METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM. METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM AND OTHER PAPERS BY W. STANLEY JEVONS, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. &mbm MACMILLAN AND CO. 1883 [All sightr rW.1 PREFACE. A FEW words will explain that this volume is a collection of the Essays published under the title of Methods of Social Reform” in The Contemporary Rcckw, and of otherpapers and addresses on kindredsubjects. They extend over a period of fifteen years, and I have given at the commencement of eachpaper the date at which it was written, 89 I have thought it better to arrange them as far &9 I Could according to subjects rather than by date. It was my husband’s inten- tion to have republished these Essays himself, and with this view hehad already revised two of them--“ Experimental Legislation and the Drink Traffic,” and “Amusements of the People ;” to the latter he had added several new paragraphs, He would, I am sure, have carefully edited and revised the others in the same way, but they are now republished just as theywere originally written. The Essay on “The Use and Abnse of Museums ’’ has not before been published. It was chie0y written in 1881, for Contemporary Reuieu~,but wm laid aside from the pressure of other work, and I am unable to say the exact time at which it waa hished. It still the halrevision which he wodd have given before sending it vi PREFACE. to Prerre. The Lecture on rr Industrial Partnerships" ie m- fedto by Mr. Jevona in his book on Ir The State in Relation to Labour,'' * p. 14, where he says that hs seea no reason to alter the opinions expremed in theLecture in favour of Indostriel Partnerships, in spite of the failure of the experi- mental trials of the system by Messrs. Henry Briggs & Co., Masrs. Fox, Head & Co., and others. HARRIET A. JEVONS. * English Citizen Series. Macmillan & Co. 1882. CONTENTS. ?A81 AXUSEYEYTB OF THE PEOPLE . *..I TEE RATIONALE OF FREE PUBLIC LIBMRIEJ . ..* 28 53 TUUSE ANDABUSE OF MUSEUMS I .. II (.- 7) .I... .. 84 TRADES SOCXJITIES : THEIR OWECTY ASD POLICY ... 101 OX INDCSTRIAL PAFiTXERSFiIPS. , , . I.. 122 XARRXZD WOXEN IN FACTORIEB , .. 156 MANCHESTER STATISTICAL SOCIETY-INACGURAL ADDRESS . 180 BRITISH AFi5OCIATION - OPENMQhDDBE98 A8 PBEBIDEPT OF B~ION (ECONOMIC SCIEICE am STATIBTIO) . 194 CRUELTY TO MI!4ALS-A STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY. 217 ~~YHNTALLEGISLATION AND TEE DU-K TRAFFIC . 253 viii COhTENTS. ?lex 01 TBE ANAUUIY BETIPm TIIE POST OFFICE, THLEOBAPBB, AND OTHER a~m0OF COKVEYANCE OF TEE CBITED KIXQDOY, AB REGARD6 GOYERSHEST CONTROL . , . 277 THE POET OFFICE TELEGRAPHS AKD THEIR FISAKCIAL BEXULTS . 293 POBTAL KOTES, MONEY VRDERY, ASD BASK CHEQLXB. , . 307 A BTATE PARCEL POST . 324 'CUE WAILWAYS AXL, TtlE STATE . I. 353 METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM. AMUSEJIENTS OF THE PEOPLE.* THE possible Methods by which we may hope to accomplish Social Reform are almost infinite in number and variety. As society becomes more complex and the forms of lzumnn activity multiply, so mustmultiply also the points at whichcareful legislation and continuous social effort are required to prevent abuse,and secure the bestutilisation of resources. Nor nro theso Methods of Social Reform to be regarded as alternatives, one or other or a few of which are to be considered sufficient. They are to be advocated and adopted conjunctively, not dis- junctively.Each and all mustbe brought into simultaneous play, if any considerableeffect is to beproduced. It ia common to hear social reformers express disappointment that their efforts seem to bear such slightresults. Schools have beenbuilt, penny readings started, penny banks, libraries, and various useful institutions established, and yet crime and ignorance and drunkenness shorn no apparentdiminution- nay, sometimes they show an increase. But it is altogether a mistake to suppose that a few Methods of Social Reform, almost casually adopted according to the crotchets of the reformer, can be expected to make any serioae impression upon the bad habits of a population-babits 'I Contemporary Review," Ootober, 1878, vol. xxxiii., pp. 498-513. B 2 METHODS OF SOCIALREFORM. which have become confirmed during centuries of i,gnorance nud mistakenlogislation. Time must be a greatelement in rJocial reform, and it is hardly to be expected that any great change can becomemanifest in less thanthe thirty years during which D new generation displaces the older one. But in addition to this consideration, we must remember that it is of comparatively little good to close some flood-gates,while vthorsaro left widc open. If from ignorance or neglect, or, it may bo, from sinister motives, we leavo many of the more importnnt causcs of social n~ischiefin full operation, it is quite likely that our efforts in other directions, however meritorious in themselvc~s,will bo neutnlised.What is needed among social reformers is a long