THE PEASANTRY. 275 



and mow as well as any other in the parish," eighteen shillings 

 a- week 



"And how much beer?" 



"None at all!" 



" None at all ? ha, ha ! he'd not go then you'd not catch him 

 workin' withouten his drink. No, no ! a man 'ould die off soon 

 that gait." 



It was in vain that we offered fresh meat as an offset to the 

 beer. There was " strength," he admitted, in beef, but it was 

 wholly incredible that a man could work on it. A working-man 

 must have zider or beer there was no use to argue against that. 

 That " Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners," and 

 that " work without beer is death," was the alpha and omega of 

 his faith. 



The laborers in this part of England (Hereford, Monmouth, 

 rloucester, and Wiltshire) were the most degraded, poor, stupid, 

 3rutal, and licentious that we saw in the kingdom. We were told 

 that they were of the purest Saxon blood, as was indeed indicated 

 3y the frequency of blue eyes and light hair among them. But I 

 did not see in Ireland, or in Germany or in France, nor did I ever 

 see among our negroes or Indians, or among the Chinese or Ma- 

 lays, men whose tastes were such mere instincts, or whose purpose 

 of life and whose mode of life was so low, so like that of domes- 

 tic animals altogether, as these farm-laborers. 



I was greatly pained, mortified, ashamed of old mother Eng- 

 land, in acknowledging this ; and the more so that I found so few 

 Englishmen who realized it, or who, realizing it, seemed to feel 

 that any one but God, with His laws of population and trade, was 

 at all accountable for it. Even a most intelligent and distinguish- 

 ed Radical, when I alluded to this element as a part of the char- 

 acter of the country, in replying to certain very favorable com- 

 parisons he had been making of England with other countries, 



