The Morals of the Decade.

THE improvements which have taken place in the useful arts and manufactures since the year 1851 are so marked and obvious, and their development has been so rapid, that there is no difficulty in tracing them to the teaching and example of the Great School which was established in Hyde Park in that memorable year. Every one who looks back upon the period which immediately preceded the Great Exhibition of All Ñations, and compares its art and industry with the products of the present day, must be sensible that the country has made a gigantic stride in advance in a very short time. We do not require Blue Books or Boardof-Trade Returns to tell us this. Every shop-window in the country is a witness to the fact. The very articles of domestic use which surround us in our homes attest the same thing. Our tables, our chairs, our bedsteads, even such articles as coal-scuttles, flower-pots, and beer-jugs, are examples of a new era of industrial life. Not the least remarkable circumstance in connexion with this universal improvement is the suddenness with which it has been accomplished. It has not been a long process of growth and gradual consolidation, but a revolution, effected and completed in a single year, by one grand stroke. It may have been on this account-because the process so entirely violated the principles of Conservatism-that the late Colonel Sibthorpe could never be induced to set foot inside Sir Joseph Paxton's Palace.

It is not our 'purpose, however, in the present paper to trace the steps of our industrial progress from the Exhibition of 1851 to that of 1862; but rather to take a glance at the moral and social improvements which have accompanied it. Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-one was the year of a Great Awakening, not alone in an industrial sense, but morally, socially, and politically. The results of this are apparent on every hand. In order that we may place them in the most striking light, let us go back to the period immediately preceding 1851, and refresh our memories as to the state of society at that time. This was the age of gentism, of "fast" literature, and of coarse and vulgar amusements. The traditions of spreeing lords, who spent their nights in bonneting policemen, fighting cabmen, and wrenching off knockers, had produced a feeble reflex in the habits of the lower strata of society, and the choicest amusements of young men were Casinos and Cider-cellars, Coal-holes and Judge-and-Jury Societies. The "gent" was in his glory about the year 1847; and all our young men were more or less gentish at that time. Who does not remember the loud, vulgar, young man, with the long hair and long neck, with the slangy cut-away coat, with the Joinville stock, and the outrageous pin linked to another with a chain, with the tight check trousers, and the little cane, with which he foppishly tapped his boots when he was not sucking its top? This was the young man of the day; and the sole object of his life was to hurry through

whatever work he had to do, and get away to disport himself in his gentish garments on some conspicuous part of a river-steamer, at a casino, or at a supper-room, where devilled bones were served up with indecent songs. This young man had no intellectual ambition whatever. Science, art, literature, politics,-none of these things had the slightest interest for him. His reading-when he read at all-was confined to slangy and often indecent publications of the most frivolous description. What has become of the gent to-day? He is nowhere to be seen. Our young men seem to belong to a totally different race. Not only the dress and manner of the gent have disappeared, but his very physique has changed. With new clothes, new habits, and the stimulus of an intellectual life, the Ape of a dozen years ago has become a Man. And his amusements and the resorts in which he delighted have passed away with him. The youth who has grown up to man's estate within the last thirty years, must wonder, as he looks back over his career, that he could ever have taken delight in the amusements which were in vogue in his early days. There was that ghastly supper-room, where so many of us have sat and thumped the tables, and yelled with laughter at the filthy songs-songs which had neither wit nor humour, nor any thing else to recommend them; but were simply strained efforts to express the most disgusting, the most beastly, and the most revolting ideas. We must have been thoughtless young men then, and ill fortified against evil communications, to have listened quietly and without indignant protest to those terrible songs. There was a man who made a great name-what a name !-by singing those songs; and it was the fate of the present writer to see his end. The evil that he had done, the pollution which he had sown broadcast, the generation of youthful minds that he had debased and corrupted, started up like terrible and accusing spectres over that last scene. After wandering about for weeks, a maundering, maudlin, friendless outcast, he sank exhausted on a dung-heap, and was carried into a workhouse to die!

