I asked him whether the knowledge of languages had not declined in his
time. He said, somewhat emphatically, yes, and especially the knowledge
of French, assuring me that in his early years many a Fellow of a
College at Oxford or at Cambridge was capable of speaking that tongue in
such a fashion as to make himself understood. On the other hand, he
admitted that German and Spanish were more widely known than they had
been, and Arabic certainly far more widely diffused among those
officials of the Empire who took their work seriously.
When I asked him whether politics were more corrupt as time proceeded,
he said No, but more cynical; and as to morals he would not judge, for
he was certain that as one vice was corrected another appeared in its
place.
What he told me he most deplored in the social system of his country was
the power of the police and of the statistician by whom the policeman
was guided. This he ascribed to the growth of great towns, to civic
cowardice, and to a new taboo laid upon uniformed and labelled public
authorities, who are now regarded as sacred, and also inordinately
feared.
"In my youth," he said, "there was a joke that every man in Paris was
known to the police. Today that is universally true, and no joke with
regard to every man in London. Our movements are marked, our earnings,
our expenses, and our most private affairs known to the innumerable
officials of the Treasury, our records of every sort, however intimate,
are exactly and correctly maintained.
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