 257; signals — the semaphore, night signals, 257; Mr. Parsloe, "Onr Railway System," 257, 258 (footnote); the "block system," its working explained, 257, 258; ex- penditure and income, 258; acci- dents, 258; great speed attained, 259; Pullman cars, 259; eccentrici- ties of progress on a Highland railway, 260; want of punctuality and difficulties, 260; state control and enactments, 260, 261; the Railway Commissioners and their functions, 261, 262; inconven- iences of independent action, 263; advantages of State con- trol, 263, 261- ; unsatisfactory sup- ply of refreshments, 264; rail- way communication and popu- lar amusements, "the excursion train," 542-545. Railway Commissioners, The, and their functions, 261, 262. Rank, Professional: popular and act- ual estimate of, 320, 321; the mer- chant and stock-broker, 320, 321; the painter, actor, doctor, attor- ney, 321, 322; the author, the bar- rister, 321, 322; exceptional rank of the barrister, soldier, author and clergyman, and reason for it, 322-324, state recognition of these pretensions, 324, 325. Ratepayers, their privileges in rela- tion to guardians, 44; comparative impoteuce of the London rate- payer, 75. Read, Mr. C. S., on the disestab- lishment of the parish official, 43; on agricultural wages, 195. Reade, Mr. Charles, as a novelist, 533. Receiver of stolen goods, The, 242; his comparative immunity, 242, 243. Recruiting, its procedure and safe- guards, 446, 447. Rector, The: his position, influence, and multifarious occupations, 9- 15; the rectory, 10; parochial dif- ficulties, 11, 12; his relation to the Education Office, 13; the benefit society, 14, 15; his importance ad- mitted by Dissenters, 15, 19, their objections to him and the system, 19, 20; the absentee rector. 16; the learned rector, the scholastic rector, 17, 18; the fervid rector, 18 ; necessity of tolerance and common sense, 18; example of its use, 24; negligent rectors, 19; his responsibility to maintain the in- fluence of the clergy, 21; his rela- tion to the Board of Guardians, 45; the title "parson," 462; the rector and vicar discriminated, 462; tithes and their commuta- tion, 462; perpetual curates, 462; Queen Anne's bounty, 463. Rectory, The: its aspect described, 10. Redesdale, Earl of: his unique posi-« tion in the House of Lords, 405. Redgrave, Mr., on the results of factory legislation, 158-ltO. Reform: the process of parliament- ary reform, 342. Reform Bill, The: its effect on so- cial life, first, in the extinction of the claims of mere men of fashion; secondly, in throwing open poli- tics; thirdly, in stimulating the aristocracy, 317-319. Reform Club, The: its aspects, 334; unwise political action of, 333. Reformatories, Beneficial results of, 240, 241. Registry Office. (See The Colontal Office. ) Religion (see also Church of En- gland, Nonconformity, Church of Rome, and The Jews): debt due by religion to Nonconformity, 24; influence of, on magisterial appointments, 53; secularism ol the London artisan, 170; secular and religious education, 277, "the London compromise," 277; the pending question of secular and religious education, 297; variety of sects, 452; general characteris- tics, activity and toleration, 453; the former not necessarily devo- tion, 454; Dr. Ince on the vicissi- tudes of English theology, 456; the question of inspiration, 466; other questions of the day and is- sues involved, 466; Positivism- effects and doctrines of, 481, 482, INDEX. Miss Martinenu and Mr. Morlcy on, 481, 482; difficulties unmet, 482; Dean Stanley on progri theology, 457, on religion and science, 458; theology and relig- ion, 458; science and religion, 458, their contact not necessarily opposition, 525-527; organization and tolerance, what do they por- tend '? 