The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-04 00:00:00

nations in social morality, but still it is very far
short of perfection. Compared with other
periods of our history, crime seems just as com-
mon, though less gross—vice as rampant, though
more restrained—moral delinquenciet in indivi-
duals as frequent, though not less loudly de-
nounced—than at any other period. We can
scarcely take up a newspaper on any day with-
out seeing an Account of fresh murders—fresh
outrages upon unoffending individuals—fresh
beating of wives by their husbands—fresh sepa-
rations—fresh robberies—fresh perjuries—fresh
peculations upon the public. What frauds in
business—what abuses of trusts—what dishonest
artifices for making rich—what overreaching and
cheating—have been brought to light within
even the last year. What " social evils" stalk
unblushing and unrebuked in our streets. All
these things ought to move every patriot, every
philanthropist, and every statesman to exert him-
self to stay that which eats out the heart of na-
tions, and is the real cause, whenever there is a
cause, why a country declines. When at the
height of their prosperity, nations are often
nearest their fall. It is when a tree has at-
tained to its full growth that, beginning to rot
at the root, the rot steals up the heart, and it
gradually fades, withers, dies.
It is more especially incumbent on statesmen
to see to these things, and provide remedies.
Lord DERBY, when he came into office, pro-
claimed the law of Progress (and in this he was
quite right) to be the law of Conservatism.
What is not from time to time renewed, decays.
It is the progress of England as a nation that
has preserved it in so much vigour. But if
morals decay, there is rottenness at the core,
however vigorous may appear to be the branches.
To check crime—to prevent the outbreak of
public immoralities—to maintain salutary social

order—is the work of the politician. The Con-
servatives may take to themselves the credit of
having originated and carried more amendments
in the law, more social improvements, more
practical reforms, than any other party. Yet
still there are social reforms which, we think,
are greatly needed. Either the police are neg-
ligent of their duties, or they are not armed with
sufficient power to put a check upon the so-called
"social," it ought rather to be called the " un-
social evil," in its public impudency. Law
is compassed about with too many difficulties for
it to be generally taken advantage of by the public.
When to obtain redress for a wrong a man has to
suffer a yet greater wrong, in the heavy expenses
of an action, he will be far more likely to
wink at an evil, though it be one by which thou-
sands of others may suffer, than to seek redress
for it. Facilities for the redress of social wrongs
ought to be made easy; checks upon them ought
to be multiplied. The person of the subject, and
not merely his property, ought to be more
rigidly protected—his social confidences, and not
merely his civil rights, more jealously guarded
by the lynx eye of Law ; for liberty itself ceases
to be liberty when it takes the form of license.

As we have made progress as a nation in every
other respect, it is to be hoped we shall strive as
a nation to make progress in moral improvement,
and to extend this improvement, as we have all
others, to the world at large. The only way to
do this is to provide wholesome restraining laws;
to protect the helpless; to put down with a strong
hand the licentious ; to promote education ; to
purify the press ; to give additional places of
worship to the people ; to curb the excesses of
the rich ; to preach the Gospel to the poor ; to
send out missions to the heathen ; to expand, in
short, the Church of England to the full com-