The forces which have changed the common people have also acted upon himself and his family: the widening of the world, improved communication, and cheap postage and the rest. His young people are not concerned with the polytechnics, but they are moved by the spirit of athletics that drag all the youth of this country into the playing-fields. They career over the country on bicycles; they play golf, lawn-tennis, cricket, football; they are not shut out from suburban society by the old exclusiveness with which “wholesale people” formerly regarded “retail people.” The playing-field is a leveller; there is no rank in a football team. [Illustration: BALMORAL CASTLE] [Illustration: _Painting by C. R. Leslie_ BAPTISM OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL] Let us not forget to remark how large a knowledge of geography is possessed by our friend of Cheapside. You would be amazed at the extent: sure and certain I am that the average American citizen cannot compare with my man in this respect. He has learned this knowledge by following day after day the wars and rumours of wars which assail the country continually. Since the accession of Queen Victoria, we have carried on war in Canada, at the Cape, in India, in New Zealand, on the West Coast of Africa, in the Crimea, in Egypt, in China, in Abyssinia, in Dahomey, in Burmah, in Afghanistan, in Chitral, and I know not where beside. This good man, with his newspaper and his atlas, gets up his geography from day to day and from war to war. [Illustration: _Painting by F. Winterhalter_ ROYAL GROUP, 1848] There is perhaps a “seamy” side to trade of every kind. With that I have no concern whatever; I have only to show here how the events of sixty years have affected the London tradesman, and this, I venture to hope, I have succeeded in doing. Again, it must be understood that I am talking of the better class--not necessarily the richer class--of London retail dealers. There are, I believe, those who live for making money, and have no other care or thought. For them order, law, peace, justice exist for no other purpose than to allow the most perfect freedom for the besting of the customer. The old Cheapside trader was narrow and stupid; these people are neither narrow nor stupid; they are sharp; they exist in every trading city; they are purse-proud and ostentatious; they flourish their wealth at the “Grand Hotels”; they wear the finest fur and the richest silk--and, if you please, we will say no more about them. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IV TRANSFORMATION OF THE PROFESSIONS “I charge you by the law, Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar.” _Merchant of Venice._ Sixty years ago there were three professions and two services. The two services were the Army and the Navy; the three professions were the Church, Law, and Medicine.