CIVILISATION.—THE CENSUS.

My dear Eusebius,—If you wonder at the speculations with which I have amused myself and bewildered all within reach of inquiry, remember what a celebrated phrenologist said, that I should never make a philosopher: you remarked, So much the better, for that the world had too many already. I am not sure that I was not piqued; and, owing a little spite against these unapproachable superiors—philosophers—have rather encouraged a habit of posing them; and finding so many in this my experience inferior to the common-sense portion of mankind, I amuse myself with them, and treat them as monkeys, now and then throwing them a nut to crack a little too hard for them. Wry faces break no syllogisms, so we laugh, and they gravitate in philosophy. What is civilisation? Is that a nut?—a very hard one, indeed. I, at least, cannot tell what it is, in what it consists, or how thissummum bonumis to be attained; but I am no philosopher. I have taken many a one by the button, and plunged him head foremost into the chaos of thought, and seen him come out flushed with the suffocation of his dark bewilderment. Less ambitious persons will scarcely stay to answer the question—What is civilisation? The careless, who cannot answer it, laugh, and think they win in the game of foolishness. Perhaps no better answer can be given, and the laughing philosopher, after all, may be as wise as the speaking one. A neighbour, who had been acquainted with the money markets, told me he did not exactly know what it was, but he thought its condition was indicated by the Three-per-cent Consols. An economist of the new school, who happened to be on a visit to him, preferred as a test “American bread-stuffs.” He argued that such stuffs were the staff of life, supported life, and were, therefore, both civilisation and the end and object of civilisation. My neighbour’s son Thomas, a precocious youth of thirteen years of age, stepped forward, and said civilisation consisted in reading, writing, and arithmetic: upon this, a parish boy, the Inspector’s pet of the National School, said with rival scorn, “You must go a great deal farther than that—it is knowledge, and knowledge is knowing the etymologies of cosmography and chronology.” I asked the red-faced plethoric Farmer Brown;—“What’s what!” quoth he, with a voice of thunder, and, like a true John Bull, stalked off in scornful ignorance. My next inquiry was of your playful little friend, flirting Fanny of the Grove, just entering her fifteenth year. “What a question!” said she, and her very eyes laughed deliciously—“the latest fashions from Paris, to be sure.” Make what you please of it, Eusebius; put all the answers into the bag of your philosophy, and shake them well together, your little friend’s will have as good a chance as any of coming up with a mark of truth upon it. The people that can afford to invent fashions must have a large freedom from cares. There must be classes who neither toil nor spin, yet emulate in grace, beauty, and ornament the lilies of the field. If you were obliged to personify civilisation, would you not, like another Pygmalion, make to yourself a feminine wonder, accumulate upon your stature every grace, vivify her wholly with every possible virtue, then throw a Parisian veil of dress over her, and—oh, the profanation of your old days!—fall down and worship her?

There is no better mark of civilisation than well-dressed feminine excellence, to which men pay obeisance. Wherever the majority do this, there is humanity best perfected. Homer teacheth that, when he exhibits the aged council of statesmen and warriors on the walls of Troy paying homage to the grace of Helen. The poet wished to show that the personages of his Epic were not barbarians, and chose this scene to dignify them. Ruminate upon the answer, “The latest fashions from Paris.” What a mass of civilising detail is contained in these few words!—the leisure to desire, the elegance to wear, the genius to invent, the benevolent employment of delicate hands, the trades encouraged, the soft influences—the very atmosphere breathes the most delicate perfume of loves. It is not to the purpose to interpose that this Paris of fashion suddenly turned savage, and revelled in brutal revolution, sparing not man nor woman. It was because, in their anti-aristocratic madness, the unhappy people threw off this reverential respect that the uncivilised portion slaughtered the civilised. It was a vile atheistical barbarism that waged war with civilisation. Think no more of that black spot in the History of Humanity—that plague-spot. Rather, Eusebius, turn your thoughts to your work, and fabricate, though it be only in your imagination, your own paradise, and she shall be named Civilisation. In case your imagination should be at this moment dull, rest satisfied with a description of an image now before me, which I think, as a personification, answers the question admirably; for supposing it to be a portrait from nature, what a civilised people must they be among whom such a wonder was born—not only born, but sweetly nurtured, and arrayed in such a glory of dress! If you think this indicates a foolish extravagant passion, know that this fair one must have “died of old age” some centuries before I was born. There she is, in all her pale loveliness, in a black japan figured frame, over the mantelpiece of my bedroom at H——, where I am now writing this letter to you. Mock not, Eusebius; she is, or rather was, Chinese. I look upon her now as giving out her answer from those finely-drawn lips—“I represent civilisation.” If I could pencil like that happy painter—happiest in having such uncommon loveliness to sit to him—I would send you another kind of sketch; it would be a failure. Be content with feeble words. First, then, for dress: She wears a brown kind of hat, or cap, the rim a little turned up, of indescribable shape and texture: the head part is blue; around it are flowers, so white and transparent, just suffused with a blush, as if instantaneously vitrified into china. Lovely are they—such as botanical impertinences never scrutinised. On the right side of this cap or hat two cock’s feathers, perfectly white, arch themselves, as if they would coquet with the fairer cheek. You see how firm they are, and would spring up strong from the touch, emblems of unyielding chastity. The hair, little of which is seen, is of a chestnut-brown; low down on the throat is a broad band of black, apparently velvet, just peeping above which is the smallest edging of white, exactly like the most modern shirt-collar, fastened above, where it is parted, by a gold clasp. The upper dress is of a pink red, such as we see in Madonna pictures; below this is a dark blue-green shirt-dress, richly flowered to look like enamel; over the shoulders a Madonna kerchief, fastened in a knot over the chest; it is of a clear brownish hue, such as we see in old pictures. The upper red dress does not meet, but terminates on each, side with a gold border, of a pattern centre, with two lines of gold. Thus a rather broad space is left across the bosom, which in modern costume is occupied by a habit-shirt; but such word would ill describe either the colour or the texture here worn; it is of a gossamer fabric, of a most delicately-greenish white, diapered and flowered all over; nothing can be conceived more exquisite than this. It would make the fortune of a modernmodisteto see and to imitate it. A clasp of elegant shape fastens skirt to upper dress; the sleeve of upper dress reaches only half-way down the arm; the lower sleeve is of the rich blue-green, but altogether ample. Attitude, slightly bent forward; over the left arm, which crosses the waist, is suspended a fruit-basket of unknown material, and finely patterned, brown in colour, in which are grapes and other fruit; expression, sweetly modest; complexion—how shall it be described? Never was European like it. It is finest porcelain, variegated with that under-living immortal ichor of the old divinities. Eyes clear-cut or pencilled, rather hazel in colour; background, rockwork garden, rising to a hill, on which are trees—but such trees! Aladdin may have seen the like in his enchanted subterranean garden. Then there is a lake, and a boat on it, at a distance, with an awning. She is the goddess, or the queen, of this Elysium, which her presence makes, and has enchanted into a porcelain earth, whose flowers and trees are of its lustre.

