THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1892. ENGLISH SOCIETY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2434, 6 December 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1892. ENGLISH SOCIETY.

Two eminent English society ladies, have, so to speak, been telling tales out of school. The first tale was told by Lady Jeune, the wife of an eminent jurist, in an article in the North American Review. In this she depicted English domestic life as anything but felicitous. Young ladies now-a-days have cast aside much of the reserve and modesty which in Lady Jeune's younger days were their greatest attraction, and wives are no better than they ought to be. From the glimpses we get of English high life in the Divorce Court, and other places, we feel inclined to believe that Lady Jeune is telling a good deal of the truth. Still, at the same time, elderly people have, as a general rule, a weakness for drawing comparisons between the past and the present, much to the disadvantage of the latter period; and perhaps a great deal ot the evil which has offended her ladyship's sense of propriety may be attributed to this peculiarity of age. An equally serious, and probably a truer tale, is told by Lady Frederick Cavandish. This lady is the widow Lord Frederick Cavandish, who was murdered in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, and from what we know of her we should feel inclined to believe her. At a Church Congress in England recently, she stated that English society ladies were becoming addicted to intemperance to an alarming extent. Even the young as well as the old were much addicted to the habit, and she gave instances where doctors told her they had been called in to attend professionally to ladies so far gone as to be in almost a state of delirium tremens. Young ladies keep drink in their dressing cases whilst others accompany the gentlemen openly into the smoking-room after dinner, and there indulged not only in cigars but also in spirits and water, and elderly ladies keep " nipping" all day. This is not a flattering picture of the mothers of the English aristocracy. English society, if what these ladies say is true, need not " put on frills." It is certainly so depraved that it needs admonition, but whether this will, or will not improve its morals is very doubtful. The fact is English society is rotten : it has too much money to spend, and too much leisure, and " Satan finds some miechief still for idle hands to do." If these people had to work for their living as honester folks have, they would be much better off morally and physically, but they have not; their lives are entirely given up to pleasure, and hence the viciousness of their conduct. It is sad to reflect on the fact that a portion of the people are squandering' the wealth of the country on profligacy and crime like this, while large numbers are starving. It is no wonder that thinking people believe that a more equal distribution of wealth is desirable, and that Radicalism, Socialism, and all the other "isms " are taking root in England. " Whom the God's wish to destroy they they first make mad. ' It is so with English society, they are mad in the pursuit of pleasure, and in their callous-hearted indifference to the miseries of the poor, and the result will be that all this will end in a social upheaval that will bring them to their senses sooner or later. At any rate, if all we hear is true, the conditions under which English people live are, looked at from a national point of view, depressing. That the aristocracy should lead vicious, immoral, drunken lives, while the poor are starving, gives us no very great hopes of the future of the country, but we hope the two ladies above referred to have exaggerated matters, and that the people are not altogether as bad as they are painted.