springs slept in rooms hardly
as good as the garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The
floors of the dining-room were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown with a
wash made of soot and small beer in order to hide the dirt. Not a
wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or chimney piece was of marble. A
slab of common freestone, and fire-irons which had cost from three to
four shillings, were thought sufficient for any fireplace. The best
apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, and were furnished with
rush-bottomed chairs."

Of London Macaulay says:--"The town did not, as now, fade by
imperceptible degrees into the country. No long avenues of villas,
embowered in lilacs and laburnum, extended from the great source of
wealth and civilization almost to the boundaries of Middlesex, and far
into the heart of Kent and Surrey." In short, there was nothing like the
Avenue and the Fox Grove, Beckenham, in old times, and we who live there
ought to be immensely grateful for our undeserved blessings. "At
present," he says, "the bankers, the merchants, and the chief shopkeepers
repair to the city on six mornings of every week for the transaction of
business; but they reside in other quarters of the metropolis or suburban
country seats, surrounded by shrubberies and flower gardens." Again, "If
the most fashionable parts of the capital could be placed before us, such
as they then were, we should be disgusted by their squalid appearance,
and poisoned by their noisome atmosphere. In Covent Garden a filthy and
noisy market was held close to the dwellings of the great. Fruit women
screamed, carters fought, cabbage stalks and rotten apples accumulated in
heaps at the thresholds of the Countess of Berkshire and of the Bishop of
Durham."

Well, you will say, all this proves what a vast improvement we have
achieved. Yes; but we must remember that Macaulay was writing on that
side of the question. Are we not more self-indulgent, more fond of our
flowers, villas, carriages, etc., than we need be; less hard working and
industrious; more desirous of getting the means of indulgence by some
short and ready way--by speculation, gambling, and shady, if not
dishonest dealing--than our fathers were? I need not follow at further
length Macaulay's description of these earlier times--of the black
rivulets roaring down Ludgate Hill, filled with the animal and vegetable
filth from the stalls of butchers and greengrocers, profuse