RUSH LIGHTS. 185 



before dipping, costs ^ of a farthing, and ^ afterwards. Thus 

 a poor family will enjoy 5| hours of comfortable light for a 

 farthing. An experienced old housekeeper assures me that one 

 pound and a half of rushes completely supplies his family the 

 year round, since working people burn no candle in the long days, 

 because they rise and go to bed by daylight. 



Little farmers use rushes much in the short days, both morn- 

 ing and evening, in the dairy and kitchen ; but the very poor, 

 who are always the worst economists, and therefore must con- 

 tinue very poor, buy a halfpenny candle every evening, which, 

 in their blowing open rooms, does not burn much more than two 

 hours. Thus have they only two hours' light for their money 

 instead of eleven. 



While on the subject of rural economy, it may not be improper 

 to mention a pretty implement of housewifery that we have seen 

 no where else ; that is, little neat besoms which our foresters 

 make from the stalk of the polytricum commune, or great golden 

 maiden-hair, which they call silk-wood, and find plenty in the 

 bogs. When this moss is well combed and dressed, and divested 

 of its outer skin, it becomes of a beautiful bright chesnut colour ; 

 and, being soft and pliant, is very proper for the dusting of beds, 

 curtains, carpets, hangings, &c. If these besoms were known to 

 the brushmakers in town, it is probable they might come much 

 in use for the purpose above mentioned.* 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXVII. To THE HON. DAINES HARRINGTON. 



DEAR SIR, Selborne, Dec. 12, 1775. 



WE had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot-boy, 

 whom I well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong pro- 

 pensity to bees ; they were his food, his amusement, his sole 

 object. And as people of this cast have seldom more than one 

 point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one 

 pursuit. In the winter he dosed away his time, within his father's 

 house, by the fire-side, in a kind of torpid state, seldom depart- 

 ing from the chimney-corner ; but in the summer he was all 

 alert, and in quest of his game in the fields, and on sunny banks. 

 Honey-bees, humble-bees, arid wasps, were his prey wherever he 



* A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's Museum. 



