Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/21

Rh adopted by a highly influential meeting held under the chairmanship of the late Lord Lyttelton, I read:

We, the undersigned, peers, members of the House of Commons, rate-payers, and inhabitants of the metropolis, feeling strongly the truth and force of your statement made in the House of Commons, in 1866, that "there is still a lamentable and deplorable state of our whole arrangements, with regard to public works—vacillation, uncertainty, costliness, extravagance, meanness, and all the conflicting vices that could be enumerated, are united in our present system," etc., etc.

And here again is an example furnished by a recent minute of the Board of Trade (November, 1883), in which it is said that since "the Shipwreck Committee of 1836 scarcely a session has passed without some act being passed or some step being taken by the Legislature or the Government with this object" (prevention of shipwreck); and that "the multiplicity of statutes, which were all consolidated into one act in 1854, has again become a scandal and a reproach"—each measure being passed because previous ones had failed. And then comes presently the confession that "the loss of life and of ships has been greater since 1876 than it ever was before." Meanwhile, the cost of administration has been raised from £17,000 a year to £73,000 a year.

It is surprising how, spite of better knowledge, the imagination is affected by artificial appliances used in particular ways. We see it all through human history, from the war-paint with which the savage frightens his adversary, down through religious ceremonies and regal processions, to the robes of a Speaker and the wand of an officially-dressed usher. I remember a child who, able to look with tolerable composure on a horrible cadaverous mask while it was held in the hand, ran away shrieking when his father put it on. A kindred change of feeling comes over constituencies when, from boroughs and counties, their members pass to the legislative chamber. While before them as candidates, they are, by one or other party, jeered at, lampooned, "heckled," and in all ways treated with utter disrespect. But, as soon as they assemble at Westminster, those against whom taunt and invective, charges of incompetence and folly, had been showered from press and platform, excite unlimited faith. Judging from the prayers made to them, there is nothing which their wisdom and their power can not compass.