CHANGE IN ENGLISH SOCIETY.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 81, 25 September 1878, Page 3

CHANGE IN ENGLISH SOCIETY.

The 'Saturday Review,' commenting on the famous Hagot will case, says : One wonders how many more public exposures of the extravagances, follies, and worse elements, now so largely prevalent in those ranks of society which to a considerable extent regulate the tone of national life, will be needed before peoj)le awake to a consciousness of the necessity of a thorough reformation in taste and morals, if the English character is to retain that simplicity and rightthinking -which we are wont to claim as among its peculiar virtues. The worst feature is that the decadence appears more rapid and widespread in the case of women than of men. So long as women continue to uphold a high standard of morality, courtesy, and respect for what is worthy of respect, so long will men at least endeavor to disguise their lower tastes and modes.of thought. It is the women who set the feeling of society, and men have perforce to avoid outraging that feeling ; when women thought' none the worse of a man for drinking hard, men got drunk in society; when women tolerated swearing men swore in society. Signs are unhappily not wanting that the influence of women in English society is either being less strenuously exerted for good, or is actually tending to produce the opposite, result. To judge merely from the public records, we have ladies spending large fortunes in dress, submitting themselves to the degrading operations of enamellers, making free use of latchkeys, and indulging in dangerous dissipations, while the Divorce Court deals with still more heinous derelictions of female duty. Nor can an observant person fail to be struck with the manifest "intolerance of restraint exhibited but too commonly by women who, from their position, might be expected to take a higher view of their calling in life. We have now got to the stage at which the symptom is most strongly developed in the younger members of the sex—a discouraging omen for the future. It is painful to dwell on this feature, of modern life : but the evil is a cryingone, and unfortunately seems likely to become more permanent and progressive, to the downfall of all that is good and elevating in society.