96 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



especially the minds of gentlemen connected with those districts, 

 to see in what direction to search for the remedy for so great 

 an evil. It is untrue to say that the state of education in these 

 districts is below the general average : then we must search 

 among some other causes for the peculiar aspect of crime pre- 

 sented in these cases. I cannot help, myself, thinking it may be 

 in no small degree attributable to that separation between class 

 and class, which is the great curse of British Society, and for 

 which we are all more or less, in our respective spheres, in 

 some degree responsible, and which is more complete in these 

 than in agricultural districts, where the resident gentry are en- 

 abled to shed around them the blessings resulting from the 

 exercise of benevolence, and the influence and example of 

 active kindness. I am afraid we all of us keep too much aloof 

 from those beneath us, and whom we thus encourage to look 

 upon us with suspicion and dislike. Even to our servants, we 

 think, perhaps, we fulfil our duty, when we perform our con- 

 tract with them, when we pay them their wages and treat them 

 with the civility consistent with our habits and feelings, when 

 we curb our temper, and use no violent expressions towards 

 them. But how painful is the thought that there are men and 

 women growing up around us, ministering to our comforts and 

 necessities continual inmates of our dwellings, with whose 

 affections and nature we are as much unacquainted as if they 

 were the inhabitants of some other sphere ! This feeling, 