Wherever, Eusebius, this portrait was taken, it was, and is, an epitome, an emblem of high civilisation. It speaks so plainly of all exemption from toil and care, of the unapproachableness of danger. There is living elegance in a garden of peace. It is, in fact, the type of civilisation. What! will the economist, the philosopher of our day, be ready to say,—Civilisation amongst Chinese and Tartars! and that centuries perhaps ago. Civilisation is “The Nineteenth Century!” The glory of the Nineteenth Century is the Press. We are Civilisation. Very well, gentlemen; nevertheless it would be pleasant if you could exhibit a little more peace and quietness, a little less turmoil, a little more unadulterating honesty, a little less careworn look in your streets, as the mark of your boasted civilisation. You are doing wonders, and, like Katerfelto with his hair on end, are in daily wonderment at your own wonders. You steam—annihilate space and time. You have ripped open the bowels of knowledge, and well-nigh killed her in search of her golden egg. You are full, to the throat and eyes, of sciences and arts. You are hourly astonishing yourselves and the world. Nevertheless, you have one great deficiency as to the ingredients that make up civilisation; you are decidedly too conceited; you lack charity; you count bygone times and peoples as nothing and nobodies: yet you build a great Crystal Palace, and boast of it, as if it were all your own; whereas the whole riches of it, in the elegances of all arts, are imitations of the works of those bygone times and peoples. Who is satisfied with your model-civilisation? Eusebius, is not the question yet to be asked—What is it? in what does it consist? how is it to be obtained? True civilisation has no shams—we have too many, and they arise out of our swaggering and boasting; so that we force ourselves to assume every individual virtue, though we have it not. We are contemptuous; and contempt is a burr of barbarism sticking to us still, even in this “Nineteenth Century,” a phrase in the public mouth glorifying self-esteem. I must, for the argument, go back to the Chinese lady in her narrow japanned gilt frame. As I have drawn my curtains, Eusebius, at the dawn of day, and that placid beauty (though not to be admitted in any book of that name) has smiled upon me from lips so delicate, so unvoracious—did she pick grains of rice, like Amine in the Arabian tale?—I verily thought she must have lived in as civilised an age as ours. Yes—perhaps she was not very learned, excepting in Chinese romances, and very good learning that is: but neither you nor I, Eusebius, lay very great stress upon knowledge, nor call it “Power,” nor think that happiness necessarily grows out of it. One evil of it is, that it unromances the age; and romance—why not say it?—romance is a main ingredient in true, honest, unadulterated civilisation. You would prefer being as mad as Don Quixote, and be gifted with his romance, to being the aptest of matter-of-fact economists and material philosophers. Romance, then, springs from the generous heart and mind;—methinks, Eusebius, you are progressing, and reaching one of the ingredients of this said desideratum, “Civilisation.” As a people, it may be doubted if we are quite as romantic as formerly; if so, however we may advance in knowledge and sciences, we are really retrograding from thesummum bonumof social virtues. I remember once hearing a celebrated physician, who knew as much as most men of mankind, their habits and manners, speak of an American “gentleman,” adding, “and he was a savage.” You can imagine it possible, that, in the presence and impertinence of Anglo-Saxon vulgarity, the grave and courteous demeanour of a so-called barbarian would be a very conspicuous virtue. I read the other day, in Prince’sWorthies of Devon, a quaint passage to the point, which much amused me for its singular expression. It relates to Sir Francis Drake, who, touching at one of the Molucca Islands, was, as the author words it, “by the king thereof, a truegentleman pagan, most honourably entertained.” Of this “gentleman pagan” Prince adds, that he told General Drake “that they and he were all of one religion, in this respect, that they believed not in gods made of stocks and stones, as did the Portuguese; and further, at his departure he furnished him with all the necessaries that he wanted.” Yet, perhaps, some of the habits of such gentlemen pagans had been scoffed at by Europeans, and often met with worse usage than contempt. Whoever has no consideration for others, no indulgence for habits contrary to his own, though he may be born in nominally the most civilised nation under the sun, is really a barbarian. It was well said that, upon the accidental meeting of the finest drest gentleman, with a powdered head, and a tatooed Indian, he who should laugh first would be the savage. The well-known story of the horror expressed by different people at the disposal of their deceased parents is curious, showing that opposite actions arise from the same feelings. In this case it was of filial piety. One party was asked if he would bury his father in the earth? He was amazed at the question—shocked. Not for the world; as an act of piety, he would eat him. The other, asked to eat his father, was hurt and disgusted beyond measure. Let us be a little more even in our judgments, and speak somewhat kindly, if we can, of these gentlemen pagans all over the world. We may be often called upon to admire their disinterested heroism, even when lavished upon mistaken objects. Here is an example from the misnamed weaker sex—misnamed, for they are wonderfully gifted with fortitude. I have been reading of a poor young creature, widow of a chief among some cannibal race. She was to have been immolated, according to custom, at the burial of her husband. Her courage at the moment failed her: she was induced by, if I remember rightly, some good missionaries, to fly, and they protected her. In the night she repented of her irresolution, escaped, swam across a river, and presented herself for the sacrifice and the feast. Scholars, you read with love and admiration of Iphigenia at Aulis; her first reluctance; her after self-devotion: you have imagined her youth, her beauty, so vividly painted by the poet. Was Iphigenia more the heroine than this poor girl whom we are pleased to pass unhistoried as a savage? She gave herself up, not only to death, perhaps a cruel one, but with the knowledge that she would be devoured also that night. Iphigenia was certain of funeral honours, of immortal fame, and believed that her sacrifice would insure victory to her father and the Greeks. We have written exercises at school in praise of the suicide of Cato, whose act, in comparison with this poor savage’s, was cowardice;—more than that, we have been taught to mouth out with applause the blasphemy of the celebrated hexameter, “Victrix causa Diis placuit sed victa Catoni.” Why should we not be a little more even in our judgments? The poor gentlemen pagans of the islands would cut as good a figure as heathen Cato, if their names and deeds could be turned into tolerable Latin, and passed off as of the classical age. Henley, in a letter to Swift, tells the speech of a farmer, who said, “If I could but get this same breath out of my body, I’d take care, by G—, how I let it come in again!” Henley makes the pithy remark, “This, if it was put into fine Latin, I fancy would make as good a sound as any I have met with.”

