He entertained no sympathy with trades unions: the working-man was the servant of his employer; it was not for him to regulate his own wages and his hours; he was to take what he could get, what the generosity of his master, what the conditions of trade, allowed him to have. This man, of whom there were many hundred thousands in the country, read no books; he was quite ignorant of what we call everything, that is, of literature, science, art, music, history. Something he knew of what was going on, because there were newspapers at the tavern, which he sometimes read. But he took in no newspaper, and he read no books. There were no books in his house at all; his girls read no books. A book of Family Prayers there was; and for Church purposes, Prayer Books and Bibles, but no books. And so this man, with all his household, lived and died, as Matthew Arnold pointed out, without culture, without ideals, without standards, without aspirations. [Illustration: QUEEN’S PRIVATE SITTING ROOM, WINDSOR] [Illustration: THE ROYAL KITCHEN, WINDSOR] He had become, after the Mob Riots of the eighteenth century, a prodigious coward. Formerly, as in 1715, when a mob appeared in the street, he had run to the mug-house or tavern, seized a club, and sallied forth to disperse that mob. Gradually he lost courage; he stayed at home; he was sleek and fat and unwarlike; when the mob came along he put up his shutters, locked his door, and sat behind it trembling. However, the establishment of the New Police sufficiently repressed the mob, and made the question of the civic valour no longer necessary. For holidays, he had none, that is to say, he felt no need of any change year after year; he lived the daily routine, and would not alter it if he could. Some of his neighbours--a few--had begun to go in the summer to Brighton or to Margate. Not our friend; he stayed where he was, with his nose over the churchyard, and said that London air was best. Once a year he might take his family to Bagnigge Wells or over to Vauxhall; on summer evenings he would walk with them in the pleasant fields outside the city walls; he wanted no other holiday. Nor did his people. His daughters married and left him; but he and his wife kept on where they were until the end. The man himself, ill-educated, vulgar, incapable of understanding anything except that which lies on the surface, unfortunately stood in the eyes of the world to represent the City: the trading merchants had gradually withdrawn from the Corporation, leaving it to the shopkeepers, so that for a time the Mayor and Corporation of the greatest city of the world were drawn from a narrow, vulgar part of the community. Not only the city, but trade itself fell into contempt during this interval. You may remember that Thackeray is filled with contempt of trade, with his Alderman Gobble and the purse-proud merchants.