The Heart of the Empire: Discussions of Problems of Modern City Life in England, with an Essay on Imperialism (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Heart of the Empire: Discussions of Problems of Modern City Life in England, With an Essay on Imperialism Parallel with this city growth there has been an enormous increase of wealth. On every side production has advanced in a manner which would have filled our forefathers with astonishment. The fortunes which have accumulated in the hands of private persons have given them unprecedented powers over the lives of men and women. For the first time we are fully conscious how astonishing are the contrasts between the lives of the rich and of the poor, of their complete separation not only in sympathy and feeling, but in actual geographical aggregation. In old days all classes lived together in small towns and villages, the employee boarding sometimes with, always near, his master. To-day we have East and West Ends, business quarters, manufacturing quarters, residential quarters, end less vistas oi villadom, acres of Lambeth and Whitechapel. At the one end of the scale the lives of a large pro portion of the rich are far from satisfactory. Separated from many of the realities of life, they are unable to find natural ways of expending their money, and, in con sequence, are driven to indulge in sumptuous living or in vulgar display. Thousands of pounds representing the toil of years in the cultivation of choice flowers or rare wines are dissipated for the gratification of a few guests at an evening party. Nor do the owners of this wealth really profit by their indulgence. Tyrannised over by their own conventions, slaves to their servants, frequently devoid of any real appreciation of the beautiful, their lives are spent without knowledge of the highest forms of happiness, with disastrous loss of energy and opportunity - a loss that falls on all. At the other end of the scale are the very poor - the broken classes - who suffer most from bad homes, bad education, intemperance, and want of any ideal either ethical or religious. It is here that the social reformer is apt to despair of any effective progress. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.