now.

That is rarely the case

Sir Frederic Rogers in 1842 tried hard in the columns of the Times to kill duels by ridicule, and they were forbidden in the army in 1844, but they still existed. I well recollect Lord Cardigan's trial in the House of Lords, where, in consequence of a legal technicality, he was acquitted of the murder of Captain Tucker in a duel. Ridicule, however, gave the coup de grâce to duels. In 1852 George Smythe, the representative of the Young England party, and Colonel Romilly were going to fight in consequence of an electioneering quarrel. When they got to the Weybridge Station there was only one fly to be had, so both combatants, thirsting for each other's blood, and their seconds had to drive over in it to the chosen spot, George Smythe sitting on the box, and Colonel Romilly, with both the seconds, inside. At the fateful moment a pheasant rose out of a copse, as in Leech's famous caricature, and a pistol went off. The combatants exchanged shots, and the foes returned as they came. The incident was dealt with in a witty article in the Times, and so ridicule did more than mortality to kill duelling. Solvuntur risu tabulæ.

's

One of the most remarkable changes of manners has been that familiarities have taken the place of formalities. In my early days few elderly ladies addressed their husbands by their Christian names in public. I never heard my mother call my father by his Christian name. I recollect that Lady fame was imperilled because, after some great man's death, a letter from her to him was discovered beginning with his Christian name. I think I am right in saying that at Eton we never recognized the existence of such a thing. Even boys who "knew each other at home" never divulged them. Letters between friends often began "My dear Sir," and many boys in my time addressed their fathers always as "Sir." A friend of mine, Gerald Ponsonby, dining with Lady Jersey,

her father, Lord Westmorland, though specially attached to his sister, Lady Lonsdale, call her anything but Lady Lonsdale; and Henry Greville, who was present at the same dinner, said he remembered his mother, Lady Charlotte, and her brother, the Duke of Portland, meeting in the morning at Welbeck and saying "How is your Ladyship this morning?" and her replying with all solemnity, "I am quite well, I am obliged to your Grace."

All shopkeepers are now "young gentlemen" and "young ladies." The Duchess of Somerset, on making inquiry about something she had purchased at Swan & Edgar's, was asked if she had been served by a young gentleman with fair hair. "No," she said meditatively, "I think it was by an elderly nobleman with a bald head."

Photography was in its infancy early in the fifties, and had just begun to be common in the hideous daguerreotypes and talbotypes of that time. The witty Lady Morley used to say in reply to any complaint of the dulness of the weather, "What can you expect when the sun is busy all day taking likenesses in Regent Street?"

Before 1860 there were games but no crazes. Tennis, cricket, and rowing existed, but created no enthusiasm. The boat races were watched by rowing men and the friends of the crews, and that was all. I well recollect the great public school matches at Lord's, where the Winchester men, as they always called themselves, wore tall white hats.

They were attended only by some schoolboys, their relations, and those who were really interested in cricket. In all athletic sports there has been a marked development. Men row better, run faster, leap higher, gain larger scores at cricket than the men of the days gone by. In 1860 women first entered the field as competitors with men in outdoor games. Croquet could be played by men and women; and in 1870 women, leaving "les grâces" and embroidery frames, found they could compete with men in lawn tennis, as they do now in bicycling, golf, fishing,

their amusements

This is the case in art, in music, which has come in the light of a new mode of expression for all the subtle and innermost experiences of modern thought, in dress, in furniture, and essentially in ideas and conversation.

Conventionalities and commonplaces have been supplanted by daring and originality, and who shall venture to say that the change is for the worse?

Following this movement a certain number of ambitious young women, whom envious people called the "Souls," some clever by education, some by intuition, some from a sublime audacity, appeared about ten years ago on the stage of London society. By the brilliancy of their conversation, by their attractiveness and their personal charm, and may it be said from a divine instinct which taught them how dear flattery is to the race of men?they gradually drew into their society much that was distinguished, clever, and agreeable in social and political life. They soon succeeded in completely breaking down the barriers that had heretofore existed between men of opposite political parties, and included in their ranks everybody who, in their opinion, added anything to the gaiety of nations. Never having myself been admitted into the heart of this society, I have sometimes been allowed to feel its throbbings, and to be drawn into sufficient proximity to estimate the real effect its existence has produced in social life; and when I have compared the sparkle, dash, and vitality of its conversation with the stereotyped conventionalities of the ordinary "Have you been to the Academy?" sort of talk of my earlier days, I think that under whatever name they live on the lips of men we must take off our hats and make our bow to them with courtesy and admiration. No doubt women by

and pursuits, have lost somewhat the old-fashioned respect and deference they received in earlier days. But "la femme est toujours la femme, et jamais ne sera qu'une femme tant que le monde entier durera."

It cannot be denied that with the growth of education far greater latltude in conversation is now allowed in the presence of ladies; but we live in a time of introspection and self-analysis unknown to former generations, and the realistic tendencies of our modern novels have been imported into our modern talk; but we should bear in mind the wise words of Lord Bowen, who tells us that it is not the absence of costume, but the presence of innocence, which made the happiness of the Garden of Eden.

