THOUGH the war in Italy had caused many apprehensions, and at one time a panic had seemed imminent on the Stock Exchange, the condition of the country in 1860 was such as to call forth general satisfaction. The year 1859 had ended with evidences of increased prosperity, and with reason for good hope for the future. Exports and imports, employment and profits, and the produce of the public revenue had steadily increased notwithstanding political uneasiness, the shipping interest seemed likely to recover from the depression which followed the exceptional demand for vessels during the Crimean campaign, and the progress which had been made during the ten years since 1850 was such as to justify the general belief that England would be able to maintain her position among the nations of the world.

The commercial prosperity of a nation may not be absolutely calculable by the figures of statistical returns, but those figures afford sufficient proof of it when they are complete, and when by comparison they show a permanent and decided advance. The accounts of the Board of Trade sufficed to show that after the removal of restrictions on our commerce the business of the country expanded to

VOL. IV.

a surprising extent, and that the expansion continued. In the ten years from 1848 to 1858 inclusive, the total value of exports of British produce had increased from less than 53 millions in the former year to above 116 millions in the latter year; or from £1, 18s. to £4, 2s. 5d. per head of the population. In the same period the total value of imports had increased in even greater proportion. There were no accurate returns of them in the Board of Trade accounts, so far as their real value is concerned, earlier than 1854, but in that year the total value of imports was 152 millions, while in 1858 it had increased to 164 millions. It is worth noticing, however, that the imports did not show such an enormous proportion of food-provisions, meat, corn, flour, &c.-as we may have to note in subsequent years. For instance, the importations of these articles in 1854 reached the total value of 27 millions, in 1858 of only a little over 24 millions, but in 1863 it had risen to above 40 millions. The produce of our own country had long ceased to suffice to feed the population, and increased means of steam transit, the lowering of freights, the enormous development of the food supplies of America, the increased productions of our

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colonies, and the free opening of our ports to all comers had wrought this change in the condition of English consumers.

For want of the correct totals of real values in the accounts of the Board of Trade, the returns for 1840 cannot be given; but they have been computed as nearly as possible, and the total imports (of which there is an account) show a value of just over 62 millions, while the exports are calculated at a little less than 61 millions. In twenty years, that is to say in 1860, they had risen respectively to 210 millions and 164 millions. In 1840 the import and export trade together represented £5, and in 1860 they represented £13 per head of the population.

Although we were increasingly dependent for our food supply upon importations from abroad, agricultural operations had continued. to improve, and mechanical implements were already superseding the old methods of farming. The yield of wheat per acre was increasing; but the area of the country could not be increased, and land became of greater rental value, though the average of prices of grain were diminished as compared with the earlier years of the century. Complete systems of draining and deep ploughing, increased the productiveness of the soil. Since the introduction of guano in 1841 various kinds of manure had been adopted for different crops, and many of those experiments which we have already noted in relation to Mr. Mechi's operations at Tiptree had proved successful. A great improvement had been manifested in Dorsetshire farms, where the cultivators had previously exhausted their efforts in breaking up heath wastes and sheepdowns, but had not adopted the steam-plough to cultivate them. They had begun to feed their sheep and cattle on oil-cake and corn, and the consequence was not only that the land improved on the cattle and sheep runs, but that the flocks increased in quantity and vastly improved in quality, while the herds of horned stock advanced in an equal or even a greater degree. In 1851 the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society and the Devon Agricultural Society amalgamated, and a series of annual meetings and exhibitions at

different parts of the country was inaugurated. The first of these meetings took place at Taunton in 1852, when the entries of stock for the show numbered 238 and the implements 400; in 1860, at Dorchester the number of cattle shown was 599 and of implements 1453, including 29 machines in motion. Reaping and haymaking machines, steam ploughs, harrows, and other machines were soon in very general use, and the system of breeding and feeding cattle underwent a remarkable change, which produced extraordinary results not in England only, where the animals were bred and exhibited for their fine points and meat-yielding quality, but also in Canada and America, where our shorthorn bulls and heifers, our Cotswold sheep and Berkshire pigs were used to start a new stock, to be returned hither in due time in the shape of American beef and mutton. At the same time special legislation had to be introduced in consequence first of the murrain, which was believed to have been brought by foreign cattle in 1841, and afterwards because of the rinderpest of 1856, which, originating among the vast herds of the Russian steppes, travelled westward over Europe, and could only be checked from spreading in England by the stringent provisions of an act of parliament -the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act.

