" THE GOOD OLD TIMES"

Mr X. W. Wheeler, Q.C., lecturing in London on " The Good Old Times," said that the history of lha country might be divided into two great periods, the period of rural England, past and long pa9t, and the period in which we now lived, when rural England was fast disappearing, and the eoantry becoming avast aggrention of great to"»nB and cities. Or it might be divided into two periods uf time of vastly unequal duration or extent — one lasting for centuries, the period before steam and gas, and the other but the life-time period which had succeeded those discoveries. Into the latter »o much of wonder and novelty had been compreased that not only bad the national life been changed but the individual life had been revolutionised. In the earlier of these two periods— probably during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries— it might bo said, apoaking generally, that the condition of the mass of the people was at its best. In 1495 the labourer had his own cottage, garden, and little homestead, his pig' nnct poultry, free access to the common land the turf and peat lacd, free gleaning in the •.voodr, aud many of those necessaries which he had to buy now he had for nothiDg then. In 1495, when wheat was 4s lOd per quarter, wajjea were Is 10}- per week. Ibis contrasted fnvonrably with the condition of things in 1840, when wheat wa» fi6s 4d per quarter, and wages were 11s per weak. Sinca then the portion had again altered, this time in the labourers' favor, and while in terms of wheat the labourer*' wages in 1495 were equal to one third or so of a quarter or rathor lean, now they were nearly, if not quite, the half. Thus, although there wa» no time of Arcadian felicity, still he took it that the general condition of the people was at this period of the past at its best. He could not agree that there was at that time no extreme poverty ; he thought there was. It whb much to be doubted whether the abundance of food of wiiich so much was made by writers, ever ranched bevond the tables of tha wealthier classes, for bread of rye or barley, and in fimea of dearth (and these w ere common), beans, peas, and even acorns were the food of tha people, and the sturdy ploughman did his work on water-gruel. In any event there must have been a very rapid decline in ihe condition of the peasantry. For the agricultural laborer there h.td been no .Arcadian period «o far as be (the lecturer) could find. In tha fourteenth century the proportion of country to town population was the proportion of fourteen to one, but a complete change took place, and England might now be regarded as a country of great towns and cities. This change had brought into being two great classes— the working class properly so called, and tho great middle class, the equivalent of the all but extinct yeomanry. Litto in tho seventeenth century ft shilling a day was the wages of the town artisan. No restriction, as far a« the lecturer could find, was imposed aa to the hours of labour, nor waa any limit imposed on the labour of children. Children of six years of ago were thought fit for work. Men, women, and children were employed for long and oices«iv • h-iura of labour ; and the risk* incident to that labor were of a most Borious kind. The employment of climbing boys was looked back upon ai a scandal. Children were beaten to this fotk, aent up chimneys 40 or , r -0 feet in height, 14 inehrs by itinn, with one hand in their groin, and the other hand over their head, «n<i hud to pass up noine seven or eight times to enauro tho cleaning of the chimney. Ho could not wonder, howover, that such things ahoul'l be wljhii he roaiembored that until recently their countrymen, bo foared ho must aav, exhibited * somewhat brutal indifforonco ti/tho necessities, ignorances und sufferings nf thoir fellows, and sanctioned a code of penal law so sevoro and so monstrous that, to quota rtir Samuel JRomilly, prosecutors, witnessed, juries, judge*, and the ministers of the Crown entered into a general confederacy to prsvftnt tho law being exor.nteii. A well-known passage In Blackatono's Commentaries (in thn edition of 170!i), mentioned no lest than 160 offenoos ;u> Monies without benefit of clergy, in other wordi capital offences. The timo which wa« commonly culled the "Rule Britannia" period, tho close of the 18th and thu beginning of tho IMb contury, however brilliant in achiovomeni, wm one of immense hardship ai far a» thn working clanoet wi-rn concerned. In 1817 wh.iit, wn» more than 11Z« the quarter. For sume time the price of grain was artificially kept up by tho corn laws. One result of their repeal (in 1*46) wa» that the price of corn

immediately fell to such an extent that in the 20 years ending 1874 its average price was only something like 5Cs. He took it that it was no exaggeration to say that from 1820 to 1840 orlß4stho operativeelasseswere engaged iu a struggle for mere life. The lost 50 years hid seen an increase of wage which could not be leas than 50 per cent., a decrease in the hours of labour, and an inoreasj in tbe power to purchase not only the necessaries but the corofous and convenience of our daily life. For bvmse'f, he preferred the present to the pa it. He did not despair of seeing rural and agricultural industries revive, with substituted industries, thritier modes of life, lowered renH, and a juster taxation. TMb might to some extent stem the tide of life that was ever flowing into the cities, but he for one rocognised the fact that the future of English life lay in the towns and the cities.