I did not mean to induce a belief, Eusebius, that the Chinese excelled in the fine arts when I wrote down the description of the Chinese lady. The portrait had its peculiarities, and would not have been hung upon the line in the Royal Academy. I only chose it for its historical expression, which spoke of civilisation of manners, of security, and as containing in itself things which civilised people boast of. But there the argument is not very much in favour of this our “Nineteenth Century;” for the chiefest works of art in painting are of thecinque cents. It is not pretended that we have thrown into oblivious shade the masters of old celebrity; nor that we have made better statues than did Phidias and Praxiteles; nor excelled the Greeks in architecture; nor even the artist builders of the ages which we are pleased to style “Dark;” so that we have at least lost some marks of civilisation. Nay, to come to nearer times for comparison: It would be a hard thing for our swaggerers to find a dramatist willing to be taken by the collar, and contrasted face to face with the portraits of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, taking their plays as their representatives. There were worthies of a high romance in the civilised days of the “Glorious Gloriana.” What marks of essential civilisation are visible in the comedies of Shakespeare—what delightful mixture of the real and unreal—the mind springing from its own natural elasticity above the fogs and blight of worldly business, that ever tend to keep the spirits from rising! And why say comedies? Tragedies too. How fresh is the atmosphere mankind seem then to breathe. Humanity is made lovable or dignified. If we might judge of civilisation from the works of writers of that age, we might be justified in pronouncing it most civilised, for it was governed by a vivid and romantic spirit. Take as contrast the literature of Queen Anne’s boasted time. It is quite of another spirit. There is a descending, a degradation of the whole mind. There begins visible worldliness. We see man taking his part in the affairs of the world for what he can get as an individual. There is a prominence of the business, and less made of the enjoyments of life;—the commercial spirit predominating, which has since overwhelmed the imaginative faculties, and buried the better, the more civilised pleasures of life, under the weight of avarice. We are, my dear Eusebius, too money-loving and money-getting to deserve the name of a thoroughly civilised people. Is a true and just perception of the fine arts a sign of civilisation? What is admired—what is eagerly purchased—what intellectual food do the purchases convey? Is the mere visual organ gratified by the lowest element of the arts—imitation—or the mind’s eye enlarged to receive and love what is great and noble? In one sense, undoubtedly, the art of living is better understood, because, the romance of life fading away, personal comforts and little luxuries become exigencies, and engross the thoughts, filling up the vacancies that romance has left. Shall I shock you, my dear Eusebius, if I add my doubts if liberty is either civilisation or a sign of it? Great things have been done in the world, where there has been little of it enough, as well as where there has been much. The fine arts are certainly not much indebted to it.

There is much in the question which yet remains to be considered. The questioned may well ask, as did the heathen philosopher on one more important, and of an infinite height and depth—another day of thought to answer it, and each succeeding day another still. Is civilisation that condition in which all the human faculties may be so continually exercised, as to make the more intellectual moral and religious being? when the plant humanity, like every other plant, shall by cultivation assume a new character and even appearance? I fear this condition necessarily implies a degradation also. For as in no state do the many reach the high standard, equality must be destroyed, so that inferiority will not only have its moral mark, but also its additional toil, far above the share it would have supposing a state nearer equality.

But then, it may be answered, the question is not about the many, but regards only examples, without considering number. Human plants may be exhibited of extraordinary culture and beauty—beauty that must be seen and admired—and, if so, imitated; and this law of imitation will draw in the many, in process of time, to improvement. Very true, Eusebius; and in a race naturally energetic, this imitation—while, on the whole, it will improve general manners—creates a social vice, affectation—which is vulgarity. The example of our Anglo-Saxon race is to the point—of wondrous energy, but in no race under the sun is vulgarity so conspicuous. If, then, the condition which forces all the human faculties to exertion be that of civilising tendency, does it follow that it is one of the greatest happiness? The history of the world says manifestly that it is not one of peace, of quietness, of content, of simplicity—alas! shall we say of honesty? For it must be confessed civilisation acts upon the mixed character which every man has, and therefore gives progression both to vice and virtue. Man is only made great by trials; difficulties promote energies. It is the law of preparation for this world and for the next. Long, steep, and arduous is the way to excellence. The verse of Hesiod brings to mind a passage of greater authority. The smooth and broad way, and ever-ready way, is not so good.

“Τῆς δ’ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάριοθεν ἔθηκαν.Λθάνατοι, μακρος δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἷμος ἐπ’ αὺτὴν,Kαὶ τρηχὺς πρῶτον επην δ’εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηταιΡηἴδίη δ’ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα.”—Hesiod.

“Τῆς δ’ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάριοθεν ἔθηκαν.

Λθάνατοι, μακρος δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἷμος ἐπ’ αὺτὴν,

Kαὶ τρηχὺς πρῶτον επην δ’εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται

Ρηἴδίη δ’ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα.”

