RUSH LIGHTS. 
185 
before dipping, costs 3*5 of a farthing, and ^ afterwards. Thus 
a poor family will enjoy 5| hours of comfortable light for a 
farthing. An experienced old housekeeper assures me that one 
pound and a half of rushes completely supplies his family the 
year round, since working people burn no candle in the long days, 
because they rise ^nd go to bed by daylight. 
Little farmers use rushes much in the short days, both morn- 
ing and evening, in the dairy and kitchen ; but the very poor, 
who are always the worst economists, and therefore must con- 
tinue very poor, buy a halfpenny candle every evening, which, 
in their blowing open rooms, does not burn much more than two 
hours. Thus have they only two hours' light for their money 
instead of eleven. 
While on the subject of rural economy, it may not be improper 
to mention a pretty implement of housewifery that we have seen 
no where else ; that is, little neat besoms which our foresters 
make from the stalk of the polytricum commune, or great golden 
maiden-hair, which they call silk-wood, and find plenty in the 
bogs. When this moss is well combed and dressed, and divested 
of its outer skin, it becomes of a beautiful bright chesnut colour ; 
and, being soft and pliant, is very proper for the dusting of beds, 
curtains, carpets, hangings, &c. If these besoms were known to 
the brushmakers in town, it is probable they might come much 
in use for the purpose above mentioned.* 
l am, &c. 
LETTER XXVIL To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, Dec. 12, 1775. 
We had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot-boy, 
whom I well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong pro- 
pensity to bees ; they were his food, his amusement, his sole 
object. And as people of this cast have seldom more than one 
point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one 
pursuit. In the winter he dosed away his time, within his father's 
house, by the fire-side, in a kind of torpid state, seldom depart- 
ing from the chimney-corner ; but in the summer he was all 
alert, and in quest of his game in the fields, and on sunny banks. 
Honey-bees, humble-bees, and wasps, were his prey wherever he 
* A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever^s Museum. 
