174 ^ Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xm 



stumps out of a hedge that has been grubbed up, hurdles 

 and so forth. I think Squib pined when I was at Edin- 

 burgh, for I left him fat and found him lean; yet he will not 

 go to Etruria with me, and if he does not see Jos set out to 

 come back, he had rather stay all night there than come 

 home with me. . . . 



I have had the school two Sundays. I take them in the 

 servants' hall, which is better than the laundry, there are 

 fewer things for them to spoil, particularly now there is some 

 wet plastering in the washhouse. I got on pretty well with 

 them, particularly the second time; I follow Elizabeth's 

 plan of giving them each a ticket and one for the cleanest 

 hands. When service is in the afternoon, I get all the 

 school over at once and the subject of going to church is not 

 mentioned between us; I have stuck up a notice in school 

 that I will punish them if they behave ill there. I am very 

 busy pruning oak trees, and as soon as Mester Dabbs has set 

 th' taties, I shall take one of the men into my service and do 

 great execution amongst boughs and snags. I am so busy 

 now that I have not time to read over the pottery Gazette ; 

 indeed if you saw us dispatch our dinner you would think 

 that we had hardly time for that. 



We have had some turns out in the potteries, chiefly I 

 believe because the masters, in their eagerness to undersell 

 one another, keep increasing the sizes of their ware without 

 increasing the prices of making; they have had some meet- 

 ings at Newcastle and Hanley to try to bring all the sizes to 

 a common standard, in which I should think that they will 

 not succeed. Last week the colliers turned out, so that 

 many of the works stopped for want of coals. I do hope 

 they will not frighten the parliament into re-enacting the 

 combination laws. As Jos and I do not spend much of our 

 time in chattering, and to be even with you, we have agreed 

 to keep journals too. I will give you an extract from mine : 

 Monday. Went to Etruria as usual; rained a little; thought 

 at one time of putting on my greatcoat, however it went 

 off; cauliflowers boiled crisp. Tuesday. Squib went rather 

 farther than usual with me, viz., to Maer field-gate. 