But there were other places as popular as the harmonic supper-room, whose influence was even more debasing. We all remember the famous, or rather infamous, Judge-and-Jury Society, where a man sat as judge, and other persons appeared as counsel and witnesses; the whole object of the proceeding being to entertain the audience with the details of some imaginary case, surrounded by circumstances of the grossest indecency. Every question was designed to draw forth a gross and filthy answer. Every remark of the mock judge was a grave and deliberate piece of obscenity; while the speeches of the counsel were sustained efforts to make dirty jokes. A more deliberate scene of wickedness was probably never enacted and countenanced since the world began. Yet this was one of the most popular entertainments of the time of which we speak. It was understood that most of the illustrious men of the day had patronised it at one time or other; and persons coming from the country sought out the Judgeand-Jury Society as the first and choicest resort of the metropolis. The saddest reflection in connexion with this exhibition-which is now hap

pily relegated to the scum and outscourings of society-is, that it was originally fostered and promoted by "gentlemen." The humbler classes may thank their stars that such amusements were considered too good for them, and that they were provided with nothing worse than the public-house sing-song, where the entertainment was adapted for women as well as men.

If we recall the various aspects of society at this time, we shall find that every section of it exhibited a rudeness, a want of polish, and a lack of healthy intellectual activity, which contrast strangely with the awakened national life of the present time. Those were days when public opinion was but very feebly expressed through the press. The moral influence of popular feeling had not yet acquired either the strength or direction to control the affairs of the nation as they are controlled now. Ministers of State, magistrates, and our rulers generally were far more independent of the vox populi than they are at the present time. Let us recall what was the character of our foreign policy ten years ago. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs was a sort of Mephistophelian character, who overawed Europe by his secret machinations. His rule of conduct was to make himself feared, to be a bugbear and a terror to all with whom he had to deal. His ambassadors were men whom he sent forth to lie, not so much for the good of his country as for the minister's own personal glory. We were constantly in diplomatic hot water at this time; always with a quarrel on hand, threatening a suspension of amicable relations, if not absolute war. It was but yesterday that we upheld and applauded this political doctrine; but, presto! to-day the whole plan is changed. Our ministers and ambassadors now declare that the only rule of diplomacy is "candour, conciliation, and truth." So well has this rule been observed throughout the recent troubles in Europe and the present troubles in America, that our most restless and inveterate enemies have exercised their ingenuity in vain to fix a cause of quarrel upon us. This is the most remarkable reformation of all. In a few years the traditions of centuries have been abandoned and cast aside absolutely; and that, too, by old men, whose whole career has been guided by opposite principles.

What has become in these days of our old friend the "Hanging Judge," and of our other old friend the "Committing Magistrate"? They were in great force a dozen years ago. Juries, too, were much of the same temper, and between them law was dealt out with the "utmost rigour." A judge's charge then was not a careful and scrupulous balancing of evidence, and a plain exposition of the law, but too often an emphatic direction to imprison, transport, or hang. Juries had not yet learned to be scrupulous, and to endure imprisonment all night in a cold room rather than violate their conscience. There was not that

anxiety to give the benefit of doubt which we see now. Life was not held so sacred among us, and human suffering was but lightly regarded in comparison with the stern behests of the law. What a different affair a trial for murder is to-day from what it was, we may say, yesterday! Yesterday the process was rapid and ruthlessly business-like, and the one

object of all concerned, excepting only the counsel for the defence, was to obtain a conviction. To-day we linger and deliberate; every facility is afforded to the prisoner's counsel to find a loophole of escape for his client; the public prosecutor performs his duty rigidly, but with moderation, not as a persecutor, but as a vindicator of the law. And when the trembling wretch escapes with his life, even stern Justice feels relief. The improvement in the administration of justice in our police-courts will be attested with gratitude by all classes, by the poor as well as the rich; for the time is not long gone by when the judgments of those tribunals were almost invariably harsh and cruel. A very few years ago there were magistrates who made a rule of convicting almost every one who was charged. We all remember how the poor cabmen complained of a certain magistrate who never let them off, however slight the offence. How differently the intelligent gentlemen who now, it may be truly said, adorn the magisterial bench, deal with the poor and the unfortunate! Not long ago two cabmen were brought up for having been drunk overnight and incapable of taking care of their cabs. "It was a cruel wet day, your worship," one of them pleaded, "and I took a good drop to keep out the cold." "Well, it was a terrible day, truly, so go your ways." Such was the considerate reply. In the good old times which preceded the last decade, this poor cabman would have been heavily fined for not being as virtuous as an angel; and the stern magistrate, to show his thorough impartiality, would have seized the earliest opportunity to send a "gentleman" to the House of Correction for administering a well-deserved whipping to some officious policeman who had been exceeding his duty. Happily, in these days, we have come to a better understanding one with another as to the ends and objects of law and justice that they are not to be wielded in vengeance, or to inflict pain, but to do right between man and man, and promote the happiness and good order of society.

