48 IDLEHURST : 



their respective standards of living ; how far those 

 standards, and those clearly separated orders of men 

 encounter the simple foundation-law of the land, is a 

 question worth, perhaps, more thought than some 

 present matters of debate obtain. 



I meet the Rector, going about the throng with 

 his mind keenly attent to the human part, here 

 speaking to a late parishioner who is back again for 

 to-day, here watching for a moment some entente of 

 bad characters by the "Wheatsheaf" door. I see 

 Mrs. Lydia, towed hither and thither among horses' 

 hocks and bullocks' horns by little Alice, who does 

 not see, I hope, all the reckless cruelty, the slashing 

 hits at noses and knees ; cruelty which in the gross 

 means a large money loss to stock farmers every 

 day in the year. The adage " never take your beast 

 back from market " is sound enough so long as the 

 drovers are allowed to depreciate all that comes 

 under their hands with brutality at once random and 

 calculated. There is no difficulty in understanding 

 that farmers should care nothing for other men's 

 cattle, as just now, when two hogs in one of the 

 pens were fighting furiously and momentarily tearing 

 the market value out of each other, the ring of dis- 

 interested pigmen stood about the battle, shouting 

 with laughter, and hardly making way for the owners 