—Hesiod.

Here we have toil, trouble, and a rough road.

Now for a little entanglement of the subject. Who will sit for this aspirant for all the virtues—for civilisation? I look up to the portrait of the Chinese lady, who first set my thoughts upon this speculation. Surely she never got that placid do-nothing look from any long habit of toil and trouble; she never worked hard. I confess, Eusebius, as I question her, she does look a little more silly than I thought her. She never went the up-hill rough road. How should she? She was never shod for it; nay, were the truth told—for the painter has judiciously kept it out of sight—she had no proper feet to walk withal. They had been pinched to next to nothing. She never could have danced; would have been a sorry figure in a European ball-room; and in the way she must have stood, would have made but (as Goldsmith calls it) “a mutilated curtsey.” It is hard to give up a first idea. I proposed her as an emblem of civilisation—and why not? She does not represent civilisation in its progress—in its work; but in its result—its perfection. For look at her,—she stands not up with a bold impudence, like Luxury in the “Choice of Hercules,” puffed up and enlarged in the fat of pride, and redder and whiter than nature—a painted Jezebel. Quite the reverse. She is most delicately slender; her substance is of the purity of the finest China tea-cup. In fact, she seems to have been set up as the work of a whole nation’s toil,—as a sign, a model, of their civilisation. They who imagined such a creature, and set her upon her legs—yet I can hardly say that, considering the feet—must have made many after the same model, or seen many; and exquisite must have been the manners of such a piece of life-porcelain.

Indeed, Eusebius, we have greatly mistaken these people, the Chinese. I will believe their own account of themselves, and that they were a polished people when the ancient Britons went naked, and painted themselves with woad. Besides, here is another picture at hand, clearly showing them to have been, as probably they are still, a sensible people, for they evidently agree with the wisest man who said, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Here they have pictured a school, and the pedagogue is flogging a boy, and he has a very legitimate rod. If this is not amarkof civilisation—for it certainly leaves one, giving, as it were, a bottomry bond of future wisdom—I should like to know what is. Birch-buds are the smart-money of education, and wonderfully improve the memory without touching the head, but reaching the brain by a harmless and distant sympathy. I am sure the Chinese must be a people well worth studying; and, with all our national conceit, we may learn a good deal from them. If we scatter them about with our artillery, and stick them upon bayonets, and despise them because they are innocent, or have been till recently, in the arts of destruction, who are the most savage—the slaughtered or the slaughterers? Are we to call war, civilisation? Perhaps it may be the “rough way” it has to pass. Ask the Czar to answer the question. He will undoubtedly say, that it is cutting the throats of the Turks and filching their property; and he will show you one undoubted proof of the highest civilisation of modern times, consummate hypocrisy—committing murder by wholesale in the name of religion.

Shall I advance a seeming paradox? Civilisation is impeded by knowledge—that is, by the modern demand for it. The memory becomes crammed, till there be no room in the brain for legitimate thought to work in. Hence a bewilderment, a confusion of other men’s ideas, and none of our own; a general perplexity, and little agreement among people in sentiment, for they have no time left to consider upon their differences. The world is overstocked with the materials of knowledge, and yet there is ever a demand for more. The time of man’s best wisdom was when he was not overburthened with books. Happy are scholars that so many of the classics are lost. Were all that have been written extant, the youth that should graduate in honours would be the miracle of a short time, and an idiot the remainder of his life. Then our own literature: it is frightful to see the bulky monthly catalogue of publications. Had I to begin the world, I should throw down the list in despair, and prefer being a literary fool, with a little common sense. Besides, the aspirant in education must learn all modern languages also. What a quantity! I made a note from a paper published, November 1851. Here is a quotation. A letter from Leipsic says—“The catalogue for the book fair of St Michael has been just published. It results from it that during the short space of time which has elapsed since the fair of Easter last, not fewer than three thousand eight hundred and sixty new books have been published in Germany, and that one thousand one hundred and fifty others are in the press. More than one-half of these works are on scientific subjects.” Mercy on the brains of the people!—they will be inevitably addled. What with all this learning and reading, summing and analysing, and making book-shelves of themselves, they are retrograding in natural understanding, which ought to be the strong foundation of civilisation. And there is the necessity growing up of reading all the daily papers beside. Better, Eusebius, that the human plant should grow, like a cucumber, to belly, and run along the common ground, than shoot out such head-seed as is likely to come out of such a hotbed under a surfeit of dry manure. Verily it must shortly come to pass, that Ignoramus will be the wisest if not the knowingest among us. He may have common sense, a few flights of imagination unchoked with the dust of learning, or many wholesome prejudices, a great deal of honest feeling, and with these homespun materials keep his morals and religion pure, and, walking in humbleness, reach unawares the summit of civilisation. If you think him an imaginary being, wed him to the Chinese Purity in the japan frame, and no one will write the epithalamium so happily as my friend Eusebius. I might here have ended my letter, rather expecting to receive a solution to the great question than pretending to offer one. But having written so far, and about to add a concluding sentence, I received a visit from our matter-of-fact friend B., whom people hereabout call the Economist General: he is a professed statist, great in all little things. He is alway at work, volunteering unacceptable advices and schemes to boards of guardians and the Government. I told him I was writing to you, and the subject of my letter,—“Then,” said he, “I can assist you. The census newly come out is the thing. In that you will learn everything. You will, in fact, find civilisation depicted scientifically. I will send it to you.” We conversed an hour; I promised to read his census return in the course of the day. He smiled strangely, but said nothing. I soon understood what the smile meant, when I saw a labouring man take out of a little cart a huge parcel, which upon opening I found to contain the Census in nineteen volumes or books, varying in shapes and sizes, some of which being very bulky, I judged to contain heavy matter. The idea of reading over and digesting the Census in an afternoon appeared now so ridiculous that I could not refrain from laughing myself. Nineteen books to examine in an afternoon! It was evident there would be six months’ toil, and as many hands as Briareus wanted to turn over the leaves; to say nothing of the number of heads to hold the matter. What horsepower engine in the brain to work up a digested process equal to the task! I was, however, being somewhat idle, curious to see what could have made our friend such an enthusiast; I therefore looked into some of the books—became interested—read more and more, though in a desultory manner. It is wonderful to see society so daguerreotyped in all its phases. What could have given rise to so much varied ingenuity?—What schemes, what contrivances for getting at everything!—the commissioners must have been Titans in ingenuity. Was it the necessity of the case that induced so much elaboration? I have read that the cost of the Census exceeds £120,000. That accounts for it, Eusebius; such a sum is not to be clutched without some inventive powers. Our friend thinks the Census will help to solve the question of civilisation; so pray borrow the volumes of an M.P. If you cannot get at the marrow of the thing you want, you will find much for after speculation. There is something frightful, Eusebius, in the idea that no class of men, no individuals, can henceforth escape the eye of this Great Inquisitor-General—a Census commission. There is no conceivable thing belonging to man, woman, or child that may not come under the inspection, and be in the books, of this great Gargantuan Busybody. In truth, he was born a gigantic infant in 1801. Hermes, in the Homeric hymn, leaped out of his cradle upon mischievous errands almost as soon as born: so did our big Busybody. Ere he was six months old he took to knocking at people’s doors, and running[144]away. He soon grew bolder, stood to his knock, and asked if Mr Thompson did not live there. Then he had the trick of getting into houses like the boy Jones, and counted the skillets in the scullery, the pap-dishes in the nursery, turned over the beds in the garrets, and booked men and maids who slept in them before they could put their clothes on. With a thirst for domestic knowledge, he insisted upon knowing who were married and who not. He would burst in upon a family at their prayers, and note what religion they were of. He would know every one’s age, condition, business, and be very particular as to sex female, why they married or why they lived single; he could tell to a day when any would lie in. The most wonderful thing was the paper case he carried with him wherever he went. It would have made Gargantua himself stare with astonishment, for it is said, upon competent authority, to have weighed “nearly forty tons.” This paper case contained particulars noted down of every one’s possible concerns. He had another at home, in which he kept circulars for distribution, demanding further information. It was said to be bigger still;[145]as he grew robust and bold, of course it took more to feed Busybody. It is almost incredible what a number of the people’s loaves he ate up in one year; but that there is the baker’s bill to vouch for it, no one would believe it. The quantity of food required for himself and his numerous retainers has already made him look about with some anxiety to foist upon the country a scheme for sure agricultural statistics, to ascertain the number of loaves to the acre. It cannot be said of him, as of many, that his eye is bigger than his belly, for the former cannot as yet see “bread-stuffs” enough to fill the latter. Besides, he has quite an army to maintain of officials, enumerators, and registrars, who all, after the manner of benchers, must eat their way into the universal knowledge required of them. Such is Busybody. In my afternoon nap, I have dreamed of him, Eusebius, and offer you this description of him—his birth, life, habits, and manners—as by a dreaming intuition I received them. What think you of the monster? As perilous a beast as the Wooden Horse of Troy.

