Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/363

Clapham, Camberwell, Highgate, &c., for those who could not afford their own carriage or horse. Every one in this set dined in the middle of the day. There were sociable evenings with sit-down tea, cakes, muffins, homemade bread and home-made jam. No pipes were smoked in this community—only workingmen smoked pipes; but tobacco was still taken in the form of snuff by men and women alike. They had not many amusements. They had no lawn tennis, no croquet, no amateur photography. There were a few quiet archery parties, and punctilious calls at stated intervals on neighbours, when decanters of port and sherry, with biscuits, were put on the table. In provincial towns there was the annual interest of the county ball, when folk of the highest rank and fashion danced the newest step in the newest clothes, to the admiration of the local society. But, like "a Hindu caste," each class kept strictly to themselves. But when all is said and done, the most remarkable development of society during the nineteenth century has been in connection with the People. So far they had played no part in the government of the country, which was still wholly in the hands