Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/109

 The twentieth century proved, indeed, specially favourable to the working class generally, by the great amelioration of the conditions of labour, as well as its improved efficiency, through the universally extended application of machinery. The quick turn over of capital, and the small amounts thus required in this way, were favourable to the co-operative association of working-men, which accordingly made marked progress in this century. And it was only to be expected that this advanced material condition, in the great mass of the population, associated as it was with universal educational attainment, should have an elevating effect on mind and habits; and there was, indeed, in these respects, a great advance along the whole industrial front.

Amongst other effects, Yellowly survived to see, in the fair way of realization, the desire of his heart—that the vast expenditure of his class upon intoxicating drinks, which he so much grudged, even as a mere money question, should be diverted to purposes more useful to the class and more creditable to the man. He had hoped that the very marked reform in that respect, which the nineteenth century had brought to the richer and employing classes, might, with the twentieth century, reach also the great mass of the employed; and ere he quitted the world he had the satisfaction to see that this hope was not to be disappointed. We shall also have occasion to see how, in carrying out with more and more practised hand, the economies of co-operative dwellings, our working classes were enabled to house themselves in large and commodious, and even elegant and elegantly furnished, mansions, where, as an entirely new feature of their life, the