memorable example of Sinope, that she is not ashamed to perpetrate in the face of the civilised world, and in the name of Christianity. There is one consideration, however, connected with the present warlike temper of our population, which cannot with safety be permitted to escape remark. We have already stated that two generations of men have passed away since this country was in actual war with an enemy in Europe. The bulk of the present race of Englishmen have never experienced the inconveniences, and occasional privations, which attend upon war even in countries, like ours, which are happily free from the affliction of having an armed enemy to combat upon its own soil. We believe most firmly that we are not a degenerate people. We see evidence of this in the ready zeal with which large numbers of our hardy and enterprising youth are everywhere flocking to be enrolled under the flag of their country, both for land and sea service. We trust that this feeling will endure, and that we shall be found willing to bear up cheerfully under any temporary sacrifices which we shall be called upon to make; but we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that a great change has taken place in our social condition, in our traditionary instincts, in our pursuits, and in our institutions, during the forty years of peace which we have enjoyed. We have become more essentially a manufacturing and commercial people. A larger number of our population than formerly are dependent for their daily bread upon the profitable employment of capital in our foreign trade. The more extensive adaptation of machinery to manufacturing processes of every kind has led to the aggregation of large masses of our population in particular districts; and such masses, ignorant as we have unfortunately allowed them to grow up, are notoriously subject to the incendiary persuasions of unprincipled and bad men, and have been sedulously taught that cheapness of all the necessaries of life can only be secured by unrestricted communication with foreign countries. Moreover, we have had a large infusion of the democratic element into our constitution. Our House of Commons no longer represents the yeomanry and the property classes of the country; but, instead, must obey the dictates of the shopkeeping and artisan classes of our large towns. It is no longer the same body of educated English gentlemen, whose enduring patriotism, during the last war, stood firm against the clamours of the mobs of London, Manchester, and other large centres of population, and turned a deaf ear to the persuasions of faction within its own walls; but a mixed assemblage of a totally opposite, or, at all events, a materially changed character, so far as regards a considerable number of its members. We have in it now a larger proportion of the capitalist class—men suspected of being rather more sensitively alive to a rise or fall in the prices of funds, stock, railway shares, &c., than to any