480; philosophy as the re- ligion of the future, 526, 527; Christianity and philosophy, 540. "Repairing lease, The:" a repre- sentative case of the difficulties of the law, 416-423. Republic, The: Mr. Chamberlain on the perfection of the polity of the United States, 343, 344; tempo- rary despotism of the presidential system, 351; contrasted with mon- archy, 354. Reserves, The, 450. Responsibility of the Government, increased in present age, 4. Revaluation of farms on the Devon- shire estate, 38. Review, The, has become the polit- ical platform of the individual, 373. Ritualism and the ritualist. (See The Chtjech of England.) Rochdale Pioneers, The, 222; their operations described, 224; con- trasted with a London store, 225, 226; advantages offered to the working classes, 225, 226. Rome. (See The Chukch of Rome. ) Rotation of crops, effects oi the cus- tom, 191. E oya 1 ty and the Royal Family. (See The Ceown.) Rural administration : the small squire dying out, 43; disestablish- ment of parish officials, 43; Mr. C. S. Read thereon, 43: election to the Board of Guardians, 44. claims of candidates, 44, 45, priv- ileges of ratepayers, 44; power of the individual parish declining, 45; duties of the board, 45; influ- ence of the rector, 45, of the farm- er, 45, 46, of the lord lieutenant, 46, evils of absenteeism, 47; de- sirable reforms, 47; a scene in a board-room, 48, 49, composition of the board, 18, Bcribed, L9 61; the Co ter Sea ions, 51, 52, .-. described, portanceof its mem od of appointmi 53; objections to the uu magis racy, 57, 5* reeve and porl i of divided aul ministration, and . Hnn ;i , raj ton, 56 Wright there >n, guardians, high boards, ma i; the I. Board, a connecting link, 59. Rural dean, The, and his oi Rural districts (see al Vil- lage): Church of eiablc in, 21; influenci 1 1 in villages ;;ii(! towns, 2H 24 Rural laborer, rhe. (i txjral Laborer. in, Mr., debt of arl to, 510; "Modern ; an art critic. 516. Salon, The: reasons for its declin- ing power. 335; exceptional influ- ence of Lady 1': 336; remarkable instant '• the expelled mil present scope, Sanitation: an important duty of guardians, 49-51; overcrowd in rural c ference of the woi lNi: .:.:'■. 184; Dr. Fraser th Scarborough, !' School Board, The: relation to i nicipal govern: members. 62; the I ; its results, d 153-155, operation of, 2 influence on t lition oi rural laboi 274; operation of the by-laws, ~~l: S y B j og compul attendanci to, 275, its in men, practical b( < flcial ■■ 275; the attendance commi 27."): State and voluntary i der the old system, 275, 27! . I 620 INDEX. Brougham's advocacy of national education, 276; progress of State aid and control, 276, 277; opera- tions of the School Boards, 277; secular and religious teach iug, the "London compromise," 277; aim of the Education Department, 277, 278; conditions of State grants, 278; remuneration of schoolmas- ters, 278; a visit to a Board School, 278, 279, the official inspection, 279, generally unsatisfactory re- sult of the teaching — learning by rote, 279, 280, anxiety to secure parliamentary grants, 281; statis- tics to show decrease of crime, 281, 282; figures showing attend- ance, 283; vast expenditure and its rapid increase, 283, 284; pupil teachers, necessity for secondary schools, 284. Schoolmasters: the pay of School Board officials, 278; conferences of head masters, 289; the College of Preceptors, 289; types of inef- ficient masters, 290, 291; the ref- uge of the ordinary graduate, 566; teaching as a profession, 566. Schools (see also The School Board and Public Schools): the village school and its advantages, 173; necessity for secondary schools, 2S4, 289; grammar schools, 284, advantages offered by them in certain towns, 284; the Endowed Schools Act, 285; schools of de- sign, 517; attitude of the univer- sities, 288; direct and indirect in- spection, efficiency of the latter, 291. Science: science and religion, 458, their contact not necessarily oppo- sition, 525-527; Huxley's method and services, 519-522, on the "pro- toplasm," 521; services and pro- cedure of Professor Tyndall, 521, 522; recent and growing influence of Mr. Lister on physiology, 522; results of the Challenger Expedi- tion, 523; Mr. St. George Mivart's opposition to Huxley and Tyndall, 524; invasion of science into lit- erature, instanced in George Eli- ot's works, 524, 525. Scope of this work, 6, 7. Seaside resorts. 