FARM-SERVANTS. 87 



they had no home, were spent either in neighbouring 

 houses, where young people similarly situated with 

 themselves were accustomed to meet, or in a small 

 village, about a mile distant, where there was an ale- 

 house. Their ordinary pleasures consisted in drinking, 

 and amusements of a low and gross character; their 

 principal enjoyment they derived from what they termed 

 a ball; and scarce a fortnight passed at this season 

 without one being held at the village. It was commonly- 

 midnight before they returned to the barrack. The 

 effects of this heartless course of life were apparent in 

 their dispositions and conduct. They were bound by 

 no ties of domestic affection ; and though they were 

 never apart, they seemed to have no other idea of friend- 

 ship than that it was a matter of convenience which 

 substituted the pleasures of society for the horrors of 

 solitude. To a person of a degraded selfish cast of 

 mind it is misery to be alone ; and hence it will almost 

 invariably be found that the more careless a common 

 man becomes of his fellows, the less can he live without 

 them. The lads were besides extremely ignorant ; they 

 were of a gay reckless disposition; and as they enter- 

 tained no affection for their employer, and had their 

 moral feelings much blunted, the services they rendered 

 him were profitless and inefficient, as those services 

 generally are which are extorted by necessity, and 

 regulated by only a dread of censure. I could not 

 think without regret that they were yet to become hus- 

 bands and the fathers of families ; and at this time I 

 was first led to perceive that the large farm system has 

 been as productive, at least, of moral evil as of physical 

 good. By the discoveries in the art of agriculture to 

 which it has led, the soil has been meliorated and 

 rendered more productive; but what have been its 



