COUNTRY PLACES. 
I. 
HIGH up and facing every one who enters a village 
there still remains an old notice-board with the follow- 
ing inscription :—‘ All persons found wandering abroad, 
lying, lodging, or being in any barn, outhouse, or in the 
open air, and not giving a good account of themselves, 
will be apprehended as rogues and vagabonds, and be 
either publicly whipt or sent to the house of correction, 
and afterwards disposed of according to law, by order 
of the magistrates. Any person who shall apprehend 
any rogue or vagabond will be entitled to a reward of 
ten shillings.” It very often happens that we cannot see 
the times in which we actually live. A thing must be 
gone by before you can see it, just as it must be printed 
before it is read. This little bit of weather-stained board 
may serve, perhaps, to throw up the present into a 
picture so that it may be visible. For this inhuman law 
still holds good, and is not obsolete or a mere relic of 
barbarism. The whipping, indeed, is abrogated for very 
shame’s sake; so is the reward to the informer; but the 
magistrate and the imprisonment and the offence remain. 
You must not sleep in the open, either in a barn or a 
cart-house or in a shed, in the country, or on a door-step 
in a town, or in a boat on the beach; and if you have 
