552 Taxes on Civilization. 
from playing what they please to regard their allotted 
volé in life, which would seem to consist in a morbid wish 
to outshine their peers and vie in extravagant outlay with 
their superiors in position. For people so disposed, old- 
fashioned modes of conducting trade and commercial en- 
terprise, are, of course, far too slow. Old landmarks of 
business, held in the highest estimation by a more staid 
generation, are ruthlessly removed, steady trade is re- 
placed by a go-ahead system, feverishness begets morbid- 
ness, and, under the influence of disease, acts are performed 
which in health would be viewed with scorn; men rush 
madly into speculation in their haste to grow rich, and offer, 
as we saw last year,a complete proof of the certain Nemesis 
that attends upon all wrong-doing. 
If it were possible to practically carry out in this coun- 
try what the author of Le Bozteux Diable in imagination 
_ did in Madrid, and raise the roofs from thousands of our 
houses, or if it were permitted to lift the curtains that veil 
the sanctity of English homes, what sad pictures of mone- 
tary difficulties, leading to misery of all shades, would 
present themselves. No more heavy tax did human nature 
ever pay for civilization than during the last twelve months, 
and God only knows when the impost will be lightened. 
We can well understand that wide spread distress of mind 
must be a consequence, and very little consideration will 
tell us that the body cannot fail to largely participate in 
the suffering entailed. Intimately connected together as 
they are, it is clear that their conjoined relationship in 
suffering will form a mournful heir-loom for the coming 
generation. 
Civilization has given us a condition of society which 
causes us daily to pay taxes in health and comfort. For ex- 
ample, look at the late hours we keep and the utterly arti- 
ficial way in which we live. We pay in broken homes, we pay 
in forced attendance at dinners we do not want, too often 
conducing to indigestion, a hydra-headed monster, the 
- fellest disease of modern times. We pay in dancing atten- 
dance upon persons whose tastes are utterly uncongenial 
with our own, and in courting those who are a round higher 
on the social ladder than ourselves. Because fashion ordains 
a certain mode of dress thousands outrun their means in 
this particular, and lay up future trouble by hampering 
themselves with debt. And although no one, we imagine, 
would wish to go back to the light and airy costume of the 
ancient Britons, and a coating of woad would scarcely 
