After all, then, we lay down our pen in hope. We have undergone struggles deep and severe, and such struggles we may still continue to have. With a debt of eight hundred millions like a millstone round our neck—with a population increasing at the rate of a thousand a day—with Ireland’s ills not yet remedied—with half the landed property of the country in the hands of the lawyer or the Jew—with discordant colonies in all parts of the globe—with large masses in our midst degraded by woe and want—barbarians in the midst of civilization—heathens in the full blaze of Christian light—no man can deny that there are breakers ahead. Rather from what we see around us we may conclude that we shall have storms to weather, severe as any that have awakened the energy and heroism of our countrymen in days gone by. But the history of the past teaches us how those storms will be met and overcome. Not by accident is modern history so rich in the possession of the new creed and the new blood, for the want of which the glory of Athens and Corinth, and of her “who was named eternal” passed away as a dream of the night. Not that England may perish does that new blood course through the veins, and that new creed fructify in the hearts of her sons. The progress we have made is the surest indication of the progress it is yet our destiny to make. Onward, then, ye labourers for humanity, heralds of a coming age—onward then till “We sweep into a younger day. Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.” Those who would deny the people their political rights—who would teach a Christianity unworthy of its name—who would inculcate a conventional morality—who would degrade the national heart by perpetuating religious and political shams—they, and not the foreigner, are our national enemies. Against them must we wage untiring war, for they are hostile to the progress of the nation, and by that hostility sin against the progress of the world. England will still stand foremost in the files of time—and of that England, London will still remain the heart and head. * * * * * LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM OSTELL, HART STREET, BLOOMSBURY. ADVERTISEMENTS. _Price_ 3_s._ 6_d._, _bound in cloth_, _Second Edition_, _Revised_. THE NIGHT-SIDE OF LONDON, BY JAMES EWING RITCHIE. Contents: Seeing a Man hanged—Catherine-street—The Bal Masqué—Up the Haymarket—Ratcliffe Highway—Judge and Jury Clubs—The Cave of Harmony—Discussion Clubs—Cider Cellars—Leicester Square—Boxing Night—Caldwell’s—Cremorne—The Costermongers’ Free-and-Easy, &c. * * * * * OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.