OF POULTRY. 
279 
"When I arrived at the hen-house, I certainly never saw 
such a pestiferous den in my life. The thatch was a black 
matted mass of rotten straw, half falling, and filled with rat- 
holes. On the inside there was nothing but the beams for 
the fowls to roost on, and open to the weather. These 
beams, of course, formed excellent foothold for the rats, on 
which to attack the fowls while sleeping. The dung had 
accumulated into heaps ; some of which were at least a yard 
high. Around them lay the remains of four or five fowls, 
half eaten, and the remainder rotten, and one mass of mag- 
gots. The place was drilled like a colander with rat-holes. 
I asked the man to step in and see. " No, hang it," said he ; 
" no, I shall be smothered wi' fleas, mon and he spoke the 
truth, for I was literally covered with them ; and altogether 
I certainly never saw such a desolate heap of contaminating 
filth in all my life. 
His wife and two fine young girls, his daughters, came 
forward with deep-seated grief stamped upon their counte- 
nances. I asked him, in a familiar manner, how he would 
like to roost there himself. His only reply was a loose 
drunken shrug of the shoulder. How then could he expect 
the fowls to like it ? I then asked him, why he allowed 
the dung to remain as it was. " Oh 1" said he, "it makes 
•excellent manure, mon, when well rotted." " But why not 
let it rot outside ?" " Uts dart un," said he, " I never give 
that a thought afore." " And what water have the fowls, 
pray?" " Oh, they drink out o' tlr pond," he replied. This 
pond was a thick, deadly-looking puddle, that received the 
drainage from the dung-heap. I then inquired why he did 
not send for the rat-catcher, and have the place cleared of 
the vermin. Here his wife spoke, and told me that she did 
not know what had come to him ; but for the last two years 
he had taken to drinking, and was always at the ale-house ! 
That he had deprived her and her family of the benefits 
arising out of the poultry ; and that he sold every bird he 
could lay his hands on for mere dropis of liquor. As for the 
rats, she said the place was swarming with them, because 
he refused to give the rat-catcher more than five shillings a 
day, instead of ten ; and the man would not come. Thus it 
was, that everything around them was going to rack and 
ruin. Here the poor daughters buried their faces in their 
