398 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



enougli to have got a gentlemanly layman shot, , or 

 any one but the colonel of a militia regiment, who 

 was in the army or navy, cashiered, he tells me that 

 unless I can bring forward charges against the de- 

 linquent, touching clerical or unclerical facts, " he 

 can't interfere." This is a sad state of things, calling, 

 loudly calling for reformation by some court clerical, 

 to which more summary power should be given, at 

 least to set, if not our houses, our churches in better 

 order. It is against the most Christian stomachs, to 

 receive water from an impure vessel. From having 

 been regarded in the light of " the squire " of more 

 than one vicinity, I can form a fair opinion of the 

 good or evil that an incumbent of a living may do. 

 For myself, as a layman, I try to do all the good I 

 can; very little, indeed, I have to give, but still 

 there is always something for a deserving poor crea- 

 ture ; at the same time, I set my face against an 

 indiscriminate charity. It is the fashion now to at- 

 tempt to cover a multitude of sins, by being what is 

 vauntingly termed, " good to the poor." This fashion 

 so adopted by fine ladies and gentlemen, whose 

 showy charities are well understood by the people in 

 cottages and huts, whom they personally visit, is so 

 slio'hted that I have seen the little rao-o-ed children 

 make their parents laugh approvingly, when they have 

 thumbed their noses behind the ladies as they left 

 the cottage door. ]\Iy maxim is to draw a strong 

 line between a good poor person and a rogue ; if you 

 relieve the bad as well as the good you put a premium 

 on vice, and suggest it to the mind of the good that 

 they might as Avell be bad, and to the bad that even 

 by gifts from their superiors, they are not put or 

 held up as at a disadvantage. No one deserves praise 



