Fifty Years Ago

IT has been my desire in the following pages to present a picture of society in this country as it waswhen the Queen ascended the throne. The book is an enlargement of a paper originally contributed to‘The Graphic.’ I have written several additional chapters, and have revised all the rest. The chapteron Law and Justice has been written for this volume by my friend Mr. W. Morris Colles, of the InnerTemple. I beg to record my best thanks to that gentleman for his important contribution.I have not seen in any of the literature called forth by the happy event of last year any books orpapers which cover the exact ground of this compilation. There are histories of progress andadvancement; there are contrasts; but there has not been offered anywhere, to my knowledge, a pictureof life, manners, and society as they were fifty years ago.When the editor of ‘The Graphic’ proposed that I should write a paper on this subject, I readilyconsented, thinking it would be a light and easy task, and one which could be accomplished in two orthree weeks. Light and easy it certainly was in a sense, because it was very pleasant work, and thebooks to be consulted are easily accessible; but then there are so many: the investigation of a singlepoint sometimes carried one through half-a-dozen volumes. The two or three weeks became two orthree months.At the very outset of the work I was startled to find how great a revolution has taken place in ouropinions and ways of thinking, how much greater than is at first understood. For instance, Americawas, fifty years ago, practically unknown to the bulk of our people; American ideas had little or noinfluence upon us; our people had no touch with the United States; if they spoke of a Republic, theystill meant the first French Republic, the only Republic they knew, with death to kings and tyrants;while the recollection of the guillotine still preserved cautious and orderly people from Republicanideas.Who now, however, connects a Republic with a Reign of Terror and the guillotine? TheAmerican Republic, in fact, has taken the place of the French. Again, though the Reform Bill hadbeen, in 1837, passed already five years, its effects were as yet only beginning to be felt; we werestill, politically, in the eighteenth century. So in the Church, in the Law, in the Services, in Society, wewere governed by the ideas of the eighteenth century.The nineteenth century actually began with steam communication by sea; with steam machinery;with railways; with telegraphs; with the development of the colonies; with the admission of thepeople to the government of the country; with the opening of the Universities; with the spread ofscience; with the revival of the democratic spirit. It did not really begin, in fact, till about fifty yearsago. When and how will it end? By what order, by what ideas, will it be followed?In compiling even such a modest work as the present, one is constantly attended by a hauntingdread of having forgotten something necessary to complete the picture. I have been adding little thingsever since I began to put these scenes together. At this, the very last moment, the Spirit of Memorywhispers in my ear, ‘Did you remember to speak of the high fireplaces, the open chimneys—up whichhalf the heat mounted—the broad hobs, and the high fenders, with the fronts pierced, in front of whichpeople’s feet were always cold? Did you remember to note that the pin of the period had its headcomposed of a separate piece of wire rolled round; that steel pens were either as yet unknown, orwere precious and costly things; that the quill was always wanting a fresh nib; that the wax-match didnot exist; that in the country they still used the old-fashioned brimstone match; that the night-light ofthe period was a rush candle stuck in a round tin cylinder full of holes; and that all the ladies’ dresshad hooks and eyes behind?’
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