Chapter XVIII

Material Progress during the Reign--Modern Locomotion--The
Bicycle--Motor Carriages--The Proposed Channel Tunnel--Steam
Navigation--Ironclads--The Telephone--The
Phonograph--Electricity as an Illuminant--Photography--Its
Effect on Painting and Engraving--Victorian
Architecture--Absence of Principle in Design--Universal
Education--Its Effect on Moral Character and Literary
Habits--The Predominance of Fiction--The Growth and Character of
British Journalism--The Advance of Natural Science--Surgery and
Medicine--Vaccination--Antiseptic and Aseptic
Treatment--Bacteriology--The Röntgen Rays--Sanitary
Legislation--Conclusion.

[Sidenote: Material Progress during the Reign.]

Allusion has been made in earlier chapters to the development during the reign of Queen Victoria of the powers of steam applied to locomotion, of electricity applied to the conveyance of news, to the institution of the penny post, and to the invention of anæsthetics in surgery. But no survey, however brief, would be satisfactory which took no note of a few other stages in the progress of applied knowledge--progress which, up to the present moment, shows no sign of slackening.

AN EARLY BICYCLE.

This is probably the earliest Bicycle seen in England; it was made in 1868 by Mr. W. F. Martin.]

[Sidenote: Modern Locomotion.]

First, as to locomotion: when Sir Walter Scott was writing the opening chapters of the "Heart of Midlothian," in 1818, he referred to the wonderful development of facilities for travel, and may have thought he was exceeding the limits of the probable when he penned the sentence: "Perhaps the echoes of Ben Nevis may soon be awakened by the bugle, not of a warlike chieftain, but of the guard of a mail coach." Scott was by no means deficient in imaginative power, but the maximum speed he can have contemplated was ten miles an hour, for the standard of speed in those days was the pace of a horse (we still reckon the strength of our engines at so many "horse" power). What would he think now, were it possible for him to take his seat in a luxurious saloon and be whirled round the flanks of Ben Nevis, along the West Highland Railway? Eleven years after the publication of the "Heart of Midlothian" a competition of locomotives was held on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and the prize was taken by Messrs. Stephenson's "Rocket." Weighing 7 tons 9 cwts., this engine was able to draw a load of 9 tons 10 cwts. at an average speed of thirteen miles an hour. One of the first-class express engines on the London and North-Western line at the present day weighs 77 tons 2 cwts., and draws a load of 160 tons, at an average speed of forty-seven miles an hour.

[Sidenote: The Bicycle.]

But it is not only by steam that the standard of speed in locomotion has been displaced. The invention and constant improvement of the bicycle has not only caused the rise of a most important industry in their manufacture (about half a million cycles are being turned out of the factories annually, representing a value of at least £5,000,000), but it has supplied a means of locomotion of incalculable convenience to persons of all classes and of both sexes. This invention must be reckoned a great boon, not only as a means of recreation to persons in crowded towns, to whom the cycle affords easy access to the country, but also to working-men living at a distance from their employment.

[Sidenote: Motor Carriages.]

With respect to the mechanical propulsion of carriages along ordinary streets and highways, stringent regulations were in force until 1896, under which such carriages were not permitted to travel at a higher speed than four miles an hour. But the invention of "motor" carriages, propelled by steam, gas, oil, or electricity, convinced the authorities that these restrictions should be relaxed. This accordingly was done by Act of Parliament, and their removal was celebrated, on November 14, 1896, by the excursion of a number of horseless carriages from London to Brighton. Evil weather marred the display, nevertheless large numbers of persons turned out to witness it. It is too early to predict the extent to which horses may be displaced by motor carriages, but it can scarcely be doubtful that their obvious imperfections will yield to the ingenuity of inventors, so as to render them at least dangerous rivals to the old kind of equipage.