I cannot venture to describe the modern young lady of this fin de siècle, but shall take refuge in what Lucas Mallett says, "that, compared with even a superficial comprehension of the intricacies of her thought and conduct, the mastery of the Chinese language would supply an airy pastime, the study of the higher mathematics a gentle sedative."

Taking the morals of 1837 and the morals of to-day, and making allowance for Charles Villiers's dictum that "human nature is human nature," I believe that, notwithstanding the enforced absence of the restraining influence of a court and its society, morals in the main have improved. I am amazed by the marvellous strides in the manners and education of young children; instead of the shy self-consciousness of my youth we see everywhere well-mannered, well-educated little folk who can speak intelligently and answer when they are spoken to. When I think of the rough times of dear Eton, the sanded floor, the horrid food, the six o'clock school without greatcoats, the complete absence of any attempt at educating stupid boys like myself, I tremble at the pitch men and women have reached. Now there has come a very Capua of luxury, which indeed

has not yet, but may later produce effeminacy-the early cup of tea in bed, the heavy luncheons with their liquors and cigarettes, the profusion of flowers, the blaze of diamonds, the costly dinners and champagne, the soft and luxurious furniture, the warmth and the comfort in travelling; but we may be lieve that men will not in consequence "lose the wrestling thews that throw the world"-and every day we are reminded by some noble deeds of gallantry that this is not the case.

1856; and I can see now in my mind's eye the marks of women's pattens in the muddy tracks which did duty for paths in those days. It is only twenty years ago since one of the gatekeepers at the top of Portland Place used to tell of the days when he was a keeper, preserving game in the fields and coverts which are now the beautifully laid out grounds of Regent's Park. I do not recollect a turnpike at Hyde Park Corner, but it was 1865 before the tolls were abolished in Kensington and Bayswater, and tolls were exacted at the metropolitan bridges up to 1879. Tattersall's stood till 1865 at the top of Grosvenor Place, all of which has been rebuilt. Belgravia was in process of building when the queen came to the

Fully to describe the changes in London during her Majesty's reign would be impossible. The new Houses of Parliament were just begun to be built when the queen came to the throne; the Thames Embankment had not been begun. Nearly all the fashionable part of London has been rebuilt. The Marble Arch was removed to where it now stands in 1851, to make way for the new façade of Buckingham Palace; the bridge over the ornamental water was not built until 1857. In 1886 the Duke of Wellington's statue was taken down and the position of the archway at the top of Constitution Hill was altered. Before this the drive used to be reserved for those having the entrée, and was only thrown open to the public then. Green Park was in my childhood surrounded by a high brick wall, inside of which was a house belonging to Lady William Gordon. A bit of water was by it. The mound on which a great sycamore now flourishes was Lady W. Gordon's ice-house, and the stags which were at the entrance were removed to Albert Gate, where they now remain. At the north-east corner was a large reservoir, which existed till

ley said, "all the women were brave and all the men modest,” alluding co the new habit, which sprang up in the fifties, of women being allowed to walk alone in that district. Formerly no lady ever went out unaccompanied by a servant; young married ladies scarcely ever received men visitors or danced except on rare occasions. Late in the forties five o'clock teas were just coming into vogue, the old Duchess of Bedford's being, as I considered, very dreary festivities.

Swiss peasant girls with little brooms of wood shavings attracted the children in the streets with their song of "Who'll buy a Broom?" These have been replaced by shrill-voiced urchins yelling "Winner! Winner!" and by the obnoxious whistle summoning a cab.

Up till the end of the forties the old hackney coaches, with straw in the bottom for the passengers' feet, with drivers clad in seven-caped coats, and wi their miserable jades, still crawled about the London streets. It was told of a certain beau that he arrived at dinner with a straw hanging to his shoe; he apologized for this, saying his carriage had not returned from his wife's funeral, and he had been compelled to come in a hackney coach. The cabs were painted yellow, and the drivers were perched on little boxes at the side, instead of, as now, at the back. These

were not of long duration, and were soon superseded by the four-wheeler and the hånsom cab. Mail coaches of course were still running to all places to which the railroads had not yet penetrated. In 1837, a year of great severity, the mails were carried from Canterbury to Dover in sleighs. Omnibuses were few, with straw in the bottom. The lowest fare was sixpence, and in them never was a lady seen. Ladies of fashion went out for a solemn drive round the park on Sundays; but no lady went in a single-horse carriage till Lord Brougham invented the carriage which still bears his name. The victoria, the barouche or landau, appeared later on. No lady would willingly have driven down St. James's Street, or have dreamt of stopping at a club door. No lady of fashion went out to dinner except in a chariot, which was pronounced "charrot," with a coachman in a wig, and with one or two men-servants in silk stockings. Indeed, the yellow chariot and the tall footmen with long staves behind the old Duchess of Cleveland's chariot are fresh in the memory of even young people and must still have been seen by the present generation, who can recollect Lady Mildred Beresford Hope's pony carriage with two outriders.

