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more refer to the writings of Charles Dickens. Read “Oliver 
Twist,” published (I think) about 1833; and see how utterly 
impossible it would be for such a book to be written in the present 
day. Of course it is (more or less) a caricature of the state of 
things which Dickens saw around him. But a caricature loses all 
its point, if it does not possess some sort of real likeness to the 
life. And (as I have said) in almost all his writings Dickens had 
some serious moral purpose. Those purposes have, for the most 
part, been now so completely achieved, that the old evil state of 
affairs is forgotten, and we are apt to say that such things can 
never have been! Compare our workhouses and our workhouse 
schools with the description presented in “Oliver Twist.” Look 
at the picture of the utterly neglected London poor, and especially 
of the criminal classes, there given, cut off wholly from any hope of 
better things; and think of the swarm of charitable and religious 
agencies which are at work now—inadequate indeed still to cope 
with the needs of the case, and yet presenting a very different 
aspect from that given in “Oliver Twist,” and resulting in an 
immense diminution of crime and misery. 
But the honest and respectable working man—what was his 
condition? With regard to his wages, let me refer to a very 
remarkable pamphlet, published in 1884, by Mr. Robert Giffen, 
President of the Statistical Society, on ‘“‘The Progress of the 
Working Classes in the last Half Century,” which gives a more 
trustworthy account of the change than any mere impressions 
could do.* The conclusion to which Mr. Giffen comes is shortly 
this—that in fifty years the workman’s wages have risen between 
50 and oo per cent.—that his food, and all articles consumed by 
him, are on the whole somewhat cheaper, bread in particular 
being much cheaper and freed from the great fluctuations of price 
*I may‘also mention an interesting lecture by Mr. C. S, Roundell, on ‘‘The 
Progress of the,,Working Classes during the Reign of the present Queen,” to 
which I owe several thoughts for this address. 
