270 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



independent of the tavern for amusement. I think 

 it may be added that cigarette smoking, which has 

 become universal among the young people in the rural 

 districts during the last five or six years, has been a 

 blessing too. It is true that in itself it is an evil, but 

 a very mild one compared with the foul pipe of strong 

 shag which the young men and youths of the peasant 

 class used to smoke, and which is an incentive to 

 beer-drinking. 



Refreshed and exhilarated at what I had heard 

 and seen at Midhurst, I went on my way, and before 

 going many miles arrived at a place where there 

 was a man who was a large employer of labour. I 

 was assured that he would not employ a man from 

 Midhurst on account of the well-known drunken habits 

 of the people of that town ! 



What then shall we say of the cathedral town, 

 which has lost none of its beer-houses, where doors 

 are not closed and windows darkened at eight o'clock 

 because it is not expected that any one will call; 

 where the brewers and their good friends, the licensing 

 authorities, are determined that when a man staggers 

 out of one tavern he shall not be obliged to walk 

 more than twenty yards before finding another, where 

 he may go in to quench his thirst ? 



But we have now happily done with this town 

 and this subject. On many a wet day in autumn 

 and winter, when walking in the streets and roads, I 

 looked attentively at the mud, attracted by its peculiar 



