The domestic principle waxes weaker and weaker every
year in England: nor can we wonder at it, when there is no
comfort to cheer and no sentiment to hallow the Home."
"I was reading a work the other day," said Egremont, "that
statistically proved that the general condition of the people
was much better at this moment than it had been at any known
period of history."
"Ah! yes, I know that style of speculation," said Gerard;
"your gentleman who reminds you that a working man now has a
pair of cotton stockings, and that Harry the Eighth himself
was not as well off. At any rate, the condition of classes
must be judged of by the age, and by their relation with each
other. One need not dwell on that. I deny the premises. I
deny that the condition of the main body is better now than at
any other period of our history; that it is as good as it has
been at several. I say, for instance, the people were better
clothed, better lodged, and better fed just before the war of
the Roses than they are at this moment. We know how an
English peasant lived in those times: he eat flesh every day,
he never drank water, was well housed, and clothed in stout
woollens. Nor are the Chronicles necessary to tell us this.
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