Railway Engineer. Born at Wylam, Northumberland. Son of a colliery fireman. Constructed his first locomotive in 1814. Planned and constructed the first railways--Stockton and Darlington, 1815-25, Liverpool and Manchester, 1825-30. Was chief engineer to most of the lines constructed until 1840, when he retired, leaving his business to his son Robert.]

[Sidenote: The Proposed Channel Tunnel.]

Before leaving the subject of terrestrial locomotion, allusion must be made to the project of carrying a tunnel under the Straits of Dover to the French coast, to enable trains to be run without interruption from Great Britain to the Continent. The tunnel, the favourite scheme of Sir Edward Watkin, Chairman of the South-Eastern Railway, was begun some years ago, and was actually carried for several hundred yards under the sea. But the strategic advantages of an island realm are too substantial to be sacrificed by the creation of a highway, command of which would certainly be insisted on by any Power or combination of Powers which, in the future, might overcome Great Britain in arms.

THE MOTOR-CAR PARADE, November 14, 1896: THE START FROM THE HOTEL METROPOLE.]

[Sidenote: Steam Navigation.]

[Sidenote: Ironclads.]

Turning now to locomotion by sea, or navigation, steam had been applied to the propulsion of vessels as early as 1802, and its use had been gradually extended till, in 1835, the first steamer with mails for Egypt and India was despatched from Falmouth; but it was not until the second year of the present reign, 1838, that the first vessel entirely propelled by steam crossed the Atlantic. Greatly as the appearance and strength of our mercantile marine fleet has been altered to meet the requirement of speed, a still greater contrast is presented in the construction of warships since the invention of rifled ordnance. When our Queen ascended the throne, the famous wooden walls of Old England were moved by sails alone. Greater speed was subsequently secured by the introduction of engine room to vessels of the old type, with paddles or screw-propellers. But experience proved how easily engines might be thrown out of gear by a single shot, a danger which grew more imminent with every fresh improvement in guns. Then began the long contest between armour-plating and projectiles: the armour had to be made thicker and ever thicker to resist the increasing weight and velocity of projectiles, until, by the reduction of masts and spars to the bare necessities of signalling, the submergence of the hull to reduce the vulnerable surface, the increase of engine space, and the reduction of the armament to a few pieces of great power, our battleships have lost almost all semblance of the fabrics which used to move in such stately manner under towers of canvas, and have acquired the character of floating forts. Still, Britannia rules the waves; her seamen, of whom it was predicted that the adoption of steam would deprive of their superiority, have no equals in the world; and her people have proved, by their enthusiasm in furnishing the necessary funds, that they will endure almost any sacrifice rather than suffer the British Navy to be second in power to any other.

ISAMBARD K. BRUNEL, 1806-1859.

Son of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, engineer of the Thames Tunnel. Designed the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the _Great Western_ (the first great ocean steamer) and the _Great Eastern_ (see page 38), and was engineer of the Great Western Railway.]

[Sidenote: The Telephone.]

The revolution in intercourse between distant places effected by the electric telegraph has been noticed already, but even that has been outdone in rapidity by later applications of the electric current; for, just as spoken language is swifter than written words, so the telephone has overcome the limits hitherto imposed by space on conversation. It was a great marvel when, in 1852, the completion of a cable under the Channel rendered communication possible between London and Paris by means of a code of signals; but now statesmen and commercial men may discuss affairs confidentially by telephone; nay, a lover in Paris may listen with rapture to the very accents of his beloved lingering in London.

[Sidenote: The Phonograph.]

One of the most remarkable modifications of the telephone is Edison's phonograph, whereby the human voice and other sounds are recorded on a delicate membrane, which afterwards, for an indefinite period, is capable of being made to repeat or transmit these sounds. Future generations will be able thereby to listen to the actual voice and accents of the departed.

The illustration represents the shield which protects the excavators. This is from time to time driven forward, and another section of the iron lining of the tunnel is inserted piece by piece between it and the sections already completed. Compressed air is used in that portion of the tunnel which is beneath the river to prevent the water entering. The Blackwall Tunnel, opened by the Prince of Wales, May 22, 1897, was constructed similarly.]