106; attractions nec- essary, 106, 107; the seaside build- er, 107; patronized by the middle classes, 108; aspects common to all of them, 10S; Scarborough, 108. Secondary schools, The need of more, 284, 289. Secretaries of State. (See Official England. ) Sects: the great variety of religious sects, 452, 453. Secularism: of the London artisan, 170; secular education, 277, the London compromise, 277 ; the pending question of secular and religious education, 297. Services, The. (See The Ar:,iy and The Navy.) Shairp, Professor, as a critic, 529. Sheffield. (See Yorkshire.) Shops, Legislative interference in, 153; the Saturday half-holiday, 153; difficulties of, and need of discretion, 153. Short service in the army, its intro- duction and deficiencies, 444. 445. Signals on railways, use of sema- phores and night signals, 257. Smith, Mr. George, on reforms in brick-yards, 152. Social life (see also Society) : loss of insularity of English character, 298, the effects of travel, 298, of intercourse with France, 299; the imprint of French habits, 299, living in " flats " at Victoria Street, kc, its advantages, 299, 300, ex- treme adoption of French habits, 301, effects of, on the stage, 301, on marriage and the relations of the sexes, 302, 305-307; decline of patriotic enthusiasm, 302 ; "change," the habit of the aris- tocracy, 302, 303; the squire of the old school and of the new, their homes and life, 303-305; the modern country house, 305; the season in London, 304; effects on domesticity, fashionable parents and their children, 305, 306; ef- fects on feminine independence, 307; the daily life of the modern young Lidy described, 307-309, effects of this novel liberty and possible ultimate beneficial result, INDEX. 309; society in a country house, its constituents, 330, 331 ; dis- appearance of "the wit," 331; club life, 331-333; social life in the colonies, 589; colonial respecl for the law, 589; supremacy of physical power in the colonics, 5S9. Society (see also Social Life): its elements, aristocratic, plutocrat Lo, democratic, 310; gradual identifi- cation of the aristocratic and plu- tocratic elements, 310, 311, the merchant prince of to-day and yes- terday, 311; the aristocracy and commerce, 311 ; primogeniture, its value, and probable disastrous results of substitution of French law, 312 ; English nobility not "noblesse," 312; meeting of di- verse ranks in society, 313, 314, reserve arising therefrom, 313, 314; Ijrecedence, 314, 316; social ad- vantages possessed by commoners, 317, exceptional positions achieved by some, 317; effect of the Reform Bill (1) in extinction of claims of pure men of fashion, (2) in throw- ing open politics, (3) in vitalizing the aristocracy, 317, 318; "action " a necessity to distinction, 319: earnestness of an Englishman's pursuits, 319; excellence a neces- sity of success throughout life, 320, Professional rank: the act- ual and popular estimate of it, 320-325, the merchant and stock- broker compared, 320, 321, of the artist, and reasons, 322, of the actor, painter, doctor, attorney, 321, 322, of the author, barrister, 322, reasons for exceptional posi- tion of the author, barrister, sol- dier, or clergyman, 322-324, State recognition of these pretensions, 324, 325; its influence in politics, 329; a seat in Parliament does not confer absolute social rank, 374; titles to social consideration in the colonies, 589. Sovereign, The. (See The Crown.) Speaker, The: his duties and priv- ileges, 388-392; the Speaker of the House of Lords, 401. Special correspondent, The, 576. Spenoer, Herb rl : !'■"- L97, extfi me imp 493; extraordh jeei. I. 493; hi theory ..i •• Firs! Prinoip ory of •• tii,. i "Principles ol his analysis of th< 496. Squatter, The Till ■ . 179. Squire, The: his position and ■ •■ pation, :» ; absenteeism, In ; small squire dying oat. !:;. 