114 THE DORSET COLONY IN ^MASSACHUSETTS. 



from direct contact with the ground, and to lift them in 

 winter out of the snow. They are all exceedingly neat and 

 well kept, with plenty of bright flowers in the windows, and 

 generally with a well cultivated garden, with fruit trees, ad- 

 joining. I did not notice a single mean-looking house in the 

 district, and was led to enquire where the poor lived. I was 

 told there were but few to be found about there, work being 

 abundant and fairly well paid. The humbler operatives joined in 

 the occupation of houses, and, being as a rule as self-respecting and, 

 indeed, respected as their better paid companions, the village had to 

 my eyes an unusually well-to-do aspect. That this state of things is 

 by no means peculiar to this district will be readily understood by 

 any one who has read or will read (which I most strongly advise) 

 a most interesting work, written by my fellow townsman, Mr. D. 

 Pidgeon, and entitled ' Old World Questions and New World 

 Answers.' In this work, a sequel of his ' Engineer's Holiday,' 

 he describes most pleasantly and minutely the Organisation of 

 Labour in New England, the mode of life of the operatives, and the 

 details of manufacture, especially as regards Connecticutt, where 

 water power is very generally obtainable, and is as a rule very 

 carefully utilized. Here however, at Weymouth, no such 

 advantage offers itself, so that its apparent prosperity must be due 

 to something other than natural causes. However, there is even 

 here a pauper class, almost deserving the name of hereditary, but 

 these are very few in number and are provided for on the Poor 

 Farm, where also in the farmhouse attached labouring men belong- 

 ing to the noble army of bachelors are sometimes lodged and 

 boarded until such time as they see fit to change their condition of 

 single for that of double blessedness and responsibility. It is, of 

 course, inevitable with all communities that some of its members, 

 badly conditioned from birth, will be no more able to stand alone 

 than can an empty sack. Weymouth is no exception to the rule. 

 The cemeteries, of which I visited two, are of considerable interest, 

 some of the stones, very humble memorials many of them, dating 

 back to the earliest times of the colony. I was told that at 



