26 SKETCHES OP 'RURAL AFFAIRS. 



will be little comfort or happiness at home. Their 

 children will suffer the effects of their imprudence, and 

 if they do not actually want for food or clothing, they will 

 go without proper schooling, and become troublesome 

 and unruly. The happiness of every cottage depends so 

 much upon the wife, that a poor man need be very 

 cautious in the choice of one. If he marries a sloven or 

 a scold, he will suffer for it all his days. Home, which 

 ought to be a place of rest, cleanliness, and comfort, will 

 be a scene of discord and misery. He will be even more 

 miserable than a rich man would be under the same 

 circumstances, for he has not another room in his house, 

 nor another fireside, to which he might retire from the 

 evil. Too often, in such cases, finding his home un- 

 comfortable, he repairs to the beer-shop, and from going 

 there at first under the pretence of escaping from an ill- 

 tempei-ed or a sluttish wife, he at last settles down into 

 a confirmed drinker, and thus doubles the misery of his 

 home, by wasting a large part of his wages. In this 

 downward course he soon proves by experience that they 

 who "plow iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the 

 same." (Job iv. 8.) Therefore a poor man ought to 

 think well before he marries, and to make choice of a 

 prudent, modest, thrifty wife, who will make his home 

 happy, and bring up his children in the right way. 



The ploughman has much encouragement in his work. 

 Good ploughing is in these days rightly looked upon 

 as a matter of first-rate importance, and masters are 

 anxious to give every encouragement to really good 

 servants. In different parts of the country there are 

 also ploughing-matches established, where ploughmen 

 try their skill one against another, and prizes are given 

 to the most successful. It is not so much the value of 

 the prizes themselves as it is the honour of having per- 

 formed the work in the most perfect manner, that men 

 look at. When a ploughman has carried off the prize 

 of superior skill, he feels new pleasure in his employ- 

 ment, he relates the story of his success to his family 