“Inspectura domos, venturaque desuper urbi.” It would not be surprising if Irish mothers, when they find that all their babes are registered, age and sex noted down, were to take into their heads that they are to be fattened; and Swift’s scheme, which a popular author has unwisely characterised as serious cannibalism, is at length to be realised, and thus Bigmouth of the old fair and puppet-show will appear as Busybody-General. Perhaps the “King of the Cannibal Islands,” since we have taught him to read and write, will avail himself of this new registration system; for with him all is alike meat in the market. I have been reading an account of such a people’s doings, and find the only difference between human and other is, that the former is sold as “long pig,” the other short pig.

I mentioned the ingenuity displayed in the Census—turn to the maps and diagrams. You will see a map of England and Wales, shaded so that the depth of colour shall denote the density of the population: there are figures also to tell the number of persons to a square mile, and towns and cities are represented by round dots, larger or smaller, according to the number of inhabitants. It is a very curious and pretty plaything; but of what imaginable use? It is like the shadowing on the maps of the moon. London looks awful—a horrible black pit—and must give children, who will be delighted with the plaything, a notion that our great metropolis must be a sink of iniquity. Cobbett’s notion of the “great wen” was by no means agreeable; to make it such a black pit of destruction is far less flattering. There are diagrams also showing, by the closeness of dots, the density of population at various periods. It was certainly a very ingenious contrivance of the inventor, for the enlargement and continuance of his work and employment; in a matter, too, where, at first view, so little was required to be done. If not more profitable, it at least provides as much amusement as Diogenes afforded when he rolled his tub about, to show that he must be busy. The inventor was, however, wiser than the philosopher; for the philosopher aimed at satire only, the inventor of the maps and diagrams at pay and profit. Everything should nowadays be turned into the channel of education; it might be suggested to the educational purveyors, and to masters and inspectors of schools, who stand a chance of wanting something to teach, to have these maps and diagrams printed cheaply on thick or board paper, that, even in their recreation hours, the scholars may learn something, and the favourite “game of goose,” of ominous name, be profitably superseded. The two diagrams of London, the one for the year 1801, the other 1851, may serve quite as well as the “Chinese puzzle” to exercise growing or dull memories, having a like advantage of not burthening the mind, already too full, with any useful knowledge whatever. For instance, it will be quite sport to learn by heart that, as to density of London in 1801, “on an average, there were nearly 394 square yards of land to every person, 2784 square yards to every inhabited house.” As to proximity in 1801, that, “on an average, the mean distance from house to house (inhabited) was nearly 57 yards; from person to person 21 yards.” That, as to density in 1851, “on an average, there were nearly 160 square yards of land to every person; 1234 square yards to every inhabited house.” As to proximity, that in 1851, “on an average, the mean distance from house to house (inhabited) was nearly 38 yards; from person to person 14 yards.” So that every person is approaching his neighbour in person, but not probably in love or liking, so rapidly, as that he has already seven yards of the area of his liberty taken from him since 1801. It will be comfortably and philosophically answered, that most of those who enjoyed that liberty in 1801, more than half a century ago, cannot complain, for they are now silent, and in less space, that of six feet by four; and that the present generation easily accommodate themselves in less space, having the better liberty of making more noise. These are the trifles, the games, and the plays that amuse children six feet high. Let them by all means roll about their tub in the streets, if they will remain contented with their sport and their wages. They have, however, we may both of us surmise and fear, done far less innocent work. It is not pleasant to know that the pure, chaste secresy of your house has been invaded, taken possession of, and is no longer exclusively yours; that you are in name or in number, as No. 1 or No. 2, put away in a pigeon-hole somewhere in that black pit you have seen in the map, to be drawn out, one of these days, at the will of any impertinent official, and further questioned, perhaps, as the phrase is,squeezed, when anything is to be got out of you. You may have a commission sent down to your house, and take possession of it, for some scrutiny or other, while you are taking your morning walk; on your return, you will find two or three commissioners have coolly taken your joint off the spit, and are politely drinking your health out of your choicest sherry; and as an excuse of extraordinary business, question you about the age and property of your great-grandmother deceased. How do you or I know what use will be made of all these registered particulars about us? It would be far pleasanter to be let alone. I have an antipathy to curious questioning people. Dr Franklin, when he came to a strange place, knowing the inquisitive disposition of the people, used to say at once, “My name is Benjamin Franklin; I come from such a place, and am going to such a place; age so and so, and on such business; and now let me have out a horse.” I should for one like to compound with this scrutinising government, on condition of exemption from place in their books, to put out weekly posted to my door the names, ages, and sex of every inmate, with a diary of their employments the six days; requesting not to be called to account for my time on the hallowed seventh. There is no chance of such a composition being accepted on their part; for you will see, Eusebius, there is nothing they are so busy about as to know what religion you are of. There is a separate book for this very purpose; nay, they go farther—they have superseded all known authorities in these matters, and have dictated what shall be your creed, giving you only a latitude of “Churches”—such they call every denomination in their Report presented to Parliament, and her Majesty, who as yet happily has recognised but one Church of England, in which matter the Report is undoubtedly at variance with the fundamental law of the Constitution, and passes a kind of insulting suggestion upon her Majesty’s highest prerogative, her very crown and dignity. This is a matter for other consideration; the religious Report must be examined; I only see at present, and note the fact, that the Church of England is put down as but one of the sects.

