HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Berkshire, Wilts, and Dorset. 

 In general appearance, at all events, the people are 

 much the same ; and the dialect, where any survives, 

 and even the quality of the voices, closely resemble 

 those in adjoining counties. Nevertheless there is a 

 difference ; even the hasty seers who are almost without 

 the faculty of observation are vaguely cognisant of it, 

 though they would not be able to say what it consisted 

 in. Probably it would puzzle any one to say wherein 

 Hampshire differed from all the counties named, since 

 each has something individual; therefore it would be 

 better to compare Hampshire with some one county 

 near it, or with a group of neighbouring counties in 

 which some family resemblance is traceable. Somerset, 

 Devon, Wilts, and Dorset these answer the descrip- 

 tion, and I leave out Cornwall only because its people 

 are unknown to me. The four named have seemed to 

 me the most interesting counties in southern England ; 

 but if I were to make them five by adding Hampshire, 

 the verdict of nine persons out of ten, all equally well 

 acquainted with the five, would probably be that it was 

 the least interesting. They would probably say that 

 the people of Hampshire were less good-looking, that 

 they had less red colour in their skins, less pure colour 

 in their eyes; that they had less energy, if not less 

 intelligence, or at all events were less lively, and had 

 less humour. 



These differences between the inhabitants of neigh- 

 bouring and of adjoining counties are doubtless in some 



