Vice as an Eliminative Agent. 
2 73 
1883.] 
especially of average Englishmen, is a sickening sight. A 
modern writer remarks that it is impossible to walk the 
streets of London and look in the faces of those we meet 
without feeling that nine-tenths of them had better never 
have been born. Even the successful minority have gained 
little. They may have at command luxuries such as their 
fathers never imagined ; but what are they benefited, having 
not the leisure and the calm necessary for enjoyment ? Take 
the case of a man condemned to penal servitude. Would 
he feel much happier if his cell were decorated with the 
masterpieces of the upholsterer and hung with exquisite 
paintings ? Very similar is the condition of the modern 
capitalist. 
Our industrial civilisation, then, is found wanting in every 
particular. It has broken down more rapidly and more 
disastrously even than the military regime which preceded it, 
and will be found to have left upon the human race even 
deeper marks of its failure. The “ gospel of rest, of relax- 
ation ” is pressingly needed. 
IV. VICE AS AN ELIMINATIVE AGENT. 
are in these days greatly exercised concerning 
YWT 9 sundry moral reforms. Our philanthropists hold 
that if certain vices, drunkenness most especially, 
could be eradicated, an immense benefit, social and econo- 
mical, would result to the nation at large. In like manner 
other vices are attacked by special organisations, though it 
may be noted, in passing, that greed or covetousness — the 
cardinal sin of the nineteenth century — is mostly overlooked. 
There has prevailed great diversity of opinion as to the 
means to be employed in effecting these reforms, and on the 
comparative efficacy of moral suasion and legal compulsion ; 
but concerning the end proposed we have, till very lately, 
complete unanimity. Quite recently, however, a different 
view has been brought forward. Mr. W. Mattieu Williams, 
in an article in the “ Gentleman’s Magazine,” has sought to 
show that private vices are often useful to the public by 
