BREAD AND TOBACCO. 101 



Our guide was a man of about forty, having a wife and 

 seven children ; neither he nor any of his family (he thought) 

 could read or write, and, except with regard to his occupation 

 as agricultural labourer, I scarcely ever saw a man of so 

 limited information. He could tell us, for instance, almost no 

 more about the church which adjoined his residence than if he 

 had never seen it not half so much as we could discover for 

 ourselves by a single glance at it. He had nothing to say 

 about the clergyman that officiated in it, and could tell us 

 nothing about the parish, except its name, and that it allowed 

 him. and five other labourers to occupy the &quot; almshouse&quot; we 

 had seen, rent free. He couldn t say how old he was, (he ap 

 peared about forty,) but he could say, &quot; like a book,&quot; that God 

 was what made the world, and that &quot; Jesus Christ came into 

 the world to save sinners, of whom he was chief&quot; of the 

 truth of which latter clause I much doubted, suspecting the 

 arch fiend would rank higher among his servants, the man. 

 whose idea of duty and impulse of love had been satisfied 

 with cramming this poor soul with such shells of spiritual 

 nourishment. He thought two of his children knew the 

 catechism and the creed ; did not think they could have learned 

 it from a book ; they might, but he never heard them read ; 

 when he came home and had gotten his supper, he had a 

 smoke and then went to bed. His wages were seven shillings, 

 sometimes had been eight, a-week. None of his children 

 earned any thing; his wife, it might be, did somewhat in 

 harvest-time. But take the year through, one dollar and sixty- 

 eight cents a-week was all they earned to support themselves 

 and their large family. How could they live 1 &quot; Why, indeed, 

 it was rather hard,&quot; he said ; &quot; so hard, that sometimes, if we d 

 believe him, it had been as much as he could do to keep him 

 self in tobacco !&quot; It is an actual fact, that he mentioned this 

 as if it was a vastly more memorable hardship than that 



