désirs changent d'objets ; ce qu'on aimoit, on ne l'aime plus ; on étoit libre avec les lois, on veut être libre contre elles ; chaque citoyen est comme un esclave échappe de la maison de son maitre ; ce qui étoit maxime, on l'appelle rigueur; ce qui étoit règle, on l'appelle gêne ; ce qui étoit attention, on l'appelle crainte."[1]
It is necessary to examine closely the operation of the principle of representation under the system now inaugurated, and if it be possible, to discover in what guidance, wisdom and safety are to be found. This inquiry involves some investigation of the state of popular life and manners amongst us.
The natural tendency to association, common to society, has been the subject of remark in a former page. The places in which people meet, and their habits and employments, form the features of social life. At the present time it is impossible not to remark the great number of public-houses and beer-shops.[2] There is no doubt, that these houses of entertainment are places of great resort. It must not be thought that this is mentioned as a social reproach. It is due to many causes: much to the uninviting character of the vast number of dwellings in cities and towns, not of the labourers alone, but even of the smaller tradesmen. The mind yearns for some relief from sights and sounds ever sordid and ever discordant. Much, also, is due to climate, which permits little social intercourse of any prolonged kind, except under the protection of warmed and covered buildings. An eminent statesman, in one of his addresses on national subjects, lately remarked upon the difference between our modern life and public life in Greece and Rome, where the people conversed
- ↑ De l'Esprit des Lois, liv. iii., chap. 3.
- ↑ In one borough, Kidderminster, in 1852, of the 494 parliamentary voters, 109 were publicans and beer retailers, and the licensed houses of this kind in the down were 150. Of these establishments it would therefore appear, that about forty were not of sufficient value to place their occupants on the register.—Times, April 15, 1857.
