MENDICANTS. 147 



&quot; Oh, poor farmers, 



Don t wait and cry in vain, 

 But bo off to Californy, 



If you cannot drive the wain. 1 1 



He read also choice scraps from confessions of murderers ; 

 parts of the prayer-book travestied so as to tell against free- 

 trade ; and other such literature. In another place we found 

 a crowd about a man with a flute, a woman with a hurdy- 

 gurdy, and three little children singing what we guessed 

 must be Welsh songs regular wails. The youngest was a 

 boy, not appearing to be over five years old, and was all but 

 naked. 



In front of our inn a man held in his arms a fine, well- 

 dressed little boy, and cried in a high, loud, measured, monot 

 onous drawl, continuously over and over &quot; His mother died 

 in Carlisle we have travelled twenty-seven miles to-day I 

 have no money she left this boy yesterday he walked eighteen 

 miles I have no supper he is five years old I have walked two 

 hundred miles this is no deception I have seen better days 

 friends his feet are macerated I am in search of work I am 

 young and strong he cannot walk his mother died in Carlisle 

 help me in my lamentations I have but sixpence for myself 

 and boy friends I am compelled to beg I am young and strono- 

 his mother died in Carlisle I am in search of work his feet are 

 lacerated&quot; and so on. We watched him from the rows per 

 haps two minutes, and saw seven persons drop coppers into 

 his hat : two little girls that a man was leading, a boy, a 

 German lace-pedler, a woman with a basket of linen on her 

 head, another woman, and a well-dressed gentleman. 



The rest of the evening we sat round a bright coal fire, in 

 what had been the great fireplace of the long back parlour. 

 We are the only inmates of the inn except Mrs. Jones, the 

 landlady, and her maid. About eleven o clock we were drs- 



