GROOMS. 331 



of systematic formality, and where the groom lives with the servants of 

 the family, the same corruptions do not prevail. Tradesmen, away 

 from the metropolis, give Christmas-boxes ; they likewise occasionally 

 "treat" and "tip," but the custom has not degenerated into a tax, 

 neither is the ruler of the stable paid five per cent, on the master's bills , 

 nor is the man thus bribed to promote that extravagance which is detri- 

 mental to the interest he has engaged himself to serve. 



These things cannot be amended with the present race of grooms. 

 They are corrupt beyond all hope of reformation. With new material, 

 a new system must be established. The servant should be accommo- 

 dated with a wholesome home. Such might be cheaply built, but it 

 ought not to be crowded into a corner of the horse's dwelling. It should 

 be distinct from the stables, and ought to possess two windows, from 

 which the horses might be overlooked. One should open from the 

 sitting-room, the other from the sleeping-chamber. The wages at 

 present paid may be ample for one man's food, but no money can satisfy 

 the unhealthy gnawing generated by a contaminated domicile. To 

 permit a human being to marry, when his earnings will not support 

 a family; then to thrust wife and children into one small room, the air 

 of which is vitiated, naturally leads to the want of integrity, which, 

 properly regarded, is in its effects no more than the consequences of 

 injustice rebounding to strike the wrong-doer. 



Against the proposal to erect distinct apartments will certainly be 

 urged the expense which must be necessitated by such a measure. But 

 when the year's accounts are settled, it might be found less costly to 

 liquidate all needful charges than to feed the continual drain which the 

 present custom creates. However, the wealthy have no right to urge 

 their parsimony when the health of an inferior should be the sole con- 

 sideration; but it ought to be recognized as a religious obligation to 

 sacrifice personal gratifications rather than to purchase our pleasures by 

 the corruption of those whom Providence has permitted to exist as our 

 dependents. The police, who are empowered to enforce the observance 

 of certain decencies in the lodging-houses of the poor, should also be 

 authorized to watch, that the regulations necessary to the conservancy 

 of health and life are not violated to propitiate the parsimony of the 

 wealthy. 



The last word of the foregoing sentence is employed to denote that 

 species of possession which should appertain to all of those who, accord- 

 ing to the well-known definition of the witness on Thurtell's trial, merit 

 the term of "respectable.''^ To those establishments in which only one 

 servant (generally without the assistance even of a stable-boy) is re- 

 tained, the following remarks are chiefly directed. Where numerous 