A few more figures may not be out of place to indicate the enormous extension of food supply by the returns of importations of cattle, meat, and grain to this country.

In 1842, when the prohibition of the importation of cattle and sheep was removed, there were imported 4264 oxen, bulls, cows, and calves, and 644 sheep, 6181 cwts. of bacon and hams, 30,022 cwts. of beef. In 1845 the cattle imported had increased to 16,833, the sheep and lambs to 15,957. In 1846, the year of the repeal of the corn-laws, there were imported 45,043 cattle and 94,624 sheep, &c., and the imports of bacon and hams reached 14,203 cwts., and of beef 177,172 cwts. In 1847 the figures were 75,717 cattle, 142,720 sheep, 107,732 cwts. of bacon and hams, and 117,695 cwts. of beef. The quantities afterwards fluctuated according to demand and the home production, but with a general tendency to

that the country was alive for fresh enterprises. At the same time the aspects of our streets were undoubtedly improved and the sanitary arrangements there received more attention, the roadways were better swept, and there was more protection against fire, not only by a reorganization of the fire brigade and the appointment of more stations, but by an increased supply of water. It is worth noting, too, that in the spring of 1859 the first of a series of ornamental drinking fountains (to some, but too few, of which horse-troughs were added) was erected in London in the wall of St. Sepulchre's Churchyard at the corner of Snow Hill. This fountain, as well as others in the Royal Exchange, in Regent Circus, and elsewhere, was the gift of Mr. Gurney of Lombard Street, and was very ornamental in design. It was time for some such provision to be made, and it should have received greater attention than has since been given to it, for some of the old springs and wells disappeared with the deeper drainage of the metropolis, and those that remained and were drawn from the few surviving pumps were mostly in the vicinity of churchyards or other places, where they had become polluted, so that the sanitary authorities found it necessary to chain up the pump-handles. But the drainage of London still went into the Thames, though, as we have mentioned, the new system of an outfall further out towards sea, from which the sewage of nearly the whole metropolitan area would be discharged, was being carried out by the Metropolitan Board of Works. Though the Thames Embankment was being constructed, the river itself was little better than an open drain, and during the sultry weather the stench which it emitted penetrated to the Houses of Parliament and gave legislators a practical example of the evils under which people dwelling on the banks of the stream had long been suffering.

In recording the progress of public works we cannot properly pass over the completion of the new Houses of Parliament, which was really only effected just before the session of 1859, though the House of Peers had been opened

in 1847 and the Commons had first met for business in their new chamber in 1852. The coloured glass windows were added in 1859, the old St. Stephen's Crypt, or St. Mary's Chapel in the vaults, was renewed, the wall frescoes, the colours of which did not stand, were not all finished, but the Speaker's House was being furnished and "Big Ben" was swung along with the other bells in the Clock tower. Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the stupendous pile at Westminster, only lived long enough to see the completion of the building. He died on the 12th of May, 1860. It may be mentioned that very considerable changes were at the same time made in various parts of London, where buildings of a rather mixed architectural character, and some of them of no character at all, but mostly of great size and often of effective appearance, were superseding meaner structures. This necessitated improvements in our thoroughfares, the widening of main streets and therefore the demolition of some crowded neighbourhoods to open up new means of transit, with the result that the city and other trading portions of the metropolis became still less places of residence, and the suburbs of London continued to be extended by the indefinite multiplication of houses, too often badly built, imperfectly drained, and "run up" without due consideration of the proper provisions for health and comfort.

One of the most aggravating conditions of metropolitan dwellings was, and has long continued to be, the want of an ample and pure supply of water. The companies which had the monopoly of carrying water from the Thames, the Lea, and the New River into the houses of Southern, Northern, and Eastern London not only took too little pains to deliver it in a proper condition, but though they were empowered to charge for it at a price reckoned on the rated rental of the houses, refused, or omitted, to do more than fill such cisterns or other receptacles as the landlords of the houses chose to supply to their tenants. It may well be imagined, therefore, that in the poorer neighbourhoods there was a great scarcity, and that the small quantity which the inhabitants could collect in tubs, pails, or