It is impossible, even in an article as frivolous as this, to pass by in absolute silence the glorious progress of the queen's reign. In 1836 there were fiftytwo thousand convicts living in foreign lands in a state of bestial immorality. Now, notwithstanding the increase of population, there are only four thousand undergoing penal servitude, and in this country. In 1837 four thousand debtors were lying in common cells, with damp brick walls, with no bedding, and herded with murderers and common malefactors. Now transportation and imprisonment for debt have been abolished. Just before the queen's accession a little boy was condemned to death for breaking a confectioner's window and stealing sweets. Now no one can be hanged for a less crime than murder. Executions are not in public: the terrible scenes of witnessing them

are done away with, and I hope the sensational hoisting of the black flag will soon be a thing of the past. A friend of mine told me how in his youth he used to witness the executions at Tyburn. And within a few years there existed-and may exist now, for all I know-on the top of the house near the Marble Arch, which, when I was young, belonged to the Dowager Duchess of Somerset, a bench from which the frivolous and fashionable world used to witness with indifference, if not amusement, these terrible executions. Reduction of sentences has been followed by diminution of criminals, the young are protected from the shame and cruelty of becoming gaol birds, and the whole system of prison discipline is now laid on wise and merciful lines.

Lunatics are treated with careful kindness, instead of being chained together on beds of straw, naked, handcuffed, and shown at twopence a head for each visitor. Factory acts have been passed by which children of four. five, and six have been saved from being harnessed to trucks in coal mines, and being forced to climb chimneys. Women have been protected in dangerous trades. We have public baths for health and cleanliness. Free trade has made food cheap, to the enormous advantage of the consumer. There is free education for the children of the poor, at a cost of 10,000,000l. per annum to the nation; cheap postage, cheap newspapers, cheap books, and free libraries are all aiding to fit the democracy for their duties.

In 1837 eighty thousand letters were posted; now there are two hundred million posted yearly. In 1837 hospitals were in a horrid state, and no nurses of a higher type than Dickens's Mrs. Gamp and Mrs. Harris existed. Children's hospitals there were none. Now the health of the people is cared for as it never was before, and it may almost be said, the dumb speak, and the blind receive their sight. Mortality has been lessened; pain has been mitigated by anæsthetics; surgical operations, once perilous or impossible, are now safely

performed; and hospitals abound, and before the year is out will be nobly endowed. The old man of my early recollections, crippled by gout and disease, is no longer to be seen; and men of an age advanced beyond the experience of those days are overtaken by kindly death on the bicycle track or on the golf links.

Picture-galleries have been instituted, parks and museums and gardens thrown open, and the old pharisaical sabbatarianism, which closed them on the only days when artisans and workmen could enjoy them, has been banished to a certain degree. As lately as 1845 nobody could carry a bundle, sleep, or walk in a working dress in St. James's Park; and the Royal Parks, as compared with the present time, were a howling wilderness, without a flower bed or a shrubbery. The lovely park in Battersea, the scene of modern cycling, consisted of damp market garwhich dens, where asparagus, called "Battersea grass," was cultivated.

was

wind that

I am aware that "the blows upon an older head blows no longer from a happy shore," but, looking back over the long vista of forty years, I see improvements everywhere, with few exceptions. Men's morals, and certainly their language, have improved, excessive drinking has become unfashionable and almost unknown in the society of gentlemen, cigars and cigarettes have replaced the filthy habit of taking snuff, night-caps and stuffy four-posters and sweltering feather beds have been replaced by fresh air and tubs, and electricity has snuffed out cotton-wicked candles and rid us of tinder-boxes, and may ere long rid us of gas. Everybody is clean, and it would be difficult to find a man or a woman in society who is not engaged in some good and useful work, or some endeavor to help others in the sorrows and struggles of life.

Finally, in the language of Lord Brougham, the queen can boast that "she found law dear, and she will leave it cheap; she found it a sealed book, she will leave it a living letter; found it

the patrimony of the rich, and will leave it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression, and will leave it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence."

And now I have done. I know that it is for the old only to dream dreams and the young to see visions; but having dreamt my dream, I indulge for a moment in the privilege of the young; and while humbly acknowledging that there are many social problems to be solved, and that, as Machiavelli said, "a free government, in order to maintain itself free, has need every day of some new provision in favor of liberty," I think I see a vision of the glories to be accomplished in succeeding generations, and cherish a faith "which is large in time, and that which shapes it to some perfect end.”

This fine old world of ours is but a child Yet in its go-cart-Patience give it time To learn its limbs-there is a hand that guides.

ALGERNON WEST.

IN KEDAR'S TENTS. 1

BY HENRY SETON MERRIMAN, AUTHOR OF "THE SOWERS."

CHAPTER XV.

AN ULTIMATUM.