THE BLACKSMITH 191 



Twenty j'ears ago Elijah had the sign of the Rising Sun 

 in the centre of the village of Hatherly, with a well frequented 

 smithy adjoining, but irregular conduct caused him at length 

 to forfeit his licence, and he has now a beer-shop and forge at 

 the east end of the town, where he carries on a second-rate 

 business as a blacksmith, and a first-rate one as a black- 

 guard. This beer-shop is the resort of all the vagabonds in 

 the country ; poachers, trampers, tinkers, discarded servants, 

 hawkers, pedlars, raffs of all sorts, who find in Bullwaist 

 and his numerous progeny, congenial spirits and ribald 

 company. 



There, over the lowest, basest, most revolutionary prints, 

 they charge the result of their own misconduct on the laws, 

 and heap abuse on every one whose authority keeps them 

 in control. It is a sad sight to see a hoary old sinner, like 

 Bullwaist, leading his own children on in a course that 

 has been productive of his own ruin. It is a sad thing 

 for a country to see the seeds of vice ready to spread and 

 waft in all directions : to calculate that the nuisance of old 

 Bullwaist is to be the lot of many parts — Bullwaist is a 

 bad man. It is one of his boasts that he never goes to 

 church, and we never knew one who so boasted that was 

 to be trusted. 



Parents should bear this fact in mind, that there is no 

 occupation or employment in life in which the character 

 of themselves is not inquired into with regard to their 

 children. If the parents are honest, steady, respectable 

 people, there will be every reason to believe that their 

 children will be the same, at all events the world will 

 take them on credit as such, but if parents are notorious 

 wrongdoers, the evil of their reputation will attach to their 

 children, and be serious impediments to their worldly advance- 

 ment. 



We may also add, though we have no desire unduly to 