“Increase and multiply” was at the beginning, and from the beginning to this day is, the Divine command. Some would infer that there must be a blessing attending obedience to it, others would in part abrogate the law, and, with Malthus, admit no crowding at the bountiful table which nature supplies. The presumption fairly is, that as security to life and happiness is the main cause of increase; viewing this world only, such increase must be a great good, and it implies advancement in civilisation, which possibly may not be ill defined as the art of promoting life and happiness. It includes moral advancement. But the beneficence of our Maker allows us to look beyond this world. Hence, the awful thought, and the responsibility incurred by its increase of population, is an increase of immortal souls. There is a depth in this argument beyond my scope. It is a curious fact which this Census shows. In 1801, the population of Great Britain was 10,578,956; in 1851, it had reached 20,959,477. Thus the population has nearly doubled in fifty years. But further, “The population of the United Kingdom, including the army, navy, and merchantseamen, was 21,272,187 in 1821, and about 27,724,849 in 1851; but in the interval 2,685,747 persons emigrated, who, if simply added to the population of the United Kingdom, make the survivors and descendants of the races within the British Isles in 1821, now 30,410,595.”

Perhaps, Eusebius, you never considered that you have only right and title to a certain limited area, to live and breathe in, in this your beloved country. Your area is becoming more circumscribed every day. People are approximating fearfully. You may come to touch very disagreeable people; at present you are only a few yards apart. There are two things, according to this Census, threatening you—“density” and “proximity.” For “density” a French writer proposes “specific population after the analogy of specific gravity,” so that if there be an accelerating ratio, you may be run in upon and crushed by your neighbours, after the annihilating principle of some of our railroads. I remember when a boy hearing an old gentleman make a curious calculation, equalising rights to the air we breathe. He came to the conclusion that a man who smoked tobacco took up more room in the atmosphere than he had any right to. This, now that we are so rapidly approximating, ought, you will think, to come under the consideration of the Legislature. See your danger—“the people of England were on an average one hundred and fifty-three yards asunder in 1801, and one hundred and eight yards asunder in 1851.” Thus the regular goers, the world-walkers, are coming in upon you; but there are some as erratic as comets, whose contiguity you will dread. I say this is your danger, for you do not suppose such infinite pains would have been taken, and such vast expense incurred, merely out of idle curiosity to give you this information. Perhaps it is kindly meant to give you a hint that your room would be preferred to your company. “Tempus abire tibi est.” More than this—not only persons, but houses are encroaching upon each other. “The mean distance apart of their houses was three hundred and sixty-two yards in 1801, and two hundred and fifty-two yards in 1851.” You see, then, you must not only set yourself in order to depart, but you must “set your house in order” also. It is really astonishing that the Census Commission should have taken such a world of trouble in making calculations which, at first sight, look so puerile; we must only conclude, that somehow or other the labour is as much worth the hire, as the labourer is worthyhishire.

I dare to say, among your ignorances, you are ignorant of this, that the British Isles are at least five hundred in number. “Five hundred islands and rocks have been numbered, but inhabitants were only found and distinguished on the morning of March 31, 1851, inone hundred and seventy-fiveislands, or groups of islands.” I cannot very well tell what is meant by “distinguished,” but you will perceive that there is a chance, if you fear the “crushing density and proximity” of escape to one of these islands, as yet uninhabited, where you may exist without contact or contagion, as a very “distinguished” individual. You may be another Alexander Selkirk, and “monarch of all you survey,” and have the honour of a distinction, in the next census, now enjoyed by a lone lady. You will be enumerated as, and as solely taking care of, number one. There are British isles that have each but two inhabitants. “Little Papa” has but one—a woman; and “Inchcolm one solitary man.” What think you of this “last man” and this “last woman,” each upon his or her “ultima Thule?” The motherless man-hating woman, in contempt of the parental name, alone treading under foot “Little Papa.” The “solitary man,” if, as is likely he be, brutish, may live out of the fear of a recent Act of Parliament. For if he disdains the marital luxury, he cannot be punished for beating his wife.