pull, and a strong pull, and espe- cilrlly D pullall together. Each individual may, according to his tastes and prejudices, choose his own strand of the rope, and exert his own force entirely upon that, if he likes; but he must not suppose that ho alone can do any appreciable part of tho work. Ho must bo tolerantthen of thodifferent, or, it mny sometimesappear, tho inconsistent efforts of others. And it would bo well that he should kocp his mind open to conviction, thnt tllcre are other dircctions in which his efforts ujght bo muchmore advantageously devoted. If the citadel of poverty and ignornnceand vice is to be taken at all, it mustbe besieged from every point of the compass-from below, from above, from within; and no kind of arm must be ncglectodwhich will tendto securo the ultimate viatory of morality and culture. It is obvious, of course, thatin any single article it is impossible to treat of morethan one Nethod of Social Reform. In selecting, for the subject of thepresent article, l’ublic Amusements, I must not bo supposed to attribute to it any orclusivo or disproportionate weight. Nevertheless, them is hardly any other Method, taken separately, to which greater importsnce should be attributed then tothe providing of good moral publicamusements, especially musical entertainments. Up to quiterecent years, the English peoplehave, in this respect, been wofdly backward, (as compared with the more cultured Continentalnations. Tbere are still large parts of AMUSEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE, 3 the mauufacturing 5nd more thickly populated districts of the kingdomwhere puro and mtionalrecreation for tho poorer classes can hardly be said to exist at all. The richer classes do not suffer much from this lack of locsl amusement. They take car0 to enjoy thelnsclvos in periodic visits to London, in tours abroad, or iu residence at matoring-places, wlloro snter- tainrnents aro provided.Their amusements on their own estates chiefly consist in shooting, nnd other fo:.ms of sport’, in the prosecution of which they arc led t,o excltldo the mass of tho people, even from tho natural enjoymeuts of tho air and the sun. It is hardly too much to my that the right to dwell freely in a grimy street, to drink freely in tho neigllbouring public-housc, and to walk freelybetween tho high-walled parks and the jcalonsly preserved estates of our lnudowucra, is all that tho just and equal laws of England secure to the mass of the popula t‘ton. England is trndition:dly called ‘I Mcrrio England ;” but themhas always seemed to me to bo somethingabsurdly incongruousintho name at prcsent. It is a case of anachronism, if not of sarcasm.England may have been merry in tho days when tho village green and tho neighbour- ing common werc still unenclosed; when the Blaypole was sot up, and the village fiddler and the old English sports were really existing institutions.But all that sort of thing is a matter of history. Popular festivals, fairs, wakes, and the like, have fallen into disuse or disrapute, and have to a great extent bren suppressed bythe magistrates, on the groundof the riotous and ricious assemblages which they occasioned.* There is no difficulty in seeing that there is a tendency, in England at least, to the progressive degradation of popular amusements. * The fairs of London were for centuries places of popular enjoy- ment such as it was, but hare been all long suppressed, on account, ot the riotous and dissolnteproceedings which they occasioned. May rair, now known only by the name of the fashionable spot where it existed, was suppressed in 1708; Bartholomew Fair, in spite of being occaeioually presented by the pndj my as R. nuisance, ‘‘ next only to that of the pla-yhonses,” lingered on until it died out about fifty yeam afP, being gradually suppressed by the Corporation, who bought up the pmperty. 82 4 METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM. Manyopportunities of recreationhave gone, for thesame maqon that May Fair, and Bartholomem Fair, and, within the Iastfew years, Knott Mill Fair at Manchester,have gone. Horse-racing, indeed, still survives as a national sport, but it cannotlong bo tolorated,unless it be conducted with more regard to decency and morality. Already the so-called ‘(gate- meetings”in the neighbourhood of themetropolis are do- nounccd as c( an intolerablenuisance,” gathering together, as they do, thescum of theblackguardism and crime of London.* But, if old amusements are by degrees to be suppressed, and no now ones originated, England must indeed be a dull England.Such it has, in fact, becn for a length of time. Taking it on tho averngo, England is as devoid of amusements ~9 a country of such wealth can be. The people seem actually to havo forgotten how to amuse themselves, so that when they do escnpo by an excursion train from thcir depressing alleys, thoro is no provision of music, no harmless games, nor other occupation for the vncnnttime.