But here, after all, in England or America, is only the life of the few. If their existence is conspicuous it is because in distortion and dangerous cases there can be most clearly realised the ravages of disease. In England for the most part wealth is encased and preserved in a wall of social tradition; and the majority of men, however opulent, have some interests and occupations which redeem them from the mere blind pursuit of pleasure. Yet in England it is becoming increasingly questioned how far this wealth is providing permanent benefit to the community. It is expended in the maintenance of a life--a life and a standard--bringing leisure, ease and grace, some effort towards charities and public service, an interest, real or assumed, in literature, music, art, social amenity, and a local or national welfare. But it offers little substantial advantage, in endowment, building, or even direct economic or scientific experiment. The percentages of legacy bequeathed to charity or to education are lamentably low; and of these percentages most are deflected into charity or religion in its least remunerative forms. Philanthropy is large and liberal, but the aggregate of poverty remains unaffected by it, or even, to the minds of the intimate observer, deepened. Much of it appears less as the effort of intelligence and compassion than as the random and often harmful attempt to satisfy a conscience disturbed by penury adjacent to plenty. Social experiments involving thought as well as money--a Bournville, a Toynbee Hall, a Limpsfield colony for epileptics, a hospital for the new cure of consumption--are still sufficiently rare as to attract attention. A few thousands bequeathed to miscellaneous institutions out of a fortune of many hundred thousands is still so unusual as to evoke considerable newspaper adulation. The fact is, that the necessary expenditure upon an accepted standard of living is so exacting and so continually increasing with the increase of new demands, that little superfluity remains for adventure in social or charitable effort. Some of the wealthiest landlords have been reducing their pensions on their estates, now that the State provides five shillings a week; in part, perhaps, in order that the recipients should not be demoralised by this enormous access of fortune; but in part because they can see other channels into which this expenditure may at once be deflected. Families with incomes of many thousands a year--caught in the cog-wheels of this vast machine, this swollen definition of essential things--find a real difficulty in making “both ends meet.” Most--in a calm hour--will deplore it. The old look back with regret to an austerer day, to the time when central London had no Sunday restaurant, and it was only necessary for the few to know the few. The young--or the more thoughtful of them--look forward with foreboding, wondering how long the artisan, the shop