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cottages make no difference ; soap and water are 

 hard to come by ; but I believe the experiment is 

 very rarely made. Babies are tubbed somewhat 

 severely till they reach the knickerbocker age, when 

 they gain their freedom, and thereafter exhibit the 

 " low water-mark " conspicuously between collar and 

 neck, below which soap seldom descends in after- 

 years. 



The catalogue of vulgar errors would in its entirety 

 fill two or three walks from Jolland's Corner. We 

 had reached the hill which descends into the village 

 while the Rector was giving instances of the miserable 

 unthrift which habitually squanders the ample wages 

 in the fat summer time, and comes with pitiable 

 messages through the sad-eyed wife when the first 

 fortnight's frost has stopped work in December. 

 And as we gained the foot of the street, we discussed 

 the strange care with which " decline," or consumption, 

 is preserved and propagated in the parish. In some 

 fatal way the many consumptive stocks among us 

 marry and procreate with zealous certainty. The 

 blowsy, red-cheeked lasses may never so much as 

 " walk-out " with a swain ; but if there is one whey- 

 faced narrow-chested slattern more obviously a wreck 

 than another, with half her relations in the church- 

 yard from ancestral phthisis, she will be married 



