loo THE EXETER ROAD 



line of military settlements little. Coming up to 

 'the Wen' in 1821, and passing Blackwater, he 

 reached York Town, and thus he holds forth : ' After 

 'pleasure comes pain,^ says Solomon, and after the 

 sight of Lady Mildmay's truly noble plantations (at 

 Hartley Row) came that of the clouts of the ' gentle- 

 man cadets ' of the ' Royal Military College of Sand- 

 hurst ! ' Here, close by the roadside, is the drying 

 ground. Sheets, shirts, and all sorts of things were 

 here spread upon lines covering perhaps an acre of 

 ground ! We soon afterwards came to ' York Place ' 

 on ' Osnahurg Hill.' And is there never to be an 

 end of these things ? Away to the left we see that 

 immense building which contains children hreedi7ig 

 up to be military commanders ! Has this place cost 

 so little as two millions of pounds ? I never see this 

 place (and I have seen it forty times during the last 

 twenty years) without asking myself this question, 

 ' Will this thing be sufiered to go on ; will this thing, 

 created by money 7'aised by loan ; will this thing- 

 be upheld by means of taxes while the interest of the 

 Debt is reduced, on the ground that the nation is 

 unable to pay the interest in full ? ' 



It is painful to say that ' this thing ' has gone on, 

 and that ' the sweet simplicity of the Three per 

 Cents ' has given place to very much reduced interest. 

 But one little ray of sunshine breaks on the gloomy 

 picture. If Cobbett could ride this way once more 

 he w^ould discover that the acre of drying ' sheets, 

 shirts, and other thinsis ' is no lons^er visible to shock 

 the susceptibilities of old-fashioned wayfarers, or of 

 that new feature of the road, the lady cyclist. 



