Furniture and fittings, works of art, and even dress, are all unworkmanlike and inartistic, or 'artistic,' which is worse, and fashionable, which is worst of all. The more a room is furnished 'in the modern taste' the worse it is. The motive and idea of modern furniture are vanity and affectation, and it seems that for the present every one must yield to these to some extent, or have no furniture at all. But what is very grievous is the fact that all this failing so reflects the public mind. The intellectual deficiency, the epidemic moral weakness, clearly evident in occupants of leasehold houses, is indeed well understood and recognized by men of trade, who learn to know their customers. The very language and address of shopmen show what characters they have to deal with, and each newspaper contains a page or more of businesslike mendacities, which are well known to pay. The public catch at them; they promise more than what is right, and that is what so many people hope to gain. Of course they are deceived, and all the furniture and fiddle-faddle in their homes, intended to impress the world with their fictitious wealth, or 'taste,' or elegance and fashion, only show their great deficiency in character and sense.
This unnatural and strange condition of so large a population has still further evil consequences. A deficiency of independent thought, of individuality, and of social power; a habit of regarding public questions as mere themes for newspapers and subjects for home gossip, not involving personal responsibility and duty; and, as it seems, a comprehensive incapacity for corporate combination and development, and for collective will in action, mark the character of Londoners. They are a people spread abroad upon a territory, leaseholders, without enduring interest in the place, and seeking none; a huge outspreading multipede, invertebrate and headless.
During the last twenty years there have been frequently before the public schemes for the municipal self-government
