The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1898-08-28

~ization, which. Issuing from the French revo.
luton. marked the close OF the eighteenth
century. Mr.. Russell proceeds to inquire how
far this levelling process was accompanied In
England by social amelioration. 1t is certain
that for amelioration there was room enough
when the process began. for at no period OF
English history had aristocratic morals been at
80 low an ebb. Recalling Burke's saying that
vice loses half its evil when it loses all its gross
ness. the author points out that in the English
society Of the last century grossness was as
conspicuous as vice itself. and 1t infected not
only the region OF morals. but that Of manners
also. Sir Walter Scott has described how.
in his youth. refined g~entlewomen road
aloud to their families the most start
ling passages OF the most outrageous
authors. Mr.. Russell has been told by one
who heard II from an eyewitness that a great
Wing Duchess. who figures brilliantly in
the social and political memoirs Of the last
century. turning to the footman who was wait
ing on her at dinner. exclaimed. II wish to
God that you wouldn't keep rubbing your great,
greasy belly against the back OF my chair"
Men and women Of the highest fashion swore
like troopers; the Miss Berrys. who had been
the correspondents Of Horace Walpole. and
who carried down to the flfties OF our own age
the most refined traditions Of the social life Of
the last century. habitually damned" the
teakettle II 1t burned their fingers. The public
conscience had not yet reyolted against violence
and brutality. In 1850 a woman was burned
at the stake for coming. People still living
have seen the skeletons Of pirates and high
waymen hanging In chains. As late as 1920
the boys OF Westminster School had a special
holiday to enable them to see tho dead bodies
OF the Cato street conspirators decapitated In
front Of Newgate. Debt was punished with
what often was Imprisonment for life.
A woman died In the county jail at
Exeter after forty-lve years. incarceration
for a debt OF &l0. The slave trade. though
menGced. was still undisturbed. Under a sys-
tenn scarcely distlnguishable from slavery, pau
per children were bound over to the owners of
factories and subjected to the utmost rigor OF
enforced labor; The treatment, Of the insane
as 1928 Lord Shaftesbury found that the luna
ties In Bedlam were chained to their straw beds
tendance. and with only bread and water within
thheII reach While phisIesIDttihDes kIeepers were enjoying
scaoois was Of the most brutal type' E mi II
prisons were unreformed. The penal code
was, inconceiSably sanguilary and savage. In
statute book. and BY the B6ssInSifng q this Gems emo
tury, the number had greatly increased. To
was punishable by death A girl OF ~
was hanged for receiving G piece Of wool
len stun I from the the man who had stolen y
personal cleanliness became fashionable ia
and the means OF attaining IL were Gull |
tiyated; The whole art or science OF domestic
sanitation belongs to this century.Iindecd, to
fore It vas too primitlvely abominable to bear
elaborate description. Sir Robert Rawlinson. |
the sanitary expert, who was called In to In
death. reported that. within tho Queens reign,
''cesspools full OF putrid refuse and drains OF
the worst description existed beneath the base
ment., Twenty, OF these cesspools were re-
9oyed from the upper wards aud twenty
OF ventilation by windows In Windsor Castle
were very defective, Even In the royal apart |