borers
as well, and did much toward equalizing the size of the districts
represented by each member of the House of Commons. Other reforms have
been adopted during the same period, and Parliament has thus come to
represent the whole population instead of merely the aristocracy. But
there have been even greater changes in local government. By laws
passed in 1835 and 1882 the cities and boroughs have been given a form
of government in which the power is in the hands of all the taxpayers.
In 1888 an act was passed through Parliament forming County Councils,
elected by universal suffrage and taking over many of the powers
formerly exercised by the magistrates and large landholders. In 1894
this was followed by a Parish Council Bill creating even more
distinctly local bodies, by which the people in each locality, elected
by universal suffrage, including that of women, may take charge of
almost all their local concerns under the general legislation of
Parliament.

Corresponding to these changes in general and local government the
power of the old ruling classes has been diminished in all directions,
until it has become little more than that degree of prominence and
natural leadership which the national sentiment or their economic and
intellectual advantages give to them. It may be said that England, so
far as its government goes, has come nearer to complete democracy than
any other modern country.

In the rapidity of movement, the activity, the energy, the variety of
interests, the thousand lines of economic, political, intellectual,
literary, artistic, philanthropic, or religious life which
characterize the closing years of the nineteenth century, it seems
impossible to choose a few facts to typify or describe the period, as
is customary for earlier times.

Little can be done except to point out the main lines of political
movement, as has been done in this paragraph, or of economic and
social development, as will be done in the remaining paragraphs of
this and the next chapter. The great mass of recent occurrences and
present conditions are as yet rather the human atmosphere in which we
are living, the problem which we are engaged in solving, than a proper
subject for historical description and analysis.

[Illustration: Distribution of Population in England and Wales 1891.
Engraved By Bormay & Co., N.Y.]

*67. The Beginning of Factory Legislation.*--One of the greatest
difficulties with which the early mill owners