The writer of these statistics, aware that there is a good deal of dry matter, prudently sprinkles it with a little saltwater poetry. Thus, as a kind of preface to these British islands, he says, “The Scandinavian race survives in its descendants round the coasts of the British Isles, and the soul of the old Viking still burns in the seamen of the British fleet, in the Deal boatmen, in the fishermen of the Orkneys, and in that adventurous, bold, direct, skilful, mercantile class, that has encircled the world by its peaceful conquests. What the Greeks were in the Mediterranean Sea, the Scandinavians have been in the Atlantic Ocean. A population of a race on the islands and the island coasts, impregnated with the sea, in fixing its territorial boundaries would exhibit but little sympathy with the remonstrating Roman poet, in his Sabine farm over the Mediterranean:

‘Nequidquam Deus absciditPrudensoccano dissociabiliFeras, si tamen impiæNon tangenda rates trausiliunt vada.’”

‘Nequidquam Deus abscidit

Prudensoccano dissociabili

Feras, si tamen impiæ

Non tangenda rates trausiliunt vada.’”

A writer or compiler of statistics should ride his own hobby. Pegasus is hard-mouthed to his hand; if he attempts the use of the curb, he is thrown, and thus is sure to be run away with. So here he has got quite beyond the ground of matter-of-fact. By the Vikings’ soul in the British seamen—the burning soul too—he declares himself of the Pythagorean philosophy, quite gratuitously; and in the following sentence carries his transmigration notions to a strange but practical conclusion, for he tells us of a race “impregnated with the sea,” imaging sailors’ mothers and wives as mermaids—that is, previous to the marine and marital alliances; by which unaccountable flight of poetic diction, I presume, he means only that the sea was rather a rough nursing-mother: and how could he imagine that such an untutored race ever read, or could read, a syllable of what Horace wrote? Doubtless, he must have been weary, counting up these five hundred mostly barren islands, and, coming in the list to “Rum,” it must have made for him a comfortable suggestion; and in consequence, a pretty stiff tumbler set all his ideas at once afloat, and poetically, “half seas over” among the islands, steering, however, steadily, as he was bound towards Mull Port, and the more pleasant hospitality of its 7485 inhabitants. Having descended from this marine Pegasus, the author proceeds in his statistics.

The number of inhabited houses in Great Britain in 1801 amounted to 1,870,476; in 1851, to 3,648,347: these contained 4,312,388 families—persons, 20,816,351. Thus it is seen that the number of houses since 1801 is nearly doubled. How commonly we boast, Eusebius, of things that have passed away! You hear it now often said that an Englishman’s house is his castle, the garrison of which has been hitherto supposed to be known only to himself. There has been an idea that not only the master, but all down to the very scullion, are ready to stand with spits and skillets to keep out unwelcome invaders; whereas the truth is, as shown in this Census, that the castle has its government inspector, who notes down and registers the numbers, ages, names, sexes, and occupations of every individual the said castle contains. Houses are a very nice tangible property for the convenience of government taxation; by judicious scrutiny, of which the Census Commission provides ample means, it will be easily ascertained what each family has to live upon; or, what is quite the same thing for the getting the taxation, what on “an average” the Commissioners may think the said family ought to have to live upon; thus the income-tax is facilitated in computation and collection. These are surely encroachments, that, by little and little, are domineering over the subjects’ liberty. There are other Acts of Parliament also which affect this liberty in the “castle;” some general, some local. In few places can a man make alterations in his building, inside or out, without an application for consent, and of course a fee to some commissioner or other. If he succeeds, there is a further penalty upon his improvements, though they may have been required for the very health of his family. He has, through this Census scrutiny, to pay a tax upon his improvements, nor is he allowed any deduction for repairs. This Englishman’s castle, then, you see, is as much besieged as Bomarsund! At first it was pretty well thrown out of its own windows by the window-tax, and is always at the mercy of commissions, whether it shall or shall not be turned out of doors. Many a one is there that has a ten-pound battery playing upon it all the year round. If, weary of watching your besiegers, you turn yourself out of house, and live a rambling, roving life how you can, you will not so easily escape; you will have an inspector after you with note-book and ink-horn, and you will be booked and pigeon-holed for further use when wanted. “Finally, there is the population sleeping in barns, in tents, and in the open air, comprising, with some honest, some unfortunate people out of employment, or temporarily employed, gypsies, beggars, strollers, vagabonds, vagrants, outcasts, criminals. The enumeration of the houseless population, unsettled in families, is necessarily imperfect, and the actual number must exceed the 18,249 returned; namely, 9972 in barns, and 8277 in the open air.” The poor strollers! why should they be stigmatised and classed with vagabonds, vagrants, outcasts, and criminals? are they not following their lawful vocation, and doing something, as it is hoped they are, towards civilising the people through legitimate amusement? Is the compiler of these statistics a descendant of the old Puritans, and still retaining an unwarrantable prejudice? It were better he had the charity of the chimney-sweeper boy, who remonstrated with a brother sweep, who pointed his finger at Garrick in the streets, and said, “There be one of the player-folk.” “Don’t say so,” said the discreet one, “for thee dostn’t know what thee and I may come to.” But I know, as you rather patronise gypsies, you will be pleased to hear that one tribe of them baffled the officials. “It is mentioned in one instance that a tribe of gypsies struck their tents, and passed into another parish in order to escape enumeration.”

The great king whom we read of in history, who, in the excess of his felicity, thought it needful to have a flapper appointed to remind him every day that he was mortal, though he was made the example of many a theme in our school days, I look upon now as a very silly fellow. I have often heard you express your dislike of any impertinentmemento moris—you have even thought it irreligious, and unthankful for present good; and tending to chill the life-blood, the little that is left in the old, and to throw a wet blanket over the cheerfulness of the young, out of which cheerfulness elastic manhood is to spring, and to take upon itself to do the manly responsible duties of life vigorously. I repeat that you have always maintained, that to thrust amemento moriin every man’s face, or to carve it upon his walking-stick, is irreligious, because it is essential unthankfulness.