192 squire of tl Id school the new contrasted, tin ir bo and life, 303 '• Stage, The: excellence of, in provin- cial towns, '.I."); effeel course with the French, 901; social statiis of liie actor inl- and its support* : . "old" ami '• new." 550, 551; do i no moral instruction, 551; inflm of tiie Fr< Qch - b the music-hall, 552; public den for realism and d straint in its low 554: the " < ,; « \ 554; French i. to o •. and r the Lord Chainb< rlaini of Plays, his fun fense of hi rich plays in London, 560; u bility of a Shake pearian 560. The: fch< I ! new, 265 267 : amateur c 267; "White B Stanley, Dean: on I th< 157; on ligion, 458; his th in,L Stansfeld, Mr., on o 214. State. The - : i ponsibil imperial and L< ' ..tion to frii 217, 218; its relation I i, 261; advi trol of rail G22 INDEX. tion to education — limited aid and interference under the old system. 275, progress of its aid and con- trol, 276, 277, conditions of State grants, 278, how educational grants may become denominational en- dowments, 297; S sognition of exceptional social rank in cer- tain pn 54, 325; probable .1- of county suffrage, 408, 409, j >• tssible strife between classes, 409; secure tenure of tlie constitution, 409; possible national calamities, 409, 410; the State and art, 517; financial relations with the colo- nies, 582. its relation to the col- onies, 583, 5S4, Burke upon this relationship, 590. State emoluments, The artisan's view of, 144, 145. Statesmanship: how acquired, 329; not through scholarship, 329; its changed nature in modern times, and necessities, 349; candor indis- pensable, 350. Statute fair, The: its evils; 189, 190; happily dying out, 1S9. Stewart, Dugald, and the Scotch philosophy of common sense, 484. Stock-broker, The, social status of, 320, 321; contrasted with that of the merchant, 320, 321. Stock Exchange, The: its operations, 115: i ,: pect described. 116; in- vestment business, 116, 117; gam- bling or speculative business, 116, 117; issue of a foreign loan, 117- 119, deception practiced on the public, 118, 119. Structure of English society, The, 310. Stubbs, Professor, at the Becord Of- fice, his services to literature, 533. Surgeon, The. (See The Medical Profession.) Swinburne, Mr., as a poet, 530. Symonds, Mr. J. A., as a critic, 529. Table d'hote, The, 269-271: unsuit- ability to the ordinary English- man, 269-271. Temperate regions of the earth, their extent and occupation by England, 581. Tennyson as a poet, 530. Textile trade, The, 121. Thames Embankments, The, 77. Theaters. (See The Stage.) Theft, Legal procedure in a case of, illustrated, 412, 413. Theological literature : writings of John Henry Newman, 537 ; of Dean Stanley, 537. Theology. (See Beligion.) Thrift: regularity of wages in Lan- cashire contributory to; excess in mining districts accounts for ab- sence of, 83, 84; friendly societies, 215, neeessitv of co-operation of employers, instances and difficul- ties, 218; benefits accruing to mem- bers of friendly societies, 218, sug- gestions for State control, 218 ; Post-office Savings Banks, 218, their deficiencies, 218 ; Manches- ter Unity of Odd FeUows, 219; penny banks — their operations and popularity, 219; the real incite- ments to thrift, 219; advantages of co-operation, 220; Mr. George Howell on earnings of the work- ing man, 220 (footnote); statistics of friendly societies, 221 [footnote). Tiaies and then- commutation, 462. Toleration: a necessity in religious teaching, 18; a feature of the re- ligion of the day, 453 ; in this respect, what does it portend ? 480. Town, The: Dissent in towns and in rural districts, 23, 24; imper- ceptible growth of the village into town, 59; country town and vil- lage compared, 60; characteristics of the former, 60, 61; provincial and London artisan contrasted, 170-172. (See Towns of Busi- ness and Towns of Pleasure.) Town Council, The: constitution and duties of, 63, 64; the municipal offices, 63, 64 ; the committees, 64; the aldermen, 64; a meeting described, 66, 67, its procedure, 67, its oratory, 67, 68; its train- ing, good and bad, 68, 69; func- tions, position, and unceasing du- ties of the Mayor, 69. 