i 4 4 THE LAND'S END 



bear their burden alone, and that their frail sisters who 

 have had better fortune are as ready as others to 

 persecute them, but the proportion of these un- 

 happy ones is really less than in very many English 

 villages. 



It is of the villages and small towns I speak : the 

 towns are mostly very small ; but as population in- 

 creases with the revival of the mining industry (the 

 curse of the country " from ancientie ") the extra- 

 ordinary liberty which young women are allowed, or 

 have taken for themselves, and their pleasant ways 

 with men may result in a troublesome problem in 

 the larger centres. 



It is said of the Cornish, as it has been said of the 

 Irish and of Celtic people generally, that they are 

 cruel. I doubt if they are more cruel than others if 

 we restrict the word to its proper meaning the 

 infliction of pain for the pleasure of it ; but there is 

 a great deal of barbarity of the kind one sees in 

 Spanish and Italian countries which results from 

 temper. The Cornish, like the Spanish, are passion- 

 ate and when anything goes wrong they are apt to 

 wreak their fury on the poor unresisting beast cow, 

 calf, horse, donkey or sheep. I have witnessed many 

 shocking acts of this kind which it would be too 

 painful to me to have to describe, and in discussing 

 this subject with others, some of them Cornishmen 

 who naturally love their people and are anxious to see 

 them in the most favourable light, they have confessed 

 to me that this kind of brutality is very common ; that 

 it is the greatest blot on the Cornishman's character and 



