Make Your Way 6, Schulbuch mit Audio-CD und CD-ROM

Victorian society For the Victorian “establishment”, the age was a very positive time. Read the extract below from The Economist , written around the time of the “Great Exhibition” of 1851, and then in groups of three, complete the table showing the differences between 1801 and 1851. In the third column, write down the situation today. 12 Our progress since 1800 has been good. The average number of people in one house which was 5.67 in 1801, had fallen to 5.44 in 1841. The working hours in factories have been reduced for adults from 74 to 60 a week, and for children from 72 to 40; shops are beginning to be closed much earlier, and great, and in some cases, successful efforts are being made to secure a weekly half- holiday for people in trade. All these are steps in the right direction. Science has made wonderful progress, and the use of science in everyday life is even more wonderful. The first steamship constructed in the British Empire carried passengers in 1811; in 1816 we had 15 steamboats of 2612 tons; in 1848 we had 1253 boats totalling 168,078 tons. Many of these are ocean steamers and travel from England to America at an average speed of ten miles an hour! But this is nothing compared to travel by land in the last twenty years. When the world began, the average speed of travel was 4 miles an hour. In the year 1828, or 4000 years later*, it was still only ten miles, and men of science were ready to state that this could never be increased. Yet in 1829, the first railway for passengers was opened between Liverpool and Manchester – at the modest speed of 20 miles an hour. Now, in 1850, it is 40 miles an hour, and seventy for those that like going fast. Attitudes have also changed; debt, which used to be considered normal for a man of fashion, is now almost everywhere seen as disreputable … 50 years ago, drunkenness was common; many got drunk every day; now, except in Ireland and at the Universities, a drunken gentleman is one of the rarest sights in society … Labour has ceased to be looked down upon; if the poor do not work less, the rich certainly work more. (Adapted from articles in “ e Economist”, January and February 1851) * Using the Bible, it had been calculated in the 17th century that the world was created at 9 o’clock on the 26th October, 4004 BC. Many Victorians still believed that date. 1800 1850 Now Average number of people in one house Average working week (adults) Average working week (children) Weekly holiday for people in trade Average speed of travel Society’s opinion of debt Amount of drunkenness in society 39 2 Extensive unit 2: Victorian times Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv