MR. URBAN AND A COUNTRY HOUSE. 223 



at its old fixed point of productiveness may find 

 buyers who will refund the cost of his whims ; but 

 the chances are by no means in his favor. 



Another large source of disgust with rural under- 

 takings lies in the difliculty of finding efficient and 

 honest directing labor. We have in this country no 

 class of farm bailiffs who, by education and tradition, 

 know their duties, and quietly perform them. "We 

 have indeed shipments, from year to year, of stray 

 specimens of this old country class ; but the demo- 

 cratic instinct speedily overtakes them of becoming 

 directors in chief. As good democrats which of 

 course all Americans are we ought not to regret 

 this, but it comes awkwardly in the way of a great 

 many city visions of rural felicitude. Mike, who has 

 toiled far into the twilight, under the shadows of the 

 hills of Wicklow, comes deftly and easily into a ten- 

 hour system, by virtue of which, on some June day 

 your out-spread hay lies smoking under the evening 

 dew ; and Bridget, the stout lass, red-armed, and 

 crimson-cheeked, commended for all work, who has 

 milked the spotted kine in the folds that border 

 Killarney, " many a time, and oft," is quick to com- 

 prehend the American deference for the sex, and 

 explodes upon you with " Shure ! and it's niver a 

 woman's work ! " 



But, short-comings of subordinates could be borne, 



