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Page 37
Now let me put a question or two in the name of common sense. We must
balance good and evil; and, granting that the theatre has a tendency
to make children light-minded, is it worse than the horror of the
slums and the stench and darkness of the single room where a family
herd together? The youngster who is engaged at the theatre can set off
home at the very latest as soon as the harlequinade is over. Very
well; suppose it is late. Would he or she be early if the night were
spent in the alley? Not at all! Then the child from the theatre is
bathed, fed, taught, clothed nicely, and it gives its parents a little
money which procures food. Some say the extra money goes for extra
gin--and that may happen in some cases; but, at any rate, the child's
earnings usually purchase a share of food as well as of drink; for the
worst blackguard in the world dares not send a starveling to meet the
stage-manager. In sum, then, making every possible allowance for the
good intentions of those who wish to rescue children from the theatre,
I am inclined to fear that they have been hasty. I am not without some
knowledge of the various details of the subject; and I have tried to
give my judgment as fairly as I could--for I also pity and love the
children.
XV.
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MORALITY: PAST AND PRESENT.
Certain enterprising persons have contributed of late years to make
English newspapers somewhat unpleasant reading, and mournful men are
given to moaning over the growth of national corruption. So persistent
have the mournful folk been, that many good simple people are in a
state of grievous alarm, for they are persuaded that the nation is
bound towards the pit of Doom. When doleful men and women cry out
concerning abstract evils, it is always best to meet them with hard
facts, and I therefore propose to show that we ought really to be very
grateful for the undoubted advance of the nation toward righteousness.
Hideous blots there are--ugly cankers amid our civilisation--but we
grow better year by year, and the general movement is towards honesty,
helpfulness, goodness, purity. Whenever any croaker begins speaking
about the golden age that is gone, I advise my readers to try a system
of cross-examination. Ask the sorrowful man to fix the precise period
of the golden age, and pin him to direct and definite statements. Was
it when labourers in East Anglia lived like hogs around the houses of
their lords? Was it when the starving and utterly wretched thousands
marched on London under Tyler and John Ball? Was it when the
press-gangs kidnapped good citizens in broad daylight? Was it when a
score of burning ricks might be seen in a night by one observer? Was
it when imbecile rulers had set all the world against us--when the
French threatened Ireland, and the maddened, hunger-bitten sailors
were in wild rebellion, and the Funds were not considered as safe for
investors? The croaker is always securely indefinite, and a strict,
vigorous series of questions reduces him to rage and impotence.
Now let us go back, say, one hundred and twenty years, and let us see
how the sovereign, the legislators, the aristocracy, and the people
fared then; the facts may perchance be instructive. The King had
resolved to be absolute, and his main energies were devoted to bribing
Parliament. With his own royal hand he was not ashamed to write,
enclosing what he called "gold pills," which were to be used in
corrupting his subjects. He was a most moral, industrious, cleanly man
in private life; yet when the Duke of Grafton, his Prime Minister,
appeared near the royal box of the theatre, accompanied by a woman of
disreputable character, his Majesty made no sign. He was satisfied if
he could keep the mighty Burke, the high-souled Rockingham, the
brilliant Charles James Fox, out of his counsels, and he did not care
at all about the morals or the general behaviour of his Ministers.
About a quarter of a million was spent by the Crown in buying votes
and organising corruption, and King George III. was never ashamed to
appear before his Parliament in the character of an insolvent debtor
when he needed money to sap the morals of his people. A movement in
the direction of purity began even in George III.'s own lifetime; he
was obliged to be cautious, and he ended by coming under the iron
domination of William Pitt. Thus, instead of being remembered as the
dangerous, obstinate, purblind man who made Parliament a sink of
foulness, and who lost America, he is mentioned as a comfortable
simple gentleman of the farmer sort. Before we can half understand the
vast purification that has been wrought, we must study the history of
the reign from 1765 to 1784, and then we may feel happy as we compare
our gentle, beneficent Sovereign with the unscrupulous blunderer who
fought the Colonists and all but lost the Empire.
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