OLD ROME'S VICES ARE ENGLAND'S NOW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11986, 7 June 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

OLD ROME'S VICES ARE ENGLAND'S NOW.

0 LUXURY AND EFFEMINACY. As to the manners of English society a doleful picture is drawn by Mr. George W. Russell in the Daily News. He says : — " We are Romans of the worst period, given up to luxury and effeminacy, caring for nothing but money. Courage is so out of fashion that we boast of cowardice. We care nothing for beauty in art, but only for brutal realism. • " Sport has lost its manliness. It is a matter of pigeons from a trap, or a mountain of crushed pheasants to sell 'your own tradesman. "Religion has degenerated into juggling and table turning and philandering with cults, brought, like the rites of Isis, from the East." .V Discussing his subject in detail Mr. Russell point* out that one of the evil signs of the times is the breaking up of the home. To-day people habitually' dine in clubs or restaurants who a few years ago would as soon have had their baths in public as their meals. Tennis, cycling, ping-pong, and automobiles turn the weekly day of rest into a crowning fatigue. No one goes to church. : Another epoch-making change in social life is that people live less and less in the country. The enormous increase of luxury in every life, with the resulting outlay, has kindled an insane eagerness to be rich. A " straight tip" is pursued as devotedly as if it were the Holy Grail. There is, so far as Mr. Russell knows, only one aspect of English society which compares favourably with what is known about the present generation's grandfathers' doings,, and. that concerns their djrinking habits