[Sidenote: Electricity as an Illuminant.]

Not the least important of the recent modes of employing electricity is its use as an illuminant. At the beginning of the reign the streets of London and other towns, as well as many of the houses, were lit by gas; though as late as fifteen years ago it was still the custom in some old-fashioned hotels to charge half-a-guinea for the use of a pair of wax candles. But the invention of an illuminant which neither exhausts nor pollutes the air breathed by human beings, nor involves risk of accidental conflagration, which is easily manageable and throws off no smoke and very little heat, has been one of the benefits conferred by science so characteristic of this age.

These works occupy about 28 acres, and employ between three and four thousand workmen.]

[Sidenote: Photography.]

The researches of Daguerre and Nicéphore de Niepce had established, before Queen Victoria ascended the throne, the possibility of obtaining permanent images by the action of light on silver-plated copper, but the first notable advance in the new art of photography was the invention of the calotype by Fox Talbot, who applied iodide of silver to paper, which was rendered sensitive to light by further treatment. Then, in 1850, came the collodion process, and the subsequent discovery of dry-plate processes brought photography within easy compass of amateurs, and greatly enhanced the value of photography as an aid to science. The exposure of thirty minutes, required under the Daguerrotype process, has been reduced to one-fifteenth of a second by the use of gelatine emulsion. The latest manifestation of photographic skill is certainly very marvellous, namely, the kinematograph. By a rapid succession of instantaneous exposures a series of plates is obtained so closely consecutive that when the images are reflected in equally rapid succession upon a screen, men and animals may be seen the size of life in natural movement.

Finishing the upper works of H.M.S. _Jupiter_ at Clydebank. In the dock are also five torpedo-boat destroyers.]

[Sidenote: Its Effect on Painting and Engraving.]

Photography has had a powerful effect on the art of painting, not only by the cheap reproduction of acknowledged masterpieces, which is not without risk of encouraging conventionalism in design, but by creating a more exacting standard of fidelity to nature. While it has caused some painters to seek after intense realism, it has led others to a reactionary course which they term impressionism. Judging roughly from the vast numbers of pictures painted and exhibited each year, and from the immense prices given for the works of favourite masters, both living and dead, it is difficult to believe that, however great may be the aggregate expenditure by the purchasing public on photographs, it has interfered appreciably with the sale of pictures.

One branch of art certainly has suffered by the rivalry of sun pictures, namely, the various kinds of engraving. Wood-engraving, indeed, had already run to seed during the present century, from the affectation of craftsmen to a freedom and rapidity of which the material was not really capable: but engraving on copper and steel, etching, lithography, and, above all, mezzotint engraving (said to have been the joint invention of Prince Rupert and one of his officers named Siegen), had lost none of their delicacy and power when photography invaded their province. Excellent results are obtained from the best methods of photogravure and photolithography, and, where absolute accuracy of detail is required, they leave little to be desired; but the extent to which cheap "process" plates have supplanted the older arts of book illustration affords much to deplore from an artistic standpoint.

Made by Mr. S. A. Varley in 1866. The principle of the dynamo was discovered also, and almost simultaneously, by Sir Charles Wheatstone and Dr. Werner Siemens.]

MICHAEL FARADAY, 1791-1867.

Son of a blacksmith, and apprenticed to a bookseller, he developed a passion for science which ultimately led to most important discoveries in electricity and magnetism. The sketch represents him lecturing as Fullerian professor at the Royal Institution.]

[Sidenote: Victorian Architecture.]

