IMPRESSIONS OF PENZANCE 129 



at every opportunity. They will even sell their 

 weapons and the skins that cover them for a little of 

 this happiness ; but when there is no more of it to 

 be had they return to their normal life, and think no 

 more about it unless the poison has permanently 

 or very seriously injured them. One effect on the 

 poisoned man, savage or civilised, is that "craving", 

 or mad thirst, with which, Dr. Reid imagines, Nature 

 has cursed her human children. 



We have now got a good distance away from the 

 subject we started with ; but I have no intention of 

 returning to Penzance. That town interested me 

 solely as a place where Cornishmen may be seen and 

 studied. To go back a little further in time to my 

 first impressions of Cornwall, I was struck, as most 

 persons are on a first visit, with its unlikeness to other 

 parts of England. You find the unlikeness, not 

 only in the aspect of the country, but in the people 

 too ; you would hardly feel that you had gone so far 

 from the England you know if you had crossed the 

 Atlantic. The differences are many and great, but in 

 this chapter I am concerned with only one the 

 greater temperance of the people : indeed, my im- 

 pression of Penzance was given mainly to serve as an 

 introduction to this subject. It is a very important 

 one. Our judges and magistrates are always telling 

 us that most of the crimes committed in this country 

 are due to drink. The case of Cornwall certainly 

 favours that view : it is, if the statistics are accepted as 

 showing the true state of things, the most sober and has 

 the cleanest record in the land. The Devonians are 



