GLEANING. 
255 
one. Even about our villages there are not only many persons 
in want, a number supported by tlie public, but there are usually 
others, also, who may be called regular beggars ; men, and wo- 
men, and children, who had rather beg than work. Let not the 
accusation be thought a harsh one. There are, even in our small 
rural communities, fathers and mothers who teach their children 
to beg, alas ! who deliberately encourage their children in thiev- 
ing and lying, and vice of the foulest kinds. Where such things 
exist, it cannot be the great prosperity of the country which keeps 
the gleaner from following in the reaper's steps. Probably there 
are several reasons why gleaning is not practiced here. Food is 
comparatively cheap ; our paupers are well fed, and those Avho 
ask for food, are freely supphed by private charity. Wheat 
bread, and meat, and butter, and sugar, and tea, and coffee, are 
looked upon as necessaries, openly asked for by the applicant, and 
freely bestowed by the giver. This comparative abundance of 
food in the early days of the different colonies, and the full de- 
mand for labor, were probably the reasons why the custom of 
gleaning was broken up on this side the Atlantic ; and the fact 
that it is not customary, is one reason why it is never thought of 
to-day. Then, again, our people, generally, are not patient and 
contented with a little; gleaning would not suit their habit» 
Many of them, probably, had rather beg than glean. 
But although the practice is entirely abandoned on this side the 
ocean — in our part of the continent, at least — it prevails very gen- 
erally in the Old World. In some countries it has been regulated 
by law ; in others it is governed by long-established usage. In 
some villages of France and Germany, a certain day is fixed in 
the commune, when the gleaning is to begin ; sometimes the 
