Next to the newspaper press, and hardly inferior to it in influence, is the mass of fiction produced year after year in ever-increasing volume. To ascertain how vastly its attractions prevail over those of historical, poetic, philosophic, or scientific works, it is only necessary to consult the returns of any free library. For good or for ill, the thoughts of countless readers, old and young, are continually engaged on the fictitious fortunes, dilemmas, and vicissitudes of imaginary individuals. On the whole, the influence of this literature is harmless and in some degree salutary, though it is true that within recent years a school of novelists has arisen, containing some skilful and attractive writers, who rely on winning popularity by going as near as they dare to the worst kind of realism pursued by certain French authors. It will do incalculable damage, not only to English literature, but to the English character, if the public, in whose hands is the verdict, encourage perseverance in this line. Hitherto, in the present century, fiction has been maintained in Great Britain at a higher level than it has ever touched before. The most popular writers of romance—Scott, Marryat, Thackeray, Dickens (not to mention any living authors)—dealt, indeed, with the foibles, crimes, and misfortunes of men and women, but they never failed to keep a high ideal before their readers. Their favourite characters were depicted as at war with evil: not always successful, not without frailty, and even folly; but no religion ever preached a purer morality than did these masters in the story-teller’s craft. It will be deplorable if people learn to employ their leisure, not in narratives of heroism, self-denial, and innocent love, but in studies of degradation and despair, and restless stirring of sexual problems.

Some of the most striking and valuable discoveries in physical science receive mention in the course of this narrative, as being among the more memorable features of the reign, but it has been impossible even to allude to countless others, almost as important to the welfare and progress of humanity. Less obvious to the general public, but not less remarkable, has been the application of the exact and comparative method to intellectual research, so that, although students still differ, and are likely to continue to the end of time to differ on some of the conclusions at which they arrive, for the first time in the world’s history they are of one mind about the right system of enquiry.

There are still to be witnessed in the Queen’s realm those violent contrasts between vast wealth and grinding poverty, which must ever arise in every civilised State in periods of great commercial and productive activity. They are a standing perplexity and distress to philanthropists; but one of the brightest features in the reign of Queen Victoria, of infinitely deeper significance than the accumulation of riches by the nation and by individuals, is the degree to which that wealth has penetrated the middle and industrial classes.

The effect of the application of steam to machinery, which coincided so nearly with the beginning of the present reign, was, indeed, injurious to certain limited industries, but the general result has been a continuous rise in the wages paid to artisans. The first few years of the factory system, coupled with a lamentable ignorance of, and indifference to, sanitary principles, brought a terrible increase of disease, squalor, and suffering in their train. This soon attracted the attention of philanthropists, among whom the leading place must be assigned to the Earl of Shaftesbury; and year by year the two rival political parties have vied with each other in applying remedial and protective legislation to the evils of overcrowding, insanitary dwellings, and other dangers besetting extraordinary industrial activity. There are slums still, but they must be hunted for, instead of forcing themselves on attention as was the case not long ago in almost every large town. Artisans’ dwellings, far exceeding in comfort, in solidity, and in sanitation anything that our forefathers may have dreamt of, are now the rule and not the exception.

Mere quotation of figures will not make clear the increased share of the national wealth which now finds its way into the pockets of the working classes, because the unprecedented cheapness of all the necessaries and many of the luxuries of life (intoxicants alone excepted) has raised the buying power of wages in a degree which cannot be estimated. Mr. W. H. Mallock, a well-known writer on this subject, has recently devoted some close enquiry to it, and has brought out some remarkable results. He quotes the calculation of statisticians upon the income of the nation in 1851, when it was estimated at £600,000,000, and in 1881, when it was reckoned at £1,200,000,000, having doubled itself in thirty years. He then deducts from these totals the amounts assessed to income-tax, arriving by this process at the total paid in wages (or the total of all incomes under £150), which was £340,000,000 in 1851, and £660,000,000 in 1881. In those thirty years the wage-earning class had increased in number from 26,000,000 to 30,000,000, or 16 per cent., while the wages paid to them had increased by nearly 100 per cent. In fact the income of the working classes in 1881 was about equal to that of the whole nation in 1851, with largely increased purchasing power, owing to reduction in prices.

But this does not exhaust the evidence of the diffusion of wealth which has been going on, a process which is apt to be overlooked in the attention attracted to the building up of a few colossal fortunes. Mr. Mallock shows, by taking the increase in the number of incomes between £150 and £1,000 a year, how greatly the middle classes have increased in numbers. Persons assessed for taxation on incomes between these limits have increased in number during the period under consideration from 300,000 to 990,000, that is, in a ratio of nearly 250 per cent. It is hardly possible to over-estimate the importance of these figures in their bearing on the prospects of the stability of the present social system in Great Britain. Had this enormous increase in wealth been accumulated in a few hands, it must have given a great impetus to the revolutionary agencies always present under settled governments. But its dispersal among a multitude of owners broadens the foundations of authority, and at the same time acts as a powerful check upon legislation for a limited class.

It must be admitted that, side by side with the advance in general welfare, certain less desirable incidents of our civilisation claim attention. One of these is the recurrence of disputes on a large scale between employers and workmen, resulting in industrial strikes far exceeding in extent and intensity anything of the sort that could be organised before the legislature relaxed the laws against conspiracy and combination. Although labour disputes are conducted now with a general absence of the violence which almost invariably accompanied them in earlier days, they are not without deplorable results in the losses entailed on the working classes during their continuance, and in the damaging effect they sometimes bring upon the industries affected. But the principle of arbitration is gradually winning its way, and the fact that on several recent occasions recourse to this reasonable method has proved successful in averting a prolonged struggle, encourages the hope that employers and employed are beginning to recognise their common advantage in conciliation.

It is less easy to prescribe a remedy for the admitted evil of the excessive aggregation of the people in centres of industry, and the corresponding depletion of the rural districts. This tendency has been at work ever since Virgil wrote his—

“O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint,

Agricolas”—