Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/409

, or romantic. Athletics, then, form a healthful antidote, and the facility introduced by the bicycle has added happiness and health to all classes of the community. This age has seen

If it has been the rich man's hobby, it has been the poor man's carriage—it has taken him from the crowded slum to the fresh air of the country, it has enabled him to live far from his work and rear his children among more possible surroundings. Indeed, rapid transit is a necessity of modern city life, and never was it growing more rapid than it is to-day, thanks to the wonderful discoveries in the application of electricity, which has bidden fair to revolutionise modern society.

It was one December evening in 1858 that the first electric light flashed over the troubled sea from the South Foreland Lighthouse, but private houses were not lit with it till 1878, when the introduction of the incandescent lamp made it possible. The advance of this huge force has been strong and steady, and year by