THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



15 



now the «ork of the sanitary lefoimcr to educate 

 the mass of the " well-to-do " classes to an importance 

 of the great truth, that the condition of the sub or lo'-or 

 strata of the community must and does daily affect that 

 of the super or upper strata. We know enough— God 

 knows, more than enough— of the condition of those 

 same lower strata ; and truly there is much to appal, little 

 to relieve the mind in connection with it. It is not a 

 knowledge of the effect, but of the cause, that we think 

 desiderated amongst the upper classes. They are in the 

 condition of the savage who saw the smouldering fuse of 

 the " shell," but required to be made aware of the fact 

 that there was death in its explosion, before he could 

 even desire to flee from the coming doom. Nothing is 

 so dangerous as ignorance. And so with the great 

 question of the sanitary condition of our labouring 

 population. The evils connected with it are such that 

 the hand of time cannot heal, but rather festers and 

 renders still more malignant. They have no self-contained 

 power of recovery ; and if they had, each succeeding 

 day weakens its force and abates its energy. The cure, 

 if cure is cared for, must come from without. The 

 waters of any pool we may have set up may be moved 

 daily ; but, as of yore so now, the impotent and the lame 

 must be lifted into it, to receive its healing virtues. 

 Truly, as waited wearily for years the sick man by the 

 side of Betbesda's pool, " for he had no man, when the 

 water was troubled, to put him into the pool" ; so wait 

 many wearily now for that time when the much- 

 needed help will be given them. It is but sand-blind 

 folly to suppose that those evils which press so heavily 

 upon our labouring poor have within themselves the 

 power of self-removal or self-healing. The more the 

 subject is investigated the more fully convinced are we 

 that there is, and can be, no hope of ameliorating the 

 condition of our labouring population if the tiisk of in- 

 stituting a better order of things is to be left to the 

 labouring populali' n themselves. In towns this task 

 must be undertaken with a boldness and decision equal 

 to the emergency of the case by the Corporations or 

 owners of property, and in the country districts by the 

 landowners. Such, indeed, are the views of an asso- 

 ciation now in the third year of its existence*, and the 

 directors of which can with no small degree of satisfac- 

 tion point to their labours as evidence of the necessity 

 there is for the inauguration of similar institutions 

 throughout the country. 



Many, doubtless, will eagerly remark that all this 

 discussion about sanitary matters has little reference to 

 the country 3 thitt the plague-spots of the towns have 

 no parallel in the villages and hamlets there. But it 

 were an easy task to show the fallacy of this opinion- 

 We may have day-dreams of rural felicity, and may 

 complacently draw our notions of country life from the 

 got-up shams of stage conventionalities, or the namby- 

 pamby stuff of some cockney poet. But a day's ramble 

 amid our rural districts and but a few looks at our rural 

 dwellings will soon dispel these pleasing fancies, and 



* The Association for Promoting Iraprovement in the 

 Dwellings and Domestic Condition of Agricultural Labourers 

 in Scotland. 



painfully prove that the air in the country hovels of the 

 labouring poor is no less foetid than in the dens of their 

 city brethren, though overlooked by a clearer sky and 

 surrounded by more pleasing objects; nor will the truth 

 be less pointed, or the evidence less complete, that filth, 

 squalor, and their concomitants, disease, recklessness, 

 and depravity, are not merely the adjuncts of the pes- 

 tilential quarters of our cities, but may be met with in 

 their most hideous form in spots far removed from the 

 hum of cities, where the low wail of hopeless diseas e 

 or the shout of the ruffian may mingle with the so:ig of 

 the lark and the merry sounds of rural life. Not always, 

 we may say rarely, is the quiet repose in which a hamlet 

 lies bathed in the rays of a setting sun indicative of the 

 condition of its inhabitants : " 'tis distance lends en- 

 chantment to the view ;" and a close inspection will in 

 all likelihood show, that instead of affording pleasing 

 studies for the poet or the painter, it requires rathor 

 the investigation of the moralist and philanthropist to 

 denounce the wrongs and remedy the evils under which 

 its inhabitants will be found to languish. But this notion 

 of the superior condition of country life, and of all par- 

 taking of its labour, is confined chiefly, if not alto- 

 gether, to the denizens of the town. Few coimected 

 with rural affairs can shut their eyes to the evils which 

 weigh so heavily on their labourers. They may deny that 

 they have any claim on their sympathy, or any right to 

 demand their help ; but the existence of the evils they 

 are not ignorant of. But in the midst of so much in- 

 difference to this important question, U is all the more 

 pleasing to meet with those who not only investigate 't 

 in all its bearings, but who make this investigation as 

 the basis or ground-work of a system by which the 

 evils are proposed to be remedied. And not the least 

 praiseworthy of those who have begun to aid this im- 

 portant movement are those noblemen and gentlemen in 

 the sister-country, who by their co-operation, personal 

 and pecuniary, have tended to place on a secure and 

 usefully practical basis the Association to which we have 

 already alluded, and whose constitution, aims, and mode 

 of operation, suggestive as these are, to all interested in 

 the promotion of morality and all its attendant ad- 

 vantages amongst our labouring agriculturists, we pro- 

 pose in our next article briefly to detail. 



R. B. B. 



VIOLENT THUNDER AND HAIL STORMS.— The me- 

 tropolis and its vicinity were visited on Satuniay morniag with 

 a terrific storm of thunder, lightaing, hail, aad rain. The war 

 of the elements com tnenced about one o'clock a.m., and con- 

 tinued, with scarcely any intermission, until half- past four, 

 the lightning being most vivid, and the thunder rolling im- 

 mediately over our heads. The nurseries in the northern dis- 

 tricts of London Buffered severely, severalthousaud squares of 

 glass in hotbeds and greenhouses having been broken by 

 the violence of the hail. We learu also from the provinces that 

 a similar storm was experienced in Warwickshire, Bucking- 

 hamshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, and Yorkshire. The Banbury 

 Guardian says that on Tueiday last a storm broke over the 

 neighbourhood of Buckingham, denofed a few days before by 

 the sinking of the barometer, attended by a cold N.E. wind, 

 and hail — rude Boreaa guests. The thunder reverberated in 