In one respect the reign of Queen Victoria offers a strange and rather melancholy contrast to all that have preceded it, inasmuch as it is the first during which the architects of this country have been totally destitute of any peculiar style of building. Never were builders more ingenious or more skilful, never was there such vast expenditure in the erection of private or public buildings, but never before were architects so completely reliant on the past for design. Is it proposed to build a church, a public institution, or a dwelling-house? If you have the money you shall have one as well built as human hands can accomplish. But you must name your style--Greek, Palladian, Norman, Early English, Tudor, Jacobean, or Georgian--your architect will carry out a masterpiece in any one of them; but if you say Victorian, or the style of the day, he will give you François Ier to-day, Queen Anne to-morrow, and Pericles the day after. Buildings grow apace, and they are soundly and tastefully constructed, but British architecture is dead.

The same may be said of design in general. People of taste look with horror upon the fashions of the early years of the reign; the heavy mahogany furniture, the flowered wall-papers, the tapestry, the plate, the ornaments, are all condemned as barbarous; and the mode consists of Chippendale and Sheraton furniture and so-called "art" fabrics and papers. But how little this depends on more than fleeting fancy may be seen when it is considered how the taste has changed within a few years in the matter of table-glass. Ten years ago nothing would please but blown glass of the thinnest; Mr. Ruskin convinced us that the two qualities of glass which should be emphasised in the design were transparency and ductility. But we have thrown that doctrine to the winds now, and a visit to one of the leading warehouses will show how completely we have reverted to the brilliant, many-facetted bottles and glasses of fifty years ago.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING STATION, DAVIES STREET, WESTMINSTER.]

[Sidenote: Universal Education.]

It is natural, in considering the phenomenon of a great nation wholly without any stable principles to guide it in art, to ask what has the State done during sixty years in the matter of public education? Ask rather, what it has left undone! Certainly our rulers cannot be charged either with negligence or parsimony in this respect. Five years before the accession of Queen Victoria not a shilling of money was voted by Parliament towards elementary education. In 1833, for the first time, a grant of £20,000 was made for that purpose; at the present day the vote annually made for Education, Science, and Art exceeds ten millions. Even this is not enough to satisfy some people, as was made plain by the question addressed by an elector to a candidate for a Scottish constituency at a recent election. "Is Maister Wilson," asked this enthusiast, "in favour of spending £36,000,000 a year on the Airmy, and only £12,000,000 on eddication? That's to say, twelve millions for pittin' brains into folks' heads, and thirty-six millions for blawin' them oot."

MANCHESTER TOWN HALL.

During the present reign most of our leading towns have built handsome and commodious Town Halls. That of Manchester, designed by Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., is a well-known example. It was opened in 1877. Its clock-tower is 285 feet high; the interior of the hall is decorated with historical paintings by Ford Madox Brown.]

A generation has grown up under universal compulsory education, and it is possible already to calculate some of the effects of that far-reaching measure on the material prosperity, moral character, and literary habits of our people. In regard to the first two, statistics go to show that, notwithstanding an increase of nearly 35 per cent. in the population since the introduction of compulsory education in 1871, there had been a decrease between that year and 1894 of nearly 25 per cent. in the number of paupers, from 1,079,391 to 812,441. The convictions for crime showed a corresponding diminution from 12,953 to 9,634, or rather more than 25 per cent.; while, during a similar period, the number of "juvenile offenders" had been reduced to the enormous extent of over 71-1/2 per cent.

[Sidenote: The Predominance of Fiction.]

As to the impulse given to the demand for literature by the extension of education, there need be no doubt whatever; the enormous supply continually pouring from the press of the country is sufficient proof of that. In respect of books, the returns from the numerous public libraries in the country show that works of fiction are in request far beyond all the other branches of literature put together. Some sinister conclusions have been drawn from that fact, but it is not always remembered that most of those who frequent free libraries are hard-working people, who turn to books for recreation rather than instruction. On the whole, English fiction remains wholesome, a result which, notwithstanding the democratic nature of our Constitution, is owing, undoubtedly, in large measure to the tone maintained in her Court by our present Monarch.

TRURO CATHEDRAL.

