THE VOICE OF "THE HOOLIGAN."

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As the years advance which " bring the philosophic mind," or at least the mind which we fondly flatter ourselves is philosophic,-in other words, as men of thought and feeling approach the latter end of their pilgrimage,—there is a tendency among them to under-reckon the advance which the world has made in the course of their experience, and to discover in the far-off days of their youth a light which has almost ceased to shine on earthly things. Laudatores temporis actı, they look askance at all the results of progress, and assert, more or less emphatically, that men were wiser and better when they themselves were young. They forget, of course, that distance lends enchantment to the view, and that the very splendor in which the world once appeared came rather from within than from without; and, for getting this, they do scant justice to the achievements of later generations. A little sober reflecti n, nevertheless, may convince them that the world does advanc、, though perhaps not so surely and satisfactorily as they would wish to believe; and that, even if there is some occasional retrogression, inevitable under the conditions of human development, it is only, after all, temporary, and due to causes which are inherent in our imperfect human nature. From time to time, however, the momentum towards a higher and more spiritual ideal seems suspended. altogether, and we appear to be swept centuries back, by a great back-wave, as it were, in the direction of absolute barbarism.

1 Originally printed in the “Contemporary Review.”

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