It is not pleasant, certainly, to have one’s days numbered by other people, and sent to you in circulars. I knew one of these life-calculators; a clergyman called to condole with him on the recent death of his wife. All he could get from him was partly a submission to a necessity, and partly a congratulation that death had not taken him. “Yes, sir,” said he, “if A does not die, in all probability B will; and if neither A nor B die, C must.” You will be indignant, but your philosophy will have the pleasure of its indignation, if I pointed out to your notice Busybody’s table of mortality. When last he knocked at your door, and booked your age, did his eyebrows arch with surprise? Eusebius, that look meant to tell you that you had no right whatever at that moment to be alive. He longed to filch your name out of his pigeon-hole of life. You are a hale man, and will, I hope, doing so much good as you do, outlive a couple of censuses yet. Have your eye upon Busybody when he next appears; not like Death, with one of his warnings, but ready to receive a certificate of burial. There is a table showing how very few who were alive in 1801 are now living, and so on, at every succeeding census. “By the English Life Table it is shown that the half of a generation of men of all ages passes awayin thirty years, and that more than three in every four of their number die in half a century.” But I pass by this unwelcome subject—nor will I be the one to say to you or to any man, “Proximus ardet, Ucalegon.” Let Ucalegon’s house escape if it can.

It is more agreeable to contemplate births than deaths. There is something very curious in that hidden law which evidently regulates the proportion of the sexes to each other. It has been commonly thought that the males have exceeded the females, in order to make allowance for the greater waste of life to which the males are subject by wars and the elements. But the facts show the contrary. “The number of the male population of Great Britain was 10,386,048, of the female population 10,735,919; the females exceeded the males by 349,871; and the males at home were 10,223,558; consequently the females exceeded by 512,361 the malesinGreat Britain. To every 100,000 females the males were 96,741, including 1538 males abroad, the exclusion of whom leaves 95,203 males at home. The excess of females over males was nearly the same proportionally in 1801 and 1851. Thus, in 1801, to every 100,000 males there were 103,353 females; in 1851, the females were 103,369 to the same number of males. The proportion in both periods was nearly 30 males to 31 females.” It may be inferred from this that there is rather a greater waste of female life than of male. It would be worth while to ascertain how long this excess has been found to have taken place; I am inclined to suspect that the unhealthy employments of young women, to so large an extent, may have been the cause; for it seems to be the law of nature to make a supply for the greater waste. Humanity requires a strict scrutiny into the healthy or deleterious employments of young women, especially in our manufacturing districts, to account for this excessive supply, that as far as is possible some remedial measures may be adopted. That all is regulated by a law of Providence, there can be no doubt in any mind. My present knowledge of the Census is entirely confined to the Report No. 1 of 1851. I shall look to the second Part for an elucidation of this problem.

It is surprising, however, on the whole, to see how evenly the sexes are balanced; it would be a speculation not uninteresting to see what causes may have induced occasional variations. Thus speaks the Report:

“The sexes have apparently increased at different rates in certain decennaries, but the average annual rates of increase through the whole period have been so nearly the same (males 1.328, females 1.329 per cent) as to cause a slight difference only in the third decimal place, and have differed little from 1⅓ annually. The decennial rates of increase were, males 14.108, females 14.111.” The “law of population,” as it relates to proportion of sexes, is a mystery. No human polity can provide for that. It is plain to see, however, that there is a wise, benevolent, superintending power which makes and maintains the law in a just equilibrium. Whether people shall marry or no may depend on human laws and civil institutions; whether due encouragement be given, or the reverse.

We learn from Herodotus that among the Sauromatæ, a people in the northern parts of Europe and Asia, the women dressed in the habits of men, and, like them, engaged in battle; that none were allowed to marry till she shall first have killed her man. Hence it happened, we are further told, that many died old maids, never having been able to fulfil the conditions. How any population could be kept up under the existence of such a law, no one now can question the historian. I suppose, from the necessity of the case, that a reform was demanded, and more peaceful marriages were the first-fruits of a free trade. It must have been an adventurous thing for a man to marry a woman who had once killed her man to obtain one husband; he might have lived in continual fear that she might kill a second man to have another husband.

It appears that marriage, though it is nominally free, is under restriction; were it otherwise, the increase of population would be far greater. “In ordinary times a large proportion of the marriageable women of every country are unmarried.” The writer might have spared his ink; but he adds: “And the most direct action on the population is produced by their entering the marriage state.” As one example may serve a general purpose, the Census gives that of the south-eastern division, comprising Surrey, Kent, Sussex, Hants, and Berks, in which “the number of women of the age of 20, and under 45, amounted at the last Census to 290,209, of whom 169,806 were wives, and 120,403 were spinsters or widows. 49,997 births were registered in the same counties during the year 1850, or 10 children were born in 1850 to every 58 women living in 1851.” It is to be presumed that among matrimonial chances every lot is a prize. The difficulty of a choice, where multitudes assemble, maintains a law of hesitation—of indecision—by which it happens that celibacy becomes wise, and is fond of repeating the philosopher’s advice as to the time to marry: if young, not yet; if middle-aged, wait; if old, never. Let us see how the reverse operates where the choice is very limited. St Kilda, in the parish of Harris, is 70 miles away from the mainland in the Western Hebrides; the population is 110—48 males, 62 females; 32 families in 32 houses. “There are 19 married couples on the island, 2 widowers, 8 widows.Five unmarried men, 5 unmarried women of the age of 20, and under 46.” One would imagine these had only to meet and to marry. Five is no great choice; the greater haste, you would suppose, to take a partner. Is the solution to be found in this extraordinary fact, that there is no clergyman to unite the couples resident on the island? The five couples must wait; and as the clergyman on the mainland may hesitate to go 140 miles to marry one couple, he is probably waiting for all five to come to a decision. It must have been some such unfortunate place as St Kilda which supplied the wit to the epigrammatist upon the question of marriages ceasing elsewhere, the priest asserting that women are not to be found there; the reply being—

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