times of suffering from dearth. No doubt the masses move slowly; but you incite them to move when you thrust into their hand the vote and send among them people to teach them that by a violent use of it they can raise themselves to the level of the rich. Able and powerful men of the ruling class itself are now, either from philanthropy or from party motives, doing their utmost to pave the way for a Socialistic revolution. Of all the calamities that ever befell the human race, the greatest was the French Revolution. Wide, happily, is the difference between the France of a century ago and the England of the present day. In the case of England there is no Versailles, no deficit, no gulf between the aristocracy and the middle classes; while there is diffused intelligence instead of a night of political ignorance in which all sorts of spectres stalked, general habits of self-government in place of a paralyzing centralization, and a political character, as we may flatter ourselves, stronger and sounder than was that of the French. Still there are some points of similarity, especially the dangerous conjunction of social or agrarian with political revolution. In England, as in the France of the eighteenth century, scepticism has gained the minds of the ruling class; with their convictions their nerve is shaken, and it is difficult to see who would stop the avalanche if once it should begin to slide. Nor is there wanting a sybaritic Jacobinism which ominously reminds us of the Palais Royal. Pleasure-hunting and frivolity, athletic and of other kinds, appear to have reached a great height, and to public questions a sort of careless fatalism seems to prevail. No doubt there is still plenty of force and of seriousness in the country; but something like a convulsion may be needed to bring them to the front. The masses in France, though galled by the burdens of feudal lordship were not, properly speaking, Socialistic. Socialism proper can hardly be said to have shown its head before the conspiracy of Babœuf; and the nation was still at the core monarchical and Catholic, as was proved by the ease with which both monarchy and Church were restored by Napoleon. Should the manufacturing and maritime supremacy of England be still more severely challenged and continue to decline, an amount of suffering might be produced among her people hardly less than was, in reality, that of the people in France. If Socialistic legislation commences in earnest, and, as the inevitable consequence, property begins to shrink from circulation and investment, stoppage of industry and dearth of bread cannot fail to ensue, and we know what the effects of these would be in the middle of a Socialistic revolution. Much ought to be risked, if there were real hope of equalizing, by any political action, the human lot. But who seriously believes this to be possible? Who does not know that the things which we deplore and are slowly mending will only be made worse by convulsions?