WALKS IN.THE !VHEAT-FIELDS. 135 
would have made, imagine the hundreds and hundreds 
of sacks of wheat they filled when they were threshed. 
I have often thought that it would perhaps be a good 
thing if this contribution of the real tenth could be 
brought back again for another purpose. Ifsuch a barn 
could be filled now, and its produce applied to the help 
of the poor and aged and injured of the village, we 
might get rid of that blot on our civilisation—the work- 
house. Mr. Besant, in his late capital story, ‘The Chil- 
dren of Gibeon,’ most truly pointed out that it was tustom 
which rendered all men indifferent to the sufferings of 
their fellow-creatures. In the old Roman days men 
were crucified so often that it ceased even to be a show; 
the soldiers played at dice under the miserable wretches ; 
the peasant women stepping by jested and laughed and 
sang. Almost in our own time dry skeletons creaked 
on gibbets at every cross-road :— 
When for thirty shillings men were hung, 
And the thirst for blood grew stronger, 
Men’s lives were valued then at a sheep’s—. 
Thank God that lasts no longer. 
So strong iscustom and tradition, and the habit of 
thought it weaves about us, that I have heard ancient 
and grave farmers, when the fact was mentioned with 
horror, hum, and ah ! and handle their beards, and mutter 
that ‘they didn’t know as ’twas altogether such a bad 
thing as they was hung for sheep-stealing.’ There were 
parsons then, as now, in every rural parish preaching and 
teaching something they called the Gospel. Why did 
they not rise as one man and denounce this ghastly ini- 
quity, and demand its abolition? They did nothing of 
the sort ; they enjoyed their pipes and grog very com- 
fortably, 
