W E have lately read an enlightening article on South London
by Mr. Charles Masterman. It appears, among others, in a book called " The Religious Life of London," edited by R. Mudie-Smith (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 6s.) The book as a whole is concerned with the spiritual condition of the very poor, but Mr. Masterman deals also with that of what for want of a better word we have called the lower middle class,—i.e., the small tradesmen who supply the labouring population, and the Southern " suburban dweller forming with his brother on the hills of North London a class of quite peculiar and specialised life and characteristics." Of these two sets of people he gives us striking pictures. The first live inside the town. Their homes stretch, he tells us, in a kind of skeleton framework through the cities of labour. They, live among the very poor, though they are not of them, but are differentiated by many things besides money, especially a strong and vigorous religious life. Here, if anywhere, he assures us, is the survival in London of the Puritan element. Heaven and hell are here still realities. A stern doctrine that every man should help himself, and that if he fails it is his own fault, is believed among them. Worldly pleasures are distrusted, and the elect look forward to escaping, though hardly, from a world destined to destruction. Perhaps the grimness of their surroundings contributes to the harshness of their creed. Whatever may be said against Calvinism, however, it is a faith which appeals to the strong.
But it is in the stratum next above the one we have de- scribed that Mr. Masterman contrives most keenly to interest his readers. For a description of its environment we turn to another recent publication (as he tells his readers) of this clever writer, "From the Abyss " (London : R. B. Johnson, ls. net) :—" Each little house stands in its little garden ; each little householder leaves at regular times, black-coated and top-hatted, for the London train ; each little wife pilgrimages at intervals up to Victoria for the wild excitement of an after-.
noon's shoppi ig In the evening, especially in the , summer evening, all is life and merriment. Trees hang over the pathway from the little gardens, the long avenues of gas- lamps stretch out like fairy lights, the scent of the lilac and laburnum is in the air ; little tennis-courts, little croquet lawns, little garden tea parties yield satisfaction intensified by the long afternoon at the office stool. As these disperse in the gloaming and boys and girls in white depart home- wards, the glare over the hills to the northward, streaming up beyond the villas and gardens, alone reveals the nearness of the hot troubled life of the Abyss." This pretty description is marred, to our mind, by a certain tone of contempt ; but though it could not fail to pain a reader belonging to the class described, we do not think it has any serious significance. The writer has, as further quotation will prove, an admiration for these "little" people„ who have in them, if we mistake not, the elements of great strength. We find among them, so our author tells us, "happiness," "a high moral standard," "strong family affection," " ambition for the children," and " much individual personal piety." " Vigour," he writes in the above-mentioned article, "may be more conspicuous than breadth of outlook or intellectual agility, and there are often set up quite astonishing standards of ' respectability' in politics and religion. But there are compensating elements in a wide- spread material comfort, enjoyment of simple pleasures, and a very real and active religious life, probably stronger here than in any other class of the community. It is here that churches and chapels are crowded, that their activities blossom out on weekdays into mutual improvement associa- tions, debating clubs, and innocuous amusement." Practically the whole population attends religious services on Sunday. " The record everywhere is of activity and enterprise. Munifi- cent sums have been spent on new buildings and endowments. The chief difficulty is to provide accommodation for the in- creasing populations."
Almost the only serious accusation he brings against this class is its limited outlook, its heedlessness of the poor, " of that great chaos of confusion and failure which lies at its very doors." This is, it must be admitted, a serious fault ; but we cannot help thinking it is more natural and less indicative of heartlessness than Mr. Masterman believes. These people, it must be remembered, are very far from the poor in civilisation, and very near in income. Their refinement is real, but strenuous. They cannot relax their efforts without danger of descending into the abyss which is fraught with so many terrors for the ns elves and their children. None of us perhaps are as prone as we should be to sympathise with the class just below us. We almost all skip over several social strata before we can offer our fullest sympathies. The reasons are not entirely to be found in the snobbishness of the British heart. We know the class below us through our failures and our " bad lots " who sink down into it. Consequently, we know it on its worst side.
But even admitting that its sympathies are narrow, such a class as this cannot fail to make its mark if, as appears to be proved by the multiplication of its dwellings, it is on the in- crease. Children brought up in such moral and physical sur- roundings by ambitious patents eager to take every educational advantage, availing themselves of every movement which makes for equality of opportunity, must get to the top, or so near it as to make their influence tremendously felt. We continually hear it regretted that good books—we mean standard works of fiction and poetry and history—are no longer being read. On the other hand, we hear that they are being sold very freely and very cheap, so it is evident that some one must read them. Certainly it is the class we are describing who read the books in the free libraries. The so- called cultivated will have to take care lest their children are fed on less wholesome food than their "little" brothers and sisters. The best section of the professional class is, perhaps, on the whole, the best in the world. Its powerful position is a new position and an advantageous one. With its trained imagination, and consequent keenness of sympathy, it has known how to absorb a sense of honour from above, and a power of endurance and sustained work from below. But wide sympathies have their own danger. It has tolerated too willingly the follies of the fine society into which its ambition has raised it, and the lawlessness of the low people whom pity as led it to study. The cultivated have suffered both from the English people are by nature serious and steady ; they always recover themselves after every attack of social vertigo. Just now there are distressing signs of frivolity at the top of society, and of loss of solidity of character at the bottom. Will salvation come from the class we have been studying ? Can any good thing come out of the suburbs ? That remains to be seen ; but they have the great English Puritan eharactei- istics,—dogged industry, strenuous self-conscious idealism, degenerating at times into self-righteousness. Such people are seldom charming, generally respectable, always effective. They distinguish boldly, aggressively indeed, between right and wrong. They know nothing of the fan of ridicule which has winnowed from the floor of the upper classes, not only all the chaff of hypocrisy, but much of the grain of open good- ness. They have not learned the prudish care with which the polite world hides its ideals. They do not know why the stalls laugh when the pit cheers the noble sentiments of the hero. In their ignorance may lie their strength. From them may come the force of public opinion which binds rulers, and breaks into the gimcrack fortifications of frivolity, without noise or clamour, but with the irresistible silence of the tide.
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