BEDFORDSHIRE: SURVEYING 113 



fought only for freedom, and with scorn and contempt for 

 the majority of English landlords, who subordinated all ideas 

 of justice or humanity to the keeping up of their rents. Even 

 if it stood alone, this one poem would justify the poet as an 

 upholder of the rights of man and as a truly ethical 

 teacher. 



Returning from this digression to the villagers who came 

 within my range at the little tavern where we lodged, I had 

 an opportunity of seeing a good deal of drunkenness, inevitably 

 brought on by the fact that only in the public-house could 

 anyone with enforced leisure have the opportunity of meeting 

 friends and acquaintances and of hearing whatever news was 

 to be had. Sometimes a labourer out of work, and having 

 perhaps a week's wages in his pocket, would have a pint of 

 beer in the morning, and while waiting alone for someone to 

 come in, would, of course, require another to pass away the 

 time; and sometimes, if a young unmarried man, he would 

 remain quietly drinking beer the whole day long. On one 

 such occasion the landlord told me that a man had consumed 

 twenty-two pints of beer during the day. At that time there 

 was no temperance party, no body of people who thought 

 drinking intoxicants altogether wrong; while deliberately aid- 

 ing a man to get drunk was often a mere amusement. My 

 brother was a great smoker but a small drinker, and he used 

 to say that as he neither drank nor expectorated while smok- 

 ing it did him no harm — a view which seems very doubtful. 

 He was, however, accustomed to take a glass of spirits and 

 water in the evening, and usually kept a gallon jar of gin in a 

 cupboard by the fireplace, not only for his own use, but to 

 have something besides beer to offer any friend who called. 

 He had several acquaintances at Silsoe, the architect of the 

 mansion then being built for Earl Cowper being an old friend 

 of about his own age, a Mr. Clephan. One day, I remember, 

 a young farmer whose acquaintance we had made while survey- 

 ing gave us a call, and my brother hospitably invited him to 

 take a glass of gin, which he accepted. He was rather a weak 

 young man and had already drunk a good deal of beer, and 



