193 SUPERSTITIONS. 



horror and grief sieze on the household : some one 

 is sure to die. If people meet a black ram, they 

 turn their money for luck. Thus they occupy their 

 minds and waste their time in the silliest super- 

 stitions which keep true knowledge out. For the 

 result, look at the productions of the region, — the 

 torn and dirty wool, the sapless and scentless hay, 

 allowed first to run to seed, and then to lie soaking 

 and parching for weeks in the field, — the flour, the 

 meat, the butter, the cheese, look at any of these 

 products in the more retired vales, and say whether 

 intercourse with the world outside will not be a 

 good thing for the fortunes of those within. To 

 take only the last, — the cheese. After coming 

 from the other grazing-districts, and seeing how 

 scientific a matter the management of a dairy has 

 become, and what the best cheese is, the dairy 

 management of Cumberland is marvellous. Our 

 readers cannot be expected to believe the facts 

 without good testimony : and we may refer them 

 to such local publications as the " Lonsdale Maga- 

 zine," where, (in Vol. ii. p. 13.) we are told that 

 the Cumberland cheese is harder than buck-horn; 

 and that in some places where the husbandmen 

 wear clogs shod with iron, it is no uncommon 

 thing to supply the absence of the iron with the 

 crust of a dry cheese. There is plenty of testimony, 

 of whatever quality, to cheese striking fire like a 

 flint. A soldier used a cheese paring for a flint; 

 and a blacksmith at Cartmel averred that he struck 

 sparks from a cheese while cutting it up with an 

 axe ! A tract of dry heather burned without 

 intermission for three weeks, having been kindled 

 by sparks from a cheese which had rolled from a 



