But bull-baiting, cock-fighting, and other ferocious amusements, have
now departed. Even the village stocks have rotted out. Drunkenness has
become disreputable. The "good old times" have departed, we hope never
to return. The labourer has now other resources beside the public-house.
There are exhibitions and people's parks, steamboats and railways,
reading-rooms and coffee-rooms, museums, gardens, and cheap concerts. In
place of the disgusting old amusements, there has come a healthier,
sounder life, greater enlightenment, more general sobriety, and a
humaner spirit. We have in a hundred years outgrown many of our savage
tendencies. We are not less brave as a people, though less brutal. We
are quite as manly, though much less gross. Manners are more refined,
yet as a people we have not lost our pluck, energy, and endurance. We
respect ourselves more, and as a nation we have become more respected.
We now think with shame of the manners of a hundred years ago.
The achievements of which England has most reason to be proud, have been
accomplished during the last hundred years. English slaves have been
emancipated, both at home and abroad. Impressment has been done away
with. Parliamentary representation has been conferred upon all classes
of the people. The Corn Laws have been abolished.
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