Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... CONCLUSION. In closing these miscellaneous recollections I may be allowed to take a brief glance backwards over the long vista of events that have so largely contributed to the improved conditions of modern life in which the present generation rejoices. These improvements affect almost every phase of civilised existence., and have brought with them countless blessings altogether unknown to our forefathers, of whose loss in these respects the more youthful members of our body politic lack the full appreciation, because they have been born into modern ways, and have no means of realising the numerous inconveniences attaching to the period in which their grandsires and more remote ancestors flourished. Among the manifold benefits of later times it will suffice to mention but a few, and these include the immense strides that have been made in popular education, in which modern journalism has been no mean factor, the general adoption of efficient sanitary laws, the numerous and important applications of electricity to telegraphic purposes and public and private lighting, the partial replacement of steam by electric power in ordinary machinery and locomotion, the revolution which has taken place and is still progressing in our naval and military means of defence, the multitudinous discoveries that have been made in science, surgery and medicine, the colonisation and civilisation of huge continents but recently subject to the sway of savage and bloodthirsty rulers, and the general advance of European and colonial populations in physical training and moral perceptibilities. Should the next threescore years be productive of anything like the same ratio of progress, it is difficult even to conceive what the world will then have become; but that...
