CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



members ; and a bill was passed securing to a 

 majority of the House of Commons the right of 

 closing a debate. The newly appointed Irish 

 Secretary, Lord Frederick Cavendish, was assas- 

 sinated on his first visit to Dublin. A new 

 Prevention of Crime Bill was agreed to ; but a 

 conciliatory measure was prepared dealing with 

 arrears of rent, and designed to rescue poverty- 

 stricken tenants from hardship. In the spring 

 of 1883, the government unmasked a widespread 

 conspiracy, supported by funds from without, to 

 assassinate persons hostile to the schemes of the 

 most extreme anti-English agitators. The chief 

 event in home politics in 1884 was the debates 

 on the Franchise Bill for the further extension of 

 the franchise. 



RETROSPECT: FROM 1820 ON. 



The early part of this period is remarkable for 

 the great efforts which were made to diffuse 

 knowledge more generally amongst the people 

 Mechanic? Institutions were formed in most of the 

 larger towns, for the instruction of that class of 

 the community in mechanical and natural science. 

 Various periodical works of a cheap nature were 

 also set agoing with a similar design, in such 

 forms as to be intelligible to the less educated 

 classes. In this period began also the sanitary 

 movement, or the directing of attention to the 

 means of promoting the public health. Great 

 improvement was likewise effected in prison-dis- 

 cipline, as also in the treatment of the insane, and 

 Industrial Schools were generally established. 



The dominion of man over the material world 

 made, during this period, a number of most signal 

 steps of advancement. Even in agriculture, the 

 oldest of all the arts, a marked improvement was 

 made : by means of thorough draining and the 

 application of chemical principles in manuring 

 and tilling, the produce over a great part of the 

 arable surface of the kingdom was at least doubled. 

 Steam-navigation, invented in the previous period, 

 was now brought into full play ; ordinary roads 

 were greatly improved -by the mode of paving 

 invented by Mr Macadam ; an altogether new 

 mode of travelling and transport was invented 

 namely, by railways and steam-locomotives, and, 

 to crown all, came the invention of the electric 

 telegraph. 



The great exhibition of 1851 and its numerous 

 successors here and elsewhere have been emi- 

 nently useful in stimulating technical education. 

 The extraordinary development of our colonies in 

 Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the Cape, 

 is one of the signs of the times. 



In 1866, after several failures, a submarine 

 telegraph cable was laid between Ireland and 

 America ; the importance of this cannot be ex- 

 aggerated. Since then, many other cables have 

 been laid ; there is a line of electric communica- 

 tion right round the world ; India, Australia, 

 and the Cape are now directly connected with 

 England. The introduction of a penny and half- 

 penny postage, and the cheapening of telegrams, 

 have increased to an almost incalculable extent 

 the power of communication between both men 

 and nations. 



This period 'has been remarkable for the number 

 of geographical discoveries and the daring of ex- 

 plorers. During the early part of it, numerous 



176 



efforts were made to find a North-west passage, 

 especially by Sir John Franklin, who perished in 

 the attempt in 1845. The North-west passage has 

 since been more than once discovered, though it 

 cannot be of practical avail. The North-east 

 passage has been made, though not by an 

 Englishman. Our knowledge of Africa has been 

 extended by Livingstone, Grant, Spekc, Baker, 

 Cameron, Stanley, and others. One of the best 

 results of African exploration is the extensive 

 suppression of the slave-trade on this great 

 continent, the credit of which must be mainly 

 given to Dr Livingstone, Sir Bartle Frere, Sir 

 Samuel Baker, and Gordon Pasha. Central 

 Australia and other dark places of the earth have 

 been diligently explored. The annual meetings 

 of the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, and of the Social Science Congress, 

 have done a great deal for the extension and 

 consolidation of scientific, industrial, and social 

 knowledge. 



At no time in British history have literature in 

 all departments, science, and art been so diligently 

 cultivated. Among the chief poets are Tennyson 

 (poet-laureate), Robert and Mrs Browning, 

 Alexander Smith, Rossetti, Morris, Swinburne, 

 Matthew Arnold, and Robert Buchanan. The 

 novel has assumed various shapes in the hands of 

 Dickens, Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, George Eliot 

 (Miss Evans), Charlotte Bronte', Mrs Oliphant, 

 Anthony Trollope, Charles Kingsley, Charles 

 Lever, VVilkie Collins, Blackmore, Black, and 

 others. Never, probably, did a more brilliant 

 and painstaking class of historians flourish : 

 among the chief names are Grote, Macaulay, 

 Hallam, Kemble, Palgrave, Stanhope, Alison, 

 Thirlwall, Finlay, Milman, Buckle, Burton, 

 Stubbs, Froude, and Freeman. Hamilton, James 

 and John Mill, Bain, Lewes, Spencer, Maurice, 

 Hutchison Stirling, Edward Caird, and Wallace, 

 in philosophy ; the younger Mill, M'Culloch, 

 Fawcett, and Cairnes, in political economy ; and 

 Chalmers, Maurice, Newman, Pusey, Stanley, 

 Lightfoot, and John Caird, in theology, have 

 maintained the character of Great Britain for 

 subtlety of speculation, thoroughness of research, 

 and influence on the thought of the time. Among 

 essayists, De Quincey, Jeffrey, Hazlitt, Sidney 

 Smith, and Matthew Arnold take a first place. 

 Apart from all other literary men, yet partaking of 

 the character of essayist, historian, philosopher, 

 and prophet, stood Thomas Carlyle, one of the 

 most singular and powerful forces in British 

 literature. John Ruskin has also taken a unique 

 place in the history of English thinking and feeling ; 

 and by his brilliant and suggestive writings on 

 art, and on social and political questions, has left 

 his mark on the period. The scientific men of 

 this period are distinguished for the thoroughness 

 of their researches, the number and value of their 

 discoveries, and the originality and boldness of 

 their theories ; famong the chief are Faraday, 

 Darwin, Carpenter, Owen, Lyell, Murchison, 

 Huxley, Tyndall, Lockyer, and Sir William 

 Thomson. In art, we have such names as 

 Turner, Landseer, Millais, Faed, Holman Hunt, 

 Noel Paton, Rossetti, Burne Jones, Watts, Leigh- 

 ton, and Alma Tadema. Music has also made 

 remarkable progress during the reign of the 

 present queen, and is enjoyed in its higher form 

 by an ever-increasing proportion of the nation. 



