but the most cunning demagogue or even the most egregious scoundrel, is the one who, taking the people by the ears, acquires the right to govern them. Instead of principle we get fraud; instead of patriotism, selfishness; instead of sacrifice, actual stealing; instead of statesmanship, quackery; and you remember Carlyle says that quack and dupe are the upper and under sides of the same leather. XXV. PATRIOTIC DUTY. duty. The sentiment of patriotic duty is one of Patriotic the things wherein we are nowadays most deficient. In the Greek Republics patriotic sacrifice was one of the virtues. Has Christianity diminished the obligation? Do we, and ought we not faithfully to teach our children that next to the love of God comes the spirit of devotion to the people's service? The mere sentiment of Fourth of July loyalty; the sprinkling and starring of heaven with fire E works, tremendous roaring and rattling of cannonades and fusillades, the assertion of American citizenship in divers curious ways, in places as different as London hotels, French cafés, Rhine steamers, the Roman Corso, or the top of the Pyramids; eloquent and intensely national orations on the Declaration of Independence and the Pilgrim Fathers; that any of these, or all of them together, do but imperfectly comply with the responsibilities of patriotism we must all confess. Not seldom are they the brayings of the well-stalled jackass, who prefers speaking through his nose to being harnessed in the yoke and taking his share in dragging along the great state chariot. Appeal. XXVI. APPEAL. O ye mothers and fathers, with your noble, clever, capable children growing up around you—your circle of beauty and pride, if you would make of this free people a really great nation, supreme in its liberty, its wealth, and its might, instil into your offspring the true holy pride of a patriotism which regards no sacrifice as too extreme, no gift too rich, no energy or zeal too extravagant in the country's daily work. For here are laid the foundation of a nation's greatness, here grow the roots of its success, herein lie the seeds of its honour, its well-being, its super-eminence, its after-blessedness in the sacred consecration to its service of all its sons and daughters! XXVII. THE ENGLISH POOR. English I have spoken of vested interests, of privi- The lege, of local administration, of the citizen's poor. duty. Let us change the scene. The amazing vitality and wealth of England transfixes the foreigner with astonishment. Nothing more impressed the Shah of Persia than the tokens which he saw on every hand of boundless riches. The streets and squares of noble mansions in Belgravia, Mayfair, or Brompton, the innumerable halls and castles, with their splendid domains sprinkled over the face of the country, the magnificence of the merchants, the incessant vigour of manufactures, the crowded shipping on rivers like the Thames, the Mersey, the Humber, the Clyde, and the Tyne, astound the spectator with the idea of fabulous wealth, amidst which it would seem impossible that poverty should have a place.. Yet, with all this energy and all these riches, there exists in melancholy contrast a poverty and degradation so terrible that it is a greater marvel than the splendour under which it burrows. Up from the depths comes a cry sonorous and awful, a warning to the dazzling glory above. XXVIII. THE CITY AND TOWN POPULATION. and town tion. Let me try then,--let me try faithfully and The city without exaggeration, to give you an insight populainto some of that dense, dreadful life which underlies the crust of English society. Midland Station at cras: the dents and quences. I stood, not many weeks ago, gazing at a The magnificent pile of buildings at St. Pancras in Railway London, erected on the plans of England's St. Pangreatest architect, one of those colossal antecehotels which are now attached to our chief conserailway termini, with all its adjacent station,— a triumph of engineering, its vast roof, if I am not mistaken, spanning in one arch more than an acre of ground. Where all this now stands, and on the space cleared for its approaches, I used eight years ago to visit, week after week, a population of the artisan and unskilled labouring class. Here were narrow streets and alleys, with grim, rotting tenements, every hole and corner, from cellar to attic, occupied by families-one family to a room, with sometimes a boarder besides |