aded that the nation is
bound towards the pit of Doom. When doleful men and women cry out
concerning abstract evils, it is always best to meet them with hard
facts, and I therefore propose to show that we ought really to be very
grateful for the undoubted advance of the nation toward righteousness.
Hideous blots there are--ugly cankers amid our civilisation--but we
grow better year by year, and the general movement is towards honesty,
helpfulness, goodness, purity. Whenever any croaker begins speaking
about the golden age that is gone, I advise my readers to try a system
of cross-examination. Ask the sorrowful man to fix the precise period
of the golden age, and pin him to direct and definite statements. Was
it when labourers in East Anglia lived like hogs around the houses of
their lords? Was it when the starving and utterly wretched thousands
marched on London under Tyler and John Ball? Was it when the
press-gangs kidnapped good citizens in broad daylight? Was it when a
score of burning ricks might be seen in a night by one observer? Was
it when imbecile rulers had set all the world against us--when the
French threatened Ireland, and the maddened, hunger-bitten sailors
were in wild rebellion, and the Funds were not considered as safe for
investors? The croaker is always securely indefinite, and a strict,
vigorous series of questions reduces him to rage and impotence.

Now let us go back, say, one hundred and twenty years, and let us see
how the sovereign, the legislators, the aristocracy, and the people
fared then; the facts may perchance be instructive. The King had
resolved to be absolute, and his main energies were devoted to bribing
Parliament. With his own royal hand he was not ashamed to write,
enclosing what he called "gold pills," which were to be used in
corrupting his subjects. He was a most moral, industrious, cleanly man
in private life; yet when the Duke of Grafton, his Prime Minister,
appeared near the royal box of the theatre, accompanied by a woman of
disreputable character, his Majesty made no sign. He was satisfied if
he could keep the mighty Burke, the high-souled Rockingham, the
brilliant Charles James Fox, out of his counsels, and he did not care
at all about the morals or the general behaviour of his Ministers.
About a quarter of a million was spent by the Crown in buying votes
and organising corruption, and King George III. was never ashamed to
appear before his Parliament in the character of an