17i THE DOVER ROAD 



and the Chinese, who were even then receiving the 

 warm attention of missionary zealots, were highly 

 civilized and enlightened. The very county in which 

 Augustine had landed and reintroduced Christianity 

 thirteen hundred years before was neglected and 

 ignored by the port-drinking parsons and prebendal 

 wine-butts who drew fat incomes from the Church and 

 starved the souls of dwellers under its very shadow ; 

 and the kindly fruits of this fertile land, with its furred 

 and feathered game, brought no prosperity to the 

 people. " The earth is the Squire's and the fulness 

 thereof " was an emendation of Holy Writ scored 

 deeply in every yokel's brain ; and here, whither a 

 fervent piety had brought uncounted thousands of 

 pilgrims in the by-past centuries, the country-folk 

 lived from youth to age, Godless and unlettered. The 

 Era of Reform had dawned on England, sweeping away 

 much, both good and evil, but these dark districts of 

 Kent remained the same, save for a slowly growing 

 feeling of discontent. The New Poor Law naturally 

 fostered this feeling in a country where every other 

 peasant lived in old age upon Outdoor Relief — and 

 thought it the most reasonable way of ending a life 

 of toil. By this new dispensation it became necessary 

 for a poor man to break up his home and go into the 

 '' Union " before relief could be afforded him ; and 

 thus the Poors' Rates were raised and the feelings of 

 ratepayers and peasantry embittered simultaneously. 

 A man who felt no shame in receiving his half-crown or 

 five shillings a week from the parish, experienced bitter 

 degradation in becoming an inmate of what is now 

 generally known as " the House," then hateful under 

 the current name of " the Bastille," or " Bastyle," as 

 the English peasant pronounced the word. 



To this neglected corner of England came a romantic 

 and mysterious stranger in 1832. No one knew whence 

 or how had come to Canterbury the picturesquely 

 dressed man of commanding height and handsome 

 face who, staying at the " Rose Hotel "in the High 