70; idem of the Lord Mayor of London, 69, 70; provincial aldermen not mag- istrates, 70. INDEX. Town lab( rer, Tlie. (See The AR- TISAN. ) Towns of business: the indue town embodies science ami indus- try, 79, cheerless aspect of, 79, sudden change from rural to in- dustrial districts, 7!»: fusion of the elements of life, a source of na- tional power, 80; mqney-gettihg not the sole impulse, 80, other beneficial aims, 80 ; Lancashire sixty yours since, and to-day, 81; Manchester and Liverpool, o ipitals of commerce, yet cen of culture, 81; cultivation of the fine arts, 81 ; the plutocrat not the reigning type, 81; the York- shire manufacturer's household. 82 ; tendency towards increased luxury, Bradford and Sheffield houses, 83; love of sport in York- shire, 83; pay of the Lancashire factory hand and Yorkshire miner — regularity of the one, excess and consequent absence of thrift with the other, 84; the toiling popula- tion, hardly visible in London, predominant in Leeds and Man- chester, 81, 85 ; Liverpool and Manchester contrasted, 85-87, 92- 94; smaller manufacturing towns and villages, 87; Liverpool, its population and society, 89-93. Towns of Pleasure: aspect of a ca- thedral city, 99; changed Oxford, 100, effect of railway communi- cation, 100, married fellows, 100; the cathedral close, its denizens, its social life, "Mrs. Proudie," 100, 101; Bristol, 101; Durham, 101; Exeter and its attractions, 101, 102; Canterbury, 102; York, 102; Cheltenham, 102, 103; Leam- ington, 102, 103 ; Bath and its beauty, 103; Clifton, 103, 101: ne- cessities of prosperity — medical re- pute, a school or college, churches, 103, 101; jealousies of inhabit) 101; recreations — croquet, lawn tennis, 105, increased intercourse of the young through these pas- times, 105, sea-side resorts, 10G, features common to all, 108, at- tractions essential, 107, the sea- side builder, 10G, 107, essentially patronized by the inid.ll.> . Scarborough, U ^ and ils Bpeci Trade. Coma iM , and I'i\ ' Trades i on them of the d liament, H; th ■ T th tir i. I baneful, 166 Li 1 i ral on, 167 L69; ti strike of L877, L68; obj< i foi Tramp, Audaci 211. Transition: t transition, Of the lav. 130, Of the prO- sions, 562. Transportation, Evils of the of, 240. Travel and biography, 5 Traveling: eh sapness of, in pi- days, 256; gen< i a' excellem i railway ma. ing third-clas ." 2 in motion."' -J.")?: the raih tern, 257 265; una' peedi . 260; Pullman Ci ': a Highland railway, 2i refreshments, 2i'>!. i" v> hides, 265; thi old and new. 265, 26 tear coach, 267, " th v .\ Ho; ," 267; p is, 200; the I ad- van 268; the modern 1. 268 271 : Ur- table J 271; efl >i travel cial lit ; influei ways on popular amus u>. 5 1 i. •airy, '!" positio numerous troublesome applica- tions i i: "»- Lor of th< Tin: POM C( Trees in London: ne* d oJ tioM. 7~. Trollope, Mr. Anth , 532, 533. Truck system, ' . ti24 INDEX. Tyndall, Professor, his procedure in science, 522; his services, 522; opDOsition of Mr. St. George Mivart, 523, 524 Tynemouth, Excavations at, 31; the Duke of Northumberland's prop- erties at, 31, the ducal interests represented on the commission, 31. Under-Secretaries of State. (See Official England.) Unions. (See Agricultural Un- ions, Trades Unions. ) Unitarians. (See Nonconfobmety.) United States, The: the artisan in his relation to the State contrasted with the English, 115, 116; Mr. Chamberlain on the perfection of her polity, 314; the Caucus in, 343. Unity of Odd Fellows, The Man- chester, 219. Universities, The: inducements held out to graduates by the State, 286, 287; liberal policy of— middle- class examinations, 287, 288, un- attached students, 288, new pro- fessorial chairs, 288; their relation to schools, 288; the university de- gree — professional value of "hon- ors," 564, its effect at the Bar, 564, the ordinary graduate's ca- reer, 566, small value of his de- gree, 566; his prospects in the colonies, 566, as a schoolmaster, 566. Utilitarianism, and its application, 489-491. Vehicles, London, 265. Vestries, The London, 75; their operations described, 76. Vicar, The. (See The Rector,) Village, Tiie: a microcosm, 8, 9; position of the squire, 9; position and duties of the rector, 9-15; in- fluence of the Church of England, 9, 23, 24; absenteeism, 9; an ideal village, 9, 10; the rectory 10; pa- rochial difficulties, 11, 12; sus- picious nature of the peasant, 13, 14; the benefit society, 14, 15; agricultural unions: objections to the system, 20; different types of farmers, 21, 22, a modern farm- er's family, 22; Dissent in rural districts, 23, 24; imperceptible growth into a town, 59; a country village and country town con- brasted, 60; modern improved as- pect of, 173; advantages offered by the village school, 173, 174; the modern cottage, 171; the co- operative store, 181; sanitary de- fects of, 184, the close and open village, 185 [footnote). Violence, Crimes of, 245, Voluntary aid to education, 276. Volunteers, The: their origin, 449; zeal, 449; and importance, 450. Wages: agricultural wages. 