beneficent forces which so largely repress and reduce them are none
the less real.

The marked advance of the masses in physical well-being is a
great--some would say the greatest--item in social profit and loss.
Food is everywhere better in quality and more regular in supply. The
English record of the corn-market for six centuries shows a remarkable
alteration in favor of steadiness in price. The uncertainties of
the seasons are discounted or neutralized by the average struck
by increased variety of products and multiplied sources of supply.
Famines become infrequent. That of 1847 in Ireland, bad as it was,
would have been worse a hundred years earlier. A given population is
more regularly and better fed than one-fifth of its number would at
that time have been. A city of four millions would then have been an
impossibility. Dress and lodging are better, and relatively cheaper.
Hygiene is more understood, imperfect as is its application. Some
diseases due to its disregard have disappeared or been localized. As a
result, men have gained in weight and size and in length of life.

In the character of their recreations--a thing largely governed by
national idiosyncrasy--the masses have advanced. And this we may say
without losing sight of the devastations of intemperance since the
distillation of grain was introduced, about a century and a half ago.
With an enhanced demand upon man's faculties civilization brings an
increased use of stimulants. There are many of these unknown to former
generations. In noting those which attack the health by storm we are
apt to overlook others which proceed more stealthily by sap. Of these
are coffee, tea, chocolate, the rich spices and more substantial
accessions to the modern table, all stimulating and inviting to
excess, but all, as truly, nutritious and apt to take the place of