PAST AND PRESENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 1363, 10 March 1876, Page 3

PAST AND PRESENT.

; (From the Daily Telegraph.) Dean Stanley, in Westminster Abbey, on Christmas Day, spoke of the fears of many at the present time that the world is growing worse. "It maybe that sometimes in our gloomy moods we are inclined to think we cannot count on the continuous advance of the onward progress of our race. It may be we are sometimes inclined to fear that the latter * half of the nineteenth century is to close

on a lower morality, a darker philosophy, a debasement of the senses, or a term of gross superstition. It ni.iy be that diabolical crirnessliall arise again, which wo had hoped were dead for ever, iliafc statesmen may again become -corrupt and. self-seeking, that the leaders of sects and churches will again prefer the outward to the inward, the natural to the spiritual, the. seen' to the unseen." There are plenty of revelations to bear out in part a, pessimist philosophy ; nor is there any common 3ense in varnishing over tho ugly facts of the day. It is not always, wise to make the best of things and to take a cheerful view of everything all round. Comparing ourselves with our forefathers, we hear of many nearly colossal calamities, and aro face to face with a larger number of great crimes. The accidents that shocked them killed or maimed units : our misadventures desolate hundreds of homes. The horrible- consequences of strong drink in brutality to women and children have multiplied in our largo towns. For one English' child brought up. in foul air threo hundred years ago, there aro now at least fifty. , For ten men habitually unused to'cou'iitry walks in the' sixteenth I century, there are probably now one hun- .'! dred. If we look, abroad and remember the Civil : War.jn America or the recent French wrr,. we see that the numbers of men engaged in deadly struggle were ten or twelve times the forces our ancestors thought great, »nd tho loss in money and every way to the nations striving -proportionately increased. In trade and commerce;, dishonesty has made gigantic .strides ; the tiny pickings and stealings of the village have grown into gigantic City frauds. Goldsmith's rogue no longer cheats farmer Flaniborough in a bargain, or overreaches Moses with " a gross of blue spectacles ; " he starts a company,. and dipß his hand into thousands of pockets. Then, : instead of a -few sailors being paid to scuttle a ship, giving tho passengers time to escape in boats, we have the Bremerhaven monster who murders by machinery and winds up nn assassination eight days in advance of the deed, ■leaving no hope for the victims of the calculated crime. Moreover, faith has died down, leaving hone of the Btera relentless zeal that impelled men. to . clje at the stake themselves ,or born theji! . neighbours . at. . a < clause _in a ,'oreed. '.-, (The chivalrous - loyalty which placed lifo'and goods.at .the bidding of a king is vanished,- or k cherished , only by a few peasaritsy priests,' and nobles in Bißcay and- Navarre; Our theatre relies not on'intellect'ual but sensuous attractions ; our 'literature is alLcopy and compilation; our poetry i3 half-hearted, and Romeo, sighing Under Juliet's balcony, is soothed by the anticipation of a dinner, a cigar, arid a rubber at the club. This 1 is the : indictment, and we are inclined to accept it as borne out by the facts. ' Xet. it is. not the whole truth. Thfcre arecpunierbalancing considerations evißnas regards these matters, while .there', are others left altogether out of sight. For instance,; we hear now of gigantic accidents by, road or sea, but the extent of the disasters. is due to the. increased: niimbor of travellers /, wo might as well call a nation more unhealthy than a province because more people die within its borders in a year. The proportion of iilled. or Tnaim_ed wayfarers is much less no W' than, it, was 400 years, ago ; the i perils of travel were then much greater from bad roads, trackless : hillsides, robbers, flood, and frost ; but the isolated tales were not "published all over the world, and it was only the oldest village inhabitant who retained the memory of! one man frozen to death, or another found with his pockets empty and his throat cut. Of crimes we certainly hear much more ; but this is one of the painful' results of the fierce light thrown by the press on every corner, of the world. Centuries ago,' and even down, to within out own time,-a crimo,- no matter how cruel, was a local event ; sometimes, if vory bad, it shocked a county, while the criminal ;nnißt bo very exceptional; in- wickednoss or^ rank :to attract national interest. Now, if an old woman- in- a small Cumberland village beats, her grandson- with : a stick and is reproved by a magistrate, her name and offence are recorded in print. A child in Wales sent to prison for- stealing an .apple may have. her case published in five hundred newspapers. ; .AIl England lives in a glass ; hou3e, thanks" to ,a_ a,\yarmj of .jlocal l ...rßpqrter.B,. ; and iCorrespon.donts., Old ladies a hundred years ago had^toibe contents with: i county (.murders ; itheiri granddaughters haveitlie /crimes of the. world reported by telegraph every morning, nnd served up hot with the coffee and'the rolls.' This, some say, is one of the'evils of the : day : ; we . hear too much ; we are all made' Fairy Finear, and can almost detect the- growing of the grass ; our fingerathrbbwiththe world'3 heart ; wo are always feeling its pulse. Yet no good OWJ.Id come -of deliberate obscurity or ilarcful concealment of, painful facts. Our forefathers ignored:. much, and left us horrible legacies. A statesman living in tho time of the first three Georges know yothing whatever ;of the social'condition of England ;. his lofty intellect was matched with princes and ambassadors ; he dreamed of nothing lower than treaties or wars. He signed warrants, but never visited gaols. He heard of- twenty or thirty men hanged at Newgate one morningj- but what had he to do. with the execution ,of the law ? — the purposes of " the Emperor,!' or the/designs of France wore his business. Yet at that time, whilo the., great Council" of the nation dealfc.with'high pojiiics, .the mbst atrocious'cruelties'were perihitie.d.. -The prisons we'rjj: , , foul beyond .' the : painting of amodern pen. Poo^ debtors wore, worse . off than: the malefactors- of. qur, own- day. The dwellings of poverty in cities reeked: with abominations. Local famines often occurred, and even high statesmen sanctioned the ignorant hatred of the speculators, who -shreWdly. stored up grain; Terrible epidemics desolated city and country, andthere was little or' no sound medical help; These, things were absolutely unnoticed. Kings dalled " good "disdained to look : atj" statesmen regarded as eminontly , wise . never .alluded to them. . A festering pauperism: was spread by individual doles,- but proposals of Jlegislation to arrest ithe evila were left to a few philanthropic writers who found no hearers in the- Council of the; State, and were regarded by the nation .at large as idle dreamers of a Millennium that coxild never.be.: . : : Taking, therefore, tho two sides of tho shield, we see grave evils in our day, and others as gravo in. past times ; but with thi3 distinction — that our misfortunes come from circumstances; theirs were more distinctly due to Want of thought and want of heart. . Our forefathers had many advantages over us. England was not so crowded. If ; we go back some three or four centuries we see that a poor man in a thoroughly rural district had many incidental advantages. Game was notso strictly preserved, and every hillside swarmed with wild creatures. The streams . were full of fish. Pasturago might bo had for little or for nothing on the^common. -Meat was cheap, fresh air

