XIV. THE FRUIT GIFT. 237 



will be found hereafter the most accurate test of wise 

 national government. 



For example of the action of a national government, 

 rightly so called, in these matters, I refer the student to 

 the Mariegolas of Venice, translated in Fors Clavigera ; 

 and I close this chapter, and this first volume of Pros- 

 erpina, not without pride, in the words I wrote on this 

 same matter eighteen years ago. " So far as the 

 labourer's immediate profit is concerned, it matters not an 

 iron filing whether I employ him in growing a peach, or 

 in forging a bombshell. But the difference to him is 

 final, whether, when his child is ill, I walk into his cot- 

 tage, and give it the peach, or drop the shell down his 

 chimney, and blow his roof off. 



