In spite of all these conspicuous and beneficent advances in the direction of humanity, a great deal of severity, and what appears to us brutality, remained embedded in our social system. I have spoken in previous chapters of the methods of discipline enforced in the services, in jails, in poorhouses, and in schools.[10] A very similar spirit prevailed even in the home. Children were shut up in dark closets, starved, and flogged. Lord Shaftesbury's father used to knock him down, and recommended his tutor at Harrow to do the same. Archdeacon Denison describes in his autobiography how he and his brothers were thrashed by their tutor when they were youths of sixteen and had left Eton. _The Fairchild Family_--that quaint picture of Evangelical life and manners--depicts a religious father as punishing his quarrelsome children by taking them to see a murderer hanging in chains, and as chastising every peccadillo of infancy with a severity which makes one long to flog Mr. Fairchild. But still, in spite of all these checks and drawbacks and evil survivals, the tide of humanitarianism flowed on, and gradually altered the aspect of English life. The bloody Penal Code was mitigated. Prisons and poorhouses were reformed. The discipline of school and of home was tempered by the infusion of mercy and reason into the iron regimen of terror. And this general diminution of brutality was not the only form of social amelioration. It was accompanied by a gradual but perceptible increase in decency, refinement, and material prosperity. Splendour diminished, and luxury remained the monopoly of the rich; but comfort--that peculiarly English treasure--was more generally diffused. In that diffusion the Evangelicals had their full share. Thackeray's admirable description of Mrs. Newcome's villa is drawn from the life: "In Egypt itself there were not more savoury fleshpots than those at Clapham. Her mansion was long the resort of the most favoured among the religious world. The most eloquent expounders, the most gifted missionaries, the most interesting converts from foreign islands were to be found at her sumptuous table, spread with the produce of her magnificent gardens ... a great, shining, mahogany table, covered with grapes, pineapples, plum-cake, port wine, and Madeira, and surrounded by stout men in black, with baggy white neckcloths, who took little Tommy on their knees and questioned him as to his right understanding of the place whither naughty boys were bound."