The reason of this is not far to seek. It lies in the enormous increase during that period in the size of the class which is not engaged in that, to the heralds, accursed thing--trade, and has money enough to bear the expense of "a presentation," and of living or trying to live afterward in the circle of those who might be invited to court, or might meet the Prince of Wales at dinner. The accumulation of fortunes since the Queen's accession has been very great, and they have, however made, come into possession now of a generation which has never been engaged in any occupation frowned on by the Lord Chamberlain, and which owns estates, or at all events possesses all outward marks of gentility, when it has been received by the Queen, and has got into Burke's Dictionary at the end of an interesting though perhaps apocryphal genealogy. This reception is the crown of life's struggle, a sort of certificate that the hero or heroine of it is fit company for anybody in the world. It is, in fact, a social graduation. When you get somebody who is himself a graduate to agree to present you, and the Lord Chamberlain, after examining your card, makes no objection to you, he virtually furnishes you with a sort of diploma which guarantees you against what may be called authorized snubs. People may afterward decline your invitations on the ground that they do not like you, or that your entertainments bore them, but not on the ground that your social position is inferior to their own. That the struggle for this diploma in a wealthy and large society should be great and increasing is nothing wonderful. The desire for it among the women especially, to whose charge the creation and preservation of "position" are mainly committed, is very deep. It inflames their imagination in a way which makes husbands ready for anything in order to get it, and in fact makes it indispensable to their peace of mind and body that they should get it as soon as their pecuniary fortune seems to put it within their reach. Since the Queen ascended the throne the population has risen from 20,000,000 to 35,000,000, and the number of great fortunes and presentable people has increased in a still greater ratio, and the pressure on the court has grown correspondingly; but there remains after all only one court to gratify the swarm of new applicants. The colonies, too, have of late years contributed largely to swell the tide. Every year London society and the ranks of the landed gentry are reinforced by returned Australians and New Zealanders and Cape-of-Good-Hopers and China and India merchants, who feel that their hard labors and long exile have left life empty and joyless until they see the names of their wives and daughters in the _Gazette_ among the presentations at a drawing-room or levee.