ld it
be possible, one asks in curiosity, to stop the noisy and mirthless
laughter of these girls with a hot supper of chops fresh from the
grill? Would they, if they were first well fed, incline their hearts
to rest, reflection, instruction, and a little music? The cheap
excursions, the school feasts, the concerts given for the people, the
increased brightness of religious services, the Bank holidays, the
Saturday half-holiday, all point to the gradual recognition of the
great natural law that men and women, as well as boys and girls, must
have play. At the present moment we have just arrived at the stage of
acknowledging this law; the next step will be that of respecting it,
and preparing to obey it, just now we are willing and anxious that all
should play; and it grieves us to see that in their leisure hours the
people do not play because they do not know how.

Compare, for instance, the young workman with the young gentleman--the
public schoolman, one of the kind who makes his life as 'all round' as
he can, and learns and practises whatever his hand findeth to do. Or,
if you please, compare him with one of the better sort of young City
clerks; or, again, compare him with one of the lads who belong to the
classes now held in the building of the old Polytechnic; or with the
lads who are found every evening at the classes of the Birkbeck. First
of all, the young workman cannot play any game at all, neither
cricket, football, tennis, racquets, fives, or any of the other games
which the young fellows in the class above him love so passionately:
there are, in fact, no places for him where these games can be played;
for though the boys may play cricket in Victoria Park, I do not
understand that the carpenters, shoemakers, or painters have got clubs
and play there too. There is no gymnasium for them, and so they never
learn the use of their limbs; they cannot row, though they have a
splendid river to row upon; they cannot fence, box, wrestle, play
single-stick, or shoot with the rifle; they do not, as a rule, join
the Volunteer corps; they do not run, leap, or practise athletics of
any kind; they cannot swim; they cannot sing in parts, unless, which
is naturally rare, they belong to a church choir; they cannot play any
kind of instrument--to be sure the public schoolboy is generally
grovelling in the same shameful ignorance of music; they cannot dance;
in the whole of this vast city there is not a single place where a
coup