liMLVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 

 SANTA BARBARA 



PREFACE 



So many and so great have been the changes within the last 

 half-century, that I have thought it desirable to note, while 

 it may yet be done, what I can remember of the ways and 

 lives and habitations of the older people of the working class 

 of the country I have lived in almost continuously ever since 

 I was a very young child. 



It is the south-western corner of the county of Surrey; 

 so near indeed to the actual corner, that the adjoining portions 

 of Hampshire and Sussex come within a radius of a very 

 few miles, and are considered as within the district. After 

 all, geographical distinctions are purely arbitrary, and only 

 really appreciable on the map, where they show in different 

 colours; whereas, in the real world, one steps without know- 

 ing it from Surrey into Hampshire on the dry heath-land, 

 and out of Surrey into Sussex from one clay puddle into the 

 next, without being aware in either case that the land is 

 called by another name. 



The practical boundaries of our country that we commonly 

 call West Surrey, without any reference to parliamentary or 

 other authorised divisions, are the long chalk line of the 

 Hog's Back on the north, with its eastern prolongation beyond 

 Guildford, and the Weald of Sussex to the south. 



We hardly ever go northward beyond the Hog's Back, 

 except of course in the train, which does not count, and we 



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