CONCLUSION S3

Victorian Age, during which the amenities of daily
life were revolutionised. Radical changes are to be
seen, for example, in the style of architecture, the
mode of transmission of news, the methods of trans-
port, the form of municipal government, the main-
tenance of the public peace, and in social relation-
ships, more particularly with regard to industry and
commerce and the parts played by employer and
employed. The number of inhabitants to-day is
about six times that of the mediaeval city. The
contrast, which is so great in most ways as to be
quite obvious, is an interesting and profitable study,
but it might have been founded on more precise
data, for, great as is the amount of valuable material
that York can supply concerning its history, in-
vestigation shows how much greater that amount
would have been had the city and its rulers during
the last century or two realised the value of the
accumulated original historical riches that it
contained.

Whereas the moderns obliterated practically
all they came against, fortunately the earlier people
were content to make no change beyond what was
immediately necessary. Hence the survival of
material most valuable to the historian and archseolo-
gist. York, as it is to-day, is a city marvellously
rich in survivals of past ages. It is also, as a result
especially of the nineteenth century, a city of de-
struction. While we may regret but-not repine at
the disappearance of much of interest and value as
the result of progress, yet wanton, ruthless destruc-
tion, such as has taken place within the last century,
deserves the sternest denunciation. In spite of its
being, in consequence, a " city of destruction/'
York is a store-house of original material for the
history of England. Its records are in earth, stone,