This is the only Anglican Cathedral built in England during the Queen's reign. The foundation-stone was laid by the Prince of Wales, May 20, 1880, and the Cathedral was opened in his Royal Highness's presence, November 3, 1887. A portion of the nave and the central tower have yet to be built. The architect is Mr. J. L. Pearson, R.A.]

[Sidenote: The Growth of Journalism.]

That ephemeral, but not the less potent, form of literature known as the Press, may be said almost truly to be the creation of the Victorian age. Newspapers, as we know them, are the outcome of two circumstances, the removal of the paper tax in 1861 and the spread of telegraphic communication. Every industry, every sect, every amusement, every shade of opinion, now has its special organs in the press; and perhaps nothing is more remarkable than the enterprise and high quality of the provincial journals, as distinguished from those published in the Metropolis. British journalism differs in several important respects from that of all other European countries. In the first place, it is absolutely free: there is nothing approaching a censorship of the Press, and in those rare instances in which, during the present reign, publishers have been interfered with by the State, as has occasionally happened in Ireland, the offence has not been a political one, but such incitement to crime or disorder as would be punishable in any private individual. It is matter for just pride that this liberty is exceedingly seldom abused. Another point of difference is that the British Government has no official or semi-official organ in the press. Official announcements are communicated, when necessary, to press agencies, and through them find their way into journals of all shades of politics. Lastly, the British press has maintained, as a rule, its impersonality. There has been a slight tendency of recent years to exchange the editorial "we" for a more familiar style, but this has been confined so far to journals of little influence. Leading articles and critical reviews are almost invariably anonymous, whereas in France the weight attached to these is proportioned to the repute of the name by which they are signed. In order to give some idea of the daily output of the newspaper press in London alone the following instance may be given:--On Monday, February 13, 1893, Mr. Gladstone introduced his second Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons. On the following morning there were despatched from a single establishment, that of W. H. Smith and Son, 374,218 newspapers, weighing upwards of 44 tons.

CENTRAL PARCELS POST OFFICE, MOUNT PLEASANT.

This spacious but unimposing building occupies the site on which, a few years ago, stood the Clerkenwell House of Correction. Parcel postage was first introduced on August 1, 1883, and the number of parcels forwarded between post offices in the United Kingdom during the succeeding twelve months was about 25,000,000. During twelve months of 1895-96 the number of "inland" parcels despatched reached the enormous total of 60,500,000.]

THE MARRIAGE OF THE CZAR OF RUSSIA TO PRINCESS ALIX OF HESSE, GRANDDAUGHTER OF THE QUEEN, AT ST. PETERSBURG, November 26, 1894.]

[Sidenote: The Advance of Natural Science.]

It would be impossible within due limits to pass in review, even in the most sketchy fashion, the advance made in natural science, especially as each province of the whole realm of knowledge has become divided and sub-divided into sections, each the peculiar department of specialists. Three hundred years ago it was possible for Francis Bacon to survey the entire firmament of human understanding, but in the nineteenth century the task accomplished in the _Advancement of Learning_ and the _Novum Organum_ has developed to a scale only to be compassed in such a prodigious publication as the "Encyclopædia Britannica," of which the latest edition consists of twenty-five volumes in quarto, containing upwards of 20,750 pages printed in double columns, contributed by no less than 1,200 different writers, besides translators and revisers.

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN, THE PRINCE OF WALES, THE CZAR AND CZARINA AND THEIR INFANT DAUGHTER.

Photographed at Balmoral, November 1896.]

[Sidenote: Surgery and Medicine.]

