246 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



themselves are most desirous to obtain them. The 

 remedy that approved itself to him was to have 

 fixed and suitable persons, four in number two 

 males and two females at least in every parish who 

 would undertake the duties for those parents who 

 might wish them to do so ; though this, of course, 

 would only apply in those cases where the parents 

 otherwise found a difficulty. He considered that 

 the parish schoolmaster or schoolmistress ought to 

 be the most fitting persons for such an office ; and 

 others, even in the smallest parishes, might be found 

 to act with these, and so meet what has so often 

 been felt as a difficulty to many a clergyman, to 

 say nothing of the parents themselves. 



To come down to smaller concerns, even the 

 prevalence of some fashion was not beneath his 

 notice if he thought it called for comment. Among 

 such fashions which found no favour in his eyes 

 was the modern one of recording with minute detail 

 the proceedings at "fashionable marriages," even 

 down to the elaborate lists one sees of the presents 

 bestowed on these interesting occasions. If these 

 small particulars are given in the case of the rank 

 and fashion of the land, why, he asked, in an amus- 

 ing account he once gave, and sent to one of the 

 "society" papers, of an imaginary wedding of a 

 couple of plain country folk, should not the " short 

 and simple annals of the poor " be found as worthy 

 of a place in the columns of the newspapers "as 

 those of dukes and duchesses, or even of millionaire 

 manufacturers or Continental counts ? " " What," 