194-196; Mr. Little thereon, 195; Mr. C. S. Read, 195; special instance of wages paid on one day through- out England, 196; cheapness of necessaries, 196; Mr. G. Howell on wages and expenses, 220 {foot- note). Wallah, The competition, 578, 579. Walpole, Mr. Spencer, as an his- torian. 538. War Offico and Secretary for War. (See The Army.) Watering-places. (See Sea-side Eesorts. ) Wesley ans, The (or Methodists). (See Nonconformity.) Westminster authorities, The, 75. Westminster, Duke of, organization of his estates at Eaton Hall, 29, 30; security of tenure of employ- ment upon them, 30. Whip, The parliamentary, and his functions, 381, 385. Whistler, Mr., as an artist, 514. Whi f e-lcad works, Need of legisla- tion for, 156, 157; Wohurn Abbey, Feudal customs at, 29. Women: State protection of, 146; as field laborers, 190, 191, Dr. Fraser's objections to 190; satis- factory employment of, in North- umberland, 190, 191; higher teach- ing of girls, 295, 296, its doubtful result, 296, independence result- ing from changed social life, 307, present effect of it and possible INDEX. beneficial result, 309; life of a modern young lady described Rotten Row, five o'clook tea, 307 309; influence in politics. 330 335; Leticism in dress and recrea- tions, 510, 511; lady novelists, 534, 535. Workhouse, The: its appearance and inmates, 201; out-door relief and iial wards, 201; scrutiny of ap- plicants, 202; one treatment for all, 202; children born in "the house," 202. (See Out-door Re- lief. ) Working classes, The (see also The Artisan, The Agricultural La- borer, The Factory Operative, and The Mining Population) : enormous power of, 111; diversity of, a guarantee of order, 142; bene- fits of free discussion, 142; ad- vanced propaganda — the Eleusis Club, 112; State protection of women and children, 140; ex: ive legislation a blunder. 147; course and effects of legislation up to this point, 147-153, reforms not fully realized, 150, reforms yet necessary, 152, 153, 155-157; abuses extant in the Black Coun- try, 159, 160; employer and em- ployed, moderation of the latter, 164, instance, the cotton famine, 11)4. contrast with past times, the Nottingham frame-breakers, 165, rare instances of violence in this e, 166; trades unions, 166-169, their influence not baneful, 166, 167, ben< fi< i ' tion, L67, I - I; worku 169, L70; the 1 rondon uud i i oial artisan co overcrowding, and sanitation, 18 1 [owell cm \. ing, i2-2ii accruing to them bom the operative moi em< ignorance of the economy "i life, 5581 : their ai in the northern com in London — the music-hall, the mu- seum, the tree library, ■ ••■ the working-man's olnb, stitution. aims, . and p peote, 547 I Wright, M r. R, s. , on the i t rat ion of rural administration, 9, Mr. Edmind, as a novelist, 533. Yeoman, Disappearance of the, 192. fork, The city of, 102. Yorkshire: frugality of Ebrk- shire manufacture lence of his household, S J: tend- ency to luxury in tow Bhei Bradford, 83; lor Bhin the horse— the St I in Sheffield, 83, evil 84; the mining p p :,..- m a fine race. , v !. their earnings and coum qu< ■ Leeds, 97. THE END. MOFF»TT UWF** 5 "»■ DAI u'SJH "^TTTRN TO RET RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO TO— + 202 Main Library 642-3403 H 6-m LOAN PERIOD 1 2 3 4 5 < b LIBRARY USE This book is due before closing time on the last date stamped below DUE AS STAMPED BELOW ! < BEC. CIR. SEP 18 VS FO UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6A, 20m, 1 1 /78 BERKELEY CA 94720 *Ds U C BERKELEY LIBRARl CD52177b2S