PHILIPPIC. 91 



glowing scliemes upon platforms and j^ajjer, having for their ostensible 

 purpose the enfranchisement of fellow-men, great events are " coming off," 

 many agencies are at work on their behalf, and we who have fair claim 

 to the title of " Working-men " may with my Lord Brougham 

 demand our share of benefits, though we may not desire to be identified 

 with the " great unwashed " large numbers of whom might if they 

 desired it, be better clothed in their families, at the same time im- 

 proving the furnishing of their cottage homes. It is probable that the 

 future readers of the history of these times will find its most striking 

 incidents, connected with, and intended for the well being of the masses ; 

 at the same time unmusical as it may sound, much as it may jar upon 

 auditory nerves that have listened of late to the carressing sentences of the 

 will-be popular orator ; it must also be told ; (nor do we need such an 

 apocalyptic writing as issued fi-om Patmos to Thyatira to tell us) that we- 

 are great in crime, social crimes ; not committed by the rude illiterate man, 

 but the learned, the well-informed and educated man ; we are mighty in 

 strong drink and most repulsive in its wedded concomitants ; such as 

 make the statistics of police-courts and pauperism an unpleasant study ; 

 because there is little, if any diminution in flagrancy or numbers ; strange 

 that it should be so ? Our country is prosperous, money in the shape of 

 good wages permeate briskly ampngst us, whilst mighty efforts are being 

 put forth by the ablest and best of her children ; it would seem as though 

 the upas influence of some agent counteracted the good, ere it reaches the 

 poisonous underlying strata of vice and ignorance, helpless or unconquerable. 

 Let us stand for a moment upon the edge of a political horizon, and be- 

 hold the would-be ruling firmamental stars shooting hither and thither 

 before the uptiu:ned gaze of millions ; then mark as these stars seem to 

 near their decline " in western cadence low," — they shout Reform ! and borne 

 on that buoyant sound they seek again their lost meridian. There is 

 another horizon, we grant the first is a sensible one, but this is the real, it 

 has a wider circle, and free from the horizontal misty air and mirage of 

 politics; 'tis the moral universal horizon of a goodman's life, the con- 

 sistent life of every grade ; this is the reform we greatly need, alike the 

 senator, the divine, the bank director, the physician, the editor, the lawyer, 

 down to the veriest stammerers who frequent the penny news-room. 

 Keforra we suppose, is expected to make folks good and happy ? But says 

 one — " A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he 

 posscsseth, -which means, we take it, that it is right to estimate th 



