65 



the alteration was enacted, their alarms have been dis- 

 pelled ; and the same acts of kindness being exercised 

 in most cases as \vere formerly customary, they can 

 perceive no alteration in their condition, that is, 

 either materially more beneficial or injurious to them. 



These people live in Wooden Huts, covered with 

 thatch or shingles, consisting of one room with a 

 stove, around which the inhabitants and their cattle 

 crowd together, and where the most disgusting kinds 

 of filthiness are to be seen. Their common Food is, 

 cabbage, potatoes sometimes, but not generally, pease, 

 black bread, and soup, or rather gruel, without the 

 addition of butter or meat. Their chief Drink is 

 water, or the cheap whiskey of the country, which is 

 the only luxury of the peasants ; and is drunk, when- 

 ever they can obtain it, in enormous quantities. They 

 use much salt with their vegetable food, and in spite 

 of the heavy tax on that commodity, can never dis- 

 pense with the want of it at their meals. I was in- 

 formed, arid saw reason to credit the accounts, that 

 when the peasants brought to the market towns their 

 trifling quantities of produce, a part of the money 

 was first used to purchase salt, and the rest spent in 

 whiskey, in a state of intoxication that commonly 

 endured till the exhaustion of the purse had restored 

 them to sobriety. In their houses they have little 

 that merits the name of furniture; and their clothing 

 is coarse, ragged, and filthy, even to disgust. 



Very little attention has been paid to their Edu- 

 cation, and they are generally ignorant, superstitious, 

 and fanatical. They observe about twenty Holidays 

 in the year, besides the Sundays ; and pass much of 

 their time in pilgrimages to some favourite shrine, in 

 counting beads, and similar superstitious occupatiens. 



This Representation of the condition and character 

 of the Peasantry, though general, cannot be con- 

 sidered so universal as to admit of no exceptions; 

 rare instances of perseverance in economy, in- 



