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KNOWLEDGE

FOR THE TIME:

A Manual

OF

READING, REFERENCE, AND CONVERSATION ON SUBJECTS OF LIVING
INTEREST, USEFUL CURIOSITY, AND AMUSING RESEARCH:

HISTORICO-POLITICAL INFORMATION.
PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.
DIGNITIES AND DISTINCTIONS.
CHANGES IN LAWS.
MEASURE AND VALUE.
PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.
LIFE AND HEALTH.
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

Illustrated from the best and latest Authorities.

BY JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.

AUTHOR OF CURIOSITIES OF LONDON, THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN,
ETC.


_LONDON_:

Lockwood and Co., 7 Stationers’-hall Court.

MDCCCLXIV.




TO THE READER.


The great value of contemporary History--that is, history written
by actual witnesses of the events which they narrate,--is now
beginning to be appreciated by general readers. The improved
character of the journalism of the present day is the best evidence
of this advancement, which has been a work of no ordinary labour.
Truth is not of such easy acquisition as is generally supposed;
and the chances of obtaining unprejudiced accounts of events are
rarely improved by distance from the time at which they happen.
In proportion as freedom of thought is enlarged, and liberty of
conscience, and liberty of will, are increased, will be the amount
of trustworthiness in the written records of contemporaries. It is
the rarity of these high privileges in chroniclers of past events
which has led to so many obscurities in the world’s history, and
warpings in the judgment of its writers; to trust some of whom has
been compared to reading with “ spectacles.” And, one of
the features of our times is to be ever taking stock of the amount
of truth in past history; to set readers on the tenters of doubt,
and to make them suspicious of perversions; and to encourage a
whit