In no department of science, perhaps, has progress brought such immediate benefit to the people as in that of surgery and medicine. The introduction of anæsthetics has been mentioned in an earlier chapter; the present year, 1897, is the jubilee anniversary of that blessed event. The vaccination laws were consolidated in 1871, and universal vaccination insisted on, with the result that a loathsome disease, which formerly brought unspeakable misery upon all civilised nations has been practically vanquished. The deaths from small-pox in England, which, at the close of the last century, were reckoned at 3,000 per million, had sunk in the decade from 1878-87 to 54 per million. Attempts have been made persistently by a small minority to resist compulsory vaccination. Persons inclined to listen to arguments against this legislation on the score of undue interference with liberty, should study the Report of the Local Government Board upon an outbreak of small-pox in Sheffield in 1887-88. Of 6,088 persons attacked 590 died; among children under ten years of age, 5 per 1,000 of those vaccinated were attacked and ·09 per 1,000 died; of the unvaccinated, 101 per 1,000 were attacked and 44 per 1,000 died.

PROFESSOR RUSKIN.

John Ruskin was born in London in 1819, and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1836. He published the first volume of "Modern Painters" in 1841, and was elected first Slade Professor of Art in the University of Oxford, 1870.]

LORD LISTER, P.R.S.

Born 1827. Discovered the antiseptic method in surgery. Created a Baronet in 1883, and a Baron in 1897.]

Although it is the name of a Frenchman, the late M. Pasteur, which is most conspicuously associated with recent progress in pathology, it was Sir Joseph (now Lord) Lister who was led by Pasteur's researches into the theory of fermentation to discover the antiseptic system of surgery. He employed carbolic acid, previously known as little more than a laboratory product, in destroying microbes which had found access to a wound, and thereby first made surgery scientific. But Lister did more than that; the antiseptic treatment was superseded in turn by the aseptic, in which, by sterilising everything that might come in contact with wounds, access was refused altogether to microbes, and henceforward operations surpassing the most ambitious dreams of the old school of surgery were rendered possible. From the work of Pasteur and Lister has arisen the science of bacteriology, which, in the hands of Professor Koch, of Berlin, and others, is being developed into the systematic "cultivation" of the germs of specific diseases.

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN, 1897.

The authorized Diamond Jubilee Portrait.]

British surgeons have not been slow to avail themselves of the discovery, by Professor Röntgen, of certain non-luminous rays beyond the spectrum, which are capable of penetrating substances hitherto considered impermeable. By laying such a structure as a human limb upon a properly sensitised surface, and exposing it to these rays thrown from a tube excited by electricity, a permanent image is obtained of the bones and denser portions of the structure. By this means the exact position of any foreign substance, such as a bullet or needle, or the nature of a dislocation or fracture, may be ascertained with precision; and already it has been found possible to examine the condition of the internal organs of a living person.

[Sidenote: Sanitary Legislation.]

Mr. Disraeli was once greatly laughed at for announcing that the policy of his Administration was _Sanitas sanitatum, omnia sanitas_. Since then the two great political parties have vied with each other in framing legislation for the sanitation of cities and all human dwellings. It may be difficult to decide which has had most hand in the good result already shown in the mortality returns, legislators or men of science; at all events, they are worthy rivals. The annual death-rate in England during the first ten years of the present reign was 22·4 per 1,000; it was a shade higher in the decade from 1861-70, standing at 22·5 per 1,000. Then came the age of sanitation and the dawn of bacteriology; the death-rate sank in 1871-80 to 21·4 per 1,000, and in 1881-90 to 19·1 per 1,000.

RADIOGRAPH OF THE HAND OF H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES.]

In bringing to a close this brief survey of the reign of twelve lustres--the longest reign in the history of Great Britain--we may note with gratitude that not one of the many influences that have contributed to the moral or material well-being of the subjects of the empire shows any sign of abating in force. It is a task of no little difficulty and complexity to reconcile the rival, and sometimes conflicting, interests arising in a vast population, and, at the same time, to maintain our lead in the competitive industry of nations; yet it is one which the personal character of the Monarch, in conjunction with the constitutional development of the last sixty years justify the Legislature in undertaking with courage and good hope.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE: THE GARDEN FRONT AND THE LAKE.]

SIXTY YEARS A QUEEN.

THE DIAMOND JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS.

By ALFRED C. HARMSWORTH.