was abundant, home-brewed ale was plentiful, homespun stuff sufficed for clothes. Nature and circumstances were all in favor of the Englishmen of that clay. But they were guilty of brutalities in act or omission which our worst foes could not bring homo to us. Great nobles wrought local iniquities. Men accused were tortured or " done to death" by suborned evidence. The differences of opinion which now arouse only paper wars then lighted fires at Smithfield, or sent to the hulk, the gaol, the scaffold, thousands of honest men. The cruel outrages then executed wholesale by Englishmen on one another, with or without tho empty forms of justice, are as impossiblo now as the foulness found by Howard in the gaols, or the local plagues and famines which desolated counties, while a few hundred miles off health and plenty could be found. We suffer from evils not easily reparable ; from the aggregation of men in big cities and tho consequent injuries to bodily health. The sufferings of our ancestors were mainly due to tho ferocity of their own passions or the dense ignorance i that made them an easy prey to kings, ior courtiers, or priests. No doubt we jhave less "faith ; " but at a time when our bishops were, bigots and our clergy ipersecutora, : promotion in the Church was purchased by profligates or won by snb-' ■servience to tho vices of tho Palace or the Ball. When "the Protestant religion" was ever on the lips of our Prime Ministers corruption reigned in Parliament, , at Court, and throughout every pollingbooth. At the samo time .the private lives of even the most eminent statesmen were chequered with gambling, profligacy and strong drink. It is at all times difficult to compare amounts of crime, or sin in two ages ; but, at all events, distinguished men are now ashamed of vices then practised in open day, and this shame testifies to a public opinion that is certainly new. But, while the worst facts of our time, unlike tho ills of the past, are more the result of evil cir-,j cumstances than of bad thought, we have no wish to sing a song of rejoicing. On the contrary, we believe that the task of bur era is tremendously difficult 'on that very account; Good wishes, kind words, happy thoughts, will not clear away the horrible evils arising from the overcrowding and the growing bigness of our cities. When men saw the folly of fanaticism thefires of Smithfield went, out. . We all see ihe darigofs' and disorders arising from masses of men heaped together, and yet the remedy is left to small, feeble efforts like '.the Peabody and Waterlow organisations, or to slowly-moved statutes like the Artisans Dwellings Act. The number of healthy workmen's dwellings added to London eachryear does -hot by many long steps keep pace • with the increase of the population ; so that- the city gets 1 worse because fuller every year. Our .forefathers had hard hearts and hard ljands to strike at foes. We have soft hearts, but our hands are not swift and strong to root out the evils Aye recognise and lament.