166 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



RURAL POLICE. THE &quot;ANCHOR&quot; INN. THE GARDEN. &quot; OLD COACHING 



TIMES.&quot; HEATH LAND. A DREARY LANDSCAPE. MURDER AND A HIGH 

 WAY ADVENTURE. HUMAN VANITY, 



Liphook, June 20t7i. 



ALKED hither from Portsmouth to-day. . For twenty 

 miles the road is through a hilly chalk country, much 

 of it unenclosed downs, generally interesting, and the walk at 

 this season agreeable. 



We had, for a short distance, the company of a rural po 

 liceman. He had his quarters, with several others, in a small 

 cottage in a village, was paid $4.70 a-week, and furnished with 

 three suits of clothes every year one for winter, one for 

 summer, and one for Sundays, besides gloves, &c. The uni 

 form is of blue cloth, of a simple, semi-military fashion. He 

 said no one was employed in the force who was less than six 

 feet high, and that they were exercised in the use of small- 

 arms. Of duties he seemed to have no definite idea himself, 

 but was ready to do any thing he could in the way of fighting 

 roguery, when he should be called upon by the officers. The 

 only crime which he seemed to apprehend in the neighbour 

 hood was rick-burning labourers who were discontented and 

 envious, or who had for any reason become angry with the 

 farmers who employed them, setting fire to their stacks of 

 grain. This was common. 



We spent the night at the &quot;Anchor&quot; a good, large, old inn, 



