and women are human alike, and that there exists in the upper grades no divine right of power and supremacy. And, strangely enough, it is through this very means that the higher classes have been forced to recognize the power and the might of the lower. This new condition of things has also been promoted by other causes than the advancement of intelligence. The increase of population has forced upon reasoning minds among the people the inevitable necessity of radical changes in the hitherto existing order of things; and the scarecrow of vested interests, which is set up by those who lay claim to them, will be powerless to check the onward march. There are, unhappily, retarding influences, springing from the very vices of the people, which prove stumbling-blocks in every step that is taken or suggested. But for these vices the victims themselves are scarcely to blame. It is not an inherent matter, it is a matter of birth, whether one grows up with the courtly airs of St. James's or with the degrading characteristics of St. Giles's; and it is good to observe that there are statesmen in St. James's who recognize the fact, and who are working honestly and earnestly towards a better end--or, rather, not to speak paradoxically, towards a better beginning. And yet, despite these reflections, society perhaps never labored under greater ills than at present. The ephemeral, vicious fashions of St. James's were never in greater vogue than now; the cunning and vices of St. Giles's were never more conspicuous and apparent. There was a time when much of this, both in the higher and lower classes, was hidden, but in the present day everything is brought to light in the conflict of testimony which a fair-minded survey is forced to perceive. There are cogent and powerful arguments to be adduced in justification by each side against the other, but these are small, meandering rivulets which but slightly affect the rolling of the grand tide. Out of this seeming chaos good must come. It is, as it has ever been, still the fashion of the age--even now that darkness no longer weighs heavily upon it--to shift and evade a responsibility. Thus, the owner of a great landed estate, in portions of which hotbeds of vice and misery can be found, is in the habit of shrugging his shoulders when public attention is directed to them, and of saying, in effect, "It is not my affair, it is the affair of my agents." But this attitude, which springs either from fear, cowardice, or indifference, can no longer be accepted. It is the owner alone who is responsible; it is the owner and the owner alone who thrives and fattens upon these systems, who is in justice accountable for the evils of which he is undoubtedly the breeder; and the attitude he assumes proves him to be unfitted for his responsibilities. The remedy is his to apply, and if he apply it not in time the power of doing so will be taken out of his hands. The present opportunity is his; the future with its dark possibilities