No summary of the progress of the last few years would be complete without a reference to the great awakening which has taken place in religious matters. We do not refer to what is called "Revivalism." That we believe to be altogether an exceptional affair-one of those eccentric manifestations, which are as irregular and unaccountable as the visitations of comets, epidemics, and the mania for murder or suicide. This is not a thing of regular growth, but a fantastic parasite, bred of some local disease in the parent stem. We refer to the great fact that our Cathedrals and Abbeys, hitherto mere monuments of disuse, are filled to overflowing on Sunday evenings by the working-classes to hear sermons preached by the dignitaries of the Church. Bishops were not wont, in the old time, to preach special sermons to the working classes; and the present writer, in his own person, without implicating any one else in the opinion, must here rebuke those writers who are seeking to ridicule the efforts of Mr. Spurgeon, by declaring his conviction that this true and legitimate revival in religious teaching is in a very great measure due to that man. Mr. Spurgeon may have incurred the imputation of being a mountebank;

but, mountebank or not, it would be unjust to deny that it was his example which stirred up bishops to preach special sermons to the working-classes, and that it was his Tabernacle that excited the emulation of Abbeys and Cathedrals to become something better than mere sixpenny shows. Did not the Bishop of London write to this mountebank the other day, and salute him as a fellow-labourer in the same great Vineyard? Such amenities as these are indications of a millennium-evidences that the world has passed through a purgatorial fire and become a new thing. We see in them the first shy advances of the Lion and the Lamb towards that lying down together in the good time which is to come.

Let us glance now at the young lord, who erstwhile found his amusement in gambling, in dissipation, and in midnight riot. It is but a very few years ago that he was breaking his father's heart and scandalising the ear of the public with his wild extravagance and shameless debauchery. There was no hope of him, and every body prophesied that he would die in a ditch. Where is this noble scapegrace to-day? The species is extinct. Shortly after the opening of the great Reformatory School, he became quite a different character. We missed him altogether from his midnight haunts, and found him at Mechanics' Institutions delivering lectures. He had cleared out his museum of knockers and bell-handles, and filled it with books and works of art. To-day he is an Ambassador or a Secretary of State doing honest work, nobly and well, astonishing every one by the discovery of talents no less solid than brilliant. His example has not been lost upon young men of a humbler station. Evening classes, scientific or literary lectures, solid reading, and musical entertainments of a high class have attractions for the youth of the present day far above those of the casino or the ribald supper-room. These latter resorts are now, thank Heaven, no longer paying concerns. A music-hall can only succeed in these days by admitting women, and presenting a decent entertainment. This prevailing improvement in the public taste is also attested by a marked purification in the practices of the stage. The dreadful things that low comedians used to say in farces will be fresh in the memory of the youngest playgoer. How the audience used to roar and yell at them! Ladies put their handkerchiefs to their faces; but they laughed all the same, and never thought of getting up and leaving the theatre in disgust. The same people who laughed at and applauded those jokes a few years ago, will be in the pit and boxes to-night; but they will not laugh at an indelicate allusion; they will hiss; and woe to the offending actor or author next morning when the newspapers come out!

Newspapers! A word must be devoted to them; for do they not constitute the Fourth Estate of the Realm? The appellation fits better than when it was first given. Since the repeal of the Stamp-laws, and with the more general spread of intelligence and knowledge among the people, the Press has lost much of the autocratic power which it once possessed, and has become more of a representative body, deriving its authority from the suffrages of public opinion. It has lost its power, but it